Chapter Seven

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"This is better," his deep voice rumbled as they stepped onto the balcony.

It was hot and humid outside. So, while Oscar slid the door shut and muted the sounds from the party, Callie moved closer to the railing, hoping it would be cooler there. But she'd never been good with heights and when she glanced tentatively over the edge, her vertigo kicked in and she got dizzy and swayed.

"Back up a bit," Oscar said. Releasing her hand, he set his palm on the side of her waist and guided her closer to the sliding doors. "Better now?"

She nodded and tossed a small smile his way. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He stepped back as she leaned against the door frame. "I'm sorry about Jasper."

"Don't be. Not your fault." Her voice sounded a little husky. A symptom of the fact they had been shouting their conversations up until a few minutes ago, most likely. "And if anyone should be apologizing, it's me."

"What for?"

She grimaced. "I'm afraid if I think about that for a while, it could turn into a really long list."

"No," he said softly, the word accompanied by a slight shake of his head. "That's not true. But if you've decided you need to apologize for something, making me sweat for the last five days would do."

"That's not what I was aiming for..."

"You just needed some space to work things out."

"Yes."

He moved away and settled into the corner of the balcony, his back against the railing, one ankle casually thrown across the other. "How's that going?"

"Still working on it," she admitted without mentioning how much more she had to figure out since the thought of kissing him popped in her head.

"Right," Oscar said flatly. He lifted his beer bottle to his mouth and turned his profile to her.

Callie watched his throat convulse as he swallowed, saw him roll the tip of his tongue over his lips before pressing them together. Then she studied the brush of thick, dark lashes against his skin while he blinked and narrowed his eyes to focus on the skyline. Such normal, everyday things she'd seen him do hundreds of times.

But they'd never been so fascinating to her before.

"I have missed you, you know," she said quietly.

There was a somewhat wry tug at the corner of his mouth. "That's a start." He took a half breath and looked at her. "But you need to talk to me, Cal. I can't fix this if you don't."

The emotionless edge to his deep, rumbling voice made her heart twist. He was so distant, felt much further away than the width of the balcony, and she hated that.

"Fixing it isn't your responsibility." She might have let him think it was in the past but, "Not this time." He was right about the other part, though. She owed him a better explanation than the one he'd been given. "The irony is, part of the reason I came up with this -"

"Great plan?" he inquired with a quirk of his brows.

The tension between them was so thick she had to resist the urge to squirm to loosen its grip.

"I'm scared of losing you," she blurted out before she had time to think about the repercussions.

Oscar's brow furrowed. "What makes you think you're gonna lose me? I'm not going anywhere."

Callie shrugged a shoulder. "When you were with Princess Perky you were distant... distracted... and I thought... well, you know..."

"Jesus, Callie." He looked startled. "That's what this is about? What on earth made you think -"

"I thought you'd decided she was it for you, someone you could make a commitment to and -"

"Are you kidding me?" He stared at her with stark incredulity. "Every time she opened a window in her apartment, I expected woodland creatures to fly in and do her chores."

"I know, right?" Callie agreed, jumping on his response the way she would have done in the past. "I mean, seriously, how does anyone stay so up all the time without medication?"

"It was exhausting." He smiled wanly. "I can't believe you thought..." He stopped, drew in a full breath and exhaled like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "That's not why I was distracted."

Okay. "Then, why were you?"

"That can wait," he said dismissively. "This can't. If you wanted to know about me and Megan, all you had to do was ask."

"I figured if you wanted me to know, you'd tell me."

"If I knew you wanted to know, I would have told you," he countered. "She wasn't it for me. I knew that from the get-go."

"Then why did you stay with her?"

"There were..." The corners of his mouth twitched, his eyes sparkling in a way which suggested he was laughing one of the quiet, held in laughs which usually made her want to smack him because the joke was at her expense. Then, to Callie's amazement, a wicked smile appeared. "Benefits."

It was such an un-Oscar-like statement, her eyes widened.

"Mutual benefits," he clarified. "But that's not enough to sustain a relationship. It takes something -"

"More," Callie supplied with a small smile wavering on her lips.

"Yeah."

Her heart grew bigger. He got it. 

"You want it all."

"Doesn't everyone?"

When he pushed off the railing and stepped towards her, Callie sucked in a breath and stayed still, unwilling to risk breaking what still felt like an uneasy truce.

"You're never gonna lose me," he said firmly when he was standing right in front of her and looking deep into her eyes.

"You don't know that," Callie argued. "If we find the people we're looking for, things will change."

Oscar didn't have any difficulty following her train of thought. "It would mean spending less time together."

"We'd want to spend it with them."

"Be something wrong if we didn't."

"Yes," Callie agreed. "And if we got married, made a home with that person and had kids..."

"There'd be even less time."

"We could drift apart. It happens."

"I'm not okay with that." His deep voice was too soft, too sad, made it sound like they were saying goodbye.

Callie didn't think she could say that word to him.

Muted party noises filled the silence while time stood still and they contemplated a future without each other. It made Callie want to reach out to him, wrap her arms around his waist, hold on tight and never let go.

"You've never thought about it?" she asked.

There was no need for her to say she wasn't okay with it, either. She'd already done that by admitting her fear of losing him.

"No." He hesitated, frowned and looked over her shoulder. "I've never gone there. Now I have..." When he looked at her again, his gaze was determined. "I won't let it happen. Not to us."

Callie blinked. He thought he could stop it?

"What can we do?"

It was part of the cycle of life. People moved on. They left people behind. She knew that better than most but if he could see a way to avoid it...

"Protect the castle."

Huh?

"Guard it," he explained. "If the people we end up with can't see how special this is," he waved his beer bottle between them, "then they're idiots and –"

"We shouldn't be with them in the first place." Callie's heart grew lighter. 

He made it sound so simple and hadn't passed judgment on her for not looking at it the same way. She loved him for that.

"Exactly."

She smiled. "Okay, then."

"Shake on it." When she held out a hand, he enfolded it in his and smiled back. "Now can we go back to being us again?"

"I'd like that."

"Good, cos I've missed you, too." The smile remained as his hand moved, fingertips brushing absentmindedly over the soft skin on the inside of her wrist. "And we're at a party. We should be having fun."

Callie nodded and tried to ignore what his touch was doing to her pulse. "Yes, we should."

He moved a little closer. "Can you hear that?"

It was difficult to hear anything above the thundering beat of her heart. He was so close it felt like he'd sucked all the remaining oxygen out of the air. But when she focused, she could hear something vaguely familiar in the background.

He inclined his head toward the open door. "Hammer time."

When she got what he meant, Callie laughed. "No."

"Yes." Relieving her of her wineglass, he set it on the ground beside his beer and reclaimed her hand.

"You want to make a fool of yourself in front of this many people?" she shouted to be heard above the music as they went back inside.

"Most of them have seen it before," he shouted back. "And those who haven't are in for a treat."

"Where's Oscar?" someone yelled into a mike.

A cheer rose from the crowd when they spotted him with Callie, the sea of bodies parting to let them through to the makeshift dance floor. Judging by the rolling chant of 'Oz, Oz, Oz,' it obviously wasn't the first time he'd performed his party trick for them, but while she knew what he expected, Callie hung back.

They were his people, it was his crowd.

"Come on." He tugged her hand. "You know the moves, too."

They'd practiced them together numerous times when they were kids, laughing until tears rolled down their cheeks. But this time, she wanted to watch. 

She wanted to see him the way his tribe did.

"No," she yelled with a shake of her head.

"Chicken," he yelled back. "But probably for the best... cos..." Releasing her hand, he nodded his head to the beat, ran his palms over his chest and mouthed, "You can't touch this."

Callie laughed. He was a dork, but there was no arguing he was a dork who could dance. 

The demonstration soon drew others from the crowd to join him, their host among them. But Callie only had eyes for Oscar. How well he knew the moves boosted his confidence, made him look comfortable in the role of leader when the boy she'd known had always been more content to follow. He'd grown up in ways she hadn't noticed. But then, as she was so rapidly discovering, there were a lot of things about him she'd never noticed before.

Tearing her gaze away from him for a few seconds, she looked at the circle of people surrounding them and noted she wasn't the only woman watching him. It created a surge of something akin to territoriality in her, so when the music morphed seamlessly into another cheesy Nineties track and he beckoned her to him with a crooked finger, she felt pride in the fact she was his first choice.

She danced with him on and off for hours, until they were both sweaty and mussed up and her cheeks hurt from laughing. Then the music slowed and he took her hand, drew her to him, his arm around her waist, her hand around his neck where her fingertips could toy with thick strands of his dark hair while they swayed.

As the party wound down, his hand moved, thumb brushing against her skin, his voice a low, deep rumble in her ear. "I like this blouse."

Callie smiled. "Any particular reason?"

"It's a nice color."

She chuckled. "Yeah, that's what sold it to me."

"Can't have been expensive when there's only half of it there..."

"You still have a lot to learn about women's clothes." She closed her eyes and focused on his touch, the heat it created, the way it spread through her body and liquefied her bones.

A sigh left her lips, a mixture of contentment and surrender. 

It wasn't her imagination. She was attracted to him. There was no denying it. All her senses were heightened, and while the closeness she was experiencing with him was as comforting as it had always been, it also filled her with yearning for something deeper and more profound. 

Something she wanted to share with him.

"Most guys are only interested in how to take it off," he mused. "Doesn't look like it would take much effort..." Long fingers trailed lazily up her spine, captured the end of one of the straps she'd tied in a bow at the nape of her neck, and gave it a small tug. "Not much at all..."

The suggestive comment tumbled around inside her head and fed her furtive imagination, which in turn provided images of them in a more intimate setting. There, he would slowly slide the strap loose, undoing the bow, allowing her top to slip down and pool at her waist, exposing her breasts. His large hands would replace the material, thumbs grazing her nipples in a movement which tugged on another, invisible cord, one which connected her sensitized breasts to her abdomen and created a rush of moisture between her thighs in preparation.

Her eyes popped open when she realized she was wet. 

She leaned back to search his face for any hint his thoughts were as heated as hers. Hard to tell. But there wasn't anything to suggest he was teasing her, either.

As he studied her face just as intently, her breathing grew shallow. The passing seconds seemed to stretch like taffy, drawing out the moment when his gaze lowered and lingered on her mouth. Was he thinking about kissing her the way she'd thought about kissing him? She wondered how he would react if she made the first move and was tempted to find out. But when his gaze tangled with hers again, she hid her face in his shoulder and willed her body to behave.

It was Oscar. She needed to remember that. 

She couldn't decide she was attracted to him one minute and in the next jump his bones.

"We should probably go," he said. "It's late."

Callie nodded against his shoulder but was reluctant to leave. She liked were she was, how his arms felt around her and now she knew she was attracted to him, was afraid the next time they met things would be awkward again.

Just five more minutes, she wanted to say.

But before she could, his lips moved against her hair. "Come on. I'll take you home."

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