Calling Me Back (2 page)

Sunday night dinner was our family tradition. And family was what I considered Haven and her brother, Luke. Our close circle had expanded when Haven married Jake, bringing him and his sister, Beth, into the fold. Wine and gossip were essential components to the ritual.

“We have twenty minutes and we have a lot to talk about. So spill,” Haven said.

“There’s nothing much to say. I guess we’ve taken it to the next level.” Unfortunately, the experience had been decidedly un-notable, but Richard was such a nice guy and he was so kind, it felt wrong to say that, to feel that. I wanted to like him. I wanted sleeping together to be explosive…but it hadn’t been. It had been nice. But nice was good, right?

“But was it good? You said it was
just
sex. That doesn’t sound like good sex.” Haven’s gaze skirted all over me as if I were going to start talking from somewhere other than my mouth.

“It was fine,” I said, not quite knowing what to say. “I mean, I think it has potential.”

“Oh God, was it that bad?”

“I didn’t say it was bad,” I replied. It just hadn’t been amazing. “He’s a great guy. And he really cares about me. First time sex is never easy, especially if you’re not hammered.”

I envied Haven. She’d found
the one
. But most people didn’t, did they? They certainly didn’t find the love of their life twice—and I’d found mine a lifetime ago. Too bad the feeling had never been mutual. Still, I had no right to ask for
the one
twice. I needed to make peace with the fact that a nice guy was a good option—maybe the only option—for me.

The buzzer sounded and Haven slid off her chair to answer it. She answered the intercom and let Luke into the building then hovered at the entrance waiting for her brother to get to the door.

Luke
.

I took a deep breath.

At any given moment, I could recall the exact second I fell in love with Luke. It was summer, and Haven, he and I were sitting under a magnolia tree in their parents’ garden, joshing and giggling. He’d turned to me and grinned, his smile wide—his perfectly white teeth made brighter by his golden skin—his hair floppy and in need of a cut. He’d raised his eyebrows at me and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. And that was it. A spell was cast. Even now, almost fifteen years later, my cheeks heated at the memory of that moment.

“Is Emma coming today?” I asked, changing the subject. I didn’t know if it was just me, but things always seemed easier when Luke’s girlfriend wasn’t here.

“I don’t think so,” Haven said as she turned to answer the door. “I guess we’ll find out.”

I let out a sigh of relief when I only heard Luke in the hallway.

Even after all these years of knowing him, I had to consciously remember to breathe when he walked into a room. Like some fantasy Viking, he was tall, blond and underneath his tight, golden skin, his muscles looked hard as wood. His sheer physical presence almost overwhelmed me for the first seconds I was around him. It was always as if he took up all the air, all the space in the room—he was all I could see. I grinned as he walked in my direction.

“Hey, stranger, where have you been?” he asked as he pulled me out of my seat as if I were a doll and hugged me, his body cocooning mine, squeezing me tight. “You smell good,” he said.

I ignored his question. If Richard and I were to have a fighting chance, I had to get some distance from Luke. I needed to see someone else in the room. I’d come to the conclusion that if I kept comparing every man I met to my long-time love, I’d die alone, surrounded by cats. So I’d stepped back from spending so much time with him, and hadn’t been coming to Sunday dinner as regularly.

“You look well,” he said. I smiled, giddy from his proximity, concentrating on not making my grin too wide.

“It’s all the ‘just sex’,” Jake bellowed from behind us. We both spun around. “Now Luke’s here, I can come out, right?” Jake asked.

Haven rolled her eyes as he grabbed two beers from the fridge and handed one to Luke.

“So what’s this about sex?” Luke asked, before taking a swig from his bottle.

“It’s Ash and Richard, I think,” Jake said, knocking his beer against Haven’s and my glasses.

“Right, that’s about as much as I want to know.” Luke grimaced and Haven looked at me and rolled her eyes. I had always been like a little sister as far as Luke was concerned. There had never been any ambiguity for
him
.

Richard had asked me out a few times before I said yes. He was a doctor at the hospital where I was a nurse. Wasn’t that the stuff of romance novels?

It was just that when Richard was close by, I didn’t get the thudding in my chest that I had at the moment because Luke was less than a meter away from me.

“Can’t you two go and catch up on the rugby or something?” Haven suggested.

I watched Luke’s neck as his beer slid down his throat, my eyes following the invisible liquid down to the triangle of bare skin exposed by the open collar of his shirt. I forced myself to look away. How did he still have this effect on me after all these years?

Jake clasped Haven’s face between his hands and pulled her toward him, kissing her passionately, while she waved her arms about as if she was protesting. As if. He released her after a couple of seconds and wandered over to the other side of the room with Luke to watch the television, leaving Haven looking dazed and confused.

She grinned and rolled her eyes. “He’s incorrigible.”

I was delighted that she’d found such a great guy in Jake; she’d been unhappy for so long before him. I smiled and let out a steady breath as Luke’s absence gave me more space for my mind and body.

“Anyway, back to sex with Richard. What’s the deal?” she asked, turning to me and pulling me further away from my thoughts of Luke. Haven and I rarely talked about my feelings for Luke directly. As teenagers, we’d discussed it, but as adults, we skirted around it, aware of the volatility of the subject. I loved our world together—our bond, our shared experience—and I didn’t want to destroy our family. I wanted to find someone special, someone who thought I was more than sister material. Haven had done it, and it had given me inspiration that I could, too.

There was no way Haven was going to give up on the subject of Richard. She wanted me to be happy even more than I did. “It was okay. It wasn’t earth shattering. It wasn’t awful.” Richard was such a nice guy that I wanted it to be better, and with a little work, I was sure it could be.

She twisted her mouth as she considered my confession. “I think sex can improve as a couple gets to know each other, and you held off a long time. Maybe it was too much pressure.”

I nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly. So, we’ll see.” I desperately wanted her to be right, but I was worried Richard was
too
nice a guy. I wanted to be fucked properly. I needed a guy who knew what he wanted—what I wanted—and made it all happen. Richard had been . . . careful.

“And he’s so nice to you,” Haven said.

“Exactly. He totally is.” I was determined not to reject Richard just because he wasn’t Luke. I’d been doing that for too many years.

I was ready for my happily ever after.

Luke

I stayed at Haven’s until she kicked me out at just gone midnight. Earlier in the evening, I’d offered to take Ash home, but she’d refused. I’d not seen much of her lately, and I could have done with a talk. I couldn’t remember the last time it had just been her and me. We used to meet for lunch or after work sometimes, but it had been ages. When I’d hugged her hello earlier, I’d realized that it was her I could smell in the church the previous day. I’d never noticed the perfume that surrounded her, probably because she was just Ash scented to me.

I quietly opened the front door of the house Emma and I shared, trying to turn my key as slowly as possible in the lock, to avoid the overly loud clunk it made. It was late, and she had an early shift the next morning at the hospital.

I didn’t switch on any lights and quietly got undressed to my boxers and slid under the blankets.

“Hey,” she said.

I’d been sure she would be asleep.

“Having trouble sleeping?” I asked.

She turned over to her side, facing me. “Yeah, a little. How was Sunday dinner?”

“Good. Everyone asked after you.” It wasn’t entirely true, or even slightly true, but I was sure they had meant to ask after her.

“That’s nice,” she replied.

I sighed and slid my hand behind my head, my eyes drawn to the light of the streetlamps bleeding into the room from the edges of our window blind. The atmosphere was thick with the unspoken words of a conversation we were about to have.

“Did you enjoy the wedding?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure.” I’d deliberately avoided the subject since her tears during the photographs on Saturday. “Haven cooked duck for dinner. We should try it sometime. It was good. She’s turning into quite the chef.”

“Sounds like marriage suits her. You ever think about whether it would suit you, too?” she asked.

My skin started to itch, and I needed some water. I pulled the bedcovers off me to go and get a drink. “Why would I? We’re happy as we are,” I said as I wandered into the bathroom, willing her to drop the subject.

“Marriage is the next step for two people who are happy and in love, isn’t it?” she asked, raising her voice slightly so I could still hear her clearly, despite the rush of the faucet. I felt as if I’d just stepped in quicksand. There was pressure all over my body, as if I were being squeezed between two concrete walls—like the garbage compactor scene in Star Wars. I could do with a couple of Jedi mind tricks right at this moment.

“I don’t see why.” I hoped that would be the end of it, but knew it wouldn’t be. This conversation felt as though it was taking us down a one-way street. I brushed my teeth again, wanting to give Emma time to fall asleep. Why had she brought this up? Things were just fine.

I stuck the toothbrush back in the jar, rinsed my mouth and went back into the bedroom. She was staring at me.

“You’ve never thought about us getting married?” she asked again, more directly this time.

“I said that I didn’t. I don’t lie to you, Emma.” I slipped back under the blankets and lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, willing the conversation to be over.

“You don’t want to be married before we have children?”

Jesus, now kids were part of the equation? “Now we’re talking about children?”

“We need to talk about this stuff, Luke. I don’t want to be just your roommate. Haven’s married now. And she and Jake were together no time at all before he proposed.”

“And it works for them.”

“But you don’t think it would work for us?” she asked.

I scrubbed my hands over my face. “It’s late. I don’t want to talk about this now. I need to get to sleep. And you have an early start. Let’s discuss it another time, if you think it’s important.”

“If I
think
it’s important? Of course it’s important. We can’t stay like we are,” she said. “You can be a real prick at times.”

“You’re the one bringing this up out of nowhere in the middle of the night.”

“Out of nowhere? Are you fucking kidding me? We’ve been living together for nearly three years. Look around, Luke. Everyone’s getting married. People live together, they get married and then they have kids. Why do you think you’re the exception?”

“So you want to get married because everyone else does? Sounds like excellent reasoning.” The litigator in me instinctively wanted to win the argument, regardless of the merits and demerits of what was being said.

“I want to get married because I love you, you fucking idiot. I want to have kids with you because I want to have your children. Maybe not today, but one day. Jesus, Luke, why is this a shock?”

I couldn’t argue with someone who was telling me they loved me, even if they spat the words out. I kept scanning through memories of conversations we’d had over the years, trying to find one where we’d talked about marriage. I couldn’t think of a single one. I’d always assumed she was as unbothered by it as I was. Had I been wrong? Had I led her on? I lowered my voice and asked, “But why are you bringing this up now?”