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Press tours were the one part of his job Callum was reliably a diva about. They were grueling under the best of circumstances, and he was fifty-six years old, which was definitely not the best of circumstances. Neither was being six foot two. Airline seats were not built for people with long legs. And so he insisted that his tours be spread out enough so that he could sleep in a proper bed in each city. If it kept him away from home for another week or two, such was the nature of the beast. Thank God he had the clout to get what he wanted and a marriage that didn’t mind how much he liked strange.
Singapore, the second stop after Tokyo, was not necessarily his favorite place to be on press tours. Yes, it was a glorious international city-state, but the traffic was a misery and the torrential rain never seemed to stop. At least the Mandarin Oriental was divine. And even if it wasn’t, Callum would still sit in its bar. Hotel bars were uniquely well-suited to casual hookups. No one ever worried about running into anyone they knew, and the time between closing the deal and getting to a bed was mercifully short. No small talk if you didn’t want it; lots of making out in elevators if you did.
While on the road hotel bars were a nearly nightly ritual for Callum. Not always with intent — far from it — but always with possibility. A bit of flirtation, or more, was always appealing. The potential to discover someone new, or something new in himself, was deliciously sexy, even when he went to bed alone. Sometimes, especially.
The hotel’s bar was chic, with rich red sofas and cream-colored chairs clustered about the lounge area. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a view of Marina Bay and the glittering lights of the city. Tonight, a woman down the other end of the sofa Callum had chosen was making eyes at him. She was in her mid-thirties, had light brown hair cut into a neat bob, and was well put together enough that Callum wanted to take her apart. She kept looking his way. She would smile, make eye contact, glance down, turn away, and then start the cycle over again. She knew exactly what she was doing. Callum wasn’t the only one who appreciated the opportunities of a hotel bar, apparently. Better, she either didn’t know who he was or didn’t care.
Callum eventually nodded his acknowledgment of her smile and thought about sending a drink over to her, the drink an invitation for conversation, the conversation inevitably an invitation for more. Perhaps she would even ask him upstairs first.
But he felt off-balance. The chase was moderately engaging, but tonight anything more seemed flat. Eventually he shook his head at her, a look of self-directed disappointment on his face. He settled his tab and headed up to his room alone. He was lonely, tired and very far from home. Which had been true an hour ago, but now he also felt jarred by his own reaction to the woman downstairs. His ultimate lack of interest in the possibility of the encounter had brought him up short and left him with a sense of mingled frustration and self-doubt.
He wanted to call Nerea and Jamie — he had never been any good at simply sleeping off his moods — but he worried about that, too. Callum didn’t always speak to his wife much when he was away. They’d always found it easier to have faith in their marriage and exchange a few texts and call occasionally than to reopen the wound of longing night after night. But right now, he didn’t know how to be without Nerea, despite thirty years of practice, or without Jamie, despite that relationship still being far too new for that to make sense.
Callum also worried — with all the recent discussion of Antonio — that if he called it would turn into an argument. Even if it didn’t, there was a reasonable chance the three of them were going to wind up having a serious discussion about their relationship because he was feeling melancholy. Skype would be terrible for that, but right now there weren’t other options. And, as Callum continued to learn, situations only got worse the more he brooded about them.
So he called.
When the line clicked open, Callum was treated to a view of Nerea and Jamie in bed dressed in slouchy sleep clothes. Newspapers and books surrounded them on the duvet; Jamie had made himself at home in his few days there. It was dark in Singapore, but the bedroom in Spain was still bright with late afternoon sunlight.
“Am I on the big giant screen?” he asked without preamble, settling back against the pillows of his own, otherwise empty, hotel bed. He and Nerea had gotten a wall-mounted flat screen with a camera in it for their bedroom a few years ago. Nerea had spent half a day figuring out how to route her computer through it, ostensibly to watch movies, but in practice mainly for Skype sex when Callum was on the road.
“Of course you are,” she said.
“It’s pretty weird.” Jamie laughed, his body easy next to Nerea’s.
Callum made a face. “Can you put me on your tablet instead?” he asked. “I’m in a mood and I feel pathetic thinking about it projected across our bedroom.”
Nerea reached for the tablet. Jamie sat up straighter.
There was a brief flicker of the video and the angle changed as Nerea transferred him to the smaller device. From experience, he knew she had propped it on her knees. Jamie leaned into her side, but only two-thirds of his face made it into the frame.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Callum gave a heavy sigh. “I miss both of you.”
“What else is going on?” Her voice wasn’t exactly sharp, but his wife had always known when he was holding out on her.
“I was just flirting with a woman in a bar.”
“Was she cute?” Nerea looked bored.
“More elegant, less cute. Cute smile though.”
“She shoot you down?” Jamie asked. There was a tension in his voice that caused it to wobble slightly. It was everything Callum had expected, except for the part where he found it enchanting instead of irritating.
“No.” He shook his head. “She wouldn’t have, either. I just — she wasn’t what I wanted right now, and we hadn’t talked about it.”
Nerea breathed his name to herself, a combination of pity and affection that made him feel incredibly and undeservedly loved.
But other than that, no one said anything. Callum soldiered on. “Nerea and I have our agreements. Jamie, you and I met in the context of them, but we never talked it all the way through. Normally this is what I do when I’m away, but suddenly I realized I was making assumptions. I know how Nerea feels about me sleeping with people who aren’t her or you, but I don’t know how you feel about it.”
Jamie blinked at him rapidly several times. Even through the mild pixilation of the video call, Callum could tell his heart was racing. He always responded to everything like a test. It meant he handled life well and excelled constantly, but it still broke Callum’s heart.
“I don’t want to make a decision about how you live your life,” Jamie finally said.
“You’re not,” Nerea murmured next to him. “You’re giving him information so he can make a decision.”
Jamie frowned, the space between his eyebrows crinkling almost comically. “I don’t think I mind you having other relationships,” he said, sounding uncertain. “But I don’t think I’m a fan of the casual hookups.”
“Can I ask why?” Callum decided a question was far better than addressing the hint of smugness on Nerea’s face.
“I understand how you can care about more than one person or how someone you care about can fill a need because someone else you care about is far away or just different. But the other stuff I don’t get. It’s not a deal breaker for me, but I’d have to think about it a lot. Remind myself that I’m not trivial too.”
“This is an awful conversation to have over Skype,” Callum said, dragging a hand through his hair.
“You’re the one who called,” Nerea pointed out.
For a moment they were all silent.
Callum shifted against his pillows. “I think I’m not going to be sharing beds — or anything else — with anyone on this junket.”
“I really don’t want — ” Jamie began.
Callum and Nerea shushed him simultaneously.
“My decision,” Callum said. “And I feel better already for having made it. Yes?”
Jamie nodded. “Yes.”
“And we can all discuss this in detail when I get home,” Callum added. He wondered what he had done, in this life or any previous one, to deserve these two wonderful human beings in his bed, waiting for him. “Now,” he said, turning onto his side on top of the covers thousands of miles away while his lover and his wife snuggled together. “Tell me what you two have been up to. Preferably with all the goriest details.”