My lips curved into a smile as he started to paw through the mail, stopping to toss Lindy’s back into the box before closing it.
When he had the stack of magazines, he rolled up to his trash can and dumped them inside, causing me to laugh all over again.
“You don’t think you would want to read those?” I called out.
He shrugged his large shoulder and said, “I don’t know how it works, but when you turn thirty-five, you get added to some useless catalog mailing list where they start sending you random catalogs that old people might want. The only one I’m interested in is the Shotgun Press, or the reloading magazines, and I didn’t see any of those.”
I snuggled closer to him, wrapping my arms around his waist, and he patted my hand before he headed out of the neighborhood.
Fifteen minutes later, he was pulling up to a big driveway with an industrial-sized gate blocking the entrance.
After inputting a code into the keypad, he started forward much slower, since the drive was made of crushed gravel.
After a few minutes of driving, I started to see trees in black pots. Then I started to see a few women that were watering said trees.
When we pulled up to a tiny office, he turned off the bike and helped me off before getting off himself.
My legs felt shaky as I took a look around.
“Wow,” I said, eyes wide. “Do you own this? Or rent it?”
“Own,” he answered as he jerked his head toward the door of the small cabin. “I want to build out here eventually, but with lumber prices costing a kidney and half your sphincter, I’m waiting.”
“Half your sphincter?” I snickered as I followed him inside.
I looked around the sparse cabin.
It was one large room with an exposed bathroom, shower, and kitchen all at one side of the room, and a desk and a chair at the other.
“Very open concept,” I teased as I walked toward the chair and took a seat. “Do you need me to help with anything?”
He shook his head as he walked to the desk beside me, opened up a large checkbook, and started to write out checks. “No. Just need to pay everyone really quick and drop them in the box so they can pick up when they want. Then we have somewhere else to go.”
I waited patiently, playing on my phone and cruising through my 38383 emails.
Like, no joke.
That’s how many I currently had.
I needed to delete them all, but it was overwhelming. I mean… wasn’t there just a ‘delete all’ button?
“That is downright disturbing,” Callum said, surprising me.
I looked over at him. “What?”
“The fact that you have notifications on every single app you own. I mean, it says you have thirteen texts, 999+ emails, and tons of other little green icons indicating you have something to look at. How do you deal with that?” he asked.
I shrugged, not bothering to hide my phone. “I don’t like answering notifications. It’s frustrating.”
He chuckled. “So call you, don’t text you, because you won’t text back?”
I looked at him and shrugged. “I guess it would depend on whether I had you programmed into my phone or not.”
He grinned, snatched my phone out of my hand, and deftly entered his phone number before handing it back to me.
I smirked as he finished writing his checks out, then went to put them outside his office in what looked like the old-fashioned clock-in/clock-out station right outside the door.
When he was done, he jerked his head toward where he’d parked his bike. “Ready?”
I jumped up, because was I ready to be wrapped around him again? Heck yes, I was.
I didn’t ask where our next destination was, and maybe I should have.
Then, I wouldn’t be surprised when he drove us to the lake, and I saw a whole bunch of people that looked familiar, sitting around a barbeque pit outside of a cabin.
All of them were familiar, that was, except for four adults, one almost adult, and three kids.
“Do you have a favorite ex?” I asked carefully as the bike came to a standstill next to a line of other bikes.
There was a long pause and then, “No.”
Lies.
Everyone had a favorite ex.
Even I did.
“Do your parents have a favorite ex?” I wondered.
He chuckled as he got up off the bike.
When he was standing beside it, he hooked his hands underneath my armpits and bodily lifted me from the motorcycle.
When I was standing in front of him, he said, “Her name was Sadie. We dated when we were in high school. My parents loved her. I didn’t because she didn’t put out.”
I choked on a laugh.
“I haven’t thought about her since I was in bootcamp,” he joked. “My parents will love you.”
I sure hoped they did.
This was moving kind of fast.
I mean… yesterday, I wasn’t even sure he’d want to see me, and today, I was meeting his parents!