Page 22 of The Muse
I roll my eyes. “You act like luck has nothing to do with it.”
“Luck matters.” He spreads butter on his Pop-Tarts. “As luck would have it, I showed you mercy. This could be life-changing for you.”
“Doubt it,” I mumble, stealing one of his Pop-Tarts on my way out of the kitchen.
I knock twice before opening Callie’s door.
She meets me in the middle of the room and takes the tea from me. After a slow sip, she smiles. “Much better.”
I wipe my face for any crumbs while focusing on the wall filled with framed photos. Real people photos. Not Mona Lisa-style paintings.
There’s a photo of Callie at a beach with a young boy. There are other pictures of the boy, but older. I glance over my shoulder at her.
“Your son?”
She nods before easing into her chair.
“Oh, he’s married?” I point to the wedding photo.
“Was,” she says as I continue to study the photos. There’s one with her son and a little boy.
“You have a grandson?”
She stares out the window. A tiny smile touches her lips as she nods and blots the corners of her eyes.
Shit.I’m making her cry. There must be a family rift. What do rich people fight about?
“I grew up in the system since age three. So if I have kids, they won’t have grandparents. I hope your son knows how lucky his kid is.”
She fiddles with her wedding band, gazing past me to the wall of photos.
“People say children who suffer abuse often abuse their own kids,” I say.
Callie’s gaze shoots to me.
I shake my head. “But that’s bullshit. I’ll never lay a hand on my kids. Just the opposite. I’ll probably end up in prison for killing anyone who tries to lay a hand on them or says one negative word about them.”
“You’ll make a good father.”
I sit on the bench at the end of her bed and blow out a deep sigh. “You know that girl from the gallery? The bike tour girl?”
Callie nods.
“I had ice cream with her last night.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It didn’t go well. I mean, I thought it was going great. I wore some of the new clothes you bought me. I paid for the ice cream. We discussed the scar on her lip, which, as my roommate suspected, is from a cleft lip. But I said nothing bad about it. It’s unique. I mean, I know no one wants to have a birth defect, but she’s basically the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen. Perfect, really. Which means the scar is kind of perfect too. Anyway, things were good. I offered to drive her home. She wasn’t comfortable with that, so I suggested another date, and then she asked me why I wanted to date her. That’s where it all went to shit.” I bow my head and run my fingers through my hair.
“She doesn’t even know I’ve done time,” I say. “That’ll probably be a real deal-breaker, anyway. I just fumble my words around her, and I can’t think. Not quickly. And when I couldn’t give her an immediate answer, she left.”
“You’ve been in prison?” Callie squints.
How does Rupert not tell his wife that he’s hired an ex-convict?
“Uh … yeah. I stole something for someone, and I should not have. And I assaulted someone, but it wasn’t really my fault. But it happened after my first time in prison, so no one believed me. But I know just the wordprisonis pretty alarming. Just look at how you reacted.”
She slowly shakes her head. “I’m not really reacting. It was just a question. But I understand why it’s not an easy thing to tell people, especially if you’re trying to impress someone. You’ll figure it out. Now …” She stands. “Let’s take a bike tour today.”
