Page 68 of We Thought We Knew It All
She seemed to forget she was talking in front of basically the entire country at the moment, because she looked into the camera and started speaking directly to me.
“Jamie, I didn’t choose him because I loved him more. It was because I loved you so much it terrified me. Because you were already gone. We’d said our goodbyes and I couldn’t handle another one.” She stood up and the camera followed her to the center of the stage.
Glancing back at Riley, she shrugged. “I had to get him to listen to me.”
Riley smiled indulgently. He was enjoying this as much as his audience. It was a real-life drama playing out right on his stage.
“I’m not scared anymore. You were very wrong about something. It will always be you. It always has been.” She turned to walk back toward her seat and looked over her shoulder at the camera. “And I want to marry the heck out of you too.”
When she sat back down, Riley King mimed wiping a tear from under his eye and sent the show to commercial.
I leaned forward against the bar, unable to hold my own weight up any longer. Kat released my hand and all three boys were staring at me.
“Well,” Mindy said. “That was odd.” I looked into her eyes, realizing she didn’t know the enormity of what just happened. To her, as to most people watching, that was just some author declaring their love for a nameless man.
To me, it was everything.
27
Callie
“Mom.”
“Momma.”
“Mom!”
“California.”
I jolted awake when I heard my name. Colby stood at the foot of my bed with all three boys.
“Crap, what time is it?” I asked.
“Crap, crap, crap,” Declan mimicked.
“That’s not nice, Dec,” Jacks chided.
“Good thing I stopped by.” Colby laughed as he lifted Declan onto the bed.
Declan immediately crawled up to snuggle against me.
“Time?” I asked.
“Seven-thirty.”
I groaned. “I thought I’d left the late gene behind years ago.”
“And the messy gene.” He looked around at my not-so-clean room.
“It’s been a rough week.”
He nodded. “Still no word from Jamie?”
Shaking my head, I kicked off the covers. “It’s been almost a week. I’ve given up thinking he’ll call.”
“Maybe he didn’t see it.”
“We know he did.” I gather Declan into my arms and stood up. “Kat said he watched it with them.”
