Page 74 of Make it Real
We let ourselves into the house and over to the kitchen, where we filled up the water bottles in the sink. The cool air conditioning brought welcome relief from the stifling heat of the barn. I looked around as the faucet did its thing, taking in the clean lines in the kitchen, the wood flooring, the bright gray walls.
June had confided once that Ty had remodeled this house to suit her. Before they’d ever got together, before he’d even really had a chance with her, he’d made her a home. Either the most pathetic thing I’d ever heard…or the ballsiest.
“I can’t figure out what took you so long.”
I turned to Wade. “I don’t follow.”
“With Callie. She’s exactly your type.”
Had to laugh at that. “You just said you’ve never seen me with a woman. You don’t know what my type is.”
“Okay, then she’s exactly whoI’d thinkwould be your type, is that better?”
Couldn’t say it was, frankly. “How do you figure?”
“Is this what we’re doing? I tell you all of Callie’s great qualities so you can bask in the reflected praise?”
I hitched a shoulder. “I’m not against it.”
“Okay.” He capped the bottles as I finished filling each one. “You’re not going for the subdued wallflower, you’d want someone like you. Someone outgoing and ready to join in anything that comes up, someone with a healthy sense of fun. Like Callie.”
All true, but I didn’t need to say so. He was enjoying this too much already.
“Plus, she’s cute as hell.”
“Agreed.”
He chuckled low. “I’d seen you watching her for a while. Figured we’d get here one day. If she was interested, anyway. Seemed an awful bigif.”
“I wasn’twatchingher.” Didn’t like the creepy connotation.
“You keep telling yourself that.”
But…I had been watching her, hadn’t I? Long before our awkward coffee date, my attention had perked up whenever she walked in the room. I liked her smile, her laugh, the way she threw herself into everything she did. I’d gravitated toward her, not enough to be obvious—even to myself, apparently—but just enough to keep me in her sphere.
Wade grabbed up half the bottles but stopped when he caught sight of my face. “What’s that look for?”
I just realized I’ve been crushing on Callie since I met her, and it’s flipped all the switches in my brain.Couldn’t very well admit that without blowing our cover, though.
“You don’t think the age thing is too much?” I hadn’t given the eight years between us a lot of thought lately, but I didn’t have much to throw out there as potential incompatibilities anymore. We fit together better than I’d ever thought possible.
He shrugged. “She’s what, twenty-five?”
“Almost.”
“June’s six years younger than Ty. We’re going to their wedding in a couple of days. You do the math.”
He headed out, and I followed, telling myself I absolutely would not do that math.
TWENTY-FIVE
callie
I stoodon top of the high ladder, running a spool of fairy lights around a ceiling beam. I liked the old barn, even if getting it ready turned out to be a bigger project than I’d expected. June’s vision for the space included the lights to brighten it up and white fabric draped in sections across the ceiling to soften it. I’d never thought too much about wedding venues, but this barn would turn out gorgeous in the end.
I hadn’t been as sure when Jed and I first got here. But after a couple of hours, we’d cleared out the floor space, cleaned up the walls, and now, June was sweeping the floor. It’d probably need a good mopping, too, but I couldn’t be sure the worn cement wouldn’t destroy anything that tried to clean it.
That pressure washer idea still sounded brilliant to me.
