Stone Cold Notes: A Rock Star Romance (The Seasons Change)

I WAS…RESTLESS.

I should have been content. And in a way, I was. Callum and I had spent the night and a good portion of the morning in each other’s arms. He loved me like I’d never been loved.

That was huge. Vital. I wish I could say it was everything, but it wasn’t.

I was still uneasy about what had gone down at the party. His reaction had stirred something in the back of my mind I didn’t quite grasp. It wasn’t until he walked out his door to pick up breakfast for us that I really examined my doubts.

His presence was consuming, and part of me wondered if that was purposeful. If he never let me go, how could I take a step back and really look at our circumstances?

I hated that I was having doubts. My love for Callum was so deep, it had settled in my bones. It wasn’t something that would go away. I knew that from trying to shove it in a box the past three and a half years. I hadn’t been able to move on then, and I knew it would be impossible now. That was why I hated these doubts.

With a sigh, I picked up his laptop and turned it on. I hadn’t read the emails he had sent me every year, and it seemed like now might be the time to do that. I needed that lifeline in the moment to remind me who we were together. Who we’d always been.

His screen was a chaos of icons, and it made me smile. Callum’s apartment was so spare, there was hardly anything in it, so it surprised me to see his busy screen. But it was him, and I liked him a lot.

I found the icon with my name after searching for a moment. I dragged the cursor to it, but something else caught my eye.

A folder with the name of the private investigation firm my neighbor Jackie worked for. That niggle in the back of my mind grew. I couldn’t stop myself from clicking on it.

Immediately, I wished I hadn’t.

Bile rose in my throat.

My name was everywhere. Dates, times, locations, reports on my life. I could only skim the words, but they went back three years. Three years! My eyes blurred with tears. My stomach churned. I didn’t understand it, but I hated it. God, I hated it. So much, I tossed the laptop to the ground and leaped away from it like it was a cockroach skittering across my kitchen counters.

I was in my pajamas, but I didn’t stop. Go. Run. Escape.

I grabbed my purse, stuffed my feet in my shoes, threw on my coat. Then, I was gone. Racing down the elevator, through the lobby, into the harsh winter morning.

I bent in half on the sidewalk, half blind with panic. I couldn’t stay here, in front of Callum’s building, not when he’d be back any minute. I had to get out of here. My home was safe. I needed to be there, to think, to try to understand and wrap my mind around what I had seen. What Callum had done. What he’d been doing for three years without my knowledge.

My legs moved swiftly once I decided where I was going. I huddled in my coat, eyes on the ground, and plowed through the bitter wind. It felt good, even as it sliced at my skin. It woke me up, cleared my head, helped me order my thoughts.

By the time I’d arrived on my block, my plans had changed. Instead of going to my house, I knocked on the door beside it. Aunt Jackie answered a moment later, ushering me in without questioning my appearance.

She smoothed her hands over the sides of my hair. “You’re a mess, baby.”

I nodded, my eyes watering. “I feel it.”

“There has to be a story that led you to knock on my door looking like a ghost. You want to tell me?”

I nodded again. “Do you think I could sit down for a minute?” I was all kinds of wobbly now that I’d stopped moving.

She jumped back and motioned for me to walk ahead of her. “Come in, come in. You want coffee?”

“Yeah.” I plopped my butt on her couch. “I think I need it.”

“Okay. You wait here. I’ll be right back.”

My phone had been vibrating nonstop the last ten minutes. I knew it was Callum freaking out over my absence. The last thing I wanted was for him to come here and pound on my door, demanding answers, and that was the first thing he’d do.

I scanned over his panicked messages without taking in the words, then I typed out a succinct reply.

Me: I’m home and safe. I don’t want you coming here. We will talk, but I need time. If you come to my house and upset Ez or Jenny, that answer will change. I need you to respect that. I will be in touch soon.

His reply was immediate. He’d obviously found the laptop and knew why I’d left.

Callum: I need to explain.

Me: And I will let you, but what I need is some space.

Callum: Give me a time.

Me: No. It doesn’t work that way. I will contact you when I’m ready.

Callum: You are not taking you away from me.

Me: I don’t know what I’m doing, which is why I need space.

Callum: You told me you love me.

Me: That was before I had all the information.

Callum: You still don’t have it. I’ll explain.

Me: I’ll text you. I’m turning off my phone now.

Jackie handed me a mug and sat beside me. She sipped her coffee while I sipped mine. When I found it wasn’t scorching hot, I took bigger gulps.

“Are you going to talk?” Jackie asked.

“Callum Rose.”

Her sharp intake of breath was all I needed to hear. She hadn’t been kind to me and Ez out of the goodness of her heart. Aunt Jackie was no benevolent neighbor. I was a job to her. Nothing more.

“What do you know?” she asked cautiously.

“I know you’re being paid by him to be my friend.” I was trying so hard to be tough, but the hitch in my words proved I wasn’t doing a great job.

Her shoulders curled inward. “Oh, baby, no. That isn’t true. Not at all.”

I lifted a hand. “Then tell me what is true, Jackie. Because right now, I feel like everyone’s been lying to me and I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

A sob broke through, but only one. If I let loose the well of sadness gathering in my chest, I’d never stop. And I couldn’t give in to that. Not when my little boy was right next door, waiting for me to come home with a smile on my face.

“I’m bound by confidentiality, Wren, but—” she cut herself off and looked away, rubbing her mouth roughly. Then she turned back, determination lighting her gaze. “No. I’ll tell you as much as I can. I won’t have you walk out of here thinking I don’t care for you and Ezra, because that just isn’t true.”

I choked on another sob. “Okay. Then tell me.”

He came in the dead of night. I wasn’t at all surprised to hear the creak in the hallway, and then, a moment later, my bed dipping under his weight. His long, cold body curled around my back, his arm like a steel band wrapping around my middle.

We lay there for long minutes. He knew I was awake since I curled my fingers around his. As time ticked by, his jagged breaths smoothed out, and the tautness in his muscles eased. I felt him melt into me, weighing me down into the mattress.

“Growing up, I hung out with Jenny whenever I got the chance. You don’t know this about her, but Jenny is a big movie buff. She goes to the theater whenever she gets the chance and has a long list of favorite films. So, when I hung out with her, naturally, we’d watch a lot of movies.”

Callum had frozen in place, listening to me speak so hard, he was barely breathing.

“One of her favorites was The Truman Show. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but I’ve watched it a dozen times. There’s this guy, Truman, and he has a picture-perfect life…or so he thinks. It turns out, everyone in his sweet little town is an actor and his life is a TV show. None of it’s real. His friends are being paid to be his friend. It’s all fake. His job, his wife, even his home is being controlled by the man behind the curtain.”

Callum’s hand flattened on my stomach. “Wren.”

“I think you understand where I’m going with this. I’ve been on The Wren Show for the last three years. Aunt Jackie, Mr. Sulaimani, and god knows who else, have been looking out for me because they’re paid to do so. And you…you knew who I was for years and never said anything. Not a word, Callum. I ached for you, my heart broke missing you, and you were there the whole time. I have always felt someone watching me, but it didn’t feel scary, so I let it go. God, I shouldn’t have let it go.”

Jackie didn’t know everything, but she told me what she did know. Callum had hired the PI firm to find out information on me and my neighbors. When the townhouse next to Jenny’s became vacant, Jackie had needed a place to live, so she moved in. Her job was to keep an eye out for me, nothing more, and she only reported if anything was amiss, which it very rarely was. She had promised me she watched Ez because she loved him, but I didn’t know what to believe anymore.

Mr. Sulaimani at the bodega had also kept tabs on me. I didn’t know what he’d been paid since Jackie wasn’t aware. I only knew I’d never look at him the same way again.

Jackie hadn’t known everything, but I felt she’d been as forthright as possible. Just like Mr. Sulaimani, I didn’t know if I’d see her the same after this.

After minutes of silence, Callum spoke. “Mr. Sulaimani had been savin’ money to pay for an immigration lawyer to help get his mom here from Yemen. He didn’t want shit to do with watchin’ over you for me until I offered to pay all the legal fees. She’s comin’ in the spring.”

I nodded in the dark, pinching my mouth tight to stave off more tears.

Wasn’t that just Callum to do something so good for an entirely selfish purpose? I wanted to be angry, and I was, but I couldn’t be mad at Mr. Sulaimani. Not when his precious mother was finally going to be able to come to America.

“Did he give you my college papers?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I wanted more of your words.”

A knife to the gut. How did he do that? He made me ache for what we’d lost even while I was desperately angry at him.

“Couldn’t you have spoken to me? I would have given you words.”

His hold on me tightened to the point of suffocation, but I didn’t fight. This might’ve been the last time I allowed his arms around me, so I’d drown in him, just a little.

His cool lips touched the back of my neck. “You remember where you were three years ago? You’d shut me out of your life and were pregnant with another man’s baby. I didn’t think I’d be welcome to speak to you, and I’m sorry, Little Bird, but it took me a while not to want to roar when I saw your big, gorgeous belly.”

Another stab, right next to the first one. If the tables had been turned, I would have been devastated. I got that, I truly did. I understood why he hadn’t come forward then, but three years had gone by and…nothing?

“Why didn’t you walk away?”

“Couldn’t. I should’ve, but you were mine. You were my little bird and I couldn’t walk away from you.” He nuzzled my nape. “Loved you then. Love you now. Always will. Your shadow found you, it just took you a while to know it.”

I jerked, pushing at his hand. “You were hiding from me.”

“I thought I’d be able to let you go. If I could see you livin’, happy, that would be enough.”

A third wound, to match the other two. I’d been disposable one too many times. The suggestion that I might’ve been to Callum was almost too much to bear.

“You were going to let me go?” Oh, I sounded pathetic now. Like a lost little girl. I hated myself for it, but I’d felt nothing but lost the entire day.

He kissed my neck again. “I don’t know why I ever thought that. I want you happy and livin’, but I need to be the source of that happiness, and I need to be livin’ right beside you.”

I couldn’t go there. If I took in his words, I’d break. The only thing holding me together was my simmering anger.

“You’ve been manipulating my life from behind the scenes this entire time.”

His forehead pressed against the back of my head. “I’ve been takin’ care of you.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Not a liar. I’m a lot of things, but not that. If you think back, I’ve never lied to you. Told you I was obsessed. Told you I was stalkin’ you. Told you I knew who you were. If you’d asked me when I’d figured it out, I would have told you the truth.”

“Did you pay my NICU bills?”

No hesitation. “Yes.”

I sucked in a breath. That was bigger than I could wrap my head around. “Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me. I’ll do anything for you.” He stroked my belly, slow and methodical. “Sometimes I thought about takin’ you. What it would be like to keep you for myself.”

“That’s crazy,” I rasped.

“I know it is. I’m only admitting this so when I tell you not to thank me, you’ll understand why. I’m not a good man, but I’ll be unfailingly good to you. You might not understand my actions, but I’m always thinkin’ of how to make your life better.”

If I thought too much about the magnitude of what he was admitting and everything that had been revealed, I’d have to leap out of this bed and scream the walls down. This was too big, too much, too everything.

If he was in a truth-telling mood, I’d ask more questions. If nothing else, I’d leave today behind with answers to everything I’d wondered.

“Why were you angry about my student loans?”

He exhaled through his nose, heating my skin. “Jenny got fifty grand for widows of fallen officers, yeah?”

I knew why he was asking immediately. “That was you?”

“I didn’t anticipate her not helpin’ you. I made a mistake.”

“She did help me. Not with tuition, but with Ez. She was able to cut her hours down at her job so she could watch him while I was in class. That money was huge for us.”

I felt him relax. “I would’ve given more.” His fingers stroked my stomach, tracing the curve he couldn’t seem to get enough of. “Didn’t have it at the time. I gave you everything I could. I’ve got a lot more now. It’s yours. Say the word, and all that I am is yours.”

“I don’t want your money, Callum. I just want—” I clamped down on my lip.

“Me? Us?”

That was what I would have said yesterday. Right now? I wanted yesterday back.

I twisted my head, then my body. No more speaking to the ether. I needed to see his face while he whispered his crazy.

“It doesn’t matter what I want. You manipulated me and my situation, and now you’ve broken into my home when I asked you for space. I’m not okay with any of that. I missed you for three and a half years, and you’ve been there the whole time…and that kills me. Maybe even more than Auntie Jackie and Mr. Sulaimani. I don’t know, I don’t know. I can’t make sense of it. This isn’t good. It’s not right.”

“The job too.” His thumb traced my bottom lip.

“What?”

“Helped you get your job too.”

My eyes fell shut. Maybe I didn’t want to see his crazy. “Callum, you can’t do things like that. You can’t be here, you can’t watch me, you can’t!”

“Why? Because you think you’re not supposed to like what I’ve done, or because you really believe it? I didn’t harm you. I’d cut off my limbs before I ever hurt you. I’ve been helpin’ you and watchin’ over you. I gave you the distance I thought you wanted while keepin’ you safe.”

“Callum…” I groaned, suddenly exhausted and even more jumbled than I’d been before.

“I love you, Wren. It might be a psycho kind of love, but it’s pure and it’s true.”

“What if I don’t want a psycho kind of love?” I squeezed out.

“The thing with this kind of love is you really don’t get a choice. It’s yours.”

I laid my head on his shoulder, not because I’d forgiven him or lost my anger, but because I was spent and there had never been a place I’d felt safer than in his arms. Even now.

“I can’t talk anymore.”

“Sleep, Little Bird.” He pulled me into his chest, laying his head on mine.

“You need to go.”

“Not goin’.”

“I’m very, very angry with you.”

“I know. I’m still not goin’. I gave you space today, but that’s done. You sleep. I’ll keep talkin’ to you when you’re rested. Tell you more. Explain it all. But I’m not goin’, so you need to stop askin’.”

“This isn’t okay,” I whispered.

“I’ll make it so it is.”

I believed he would be relentless in his pursuit to make it so.

Sleep shouldn’t have come so easily, but I’d spent the day with my mind whirring and my heart cracking. The emotional dervish that was Callum Rose had exhausted me to my bones. And dammit, my body slotted against his far too perfectly to even pretend to deny.

I closed my eyes. Callum kissed my head. I fell asleep.