“Different things, over time,” Patrice said. “Callum is… complicated.”
“I’d still like to meet him.”
Callum stood the instant I approached. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Georgina.”
He glanced toward the only empty chair nearby and gestured politely toward it. “Please, ma’am. You can sit here.”
I very nearly laughed. “I’m forty-seven, not ninety.”
His mouth twitched. “I wasn’t implying anything.”
“You absolutely were.”
That earned me a real, genuine smile. We ended up discussing the book in his hands for nearly an entire hour. When I finally left, Patrice told me plainly, “One good conversation doesn’t guarantee a placement.”
“I know.”
So I came back anyway. Again, and again.
Callum stayed guarded, but genuinely kind underneath it. He had a dry sense of humor, and remembered absolutely everything I ever told him. For four months straight, the two of us met regularly at the agency, then libraries, diners, parks, and various supervised outings. I kept quietly waiting for the difficult teenager everyone had warned me about. He never once actually appeared.
Once, I mentioned offhand that Sophia used to genuinely hate raisins. Three weeks later, Callum pushed a cookie across a café table toward me. “Don’t worry. I checked already. No raisins in it.”
