Page 25 of Callan

The guy stormed into the building like he owned it along with the woman upstairs, risking a parking ticket and having his car towed away.

And why did he do that?

He wanted to make sure the woman hadn’t moved out and run away with someone else while he was gone.

He knows what he knows.

It just happens that Santa here is good at gymnastics or he’d probably wear two bags of frozen peas just about now if the angry husband got his hands on him.

It could be the other way around, for all I care.

Who knows what these people’s beef with each other really is?

I stop in the middle of the room and pivot to him. He peels his gaze off the Christmas ornaments.

“Cute,” he says in a clipped voice, retrieving my phone from his pocket and leaving it on the coffee table.

Like you––I say to him in my head.

Cute and problematic.

“So, you’re not working,” he says, not in a rush to go away.

“What was your first clue?”

He gives me a smug smile.

“Too much time on your hands? Too stressed out about the situation to find a man and take some of the edge off?”

I should be mad about this. But I can’t be mad.

Because he’s right.

“And it all worked in my favor,” I retort. “Look what’s gotten me,” I say, patting my left breast, pointing to the cash I earnedthis evening doing nothing. “I’m not giving it back,” I warn him. “Whether she fucks someone else or not, this is my money.”

“It’s yours, baby,” he says with a wink.

My eyes dip to his bare torso, and I almost ask him whether he needs a jacket or a coat. I have neither, but I feel like asking him that.

Luckily, I push it all back.

I don’t want to baby him.

I’m grateful for the money, but I have mixed feelings about him, not to mention how jealous I am of that woman.

And for no good reason. Or so I think.

“The exit door is over there,” I unceremoniously say, swiveling and pointing to the door.

“Noted,” he says before leaving my place without another word.

5

MACKENZIE

The door closes behind him,and I fight my urge to turn the lights off, run to the window, and peek outside, cloaked in darkness.

Fighting off my curiosity is futile, and the struggle is real and brief as I fail to crush it.

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