“Nope, nothing,” I reply.
He hesitates for a few seconds, and I feel my pulse quicken.
“Tell me about your family,” he says quietly. “You know all about mine, but I don’t know anything about yours.”
“To be fair, I just kind of stumbled into your family,” I reply, trying to buy myself some time.
“My mom told me that she wants to take you with her on a trip to New York. That’s a little more than a stumble.”
“I think she felt bad because I was standing there when she asked Gabby to go.” I hope he can’t hear the undercurrent of disappointment in my voice.
“Nah,” he says, skimming his fingertips along my spine. The simple action makes all of my nerves stand on end, makes it difficult for me to concentrate. “She’s not swayed by guilt. If she asked you to go, it’s because she wants you there. And you’re avoiding my question.” He plants another kiss on the top of my head. “You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”
Strangely enough, the fact that he gives me an out makes me want to give him an answer. “What do you want to know?” I ask, looking up and meeting his gaze.
“Everything.”
That would be his answer. “My mother was born Ella Mae Sampson in Plano, Texas during a heatwave in the summer of nineteen sixty-five.”
Nate laughs. “Smartass.”
I take a minute to gather my thoughts before I start talking again. “My mom, she’s short like I am, and we look kind of alike. She’s got this pretty blonde hair that’s kind of wavy, and she always wears it pulled back, away from her face. She’s crazy smart, and she worked really hard to put herself through college after my dad left us. She’s a vice president at a marketing firm. Actually, she was going to come this weekend, but she had to go on a trip for work at the last minute.” Even though I’ve only been gone for a few days, talking about my mother makes me miss her so much that it hurts.
“She sounds amazing.”
“She is. She’s one of the most dynamic people I’ve ever met. I honestly don’t know what my life would be like if I didn’t have her.”
“Your dad, he left?”
I nod. “He did. He hung around a while after the divorce. He came to see me every other weekend for about a year. Then one day I waited for him to pick me up, but he never came. I haven’t seen him since.”
I can feel the hitch in Nate’s breathing, and his arms tighten around me. “How old were you when this happened?”
“Eleven. It was difficult for me to accept at the time,” I admit. I’ve never told anyone this, not even Ethan. “I didn’t want to believe that he could just pick up and leave me like that. So I used to pretend that he realized he made a mistake and came back, and that he would watch me from afar. Like, I pretended that he was in the crowds at the mall, in the throng of parents that sat in the bleachers during my softball games. It was really pathetic.”
“It’s not pathetic,” Nate says, his voice kind of broken. “But I’ll never understand how anyone could abandon their child like that.”
“I think it’s easy for some people.” I trace a tiny heart on his chest with my fingertip to distract myself.
“How could it be?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “But the scary thing is that sometimes you don’t know who those people are until it’s too late.”
“Callie,” he whispers, so quietly that I almost can’t hear it.
“He tried to get in touch with me a couple of years ago,” I admit. This is yet another thing that I haven’t told anyone, not even my own mother.
“What’d you do?”
“I didn’t do anything.” There’s an unexpected wave of shame that hits me when I admit it; it comes from nowhere, nearly taking my breath away. “I just never called him back.”
“Not even to tell him how much he hurt you?”
I let out a small laugh. “Why would I want him to know that?”
Nate shifts onto his side and slides his hand down until his arm is wrapped around my waist. Even though our bodies aren’t in contact the way they were before, this position seems much more intimate. I can’t hide from him here; his eyes are searching mine.
“I think it’s good to let people know when they’ve hurt you,” he says, and there isn’t a hint of judgment in his tone. “How else do they learn?”
“Why is it my responsibility to get him to be a better person?” I try not to sound as hateful as I feel.
“It’s not,” he replies, a sad smile on his lips. “Maybe I have an idealized view of the world, I don’t know.”
He reaches over and cups my cheek, and I close my eyes as I lean into him. He definitely has an idealized view of the world, but I like that about him, especially since I’m cynical enough for the both of us.
“Nah,” I reply, attempting to tease him. “Not you.”
“Your feelings matter, Callie. You know, I’ve been an asshole in my life…more times than I care to admit. And yeah, I knew then that I was behaving like an asshole, but when I finally found out how it really affected those people—when they told me how badly I’d hurt them—it changed me. And, you know, the ones that I hurt, some of them don’t get the benefit of seeing me become a better person. But it was those people who taught me how to treat the people I love.” He swallows hard when he’s finished speaking, and I can tell that he’s admitted to more than he meant to.
I’m not sure if he said what he said because he wants me to know that he’s made mistakes and he’s learned from them, or because he thinks somehow I can help my father become a better man. Maybe he thinks it’ll help me to vent, or maybe he just said it to say it. But there’s something about the sentiment that touches this disillusioned place inside of me, that makes me feel the faintest glimmer of hope, however fleeting it may be.
Right now, the only thing I want in this world is to kiss him. So that’s exactly what I do.
“WHAT IS this?” Nate asks, lifting my purse into his lap, examining it like it’s some kind of science experiment. He’s perched on the edge of my bed, waiting impatiently for me to finish getting ready so that we can head down to the rehearsal dinner. I keep telling him to go ahead without me, but he refuses. Even though he’s being kind of a pain in my ass right now, I can’t deny that I like having him nearby.
“That’s my purse,” I say, laughing at the confusion on his face.
“It’s bigger than you are, Callie.”
It’s a black leather hobo bag which is a little too big, yes, and admittedly it does have a lot of…well, crap in it.
“It is not,” I tell him.
He opens the clasp and peers inside. “Hello…hello…hello,” he says, each word getting quieter as he imitates an echo.
“You can be a smartass or you can be nosy. You can’t be both at the same time.” I dab some perfume behind my ears and on my wrists before I lean over the dresser to get a good look in the mirror so I can apply my lip gloss.
“How do you find anything in here?”
I shrug. “Sometimes I can’t. I’ve been known to throw things in there and find them months later. I’m a bit of a slob,” I say as I spread a glossy pink across my lips. “It’s one of my flaws.”
Nate nods as he snaps the bag shut, seemingly filing that information away for later. Then he leans back on the bed, his hands splayed out on either side of him, holding him up.
“You should go down, I’m going to be a few more minutes.”
He’s sitting behind me; I can only see him through the reflection in the mirror, but I watch the sly grin that spreads across his lips, and I recognize that look in his eyes. It’s almost predatory; it sends a shiver up my spine. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.