Page 66 of The Last Love Story

“Ripley needs a minute,” Callum says.

Hux shuts the door against the onslaught of camera flashes. “What’s going on?” he asks me. Only me.

Callum looks at Hux. I can’t see Callum’s expression, but I know him well enough to know it’s probably a winning smile, meant to disarm any concern. “Just a little claustrophobia, that’s all. She needs to be off camera for a minute,” Callum says coolly.

Of course Hux doesn’t believe that for a second. Despite telling myself that I’m glad about what I did to his face, I flinch at the way he twists, glaring at me over Callum’s shoulder. His eyes slowly slip over every inch of me, from toes to crown, like he’s checking me for injuries. This silent assessment complete, he turns back to Callum, working his jaw as he turns his piercing green eyes on my... my fiancé. Callum’s tall—easily over six feet—but he’s evenly matched with Hux.

“As head of security,” Hux says, his voice low like a threat, “I would like to have a moment to examine Ms. Hart.”

Callum shifts, and I can see a tension gathering in his shoulders. “That’s not going to happen,” Callum says, the levity going from his voice as he drops to a serious monotone. Before, he sounded like an AI character on DopaMine. Now he sounds like his father.

For a moment, I wonder if I’m going to have to break them up and inch forward, dreading it, but I stop as Hux casts one more look over Callum’s shoulder. Instead, I let myself fall back onto the bed. It’s softer than I thought and bounces under me.

Again, Hux’s eyes seem to miss nothing, not the twist in my lips as I nervously gnaw at the inside of my cheek; not the way I have my hands up to my collarbones, self-soothing.

“You can have five minutes,” Hux snaps. “But after that, I’ll be running a full diagnostic on her. Ms. Hart is my responsibility.”

The idea of Hux hooking me up to a tablet for a medical scan is so laughable and completely out of line that I fight the urge to flip him a very un-princess-like gesture.

But at least Callum steps back, not breaking eye contact before slamming the door in Hux’s face. It shuts with a loud clang.

In a moment, though, all the fight goes out of him as he stalks over to the bed and kneels in front of me, his blue eyesreflecting the light of the ocean around us. I’ve imagined that look in his eyes, written it a thousand times, but somehow it makes my throat tighten with emotion to see him here, now, protecting me. My Callum.

“What is it?” he asks. “I mean, besides the obvious. There are no cameras in here. No mics. We’re safe. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“You mean aside from the assassination attempt?” I try to joke. Unbidden, a tear sneaks out over my bottom lash line and streaks down my face. Callum catches it with his thumb, smoothing the dampness away across my cheek.

“Sure. That, but there’s something else going on. I know it.”

“Everything is so messed up,” I whisper. An entire ocean around us—skyscrapers are clipping by the windows, sharks looping around lightning poles—but I’m lost in his eyes. “When did it all get messed up?”

Callum stares up at me, shaking his head. “You don’t know?”

I narrow my eyes at him, confused, and Callum moves to sit next to me on the bed. “I know the date. November twenty-third. Eight years ago. The day I saw you last. That’s when it got messed up.”

My heart seems to stop in my chest.

And Saffron searched the sky every night, hoping to see the telltale flicker of Orion’s ship on the horizon. But nothing but blackness ever greeted her.

“I knew that was my answer, but I didn’t know it was yours,” I whisper. It’s too real. I’m getting too real now. I need to stay on mission. Three days to convince Callum to turn on his father. Three days to prove to everyone that there is still something worth redeeming in the Graves family. Three days to stop the world from ending.

But somehow, this feels more important.

Callum pivots on the bed, and the mattress dips. I fall closer to him. It feels as natural as gravity.

“I haven’t had one moment where I feel like myself since I left you,” he says. “I have felt so alone since that night.” A green torch seems to jump by outside the window as we pass the Statue of Liberty, but I can’t pull my eyes away from his face. His eyes glitter, and my own face dampens with a wave of fresh tears.

“Me too. But Callum... it will only get worse if your father wins this vote. If the Senate extends his term. And I’m not talking about it being dangerous for you, or for me. It will be worse for everyone.”

Callum puts his hands on my cheeks. “Maybe not, Ripley. Listen. He was different last night, okay? I’ve never seen him like that. I almost died, and it shook him. He was softer, somehow. He listened to me. I even brought up the idea of restarting libraries—”

My gaze shoots up at the mention of libraries. He doesn’t know. He can’t know, I remind myself.

“—and he agreed that it’s worth talking about. He’smade some terrible decisions. But we all make mistakes. And if I can sway him to do good? With that kind of power... we could change things.”

Flashes of the old Arthur Graves run through my mind. Tightening a screw on my skateboard in the indoor rink. Singing in the kitchen while folding enchiladas.

But I shake my head. I can believe in Callum, but I can’t believe in his father. No one made him institute fertility testing on teenagers. No one made him ban books. No one made him destroy my parents’ lives.