Page 61 of 'Til All the Seas Run Dry

“Heard,” Robbie called back.

“Robbie,” Callum said with a dip of his chin.

“You handsome son of a bitch!” Robbie said with wide eyes and an open smile. “Give us a spin. Let’s see it!”

Callum rolled his eyes but did a slow turn, his hands held out to the side. As he completed his turn, he stopped dead in his tracks. His heart, if it had been beating, would have stopped as well.

Jory stood in the doorway to the small kitchen, wearing tight jeans that hugged her curves and a gold corset that looked like something a Valkyrie would wear into battle. The jeans had holes in the thighs and a ragged hem where they were cropped just above a pair of pointy-toed, high heeled boots. Her dark hair was wavy and wild, falling around her shoulders. Her lips were stained a berry-red color. Callum’s mouth went dry.

He remembered the very first time he’d seen her, opening his feverish eyes and seeing her face, shadowed by the brilliant, rare sun behind her. Her hair had blown around her like a banner, and in his delirium, he’d thought she was an angel because she had been the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in all his life.

She was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in all his life, and he stared at her from across the kitchen. Jory stared back, her eyes wide and lips parted. He took slow steps across the kitchen, stepping around Robbie, until he stood just before her. And then he smelled her. Salt and… heather.

He sucked in a deep breath. Jory’s mouth opened on a tiny gasp as she stared at his mouth.

“Goddamn,” Robbie muttered. “You’uns leave some sexual chemistry for the rest of us, alright?”

Jory blushed, which was charming, and Callum cleared his throat.

“Shall we?” he asked, extending his hand for Jory’s. She took it and that same, bottomless feeling echoed in his chest as he felt her warm fingers slide against his palm. He squeezed her hand and led her to the back door. “Dinnae burn the house down, Robbie.”

Robbie gasped, pressing a hand to his chest in mock offense.

While she slipped into her coat, Jory asked Esther to lock up when they left and stepped out the door, casting an expectant look over her shoulder at Callum.

Just before he closed the door, he poked his head through and whispered to Robbie, “Dinnae wait up.”

The door shut on Esther and Robbie’s laughter as Callum followed Jory down the stairs and out into the night.

21

Callum had never been on a first date.And though this was not a date, as Jory had reminded him in the car, it felt like one. Or what he imagined one might feel like.

Dating was a fairly recent invention. For much of his time on earth, a relationship was more of a business transaction than a romantic attachment. And he’d certainly never dated Jory. There had been no courtship. No chaperones. No reading of the banns in church. They’d simply walked off the beach together as soon as he’d been well enough and begun building a cottage. A few months later, they’d found a traveling priest who’d agreed to marry them, and that had been that.

Much like the measurement of time, his life had been divided into two segments: Before Jory and After Jory. And like the Jurassic period, After Jory could be segmented into three epochs: Before Losing Jory, After Losing Jory, and now, a new, volcanic era of Discovering Jory, which felt as terrifying as it did exciting.

The stakes were sky-high. Which was why Callum had spent three evenings in a row sitting on Magda’s lumpy couch next to Robbie, watching a few of the movies that Robbie had insisted were essential for understanding the nature of dates and dating. Even though it wasn’t a date. Technically. But Callum was playing to win, and winning meant wooing, and wooing meant that he needed to be prepared.

“You need to get your head in the game, Cal,” Robbie had insisted just before tossing a piece of popcorn into the air and catching it neatly in his mouth. “Like reviewing film before the big game.”

“Did you play football?” Callum had asked.

“Nah,” Robbie had answered around a mouthful of popcorn. “But I know things. Did you ever play football?”

“Nay.” Callum had smirked. “But I know things.”

They’d made it through seven movies before Callum had decided that he’d seen enough for his “research.” From what he had gathered, the goal was to metaphorically sweep one’s date off their feet with an elaborately planned evening and then literally sweep them off their feet to save them from falling into a body of water or traffic.

Callum had been entirely confident in his ability to perform the latter and not remotely confident in his ability to perform the former.

The forty-minute drive from Jory’s apartment to the restaurant had been quiet, but companionable. It had felt… familiar. Not the mechanics, per se, but the tone. When he’d known her last, they’d had a horse that pulled a cart when necessary. They’d worn homespun wool. They’d grown and trapped and foraged and fished. Now, he wore a six-thousand-dollar Brioni suit and Ferragamo loafers while she—she looked so damn beautiful.

It felt more complicated now. Infinitely so as he worried about whether she’d enjoy what he had planned or not. But she was here. With him.

She’d been surprised when they’d walked into an empty restaurant and been escorted to a table in the far back corner. The owner themselves had taken Jory’s order, bringing a bottle of expensive wine for her and a bottle that Nat had dropped off earlier for him, pouring the red wine into her glass before pouring the bright blood into his.

Now, as he sat across from Jory in an empty restaurant while she sipped wine and stared at him in awkward silence, he knew his anxiety had been well-founded. If only there’d been a lake in the parking lot he could save her from toppling into.