Page 10 of Callow
We, and our kids, had been close ever since.
“So you know how I mentioned the guy who saved Daph?” I asked, absentmindedly stirring the iced coffee that was steadily sweating down the sides and onto the table. But thanks to the fact that the chicks at this coffee place used coffee ice cubes, it wasn’t getting watered down.
“Callum.”
“Callow,” I corrected.
“Right,” Britney said, reaching up to slip her blonde hair into a clip, then letting out a grumble when half of it fell back out. “If I ever say I’m going to cut my hair again, talk me out of it,” she demanded.
“It’s a lesson we all have to learn firsthand, I’m afraid,” I said.
“Anyway. What about Callow?”
“I maybe left off the part where he was ridiculously, uterus-achingly handsome.”
To that, Brit’s brows rose. “Oh, really?” she asked, her brown eyes bright. “Handsome and willing to save a girl he didn’t even know? How did your panties not burst into flames?”
“They almost did,” I admitted. “I honestly have done very little other than think about him since,” I added.
“I’m assuming you two didn’t exchange numbers.”
“It wasn’t exactly that kind of situation. What was I supposed to sayHey, thanks for saving my daughter from almost certainstatutory rape… can I give you my number so we can get glandular some other time’?”
“Well, maybe not those exact words,” Britney said, getting a little laugh out of me.
“I don’t think I even told him my name,” I admitted. “But I’m not exactly above getting dressed in something low-cut and going to hang out at Redemption in the hopes of seeing him.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“A moody teenager at home, for one,” I said.
“Listen,” Britney said, leaning in a bit. “Motherhood is really important. It’s a huge part of your life. But I don’t know if it is healthy for it to be yourwholelife.”
“I have work.”
“That you hate,” she said, shaking her head.
I mean, yeah. It wasn’t like I’d ever dreamed of working at a hotel for the rest of my life. But it had been one of the few jobs I’d been able to find that let me work the overnight shift, so I could have Britney and her partner Sam keep an eye on Daphne for me.
And once you got a steady job, when you had a kid relying on you, you kind of just had to… stick with it. Even if you almost cried each day you got in your uniform.
“I mean, I don’t have work,” Britney said. “But I do have hobbies and friends and family. And, of course, I have Sam. I have a whole, you know, adult world. I think it’s important. Especially as we are starting to look down the barrel of the girls going off to college soon.”
At the mention of that, my stomach knotted. For many reasons, really. One, having Daph away from me where I couldn’t keep an eye on what she was doing and who she was doing it with. Two, the idea of there being no one around anymore. Amongst a bunch of other things.
Motherhood, it seemed, went so incredibly slowly, yet so fast at the same time.
Those nights of sitting beside her bed, worrying myself sick over her high fevers seemed to stretch on for years.
Yet I swore I blinked and she went from a pigtailed, happy little kid to a moody teen.
“I’m just saying… it might be a good time to start… having a little bit of a life yourself. Sam and I would happily come hang out with you at the bar as you wait for your handsome stranger.”
“That just feels a little too desperate,” I said, picking at my brownie.
“Or is it just the right amount?” she asked, wiggling her brows at me. “I mean, when is the last time you got on the old pogo stick?” she asked, making me almost shoot iced coffee through my nose.
“Pogo stick?” I asked. “Please tell me that’s not the word you use when talking to Allie about sex.”