The straining vein in his neck caught her attention. This was too much involvement for someone who had left her to grow up in the small town they’d promised to leave behind.
“God! Why can’t you be like other men in this world?” she asked as she held the blanket securely around her.
Callum let out a sigh and his muscles and posture loosened. “And what do other men in this world do?”
She glared at him, noticing his pupils dilating. “They break up with a girl and never call or see her again. Why can’t you do that?”
He mirrored her glare. “I did do that, but I can’t continue to do it. Now stop arguing with me and just go have a bath!”
Peyton looked up at the ceiling and mumbled a curse before she marched past him towards the bathroom. “May God let me get hit by lightning while I’m in that tub!” she yelled angrily to him.
When she reached the bathroom door, she looked up at the ceiling. “God, if you’re listening to me, then you should know you made the wrong decision. You had to go and make that son of a bitch save me. Should have let me die, Big Man. It’d be less painful and I would have appreciated it more.”
Peyton sat in the tub with her arms crossed over her breasts and murmured her displeasure. Though she enjoyed the warm water relieving her achy muscles, she was still bitter about her saviour. It killed her inside that he had been the one to find her. If she hadn’t tried to get Mrs West’s cat, she’d have avoided all of this.
“Fucking Mr Lucky!” she cursed as she untangled her arms and placed them on the sides of the porcelain freestanding bathtub. “I’m going to kill that cat!” she promised before she submerged herself under the water.
Opening her eyes, she saw the cream-coloured ceiling all blurry under the water. She counted in her head as she continued to stare. Being submerged, she enjoyed the quietness of the water, the thunder almost silenced. If she weren’t so afraid of drowning, she’d try to reach longer than a minute without air.
Peyton sat up, quickly taking in oxygen and wiping the hair away from her face. She hung her arms over the bathtub, letting water droplets slip off her fingertips and onto the tiled floor. Another crash of thunder had her turning her head and staring out the window. It was close. She smiled at the thought of how ironic it would be if she were to actually be struck by lightning.
Just then, lightning beautifully and terrifyingly lit up the dark sky. Another flash and thunder cracked in unison. Peyton looked up at the pendant to see it continue to flicker before her.
Footsteps rushed to the bathroom door. Peyton stilled before three bangs were made against the door.
“Peyton, are you all right?” Callum shouted over the sound of thunder.
Her eyebrows furrowed and she groaned. “I’m just waiting to be struck by lightning. It shouldn’t be long now!” she yelled as she tipped her head back and closed her eyes.
“I swear to God, Peyton. If you have a window open, I’m coming in there!”
Her fingers tapped against the tub. Then she turned her head and stared at the wooden door. “Anything to see me naked. You’re such a pervert, Callum.”
She sat quietly, waiting for him to reply, but he didn’t. She didn’t hear his footsteps disappearing either, so she knew that he was still there. More minutes passed as the water in the tub started to cool.
Pulling her leg up from the water, she noticed that her toes had wrinkled, but she didn’t mind. She submerged her leg back in the water and waited. It seemed she had always being waiting for Callum.
“I almost came back, you know,” Callum said from behind the bathroom door.
Peyton kept quiet and looked at the soapy water.
“I got to the wooden ‘welcome’ sign and I parked my car on the side of the road. I sat there for an hour deciding whether or not I should see you. I’ve done that almost trip about six times, Peyton. And each of those trips, I turned around and went back to the city. At least once a year, I came back to that part of the highway. Why it’s so different now is because I made it past the sign. This time, the need to see you outweighed the consequences I’d be facing.”
The sadness in his voice caused the ache in her heart to rise to her throat. Tears silently slid down her face. Because she, too, had made it to that sign. She had parked her Volkswagen Golf in the middle of the highway and stared out in the direction of the city. But in the end, she had always done a U-turn back to town.
Peyton silently got out of the tub and reached for the towel on the counter. Not wiping the bubbles that slid down her body, she wrapped the cotton towel around her. She knew what she had to do next.
Ignoring the flung blanket on the bathroom floor, Peyton walked towards the door. She took a deep breath in attempt to settle her anxious heart. With a hard swallow, she turned the knob and pulled the door open. Then she looked down to see Callum sitting on the carpet, his back to her.