Page 33 of The Other Side

“You understand?” I add.

This isn’t about cheating on your fiancé.

Her berry lips fold as she peers down between us. She bobs her head, her hands fiddling at her waist before her glossy eyes skim back up to mine.

They’re beautifully swollen.

Inflated with intense gratitude.

“Yeah,” she answers softly. “I understand.”

Chapter 12

Callie Rae

My eyes trace the glass panes of the back doors. I linger on the ornate handles as I sink my back into the arm of the sectional, burrowing my bare feet into the cushions.

I hike my knees to my chest, curling my palms around my ankles. I catch the hem of my sweatpants, and there’s a twitch in my fingers I don’t trust.

My grip tightens.

The lush grass sparkles under the daylight beyond the back doors. Tree branches sway with the gentle breeze, and the beauty twists my arm to submit to temptation.

I catch my iPhone laying at my toes on the sectional. It’s ten o’clock on a Friday morning during spring break, and instead of taking care of the house before Jesse’s home, I’m thinking of Brant.

I blow out a breath, curving my back over the armrest. My eyes greet the metal chandelier dangling from the pitched ceiling, only to close when my willpower erodes.

“You understand, Callie?”

We’re friends.

Friends.

Friends can catch up over a cup of coffee. Especially if they haven’t seen each other in ten years.

Before my thoughts swerve again, I pop up straight to snatch my phone. My thumbs tap the screen to open Brant’s information, and then I’m shooting a text.

Me

Hey! I’m assuming you get an hour lunch? If you’d like, I can join you. Let me know…

Once I hit send, I toss the phone so it lands on the opposite end of the sectional. My legs tangle in a crisscross position, my hands catching my face in my lap right after. “Ugh, what the hell are you doin’?” I mumble.

But it’s impossible to shake Brant from my mind. Those eyes. That smile. The facial hair. His touch.

All of it.

The last ten years without him have been the vilest withdrawal. When I lost him, I plunged from the summit of a mountain and hit the ocean floor. I was merely surviving in his wake. Gasping a breath of oxygen at the surface, never pulling myself out of the rough waves.

But I want to touch the land.

I need that rush again.

Just like he dealt it to me the first time.

A tremor rumbles underneath me, snapping my body up. I bite my lip, shuffling on my knees to snag my lit phone. When I park my butt back into the cushion, I comb my fingers through my hair as I read Brant’s message.

Brant