Page 71 of Base Block

It was clear from what he texted next that he was still worried, like when he said, “I’m worried. I don’t want you to be alone and crying.”

“I have Maverick,” I wrote and he didn’t respond to that. I mentally heard him saying “hell” and I pictured him rubbing his face.

Callum went directly from that hotel to practice the next day, but then he finally came home. The moment he walked through the door, his eyes locked on me. He strode over and picked me up from my chair at the kitchen table.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” I answered. I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. “I’m glad that you’re back.”

“Me too. I was thinking about a vacation. I want to go to a place where no one yells at me to get my ass in gear and talks about how we have to meld our minds,” he said. He moved his face against my hair. “The coach thinks that the O-line should have one collective brain but I don’t want to know what some of those guys are thinking.”

“A vacation would be good for you,” I agreed. “We should think about what will happen after your season, too. Your new house could be in a vacation spot.”

“Yeah.”

“I can look around, if you tell me where you might want to go.”

He put me down. “Do we have anything to eat?”

He played with Maverick while I got a plate for him, and then two of us sat at the kitchen table together. The other one of us trotted out toward the bedroom, so I quickly checked to make sure that there was nothing around for him to chew and ruin, before I returned to my seat.

“How has he been doing?” Callum asked.

“Fine,” I said. I didn’t feel the need to talk about my purse right now, because Beau had already given me the name of someone who could try to repair the new puncture marks in the leather. “Did you hear the news from Demitrious, too?”

“He said it was supposed to be a secret but the whole offense knows,” he answered, smiling, “and the defense and special teams will find out soon enough. The guy can’t keep his mouth shut when he’s happy.”

“He’s happy about it?”

“He reminds me of a sparkler, like he’s crackling with it,” he said. “He’s beyond thrilled. They’re talking about moving and where they’ll be permanently. They want to buy a house near his family.”

I had also heard about that. “You don’t have any relatives to base yourself around. Is there anywhere in particular that you’d want to be?”

He chewed and thought. “I do need somewhere to put that nice chair,” he mentioned, but that didn’t bring us anywhere closer to pinning down a location. He did narrow it a little, though. “If the guys aren’t going to their home base, like where they grew up, they’ll pick warmer places like Arizona, Miami. Southern California. Would you want to be back there?” He was already shaking his head to answer the question.

“Southern California is a huge area. Unless I went to Los Angeles and then directly to the same places that we used to hang out, there’s no reason that I would ever see any of the people that I knew before.” I would be heading west this weekend for the Woodsmen postseason game, but Damian and his friends didn’t go to sports events. I watched Callum as I asked the next question. “You seem to be including me in the move. Do you mean that you would want me to come with you?”

He put down his fork and his forehead crinkled. “Did you want to go somewhere else? Or no, I get it. You want to stay here because you have a job, friends, and a life. That’s ok with me.”

“Ok,” I echoed. He continued to eat, but I didn’t have any appetite for it. I had wanted to work at home to be with Maverick, but I had also wanted to test out doing my job away from the office. It did seem like I could do it, which meant that I wouldn’t have needed to stay in Michigan. I could have gone to Miami or Arizona, or anywhere else that Callum was heading.

But the whole reason he had let me come with him in the first place was because I had been a barefoot, bloody, nearly naked mess that he’d found in his driveway. I wasn’t that woman anymore, even if he still worried about me. I could find a new place to live—in fact, Victoria had just talked about looking for a roommate to help out with her expenses, since her brother had recently moved out. I could work in the office with Beau, keep up my car payment, and buy my own set of dishes. I really only needed one pot and one fork.

We talked about his annoying coach, a little about the upcoming game, and more about Demitrious and Anara’s big news. I was very concerned about her wedding dress. The girl had no clue about how much those seams could be let out and I strongly felt like they should move up the date of their event. As a bridesmaid, I could also help her to get that done.

He didn’t ask me for a back rub or suggest that he should come into my room to lie on the more comfortable bed, so we both went to sleep alone that night. Everything was quiet, except for Maverick snoring slightly in his kennel, and everything always felt safer and more secure when Callum was there. But I still couldn’t seem to keep my eyes closed, and I turned over and over, trying to force myself to rest.

I must have looked like crap the next morning, which was not what he said exactly. His words implied it. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Not really.” I yawned, too. “I’ll wake up when Mav and I go for our r-u-n.” The dog’s ears perked a little and I thought that he might have been learning how to spell. Shoot.

“I’ll see you later.” He started to walk to the door and I stood there, frozen. Callum always hugged me before he left but now I watched him go off without that, and I knew exactly why. He had expected me to say that I would accompany him wherever he went next, to Arizona, Miami, or whatever spot he chose. And I wanted to, of course, because I did consider myself to be part of his entourage.

Maverick and I went for our run and then I got dressed, but I did everything a lot more slowly than usual. I was thinking so hard that my brain seemed to sap all my energy. I was coming to the realization that being a member of the entourage wasn’t going to be enough. It wasn’t good enough for Callum, because he deserved a lot more—he deserved a sex life, for one thing, and a partner instead of a hanger-on. Everyone kept telling me that the dog needed security and consistency but people needed those things, too. Callum did, especially after the way he was raised. I removed one of his grandmother’s rollers from my hair, looked at it, and then decided that I was throwing away the whole set. The volume I got wasn’t worth the disloyalty I suddenly felt about using them, after that woman and his grandfather had allowed his childhood to suck.

Being part of his entourage wasn’t enough for me, either. I wanted more than holding hands and more than a vague future that we were drifting towards without discussion or forethought. Before, I had told him that I didn’t need a plan, that not everyone had to be so directed. I had repeated that idea to Anara, too, but I had been wrong, at least in regard to myself. I wanted direction. I needed security. I—

I heard a terrible noise from the living room and ran toward it. “Maverick, no!”