Page 103 of Callan

“Manny,” I say in a clipped voice.

Her eyebrows shoot up.

“Um… What?”

“Yeah. His name is Manny.”

She laughs, her hands clutching her arched hips again.

“Manny from what?”

“Emmanuel.”

“Last name?”

“I don’t know his last name.”

She’s changed her tactic.

We’re no longer playing games.

She’s shooting question after question, testing my ability to respond and be truthful at the same time.

I’m not batting a lash as I deliver lie after lie like a pro.

“How come?”

“I just met the guy.”

“Care to say more?”

“Not that it’s your business, but I met him at the deli.”

And just like that, the story I’ve told Kayla becomes useful now.

“I don’t know much about him. We stood in line for coffee and had a chat the other day. Then we started to walk together. I like to go outside and get my steps in,” I say to buy some time and test her patience.

She rolls her eyes at me.

“It’s true,” I say.

She cuts me off with a clipped gesture.

“Go on,” she says before her lips press together, her jaw locked.

“That’s it. I wanted to go out last night because of the noise upstairs, and it happened that he showed up at my place. We were on our way out when we started to make out. I didn’t think it would be earth-shattering news or something.”

Sighing, she looks at the man. I don’t know whether she believes me or not.

She clearly knows that Callan and I had our lips locked into a fiery kiss last night.

She knows he walked down a floor and knocked on my door to hide from the likes of the man having his back pressed into my door right now.

She knows the only way he could’ve escaped that night when her husband came home early––where is he, by the way?––was to climb the balcony and walk out through my apartment.

Maybe he told her that when he went upstairs and got the rest of his Santa costume.

But… Whatever the hell she knows, she won’t find more details from me.

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