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Once Jamie was down in the kitchen, the friendly clatter of dishes floating up the stairs, Callum scooched toward her on the bed, his curls a mess and the sheets tangled around his long legs.
“Nerea,” he said very gently, his big hand splayed over her heart. “Are you sure?”
Nerea didn’t hit him with a pillow only because she was too lazy and comfortable to move. “If you ask me that even one more time,” she said fiercely, “I will divorce you, marry Jamie, and move to — I don’t know where, but somewhere far away from you, your ego, and your need for reassurance.”
Callum didn’t draw back his hand or recoil, not that she’d expected him to. He just smiled the very gentle smile that had always been just for her. She felt her irritation melt.
“Just checking.” he said.
Nerea reconsidered hitting him with a pillow. “You’re impossible.”
“Yes.”
“But I love you.”
He smiled and leaned down to kiss her with a combination of such gentleness and thoroughness that she thought she might come apart in his hands. “I love you too,” he breathed into her mouth.
* * *
BEING IN LONDON IN the first days of the new year was a breath of fresh air; a return to real life after a strange, dreamlike interlude. Which was odd, because Spain had always felt the most real to Nerea. Except now, that seemed to be changing. Jamie kept most of his things at his flat in Lambeth and even stayed there for a night every so often when the cramped conditions of Callum and Nerea’s flat got to be too much for all of them. The situation provided plenty of impetus for looking through the dozens of property listings Jamie found after a protracted conversation about what their financial arrangements could reasonably be.
Leigh’s baby was born in the second week of January, a healthy, smiling boy named Daniel. Nerea hadn’t told Leigh or indeed any of her daughters that she herself was pregnant. There was no call to, not until it was more certain, and besides it was bad luck this early. But as she watched Callum hold their own first grandchild with an expression of awed joy and devotion, she couldn’t help but imagine how that conversation would go. Dramatically, in all likelihood.
Nerea stayed with Leigh and Sam for the first two weeks of the baby’s life. Now, she could be useful without being unduly smothering. She told Leigh, at three one morning when the baby was determined to be loud and awake, that she and Callum were in the process of making London, and not Spain, their home base, and that the house would go to Margarita. Margarita had been thrilled at the news, both because it meant the old house would stay in the family and because it would significantly alleviate the financial concerns of starting a life together with Miguel. Leigh, however, looked less overjoyed. Nerea couldn’t tell for certain in the dim light coming from the nightlight in the baby’s room, but Nerea rather thought her face went pale.
“Not to smother you,” Nerea said. “Or hover over the baby or anything like that. But it’s time to make the adjustment.”
“Are you moving because of Jamie?” Leigh asked keenly once she’d recovered herself.
“Yes. That’s part of it,” Nerea admitted.
“I spent a lot of time talking to Antonio at the wedding,” Leigh said. “He and his wife invited me and Sam and Danny to come out and visit them, whenever we want.”
“That’s very good of them,” Nerea said. “Will you go?”
“Will Dad be awful about it?”
Nerea smiled. “I highly, highly doubt it.” One of the very many upsides of this situation was that Callum was not about to repeat any bad behavior regarding Nerea’s history with Tonio.
“I think they invited Piper too, but Piper’s been kind of. Um. Scarce, since Christmas.”
Nerea sighed and shared a commiserating smile with Leigh. “Yes. We’re working on that.”
* * *
IT TOOK CALLUM UNTIL the first week of February before he saw Thom again. Nerea suspected that was more out of not quite knowing how to act with him than actual lingering anger, but either way, it was good when, at her and Jamie’s combined urgings, he went out to meet Thom on neutral ground for a pint and whatever manly chat they needed to have.
Callum arrived back home late and slightly drunk. Jamie and Nerea were in bed together watching a house hunting show on Jamie’s laptop — for inspiration, Jamie claimed, but Nerea suspected he was just a homebody who liked looking at other people’s houses — while Nerea worked on sketches.
“How did it go?” Nerea prompted, when Callum flopped onto the sofa looking distraught. She wondered if she’d been wrong; maybe Callum had been appalling to Thom. The look on Callum’s face didn’t suggest their meeting had gone well.
“He asked my permission,” Callum said. His voice was barely audible.
“Permission for what?” It was far too late, not to mention inappropriate, for Thom to ask Callum for permission to date Piper.
“To marry her.”
Jamie’s jaw dropped open.
Nerea burst out laughing, in disbelief at the statement as much as at the look on Callum’s face.
“Seriously?” she said when she could finally breathe again.
Callum slumped lower in the sofa. Even his curls looked dejected, lying a bit limp around his ears.
“Seriously.”
“But she’s so young!” Nerea said.
“She’s older than me,” Jamie pointed out.
Callum groaned and covered his face with his hands.
“What did you say?” Nerea demanded, crawling out of bed and dropping onto the sofa next to Callum.
Callum didn’t take his hands away from his face. “I told him not to be medieval and chauvinistic and that my daughter could marry whoever she wants. He said, thank God, because they’ve been engaged since New Year’s.”
Nerea started laughing again. “Are you two going to be okay now, or are you going to threaten fisticuffs anytime he comes near you?”
“We’re fine,” Callum told his palms. Jamie, who’d also gotten out of bed, stood behind the sofa and started massaging his shoulders gently, with an immense grin on his face. “We’re never speaking of this again, and we’re meeting for dinner next week. Just like normal.”
“So if Thom’s your best friend,” Jamie asked, in a tone of exaggerated pensiveness as he dug a thumb in behind Callum’s shoulder blade, “does that mean that you’re going to be the best man at your daughter’s wedding?”
Nerea clapped her hands over her mouth to cover her shriek of delight at that image. Jamie shot her a smile, pleased with himself.
Callum swore.