Callum & Harper (Sleepless 1)

“What’s that?” She asked.

“We figure out how we’re going to survive the night.”

“Tell me what to do, Callum. I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”

“Hush, Harper. Now, listen.” I looked around for the time. The clock on the building’s face read eleven thirty in the morning. “Crap, it’s too late to get work at the docks.” An idea crept in and I snapped my fingers. “Okay, I got it. I know a guy in the Village who owns a restaurant. He lets me bus tables for cash under the table but you have to get there early. Up for hauling butt for a few blocks?”

“Anything,” she said, stopping my heart. A fighter.

I smiled at her and grabbed her hand. We started weaving our way through people on their way to lunch. I can only hope that we’ll make my guy’s place before it’s too late and he turned us away.

Martin’s cool. His place always has people lined up around the door for lunch rushes and he can never seem to keep his bussers. I’m banking on the fact that he’ll be just as desperate for help as we’re in a desperate way for cash.

By the time we reach his restaurant, people are already lined up, a good sign. Harper makes her way to the front door but I stop her short.

“No, through the back,” I whispered in her ear.

We rounded the exterior of the building and entered through the back. Martin’s Italian and loud and amazing.

“Martin,” I said, interrupting his yelling at a few cowering cooks.

He turns toward me, surprised. “Callum,” he said. Only, it sounds like Cowlum. “Where have you been, my boy? I’ve been in need of help for weeks!”

“I’m sorry, Martin. I’ve been barely staying afloat recently. I haven’t been on this side of town.”

o;Oh nothing. I just like this.”

“What?”

“Standing close to you like this.”

“Oh,” I brilliantly said, no doubt turning bright red. This is, like, a new record for me. Pathetic, I laughed at myself. “I can’t say that I am that adverse to it. Your shirt smells amazing.”

Callum’s eyes squint, revealing a wicked grin. The inside of his left arm rubs against my cheek and sends a spark through my skin, heating up my stomach. My own arm felt too heavy to hold up anymore. He leaned his body closer to mine and the crowd around us turned invisible, leaving us alone with our cumbersome breaths, our chests heaving heavily with anticipation and a promise of things to come. He brushed the hair on my left shoulder back before sinking his face against the crook of my neck and breathing in deeply.

“Have I told you how amazing I find the way you smell? You make me dazed. I feel punch drunk around you.”

The breath I didn’t know I was holding rushed out all at once. I sucked in an even deeper breath when he kissed the little bit of collarbone exposed by my t-shirt so lightly I could barely feel it. It was a chaste kiss but felt so intimate my eyes rolled to the back of my head. I closed my lids to prevent myself from passing out right there and when I opened them, Callum’s face was but a few inches from mine. I could feel his warm breath against my cheek, his lips a provocative invitation. I could only stare as his radiant green eyes searched my face.

“Harper,” he whispered but before he can finish we’re both slammed into the direction we’re travelling as the car comes to a screeching halt.

We can only stand, gaping at the other at the lost moment but something escaped his eyes, making me feel uncomfortable. I thought I read regret in them but what kind, I wasn’t sure. Regret he couldn’t continue? Regret that he stepped over a line?

“Sorry,” he said, “that got out of hand. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s alright,” I offered, hoping the supreme disappointment I was truly feeling wasn’t coming through.

The doors to the car slid open and people started spilling out. Callum took my hand and guided me out to avoid getting trampled. We walked in silence until we reached the doors to NYU’s administration building. Callum grabbed the handle to the large wooden doors but stopped before walking in.

“Come here,” he said, dragging me to the side.

“But you’ll be late,” I said, trying to avoid eye contact so the tears welling up wouldn’t spill over and embarrass the hell out of me.

That’s the kind of humiliation I just didn't want to have to endure. I’d endured all kinds my entire life but this one I at least had control over. I’d be damned if I shed a tear over a boy who owed me nothing because that was beyond pathetic and I was tired of being pathetic. In fact, it was me who owed him and I realized that just because he wasn’t interested in me the way I was interested in him, it wasn’t his fault.

Callum stared up at the large clock on the building’s forefront, noticing the time, and rushed through the doors, dragging me along with him, his previous speech forgotten. We turned a corner and approached a set of double doors. He pressed his hand to the knob but sighed before turning. A young student with insane green spiked hair and a studded collar manned a sort of desk at the front of the room.

“May I help you?” She asked cheerily, wearing a massive smile, negating every assumption I instantly made of her.