Rekindled (33 page)

“Excuse me,” I say, taking a second to let my equilibrium balance out. “I’ll be right back.” Putting my phone to my ear, I use my spare index finger to plug my other one, blocking out some of the noise from the bar. “Hello?”

Silence.

Winding my way through the crowded room, I find a corner in the hallway right outside the restrooms. A door swings open and a couple of tittering girls stumble out, leaning on each other for support while they hobble back toward the main room.

“Hello?” I try again.

“Where the fuck are you?” A familiar voice seeps through the other end of the phone.

I blink and pull the phone away from my ear, staring at it in disbelief. Maybe the bartender put some kind of hallucinogen in my drink. Or maybe I’m just going crazy. “Zach?”

He doesn’t say anything, so I pull the phone away again to check that the call is still connected. When I put it back to my ear, I can barely make out the ragged sound of breathing.

“Zach, is that you?”

“Of course it’s me, who else would it be?”

“I-I don’t know, considering I haven’t heard from you in months. I mean, seriously, you just took off and…”

“I know, I was upset that you had divorce papers drawn up. But it’s okay, I forgive you and I’m ready to be a family again,” he interrupts. “I’m coming home tomorrow. My parents got the house back, so you can start moving in all your stuff.”

Hearing the word
home
, quickly sobers me. “No.”

“It wasn’t a question.”

“My answer is still no. You don’t get to walk out on me and Jonah, hanging us out to dry like you did and then just decide to waltz back into our lives as if nothing ever happened. You left us, Zach.
You
chose to screw us over in ways I never even imagined possible, and now you think you can just come back? No. Absolutely not.” My hands shake as I wrap both hands around the phone. I know the alcohol is partially to credit for my newfound bravado, but finally standing up to Zach makes me feel powerful. Strong. Free. These past couple of months away from him, I realized just how much I was capable of doing on my own, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to let him shove me back down now that I know what it feels like to stand.

“You’re not keeping me from my son.” His voice comes across low and menacing.

“I’m not trying to keep Jonah from you, but he’s happy here. We’re both happy here.”

“And where exactly is
here
?”

I sigh. “Idaho. We’ve been staying with Caleb, which you would have known if you would have bothered to answer any of my hundreds of calls or emails.”

He laughs. “Stop being ridiculous. You’re not staying in that sorry excuse for a state. Jonah’s tuition is already paid for the year. My parents gave me a loan to cover the money I lost, and I bought you a new Lexus. It’s a hybrid and is being delivered tomorrow afternoon.”

“Would you stop for just one second and listen to me?” I slam my palm against the wall. “We’re not going back to Los Angeles. We’re not going to be one big happy family. Your money can’t just buy me off.”

“Why not? I did it before.”

I suck in a sharp breath, trying to combat the stinging sensation buzzing in my chest. “I want a divorce.”

I’m not proud to admit that I chose Zach for his money all those years ago. On top of being a hormonal teen, I was going through a pregnancy and dealing with my parents disowning me, and in my head, Zach was my lifeline to keeping my baby. I was scared of what would happen if I didn’t choose him. Scared to be alone. Scared that I would lose Jonah. Fear embedded itself into my heart, blinding me from seeing that I had other options, and by the time I realized it, it was too late.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Did you not learn your lesson the last time you asked for a divorce?”

A cold sweat breaks out on my neck knowing what he’s implying. “You can threaten me all you want, but it won’t change a damn thing. Let me know where you’re staying and I’ll have the divorce papers drawn up and sent to you.”

“You’re an even bigger fucking moron than I thought if you think for one goddamn second I’m signing anything. You are mine. Jonah is mine. Do you understand me? You are not going anywhere. This isn’t over. We. Are. Not. Finished.”

“Yes, Zach. We are.”

I hang up knowing I should feel proud of myself for finally holding my ground. For not rolling over and letting him walk all over me. I should be happy that I’m finally insisting my voice be heard. So then why do I feel so damn scared?

When we were kids, Callie and I used to play a card game called “faces”. The rules of the game are simple. Get a stack of cards and place them face-side down. Face cards (Jack through Aces) each have a value of a certain expression. We used to make Jacks equal sadness, Queens were happiness, Kings were angry and Aces were silly. As you take a card off the stack and flip it over, you race the other person to see who can make the correct face with the matching face card. If someone made the wrong expression, they’d lose a point. If someone made a face with a non-face card, you’d also lose a point.

We used to spend hours playing this game, and I loved it, not just because it was fun, but because it gave me a reason to stare at Callie. It wasn’t long before I’d memorized the small idiosyncrasies with each emotion. Like how her left nostril lifted slightly when she made an angry face, or the way her eyebrows would teepee into a V-shape when she stuck her tongue out and crossed her eyes, trying to be silly.

Each line and curve of her face was branded into my memory, making it easy to decipher when she was trying to hide her true emotions. I’m grateful for that now as I watch her approach the table, her phone clutched tightly in her hand.

“Everything okay?” Macy asks.

“Yup!” Callie replies brightly. She smiles a broad grin at the group who don’t know her well enough to know that she’s lying. But I do.

Our server brings another round of drinks, but Callie barely touches hers. Underneath the table, I feel her fingers tremble slightly as I take her hand in mine. Running my thumb along the edge of her palm, I turn toward her and lean in.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She bites down on her lip and shakes her head no. “Not here. Not in front of everyone.”

“Okay. When you’re ready.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to dance?”

She cocks her head at me and grins. “
You’re
asking
me
to dance? Hold on, let me get my calendar out so I can mark down the day Tate Corbin actually volunteered to dance in public.”

The center of the room feels about a million degrees hotter with so many bodies moving simultaneously on the dance floor. I wrap my arms around her, letting our bodies sway to the beat, surprising her when I take her hand and spin her around.

She grins at me. “You’ve been practicing?”

I reel her back in towards me. “I may have had some help from Chris. He makes a damn good dance partner.”

“I’m impressed. I know how much you don’t like dancing.”

“It’s not so bad with the right partner.” I wink at her and she steps into me, pressing her body against mine. “Besides, I’d do anything to make you happy.”

She lets out a shaky exhale. Pulling back to look at her, I stop moving when I notice a tear slipping down her cheek. She quickly brushes it away with the back of her hand, but it’s too late to pretend like I didn’t see it.

“Callie…”

“Zach called me tonight.”

My heart thrashes violently against my ribcage as fear lodges in my throat. Is this where she tells me she’s going back to him? Is that why she was crying? My stomach squeezes with the thought of her choosing him
again
, knowing there would be no coming back from the heartbreak this time.

“Come on. Let’s go talk.”

Reaching for her hand, she follows me to the bathrooms where I pull her inside and swiftly lock the door. I wait for her to speak, but she’s just standing there, staring at me.

“Do you still love him?” I ask, taking a step forward.

“No,” she says mirroring my steps until her back is flush against the door.

I drag my knuckles along her cheek. “Does he still love you?”

She swallows and closes her eyes. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like he’s going to let me go without a fight.”

I hate that answer. I press my palms against the door on either side of her face, caging her in and rest my forehead against hers. “What did he say to you?” I ask, while running my nose along her jaw, down her neck and across her collarbone, using my tongue to taste her skin.

Her breathing becomes heavier as she lets out a small moan. “That I was his. And Jonah was his, and that he isn’t finished with us yet.”

Her words are like a blast of cryogenic air, sending a frigid chill down my spine. I pull away to look at her. Straightening, I take a step back and let my hands fall to her hips. “That sounds an awful lot like a threat.” She doesn’t say anything and I reach out and gently brush a strand of her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Callie, what happened with you and Zach? No matter what it is, you can tell me.”

We stare at each other for what feels like hours, and when she finally breaks the silence, she looks back at the ground. “Zach had two loves during our marriage: winning and gambling. It started out small, he’d go off with his friends to the casino once a week and just blow off some steam. I didn’t used to mind it because I figured it was his way of unwinding from the stress he felt from school and work. But I didn’t realize how quickly his addiction would spiral.” She pauses and lets out a long exhale. “His moods kept worsening, and he became angrier and meaner each day, to the point where I actually looked forward to him going out. A couple years ago I found out just how bad his addiction had become. He’d lost over three million dollars. His parents bailed us out and he promised that he’d get help. Except, he lied.” She lets out a humorless laugh and shakes her head. “He started to miss Jonah’s school events, parent-teacher conferences, and there’d be times where he’d just disappear for a couple days at a time. I finally gave him an ultimatum. Gambling or his family.”

“I’m guessing he didn’t take to that very well.”

“I knew he wouldn’t like it, but I had no idea how unraveled he’d become as a person. When he basically told me that he wasn’t going to stop gambling, I told him I wanted a divorce. As a punishment, he racked up fifty-thousand dollars in credit card debt, emptied our bank accounts and bailed. He had a loan out on the house that he never paid off so the bank foreclosed on it which is why Jonah and I came back to Idaho. I haven’t heard from him since that day. Until tonight.”

I blink, trying to figure out how someone could do that to another person. Anger pulses through me as I rake my hands through my hair and begin to pace the room. “Are you fucking serious right now? I’m going to kill him. How could he do that you? To Jonah? How could he do that to his own goddamn son?” My hand fists into a ball and I slam it into the mirror that’s above the sink. Pain faintly registers in my brain, but my anger quickly masks it.

“Tate, stop. Jonah and I are okay. We made it through it,” she says reaching and wrapping her fingers around my wrist, preventing me from smashing my fist into the mirror again. “It was a less than ideal situation, but Caleb helped me pay off the creditors, and if I’m being honest, I’m glad this all happened because it brought me you. Jonah and I are happy here with you, and no amount of money in the world will ever change that.”