The Love I Need

Chapter 2

"Emilia, wait!" Beard Guy says again, following after me. It turns out he really does know my name.

"You won't even give him a chance to explain?" he asks, but I don't stop to answer him. I need to get the hell out of here. I need to forget that Cal Jones was ever a part of my life.

"Emilia, please, you can't do this to him!" he calls after me. When I keep walking, he stops following me and says, "Why did you come find him, if you were just going to leave him again? It doesn't add up. The girl Cal talks about wouldn't be that cruel. So did he remember everything wrong, or are you going to quit running, and give him a chance to talk to you?"

I turn around to look at him and loudly exclaim, "I never fucking left him!"

A young mother, walking near us with two small boys, stops in her tracks to glare at me.

"Good evening, Annie," Beard Guy greets her, drawing her attention over to him, "I'm sorry about that. It's been a rough day for some of us." He gives her a charming smile, then looks down at her sons. "But that's no excuse to swear, is it boys?" he asks them with an easy smile.

The boys shake their heads, and then look back to me.

"We all fall short at times though, don't we?" Beard Guy continues, drawing their attention back to him, along with more head nods. "All the same, we're truly sorry you had to hear that. There's a lot of better words to say when we're having a rough time, aren't there?"

"Mom says fudge," the older of the boys says.

"And she called dad an asshole last week," the younger one supplies, to the absolute horror of his mother.

Her eyes go wide and she grips her youngest boy's arm with an awkward laugh. "No, Samuel, I said sasshole!" she denies.

"Nuh uh!" her eldest son exclaims, "I heard asshole too."

Beard Guy is obviously trying to suppress a grin. "Well, as I said, we all fall short," he says with a small shrug.

Annie looks at him like she's not sure whether to be humiliated, grateful, or annoyed. "Well, uh, good to see you, Theo. Boys, say bye to Mr. Morrison!"

The boys wave and smile and Beard Guy, or Theo, returns the gesture. "See you on Sunday!" he calls after them.

I have no idea why I stood around for all that. I give my head a small shake and then turn to walk away, but Theo steps in front of me.

"Emilia, please. Talk to Cal. You can't disappear on him again."

"Why? He's moved on. He's obviously happy, and I'm already causing issues for him. Did you not just see the look of pain on that girl's face?"

"That's exactly why you need to give him a chance!" Theo exclaims. He stares me down with an intense expression that is almost frightening. I notice he has a scar over one of his dark brown eyes. It streaks through his right eyebrow, narrowly missing the outer corner of his eyelid. It adds to the cynical look on his face. It's like I'm dealing with a completely different character than the charming man who had spoken to Annie and her boys.

"She's getting older," Theo continues, looking over in the direction of Cal and his daughter. They're making their way back toward us, hand in hand. "Look, I don't exactly like the idea of you being here, but if you leave now, there's no telling how Cal will react, and there will be no way to hide it from Emy this time. If you don't want a little girl to see her dad unravel, you need to stick around, at least long enough to let him talk."

I frown while I study him. "What's it to you? Are you the one who managed to marry him? I never expected Cal to switch sides..."

Theo looks taken aback, then cocks his scarred eyebrow and ever so slightly smirks. He's realized I'm fucking with him. "No. That would be my sister who married him," he replies, "which makes the little girl we're talking about my niece. So please, Emilia. I know this must be hard, but I'm desperately hoping that you're the sweet, selfless woman that Cal has spoken about."