Page 90 of Auctioned To Be Mine

“I’ll give you whatever you need,” I said. “But I want you to know something first.” I looked at her. “I’m not going to pretend I would have done it differently. Because the thought of you needing me and me not being there is something I can’t make peace with.” I paused and considered what that might sound like. “That’s my issue to work on. I know that. I need you to know the difference between control and caring. I promise you, it wasn’t control.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything. I walked to the door and stopped with my hand on the handle. I felt shame, which was a new thing. It was heavy and uncomfortable. I had let her down. That was not something I knew how to handle.

“Callum.”

I turned back hopefully.

“I’ll call you,” she said.

Not what I was hoping for, but it was better than goodbye. That would have felt like a dagger through the heart. I walked out and back to my car.

When I got home, the house was dark and felt hollow, empty, even though Dash and Krista were in the guest room.

I poured myself a drink and flopped onto the leather sofa without bothering to turn on any lights.

I wasn’t her father. I wasn’t trying to manage her or make decisions on her behalf. I had no idea how to be a boyfriend and it showed. I finished the drink and headed upstairs to bed.

The bed was too big. It had always been big, but without her beside me, it felt lonely.

32

VICTORIA

Iheld up the bottle of wine and was surprised to see it was empty. When had that happened? I got up and walked a little unsteadily into the kitchen. I wasn’t drunk but I wasn’t sober.

I’d been sitting on the couch all day in the same robe. I was still wearing my pajamas and it was almost time for bed again. Doordash had delivered all the food I needed after Betty called me the morning after the Callum conversation.

She told me to take a few days off. It would have been less painful if she stabbed me in the gut. I fucked up. It wasn’t even me that really fucked up. It was my fault for telling Callum I wasn’t okay with the asshole who shall not be named. I blamed him for this bullshit, too. If he wasn’t such a skeevy bastard, I wouldn’t have been weirded out by a lunch meeting. But he intentionally made people uncomfortable.

So fuck him.

I reached for the other bottle of wine I had delivered earlier. “Shit.”

I meant to put it in the fridge but in my haste to get the first bottle opened, I forgot. Now I was drinking another bottle of warm wine. Whatever. It would all go down the same. I reached for the opener, and with just a little struggling, I managed to get it open. I didn’t even need to bother with a glass, but that felt like a bridge too far. I’d save that for the third bottle, which I decided to put in the fridge. I bought three with the intention of having enough for the next few days.

Guess I was going to be making another delivery order. “Thank you to whoever invented delivery apps,” I said and held up the bottle to no one for an invisible toast.

I snatched the bag of Chex Mix and carried it and the bottle of wine back to the little nest I had made on the couch. The TV was on and I remembered I was looking for another sappy romance to watch. I’d gotten distracted by the empty wine bottle.

A quick scroll and I went with the classic tearjerker, The Notebook.

Yes, that’s exactly what I needed. A love story that made me cry because I was in such a good mental state. Why not add a little more fuel to my misery?

I started the movie and popped a handful of mix into my mouth. The salt was exactly what I needed. And it would help absorb the alcohol sloshing around in my belly. That was just science. I desperately wanted to stop thinking about Callum. When I ordered the wine, I was operating under the impression it would help dull the pain.

I was wrong. It was making me melancholy. The smart thing to do would be to stop drinking, take a shower, and go for a walk. Go to the beach. Anything other than wallow in my own stench. And I was smelling a little ripe. At one point I thought I spilled wine and realized it was me. Wine was seeping out through my pores.

I watched Ryan Gosling make a fool of himself in an attempt to please the girl. And of course, that made me think about Callum’s goofy smile and the fire alarm nonsense. Things between us had been so good. Better than good. I’d never experienced that kind of joy before. It was so easy. So comfortable. He made me feel cherished and safe and I had settled right in. I liked his family. They liked me.

I hadn’t imagined any of that. It was real. That’s what made the rest of it so much harder to deal with. I took a long sip of wine and stared at the screen without really seeing it. The thing that kept tugging at me was that Callum didn’t think twice about storming in there to rescue me. He didn’t weigh the consequences. He didn’t consider what it might cost me. He saw something he didn’t like and he acted on instinct. The fallout landed entirely on my side of the table. Not his. I was the one that had to deal with the consequences of his actions.

It wasn’t fair.

He would be fine. He was always going to be fine. That was the luxury of being Callum Blackwell. He was wealthy and respected. He had businesses that would keep running and making money. His name didn’t suffer. His income didn’t suffer. The store was still opening. His family still loved him.

I was the one that was going to lose my job. My sole income. The thing that kept the lights on and a roof over my head. A job I truly loved. There was no way I would ever get another job in the field once people figured out why I no longer worked for Betty. It was a niche industry and everyone in our world knew everyone else.

I took another drink and realized my glass was empty. Screw refilling it. That was too much effort. I reached for the bottle and took a swig.