Read Me Without You for Free Online Page B

wardrobe rests against a wall in the bedroom. It’s all functional I suppose, but definitely mid-job. When I renovated, I couldn’t wait to get it all done and enjoy the final product. But Callum openly admitted that he’d left it like that for months? Bizarre.
    What was it about Callum that had me so fascinated? He’s exactly the kind of guy I have historically avoided like the plague. He has a fancier haircut than me, for a start, with his curls sitting just-so atop his head and the back and sides perfectly short. Plus, I’m pretty sure there was product in those curls. Product . For fuck’s sake, I don’t even use product. And was his chest genuinely bare or had he waxed it? And even if I give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he really is some kind of six-foot hybrid of masculinity and just-so locks and hairless skin, he still smelt like he’d just stepped off an aftershave ad. Maybe it was his shampoo or deodorant—or both. Whatever it was, it was no doubt laden with methylchloroisothiazolinone and sodium laureth sulfate and God only knows what else. I should probably have warned him that he’s dousing himself with industrial chemicals that will mess with his endocrine system and fry his cell-aging process.
    The worst of it though was the whole corporate-capitalist thing. It seems crazy when I think back to what I was like when I was working in corporate law myself, but I can’t help but loathe that whole lifestyle now. Work harder to earn more money to buy more things so that companies can pay their staff more money which they can use to buy more things? It’s madness.
    At times when he spoke last night, I’m sure I could hear his life straining at the seams, wanting to burst open from the cage he’s contained himself in. I saw in Callum the same confused dissatisfaction I once felt myself when I was stuck up to my eyebrows in the corporate lifestyle. Maybe the only reason I’m still thinking about him today is that he triggered in me some need to rescue him, because he reminded me of myself, once upon a time.
    Shit. Who am I kidding? I really liked him. I liked the square set of his jaw and the surprise in his smile just about every time I spoke last night. I liked his quiet confidence, and the hint of wild creativity that’s hiding somewhere in there under the suit, just waiting to be unleashed on the world.
    And probably most of all, I liked how safe I felt in his arms, like I was coming home after an exhausting, madcap adventure and I could finally rest. I liked showing him my tree, and dragging him into the water. It would be fun just to share hours with him, to watch the startled pleasure on his face as he smashed his way out of the rut he’s stuck in.
    In another life, I’d have been giddy like a schoolgirl right now figuring out how to bump into him again. Instead, I’m one day into what is potentially a lifetime of driving to work so I don’t see him.
    It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. I just wish it was. Oh, to just relax and enjoy the blind naivety that Callum does. I wish I too could believe that the years will be generous, that there’s time to frit away, waiting for life to come to me. I wish I had the space for flirtations and silly love affairs with men who use hair product. If only I could just throw a few nights or weeks into this thing and see where it took me. It wouldn’t have to be happily ever after—happy for now would do.

3
    Callum
    I was frantically busy at work, which was business as usual. The directors liked to keep the workload at burnout pace, which was probably why I’d been at Tison Creative since my internship. Junior staff were disposable assets, and if you happened to survive long enough to get a promotion, the pressure became a way of life.
    I was the conduit between the creatives and the business at Tison’s. When new work was on the horizon, it was me who took the phone call and then later presented the pitch. And I was good at that, bloody good