CALLIE (The Naughty Ones Book 1) (10 page)

Don’t Go Into the Light, Carol Anne (Cue Creepy Little Lady Voice)

Callie

I hate clubs. The noise and claustrophobic feeling I always get makes me ansty and desperate to flee, yet here I am, sitting on Jack’s lap while the three girls I love to hate and hate to love do shots and start going wild to get on the dance floor.

Indie looks fierce in a short skirt, biker boots, and a black tank that shows off her ink and still makes her look feminine, while Luci has gone total skank in a black mini dress and do-me heels.

Percy, the woman has her own style and it screams “take me if you dare” at anyone who looks her way. I love them but they’re just plan odd if you ask me.

By the time I’ve had my third bottle of water I feel like I could water a football field. I gingerly climb off Jack and refuse his help going to the bathroom.

I’ve already done that once and I will not suffer the humiliation of other women knowing my boyfriend watches me pee while he stands in the doorway and makes conversation.

The trek there is easier than I expect when a bouncer pops up and personally gets me to the restroom with a grunt and glare at anyone who so much as looks at me.

Freaking Jack. The man probably owns this place. Have I mentioned he picked it?

When I pee, I do so with my usual elation and I hear a few giggles when I thank God loudly for letting me preserve my dignity and make it to the toilet.

“You pregnant or drunk, sweetie?” I hear through the stall door.

“Pregnant and nuts, hun.” I laugh.

My loo pal laughs and yells “good luck” before I hear the door close and I wipe and flush with a grin before exiting the stall.

I go to wash my hands and check my makeup, my mind going a mile a minute as worry for Dot creeps in when I hear a throat clear behind me and look up to see a pretty woman with caramel-colored hair staring back at me expectantly.

“Hi?”

She clears her throat again and steps closer, way too close for my liking, when she looks down at my tummy and gets this nasty look on her pretty face.

“You the liar who’s telling Jack that you were together at the Hyatt?” she spits, her voice low and angry.

“Whoa, lady, I already took a freaking shower earlier, no need to turn the sprinklers on,” I mutter, swiping at my face.

              The spitter gets back in my face again and I have the urge to lash out at her when she says something that has my entire body freezing and turning ice cold.

“You know how I know you’re just a fat gold-digging liar, lady? Because he was with me at his house all freaking night till I skipped out on him the next morning to go home. Yeah, you get it now, huh? I heard the rumors. Destiny told me all about the little spectacle the two of you made and how you reeled him in with that bullshit story. I know it’s not true, and what’s more, I heard you and those friends of yours talking about how you don’t know who you fucked in that hotel room. How does it feel knowing you got the wrong guy by lying to him?”

I can’t talk, can hardly breathe through the absolute pain and dread bombarding me as I take it all in.

“You…? The two of you were together all night?” I whisper, willing my tears to stay put.

She laughs nastily and nods, her face going a little soft at the pathetic picture I’m making.

“Yes. All night. Look, honey, I am truly sorry that your fairy-tale romance is a lie, and I am not too jazzed about having to tell you that your baby will not have a daddy, but I am telling you, Jack can’t be him because he was pounding me like a hammer all night.”

I feel like I’m falling even though I know for a fact I’m not. I’m still frozen and staring into her eyes. I just feel…numb and empty as she gently squeezes my arm and turns to walk away.

“Your name,” I manage to get out on a croak before she reaches the door.

I don’t know why I want her name unless I’m planning to torture myself to death with it, but I need to know suddenly. Maybe because after everything that’s been said and done, I’ve got a new phobia about not knowing names.

“Lesley Brewster.”

She leaves without another word and I feel myself crumble as my knees give out and I sink to the floor, my tears now flowing freely even though I can’t seem to make a sound through the constriction in my throat.

God, oh God, what’s going on with my life?

The thought of it all being a lie, of going out there and telling Jack that what we thought, what we have built so quickly under the guise of a lie…

It hurts to know that when I walk out of here I will lose the man I’ve come to feel so much for. I think I love him, as silly as that may sound, and I know that it’s all going to end the minute I tell him the truth.

I feel so stupid, like the worst type of fraud, and worse, I feel like I’ve just lost the second person in my life that I let myself love without the benefit of many years and a lot of trust building.

I hardly know Jack and yet I love him already, after only weeks of knowing him.

“Callie?”

My tears are still streaming when I look up at Percy and totally lose my shit. Her arms come around me instantly and I hear her throwing questions at me as I cry out my grief into her throat where I’ve shoved my face.

“Callie, honey, what’s the matter? Are you sick? In pain? Oh God, is it the little monster? I should go get Jack.”

“No! No, please don’t. Not yet. I can’t see him yet, Percy,” I plead, crying harder and grabbing on to her for dear life.

“Callie, you’re starting to scare me. What’s going on? Did someone say you were fat again? You tell me who it was and I will peel her face for you.”

“It, no, I just, I need to go home please, Percy. I need to get out of here and be alone before I talk to Jack. Please, Percy.”

She doesn’t like this one bit, I see it in the tightening of her lips and the narrowing of her blue eyes, but she finally nods and whips out her phone.

“I’m going to call India and have her distract the goon Jack’s got guarding the door and waiting for you. Just hang on a minute and we’ll get you out of here, okay?”

It feels like hours before she gets a text signalling the all clear, and I feel like I’m stumbling towards a bright light as she drags me out of the club and shoves us both into a cab, giving him the address for her, Indie, and Luci’s apartment.

I’m almost grateful for the way she just seems to take over, and by the time we get to their place I’m calm enough to feel like I’m not stuck in one place waiting for the train coming through the tunnel to plough into me.

“What’s going on, Callie?”

I really do not want to talk right now, but I owe her some explanation, at the very least, for helping me ditch Jack tonight. I feel terrible but talking to him with the way I feel is not a good idea right now. I tend to lash out when I feel raw and he does not deserve that from me.

“I came out of the toilet stall and there was this woman…she told me, oh God, she told me that there was no way me and Jack were together the night I conceived JJ.”

The name makes me want to wail and I breathe through a sob as Percy’s eyes narrow and she waits.

“She told me they were together in his house all night and, and I think she was telling the truth because, because he kept saying that he remembered caramel-colored hair and asked why my hair was lighter than he thought it was and, and he kept saying he woke up in his bed and didn’t know how he got home.”

I didn’t want to believe at first, but it all makes a strange sort of sense now. Jack never went upstairs to that room with me because he took that Lesley Brewster chick home and screwed her all night while I was getting it on with some other man I still don’t remember.

“Oh Jesus.”

That’s all she can manage as we both fall onto the sofa. What am I going to do?

***

Jack

I’m still pissed at Callie the next morning as I storm into my office at the brokerage and slam my phone into the desk with a curse. By the time twenty minutes had passed without her coming back, I started to get really worried and went looking for her.

When I still couldn’t find her, I started panicking and had a whole host of scenarios running through my head from her being hurt to her getting sick.

I even went a little nuts when it crossed my mind that she may have started cramping or spotting or some shit. Then I really went nuts. By the time I slammed out of the restroom and remembered my phone, the thing was ringing and I had Percy in my ear telling me that Callie wasn’t feeling well and she took her home to rest.

I was so relieved I fell into the wall beside me and then started making plans to go to her. She’s my woman. I need to always care for her and know she’s okay.

I got stonewalled right off the bat and no amount of pleading, cursing, or threatening Percy got me anywhere. So instead of cajoling and seducing Callie into coming home with me again like I’d been planning all day, I went home alone to my empty bed where the fucking sheets and pillows smelled like her and made me all the madder.

“What the fuck is wrong with women?!”

“Not a damn thing, pal. You just aren’t doing something right, I guess, since they’re the easiest, most loving creatures on the planet.”

“Fucking spare me that bullshit, Woody,” I snarl when he walks in and falls into a seat across from my desk.

I ignore the penetrating look he gives me and straighten my tie as my PA, Kimono walks in with a cup of coffee for us both and some files I’ll need for a meeting I have later.

“Thanks, Kim. Hold all my calls till I tell you differently.”

She leaves as silently as she arrived and I wait a beat for Woody to start gabbing before I hold up my hand to silence him.

“I didn’t do a damn thing, Wood. We spent an amazing day together on Monday and we went out with the girls last night. We were solid till she went to the ladies’ room and just didn’t bother to come back. She skipped out on me and won’t answer my calls.”

Like the idiot I am, I started to relax and take it all for granted. All I saw was how happy we both were and how close we were getting, and it just, I just let the feeling take me over.

              “Maybe she got sick and didn’t want to ruin anyone’s night, Jack.”

“I went there with her expressly to be with her, Woody. She knew that since I told her that categorically. No, she bailed on me and I want to know why.”

The not knowing what set her off is killing me. I can’t fix shit if I don’t have a place to start, and getting to that point is proving impossible since I can’t get her to respond to my calls or texts.

I’ve turned into a pussy-whipped chump who depends on his woman for emotional support and that’s sticking in my craw because obviously Callie does not feel the same way.

Not yet.

“Ask. I find with women that the easiest way to keep things from going to a place that will hurt them, I just get right to the point and don’t play games. Look, Jack, I’m going to be really straight with you because you’re my buddy and I like Callie. The woman has been through the ringer for the last five months. First she was humiliated, both personally by you skipping out on her and then publically when they made her leave the hotel. She laughs about it now and pretends that the video doesn’t bother her, but I am not amused by it and know she has to be embarrassed.

“Then there’s the whole search she had to endure. Can you imagine her emotional turmoil when she had to go through all those men trying to remember what her lover looked like? It must have made her feel so terrible about herself and her judgement.”

Shit. I never once considered all that because Callie’s been such a rock star about it all that I just assumed she was solid. I should know better. As tough as she is, she is just a person and she has feelings. They’re buried deep but they’re there.

“Wood.”

“Let me finish. Now I know that when you met her you were upset that you lost a chance with her before you even tried. I get that, dude. I may not have met my one yet, but I’m not emotionally fucked like Freddie. I know she’s out there and I know I’ll know her when it’s time. Imagine what she must have felt when she saw you and got knocked down. To hear your mom tell it, Callie just about passed out when she saw you and you insulted her. She was already hormonal and body conscious from all those rapid changes. Add to that the fact that she was feeling like a heel already, and I am utterly amazed that she even gave you the light of day after that.”

“Don’t.”

“She’s a sweet, funny, vulnerable woman who’s carrying another human being inside her right now, Jack. Be a little more patient with her, and for God’s sake, man, do not go to her looking the way you did a few minutes ago because it will just scare her and she doesn’t need that right now.”

My hands are in my hair as I take in his words and accept that he may be right. I’ve been moving so fast trying to nail her down and assure myself that I won’t lose her again that I haven’t considered her feelings or needs once.

What a jackass, Jack.

“I need to talk to her and fix whatever it is that went wrong.”

“Thatta boy. Now, tell me about Luci again.”