He laughs and pulls one out, lights it, and we share it as I go on. “My brother built it, but he outgrew it by the time he finished, so I claimed it as mine and showed it off to my friends. One day, Jeremy Seinfield came over and tried to kiss me. I told him we were just friends, but he got very mad.” I start to laugh as I remember his red, angry face and how scared I was. “He thought I’d invited him to the tree house so we could make out. He got down and demanded I come down too, but since he was yelling and I was afraid, I told him to leave. He pulled the ladder away, and at first, I thought it was a joke and that he’d come back.”
I stop laughing and swallow, and he hands me the cigarette, his eyes glimmering in amusement as I take a drag for strength and hand it back.
“My parents were away and my brother had just gotten his first car, a Jeep. He was out with his friends and I was up there all alone, stranded until he got home and heard me crying. I wailed so much I had a sore throat for days. He told me it would be over in a second, and he got a ladder and pulled me down. I didn’t want him to let go. Ever.” I laugh again at how childish I was.
He chuckles too, but it’s a tender laugh, kind of like the one Tahoe has when he remembers that episode, then Callan sobers. “I’m sorry. I hope he sent Jeremy’s teeth flying to the other side of the sidewalk.”
“Oh, he did.” I laugh. “I guess we all have our thing.” I eye him. “What’s yours?”
“I have a few,” he says with that wicked gold sparkle in his eye. “I have an older brother. We’d roughhouse all the time. He was stronger, but I was faster. One day I decided I’d beat him. I started lifting weights, drinking protein shakes, the works, thinking getting stronger was the trick. He beat the shit out of me. And I wasn’t fast enough anymore to get away.” He laughs. “Not always the strongest win. I decided I’d rather be fast.”
“Speaking of slow, I can’t believe how slow I was catching on to who you were.”
“Slowest woman I’ve ever met.”
“Don’t forget my bunch of freckles. That makes me unique.”
“Utterly.”
We laugh. His lips are so beautiful, more so when he laughs. “Well,” I hedge, intending to leave.
“Tell me your concerns about what’s happening between us,” he says, stopping me in my thoughts.
My eyes widen with dread.
“I don’t regret it,” he tells me.
I exhale.
“Do you?” he asks.
“Me?”
“Regret last night,” he repeats; a question.
I don’t think he’s breathing as he waits for my reply.
I know that I’m not.
I swallow. This can go nowhere, Olivia, really it can’t. I should give him a speech about how wrong this is, how this can’t be, but how can I when it feels so right when I’m with him?
I’m not sure if I end up nodding in answer or shaking my head, or a little of both. “I’m confused. I don’t know why you even gave me the time of day since that first day on the terrace.”
“I like talking to you, Olivia. Is that a crime?” he asks with a soft grin. “Because if it is, I should do it more often.”
I sit tight, aware of the excited nerves going through me at his words. God help me. I look away.
“I like looking at you too,” he says, just as soft.
My eyes flick up to his. “Because I’m real with you?”
His mouth curves and his eyes quietly promise, and more.
I tip my chin up at a haughty angle. “I would’ve been different if I’d known who you were,” I warn.
“That’s a shame.” He turns very thoughtful and slowly crosses his arms. “That’s disappointing, actually.”
“Why?”
“Because I like the girl I met on the terrace. The one who danced for me and seduced me to the point I lost control.”
I blush. “I’m the same girl. I’m just intimidated.”
His full, masculine laugh fills the silence. “Why?”
“I hear things.”
“Like what?”
“You’re this player. I didn’t know I was sleeping with someone who had . . . so much experience. And you’re my boss.”
“Not your direct boss,” he says with a significant rise of his brows. “And so I’ve played the field all my life, I’m not looking for anything serious. You said yourself, neither were you. Not until . . . what was it?"
“Twenty-eight.”
He grins. “Twenty-eight.”
“But see, the point is, I have to make it to twenty-eight unscarred,” I say. “And a guy like you wouldn’t go by without leaving marks along the way.”
“How would you know?”
“Because you already did. Last night.”
His jaw tenses visibly and his eyes flash with pain by my admission. He raises his arm as he looks at me with tenderness, and then he slowly lowers his hand, as if opting not to touch me. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“Callan!” someone calls from inside.
The lines of concentration deepen around his eyes and mouth, and a shadow of disappointment crosses his face as he glances at the door. “I better go.”
I nod.
A glint of hesitation appears in his eyes as he rises to his feet. “Are you still up for sightseeing?”
“Always.”
He looks at me with a tender smile then clenches his jaw as if refraining from saying something else.
My lids slide down over my eyes, and when I raise them again, I find Callan watching me.
The gold shades in his eyes flicker as if he’s battling something, those hazel eyes trapping me. “Where are you planning to go?”
“Millennium Park. Navy Pier.” I shrug. “I was going to ask one of the interns, Jeanine or George, if they wanted to come.”
“Looking forward to the Ferris wheel at the Pier?”
“Oh, of course, you know how much I adore heights.” I laugh.
He laughs too, then turns to me. “I’ll take you somewhere.”
“No. Please don’t. Really. We’re good. We’ll have a cigarette before I go back home.”
He frowns momentarily at my words, staring at me as if seeing me for the first time, here, on his home terrace. The air feels charged. Charged with . . . I don’t know.
I want to kiss him.
I don’t want to want to kiss him.
It feels like goodbye.
I’m not ready to let go of him yet.
But I do. I smile weakly but hope it comes out bright and cheery and he gives me a long look before he walks back inside.
I remain outside for a minute then I head back in as well. I sit with Gina and Rachel, and two more girls who I don’t know join us on the couches and start talking about who’s dating who, the upcoming wedding, etcetera.
“So are you two planning the wedding of the year?”
“Not at all. We’re aiming for something small, either here or in Texas.”
I sip on a martini and I peer through the crowd and spot him with a group of guys, his throat kind of sexy as he laughs, thick tendons rippling.
Some girl taps his shoulder, and she looks googly-eyed at him but he nods absently to whatever she asks.
She lifts her hand and offers him her cigarette, and he takes a drag and lets out a slow puff of smoke. I feel an awful pang seeing him share a cigarette with someone else. He shoves it into his mouth and walks over to the bar to mix up a drink, the cigarette dangling from his lips, his eyebrows creased in concentration.
The brunette follows and keeps talking to him, and I see his mouth twist into a smile, even if the cigarette is still there. I look away. Determined to forget him.
I spend Sunday reporting back home:
Mom and Dad (thrilled about the upcoming wedding).
Farrah and Veronica (they want to know how the Chicago clubs compare to the San Antonio and Austin ones).
And then I dial my grandma (she was just happy I called).
Later, I clean the apartment, then I head out to Millennium Park for a run. I run until my throat burns and I’m out of breath, panting with my hands on my knees. Then I drop onto a bench and listen to music as I guzzle down my water, my ponytail wet behind me, my running clothes plastered to my skin as I pull out my cell phone and ask Wynn if she’d like to sightsee and go to the Navy Pier with me.