Page 109 of Chasing Callie

I follow my parents out to their car, leaving the guys inside. The summer air is warm against my skin. I can’t wait for fall. Both my parents wrap me in a fierce hug, and I breathe in Mom’s familiar scent of vanilla and garden dirt.

“Everything’s going to be okay now that you’re home,” Dad says.

Mom squeezes me harder. “We’re so glad you came back, baby girl. Don’t let those boys push you around.”

“I won’t.”

They pull back, and I grin at them, my eyes misty. “I love you.”

“We love you too, sweetheart.” Dad nods. “You call us when you get news, okay?”

“I promise.”

Mom grabs a suitcase from the back of the car. “I packed a little bit of everything.” She pauses and looks at me. “There are condoms, too.”

“Mom!”

She shrugs. “Hey, I’d happily welcome a grand baby, but it never hurts to be careful.”

I drop my head back and stare at the sky. “Jesus, give me strength.”

“The Lord’ll give you a baby if you don’t wrap things up,” she says sagely. “How do you think you were born?”

“Please stop,” I whisper.

Her and dad laugh. I want to crawl into the nearest hole. They keep teasing me as they get in the car. It’s mortifying, but it’s also so typical of them that I can’t be too upset. As I watch their taillights disappear down the driveway, something settles in my chest. For the first time since this whole nightmare started, I feel like maybe everything will be right.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

CALLIE

The world keeps moving, but we stick close to home, only leaving for work or groceries. But we all get tired of holing up at the house, so the next Sunday morning, we head into town for breakfast. Sunlight streams through the windows and warms the interior. I sigh as the familiar scent of bacon grease and coffee hits me as we push into the restaurant.

Every head in the place swivels our way the moment we walk through the door. The conversation doesn’t simply pause—it dies a quick, brutal death. As per usual, everyone in this small town knows about everything.

I square my shoulders and lift my chin because I’m not going to skulk around my own hometown like some criminal. The guys are innocent.

Knox’s hand finds the small of my back, and I feel the tension radiating off him. His jaw’s already ticking, which means he’s about two seconds away from telling someone exactly where they can shove their judgmental stares.

“Maybe we should—” Brax starts, but I cut him off.

“No.” The word is firm, unyielding. We aren’t guilty. I take a breath. “We have nothing to hide.”

Jax catches my eye and nods. All I need to know is that they’re with me in this. We claim a corner booth, and I try not to shoot daggers at the people who watched us grow up, but my eyes are feeling a little stabby as I glance around.

Dolores, the waitress who’s been working here since I was little who is apparently a gossip, meanders over. “Coffee all around?”

“Please,” I manage, grateful for the normalcy of ordering caffeine. I half expected her to try to get some tidbits of information out of me.

She bustles away, leaving us to the vultures—er, the locals.

“Are you all guilty?” The voice comes from the man who owns the local feed store and apparently thinks his sixty-plus years on this earth give him the right to ask whatever the hell he wants.

Heat flashes through me. “No. Do you think we’d be sitting here with you if we were?” I snap.

“Sad thing about Penelope.” This comes from an older woman at the counter, lips turned down.

My stomach twists. Penelope was a grade-A bitch who made my life hell, but sitting here now, knowing she’s dead. . . Shit. She didn’t deserve that. She was another one of Theo’s casualties, another person whose life got destroyed because they got too close to him.