“Making sure that you’re okay. I think you should be fine. Do you need me to take you to a doctor or the local hospital?” Callum dropped his hands from her face and adjusted the blanket to cover her up more.
“I... Uhh, what?” she asked, confused.
“I found you near the gate unconscious in the storm, Peyton. What were you thinking? I found your phone on the bench once I brought you inside. Your last call was to Mads eight hour ago. I found you two hours ago. That means you were unconscious out there for almost six hours. Lucky you had that jacket on.”
“There was a cat,” she explained as she pulled the blanket off her. Then her eyes widened and she quickly covered herself, her cheeks heating instantly. “Umm, care to explain?”
Callum looked down and then back at her, his cheeks turning a rosy red. “Your jeans were soaked, so I had to pull them off you. You were out cold. I tried to wake you, but it was no use. So I, ahh, took the initiative and took your pants off.”
“Wow. Makes me glad that I wear underwear. So when sexual deviants like Callum Reid take off your pants when you’re unconscious, nothing is on show. Please tell me you didn’t do it on my lawn.”
“No, Peyton. I brought you into the house and put you on the couch. I made sure you were okay and had the fire going before I removed your pants,” Callum explained with a slight smirk on his face.
Peyton wrapped the cream blanket around her tighter and stood up from the couch. “I feel very violated right now.” Then she looked down at Callum, the colour in his cheeks fading.
“You’re upset that I took your pants off but you’re not even gonna thank me for bringing you in. Peyton, you were unconscious. What happened to you?”
She let out an irritated huff. “I was trying to get Mrs West’s cat and then I guess I didn’t see the gate swing forward from the wind. You know you could have just left me there. I don’t need saving.”
Callum stood up and looked down at her. “I wasn’t going to leave you out there. Do you really think I could live with myself if I just saw you on the ground and walked away?”
Her heart leapt. That wasn’t something she’d wanted to hear. Her heart wanted to be saved, but she knew Callum Reid wouldn’t save her. If anything, he’d ruin her…further.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I feel really uncomfortable knowing that you’ve seen me in my underwear. I might go shower, scrub off the humiliation, and then change.”
“Peyton, I’ve seen you in far less than underwear. Grab a shower. I’ll make you a new cuppa and then I’ll check out that bump you have.” His voice had softened, almost echoing the same way he’d spoken at seventeen.
She had believed him then. Now, standing wrapped in a blanket and with her hair slightly damp, she still believed him.
“Callum, that’s nice of you, but—”
He took a step forward and cupped her face in his hands. Just the feel of his fingers on her skin had Peyton biting the inside of her cheek and trying to control the tension in her chest. Callum turned her head slightly and inspected the side of her face.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“You said I was nice. I gotta make sure you don’t have a concussion. There’s no way that you’d say anything so pleasant about me,” he teased. Then his lips tugged upwards and Peyton saw the seventeen-year-old in him.
Back before the universe had tested her, she would always kiss him once that sweet smile appeared. Now, she had to be cautious of it to keep her heart safe.
She took a step back. “You’re right. Concussion has me rambling lies.”
His smile quickly faded and that glimmer of the past left his eyes. Instead, the cold version of the boy she’d once loved stood in front of her. The want for the past to be reality was hitting her. If she could have the past, she’d have him and her parents back in her life.
But that wasn’t how the universe worked. Because even when you’d lost it all, the world continued around you. It continued to create and take away. Continued to give beauty and inflict pain. Life was the never-ending journey of air and breaths. To live and to die. A domino effect of decisions and outcomes, each affecting each other. For Peyton, Callum and her parents’ deaths were just that. One after the other, she’d lost them.
“How about you take a bath, instead, and I’ll make you something to eat,” Callum offered.
She flinched, taken aback by his suggestion. “Thanks, but you should go home.”
He closed his eyes and breathed in heavily before he looked back at her. “Peyton, if I hadn’t found you, who would?”
Her shoulders sagged. He’d just won the argument she hadn’t wanted to have. She wanted him out of her house and to draw up a plan on him staying away.
“Someone would have…eventually.”
“Exactly. Eventually. Maybe the next day or the day after that. What if it had been worse than it really was? Peyton, you could have died from natural exposure or brain swelling… Anything for Christ’s sake.”