Page 51 of Unscripted

“Yes. It’s been a while since I’ve been home. Even when I was living in the States, I was in New York, and they were in South Carolina, so I’d only get to see them a couple times a year.”

“Sounds hard,” he said.

“It was. My mom and I talk all the time, though, so that sort of made up for being so far away. What about you? Are you close with your family?”

He paused, his brow furrowing slightly as he looked away from me and out at the pool.

“With my two sisters, yes,” he said, eventually dragging his gaze back to mine. He fell silent then—no mention of parents, no further details about anything else.

His face was blank except for the slight frown that lingered between his eyes. What was going on in his head, whatever feelings had been triggered by talk of family, was clearly a sore subject.

Callum’s foot shook ever so slightly, and as we continued to look at each other, it suddenly felt wrong to probe for more information. Whatever it was, I could tell it ran deep, and asking him to elaborate on camera felt inherently wrong.

“Are they older or younger?” I said instead, trying to move the conversation along while keeping it surface level.

“Younger. And a pain in my ass, most of the time.”

“Protective older brother, I see.”

“Something like that,” he said. The way he smiled as he answered made me sure that he was.

We chatted for a while longer, discussing our favorite spots in London. It helped that he lived in the one part of England I was at least somewhat familiar with. Eventually, we lapsed into silence, and I leaned my head back on a pillow. The stars were out in full force, blanketing the dark night sky in twinkling lights. It was the kind of view I was hard-pressed to find in New York. Staring at it, I felt worlds away from my life back home; for once, though, I didn’t mind it.

“This is nice,” I said.

Callum said nothing in reply, and when I looked over to him, I was surprised to find he was already looking at me.

It was then that I noticed how close we had gotten. At some point in the conversation, we shifted toward each other and were only inches apart. It seemed to be a running theme with us.

The moment felt weighted as we continued to look at each other. I wanted to say something to break up the silence but found that I couldn’t bring myself to speak; couldn’t come up with anything witty or lighthearted. I didn’t think I even had it in me to ask him about the weather.

It was the first time we weren’t snapping at each other. The first time I felt some semblance of comfort around him, and it suddenly felt too fragile, too real, to ruin with meaningless chatter.

It was nice.

I kind of liked it.

“Poppy!”

A voice called out across the pool, bursting our bubble and bringing me back down to Earth. I instinctually pulled away from Callum. We hadn’t even been doing anything, and yet it felt like we’d been caught.

He seemed to be alarmed as well, clearing his throat and inching away from me.

I turned to find Jess rushing across the lawn toward us in a frantic haze. The purple beads on her mini dress clacked together as she made her way over.

“Oh, I’m so sorry to interrupt,” she said, looking between me and Callum. “It’s just that Chiara had a conversation with Adam, and now she’s crying and ran inside to the glam room. I thought we should go check on her.”

“Yes, of course,” I said. I looked to where Callum had been, but he was already climbing off the daybed.

We locked eyes, and what I found in his gaze made my stomach sink. He wasn’t doing anything other than standing there, but I could see it, clear as day: that coldness he’d had when we first met had returned. I knew whatever wall had eased down during our chat had just been slammed back into place.

I didn’t have time to think about it any deeper as I turned away and followed Jess into the villa.

I tried to listen to Chiara as she cried, tried to give her advice about what to do with her conflicting feelings. But the whole time, in the back of my mind, all I could think about was Callum. And as Jess and I sat with Chiara well into the night, wiping her tears and rubbing her back, I realized exactly what had made my stomach drop in that last moment with him. It was disappointment. That icy look came over him, and it took me back to our first meeting on the boat when he was so rude.

I was disappointed to see him that way again.

When I finally crawled into bed that night, I wanted to say something—to try and get us back to where we had been on the daybeds—easy and friendly.