Page 107 of Callan

The housekeeper, Katlin, is a woman in her sixties with auburn hair and green eyes. She’s been with my family from before I was born.

Looking at me with a maternal smile, she nods softly.

“What makes you say that?” I ask, shifting my eyes to the mirror and fixing my tie knot.

A dark suit falls flawlessly over my muscular body, highlighting my shoulders, arms, and athletic legs.

It’s more than I usually do for my appearance, so the woman is right to ask me that.

She has known me since I was a little boy.

She knows the first girl I kissed.How bad it was the first time I broke a woman’s heart.

And the first time I had my heart broken.

She was there when tragedy struck, and we lost our family.She also knows that I have vowed not to bring a woman home.

I finish fixing the lavender tie and glance at her before moving my eyes back to the mirror and running my gaze over my reflection.

Content with how I look, I run my fingers through my hair.

“You look fantastic,” she says in the voice of someone genuinely appreciating something.

Grinning, I turn to her and drape my arm around her shoulders.

“You still didn’t answer my question,” I say as we both walk toward the exit.

“Was that even a question? I thought you were teasing me,” she replies, laughing.

We enter the hallway, and my arm falls away from her as I take in the view.

This year, the Christmas tree sits tall in the foyer, almost reaching the second floor. The house is decorated with wreaths and flickering lights across the window sills.

“I wasn’t teasing you,” I say, checking the dining room where flowers and candles steal the show.

I’ll probably be eating alone tonight. And not to break what has become a tradition these past few years, I’ll go out first.

We own a couple of clubs, but it’s usually the places that don’t belong to us that make us spend some money on drinks and fun.

I’m not going there for women.

Although I did pick up women in the past and ended up in a hotel or a brownstone across town.

I usually go out to meet people like me who want to escape the woes of life.

I love my brothers, but it would be weird for us to sit around the table, dispensing phony smiles and wincing like we have been mandated to be there.

“The place looks nice. Thank you,” I say and lean to her to place a kiss on her cheek. “I’ll be late so don’t wait up. Everybody’s off as far as I’m concerned. That includes you.”

Her eyes stall on me a little longer.

“What?” I murmur, pushing back a smile.

“It is about a woman,” she concludes. “Is she nice?” she asks like a mother.

My own mother wouldn’t have probably asked me that had she been alive.

I rest my hand on her shoulder and mull over an answer, my gaze tipped down.

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