Love Bites

LOVE BITES Chapter 29 : The Hunt Begins

Chapter 29 : The Hunt Begins

The door opened and Callie Larsen's blue eyes met mine in surprise.

I gave her a small awkward wave. "Hi."

"Nikki!" She beamed, opening the door up further and inviting me in. "It feels like forever since I last saw your face. How are you, hun? Are you looking for my daughter?"

I tucked a blonde lock of hair behind my ear and walked past her. It was warm and as homey as ever inside.

"Actually, yes," I began, turning to her. "Bri hasn't been to school for the last week and she hasn't really been replying to any of my calls or texts. And when she does, they're short and discrete." I stole a quick glance up their staircase, expecting full well for Bri to be standing there in her knee high polka dot socks. But she wasn't. "Is she here? Sleeping, maybe?"

Callie pursed her lips, mumbling meticulously slow, "No... As far as I was concerned, my daughter has been at school. That little snitch."

Oops.

"Maybe she is and I just didn't look properly!" I joked lamely. "I should go..."

"No, stay," Callie chuckled. "God, you're not the one in trouble. Tea?"

She walked off without waiting for a reply. Begrudgingly, I followed after her with baby steps. "Okay but please don't tell her I told you!" I begged.

Callie just laughed, sliding me a cup of steaming tea. I could smell the peppermint from where I stood and it beckoned me to the counter.

Who could refuse fresh peppermint tea? Certainly not me.

For the next hour all we did was talk. I couldn't believe how many cups I'd drunken just sitting there and listening to her ample supply of stories. My cheeks were beginning to hurt from all the smiling and I just knew my bladder would be giving me hell later. Brianna and Callie were certainly mother and daughter.

Halfway through I couldn't help but wonder, had the circumstances been different, the kind of relationship my mother and I would have shared. Would it have been like this? Lounged in the dinning room eating cake before noon and talking about nothing and everything all at one given time?

Sipping the hot tea, my blue eyes flickered over Callie for the longest moment, taking in her unruly curly brown hair and admiring how the skin around her eyes would wrinkle every time she'd laugh. She was absentmindedly picking at the half eaten lemon tea cake between us, mouth moving animatedly.

It seemed too good to be true.

And I guess that's what it was; too good to be, in fact, true because Callie wasn't my mother. She was just the woman in place of the one I lost.

Setting the mug down in front of me, I realised that what I was about to say could very well trample the tranquility surrounding us.

"Callie, I didn't just come over to ask if Brianna was home. I knew she probably wasn't."

Callie took a few moments to dust her fingers clean of the crumbs before turning to me. "Alright," she encouraged, blue eyes telling me to speak, "you have my attention."