Page 5 of The Intimacy of Finding You

Once upon a time, Callum had been in love with me, and I had been in love with him, and everything was perfect. But that story had ended, and the new one didn’t have a happy ending.

The bartender—Jack from yesterday—came up to our table. “Everything good?”

Callum nodded without looking at him. “Yeah, we’re fine.”

“You know this guy?”

“You could say that.”

“Well, do you wanna go smoke with me?”

Callum shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. Catching up with an old friend.”

“Suit yourself.” Jack turned to me. “Good seeing you again, by the way. Glad the cold didn’t get you.”

Honestly, I wished it had. I wasn’t going to say that, though. “Likewise.”

Jack walked away, pulling a lighter out of his pocket. I never did like that Callum was a smoker. It didn’t make sense for someone so good as him on the inside to poison himself like that. How hypocritical of me that was now.

We rested in an uncomfortable lull, silence passing between us. Like wind dragging along a ship’s sails, barely brushing them, yet with just enough force to push the ship in a new direction. The wrong direction.

Callum sniffed and swiped a finger under his nose. “They miss you, you know.”

I closed my eyes—just for a moment. Just long enough to let his statement sink in and make a home where my heart should’ve been. Then, I picked up my shot glass and threw it back, wincing at the burn down my throat. I didn’t have a chaser. Didn’t care enough to use one. It was all going to go down the same.

Though I already knew, I looked up and captured his burning gaze once more. “Who?”

“All of them. Price, Jesse, Liam, Isaac, and Willow. The entire OG staff. But you know who misses you the most? Crew. He misses you the most out of all of them. He won’t say that. But he won’t even say your name because it hurts too much. I think he still thinks what happened to you guys was his fault, despite all the fucking therapy he’s been through. And the fact that you’ve told him it wasn’t a million times over.”

I was already shaking my head, my brain swimming in my skull with each movement, a drunken haze taking over my awareness. “It wasn’t his fault.”

“I know that, but he doesn’t seem to get that, Tobi. I mean, honestly, what else is he meant to think? You up and left one day. No goodbye. No explanation.”

“It wasn’t his fault, Callum.”

“I know.”

“It was never his fault. It was Thompson.”

“I know.”

Did he? Thompson started the cycle, but he wasn’t who it ended with, and that fact ate me the fuck up from the inside out. He put a target on my back for everyone and everything else bad in my life. It never ended and was never going to.

Gripping the vodka bottle that’d been sitting beside me, I averted my gaze. “No matter what I say, it ain’t gonna change what he thinks or how he feels. I already tried that. It don’t matter if you say they miss me, Cal. You can say that all you want, but I bet deep in their gut, they despise me. Just like you do.”

“Your accent.”

Sighing, I poured another shot. “What about it?”

“It’s not as thick as it used to be.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“I miss it.”

What an odd thing to say.

“I miss the way you used to say certain words and constantly left parts of them off. You say things with a drawl, but it isn’t…” He trailed off for a moment. “It’s like Crew’s now. It’s there but diluted with the city.”