Rekindled (7 page)

“Tris, next round for everyone is on me!” my dad calls, which earns him roaring applause from the customers.

“I think you’ll probably regret paying for everyone’s round, Dad,” I raise the beer to my lips and look around at the packed room. “There’s at least fifty people in here.”

He grins as he steps off the stage. “It’s okay, you know Trista isn’t going to make me pay full price for it. Not if she wants our family gumbo recipe, that is.”

I shake my head and begin to laugh, but feel my throat constrict as people lower themselves back into their seats and my eye catches sight of the doorway. The acute tingle of apprehension prickles the hairs on the back of my neck and my hands turn cold and clammy as memories I’d long suppressed begin to slam into me.

The bottle slips from my fingers and I recognize the sound of shattering glass, followed by the familiar touch of Jules’ hand around my arm tugging me away from the broken bottle, but my mind is somewhere else entirely. My mind is back seven years ago, the last time I saw her.

“Tate, honey, are you okay?” Jules says lifting her hand and gently pressing the back of it against my forehead. “What’s going on? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

I want to answer her and tell her that I’m fine, but my entire body is in shock and the sight of those pale blue eyes is holding my brain hostage, making it impossible to speak. Her eyes lock with mine and a sharp pain pierces through my lungs as I suck in a sloppy breath.

I swallow and force myself to blink. “Callie,” I rasp out. “Callie’s back.”

Engaged. Not that I should be surprised, any woman would be lucky to end up with someone like Tate. I suppose I just wasn’t prepared to be standing there when they announced it. After putting Jonah to bed, I had headed down here to meet with Trista about the waitressing position. From the look of the frazzled expressions of the entire staff, she could definitely use the help.

Sucking in a breath, I run my hand through my hair, reminding myself that I’m no longer the scared seventeen-year old girl he saw last. I can handle the occasional run-in with Tate if it means being able to put food in my son’s mouth. I’m a mature adult now. Mostly. Shouldering my way through the crowd, I put on a plastic smile as I approach him, and pray to whatever gods are listening that I don’t make a complete ass out of myself.

“Hi, Tate.” I try to ignore the shot of lust that shoots between my thighs at the sight of him.

“Callie.” He responds with a short nod.

When he doesn’t say anything else or make any move to introduce me to his girlfriend,
no, fiancée,
I turn and politely hold out my hand to her with a smile. “Hi, sorry, I’m Callie Winters. I’m an old friend of Tate’s.”

“Right, nice to meet you. I’m Julia Brannen, Tate’s—”

“Fiancée,” I finish for her. “Congratulations, by the way.”

Julia is stunning. Her toffee colored hair is stylishly pulled into a low ponytail with her long bangs swept to the side and held in place with a thin headband. Her eyes are a warm almond brown hue and her makeup is subtle, giving her cheeks just a hint of color and her lips just a tint of shine. She’s wearing coral colored shorts that reveal tan, toned legs, and a cream chiffon blouse with a navy floral print matching her open toed sandals and tasteful selection of jewelry.

She looks like she just stepped out of a J. Crew ad, and probably takes barre classes and orders coffee with fancy names like caramel macchiato, while I’m the woman who’s lucky to get out of the house without any Chef Boyardee sauce on my clothes or Play-Doh stuck in my hair. Looking at her is like staring at a before picture of what I thought my life would be like when I decided to follow Zach to California.

I thought my life would consist of sipping on mimosas with friends during Sunday brunch while reflecting on how much I loved being a doctor, and making a difference in people’s lives. I thought I’d be one of those super women who could do it all: I’d have a fast-tracked career, be a perfectly coiffed mother who never had oatmeal or marker on her clothes, and an adoring wife who would have gourmet meals prepared for her husband after a long day’s work. I had it all planned out. But nothing ever goes as planned, and now my life has strayed so far from the intended course, there isn’t even a road to follow anymore.

“Thank you. I’ve heard a lot about you. Tate’s told me about how you guys practically were attached at the hip growing up.” She smiles at me and I’m slightly surprised that there’s no cattiness to her words, no snarky undertones to try to ward me off like I’m a vampire and she’s a garland of garlic. Then again, in my tattered denim jeans and plain white T-shirt, why would she feel threatened? “He didn’t mention that you’d be in town.”

“Oh, well that’s because—”

“I didn’t know she would be.” Tate speaks through gritted teeth.

I clamp my lips together suddenly feeling awkward. While his fiancée seems to have no issues with me being here, Tate is a completely different story. Anger is radiating off of his skin in pulses, wrapping their tendrils around my throat making it impossible to breathe.

“And shouldn’t you be introducing yourself as Callie
Biggs
? Or was his family’s money not enough to buy that service from you?”

I recoil from his words. “It’s none of your business why I kept my last name, but good to know you’re able to hold on to a seven year grudge.” Out of the corner of my eye I see Tate’s dad standing nearby. “Hi, Mr. Corbin,” I say wondering if he hates me as much as his son does.

“Callie, dear,” he says stepping forward and pulling me into a hug, gently kissing my cheek. “It’s lovely to see you, you look good.”

“Thanks, so do you,” I reply, relieved that he doesn’t seem to harbor the same hatred as Tate. “How have you been?”

“Oh, I can’t complain. I mean sure—”

“Dad,” Tate cuts in. “Let’s go back to our table, Callie’s taken up enough of our time.”

“Right. Well,” I clear my throat and glance around the bar wishing I could just disappear into the ground or that an alien ship would appear and beam me up through the ceiling, anything to not have to be the recipient of the murderous look Tate’s giving me. “I’m just here to meet with Trista, if you know where she is?”

“Trista? Why?” Tate asks folding his arms across his chest.

“I heard she could maybe use another server, so I’m here to put in an application.”

“So then, you’re
staying
?”

“For a little bit, yes.”

“How long?” The dip between his eyebrows increase and his jaw grows tight.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” He asks incredulously. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean? And why would Trista hire someone who doesn’t even know if she’s going to stick around for more than a day? After all, you’ve never been great at sticking around when people have needed you.”

“Tate!” Julia’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry, he didn’t mean that.”

My eyes shoot up to meet his. His are a mixture of green and light brown, but beneath the bright lights hanging from the rafters, they appear almost honey colored, and I’m struck by how much his long lashes accentuate the ferocity behind his eyes. We stare at each other for a beat, playing a silent game of chicken until I blink and force myself to look away with the realization that this isn’t the sweet boy that I remember spending my afternoons building sandcastles with, or the teenager who would ask me silly riddles to distract me from the scary parts of a movie. Now, he’s a man that I don’t even know. A stranger.

I looked him up on Facebook once before, back when Jonah was just an infant, but it hurt too much to see his face, and so I vowed to myself never to do it again. But I realize now, that was a mistake—because I hadn’t come back to town prepared. I didn’t know he was living here, and I certainly didn’t know he looked like
this
.

Tate had always been handsome in a boyish way, but now he was devastatingly gorgeous. His body as a teen was lanky and lean, nothing like the man standing before me. The black fabric of his t-shirt stretches across his broad chest and clings to his biceps where a series of intricate black ink scrolls around his bicep and down his arm. The dark brown hair that he used to keep just beyond a buzz cut is grown out so the ends curl just below his ears, and there’s a scar above his right eyebrow that wasn’t there before. His face is filled out so that his square jaw no longer looks awkward, and it’s peppered with a light dusting of facial hair making him look even more rugged. But it’s the way he’s staring at me that makes him look lethal.

“It’s okay.” I shove my hands into my jean pockets, unsure of what else to do with them at this point. “Well, congratulations again. I should probably go find Trista.”

“Yep, probably.” Tate hooks his arm around Julia and places a kiss on her temple before steering her away from me.

“It was really nice to meet you, Callie,” Julia calls out over her shoulder and gives me a quick wave.

“Yeah, you too,” I say, but I realize she probably didn’t hear me. Sighing, I rock forward on the balls of my feet and remind myself that it doesn’t matter what Tate thinks of my return. I came here to get a job and that’s exactly what I plan on doing.

“And how do you know unicorns poop rainbows?”

I press my fingers to my temples as I shove a forkful of chicken into my mouth while Caleb and Jonah have a stimulating discussion about what color poop comes out of a fictional creature.

The meeting yesterday with Trista went well, although she was a bit skeptical about hiring me considering she knows Tate and my friendship ended poorly—she just doesn’t know the details. Luckily, she’s never been a nosy person, and doesn’t believe in holding grudges over someone else’s grievances. Since she and I always used to get along well, she finally decided she had no issue hiring me.

Tonight, Caleb ordered dinner from our favorite Chinese restaurant, The Golden Dragon, getting all of my favorites: kung pao chicken, sweet and sour pork, beef and broccoli, and chow mein. Scooping more food onto my plate, I listen to the two of them, wondering how my life has boiled down to this.

“Because every time I see something with a unicorn, there’s always a rainbow. How else do you think the rainbows get there?” Jonah replies matter-of-factly. “Besides, my dad said everybody poops. He said even mommies have to poop, and that mom’s poop is stinky.”

My cheeks flush with embarrassment as Caleb’s eyes light up with amusement. “He did, did he?”