talk fast // calum hood

30

What if he has changed his mind? What if he wants this to continue? Wouldn't he have to tell me, since it involves both of us? I have to stop myself from thinking about it before my head starts to spin out of control.

"Are you okay baby girl?" Calum reaches over and rubs my thigh with his hand. I look over and give him a small smile.

"Yeah traveling gives me a headache sometimes, but I'm okay."

I wrap my hand around his and squeeze it before I lean my head over onto the window.

A sigh of relief leaves my lips as we pull up to my house. I rush into the house and immediately find my mom in the kitchen, jumping into her arms and wrapping my legs around her torso.

"You are much too big for this now, didn't you know that? I'm happy you're home, honey." My mom wraps her arms tight around me before she sets me down and my dad appears behind her.

I hug him next and look to Lucas sitting on the couch. "I was starting to think you'd never come back but I had already come to terms with it."

My eyes roll into my head, and I stick my tongue out at him, "I would've been fine never seeing you again, too."

"Oh hi, Calum, it is so good to see you. How was the trip?" I turn around to see Calum setting my bags down by the bottom of the stairs and walking into my mother's arms that are outstretched for him. I almost chuckle at sight, but Calum doesn't seem to mind hugging her.

"Amazing, we had such a good time. Thank you for letting me steal her away," Cal shakes my dad's hand and nods over at Lucas.

"Hey, Lucas."

"Hey, you know you didn't have to bring Teagan back. We would've been perfectly fine as a two-child family." Lucas gets up, and they do some weird handshake.

"She's not so bad, I'll keep her if you want." Calum looks over to me and laughs.

"Lucas be nice to your sister." My father warns him, and he slumps his shoulders.

"Calum would you like to stay for dinner?" My mom starts pulling things out of the fridge, and I wrap an arm around Calums waist.

"I think I'm going to go home actually. The rest of the boys got back from Australia around the same time we landed so I'm going to spend some time with them. Thanks for the offer though, I'll take Teagans bags upstairs and get out of your hair."

"Stay as long as you like dear, you and your friends are always welcome. Thanks for bringing our girl back in one piece." She smiles at us one more time before we disappear up the stairs.

My room is still a mess from packing before I left which I completely forgot about. "Looks like a tornado came through here, T."

Calum chuckles, picking up a thong that's hanging from the knob of my dresser. I snatch it from his hand and stuff it in the top drawer. "Leave me alone."

"Will I see you tomorrow?" I ask, sitting down on my bed.

"Do you want to see me tomorrow?" He raises an eyebrow and leans against the door that is closed.

"Of course, I want to see you every day until you get tired of me." My shoulders lift in a shrug, and he chuckles, pushing himself off the door and over to me.

"I'll never get tired of you, baby. I'll text you when I wake up to make a plan."

Calum leans down to kiss me a few times before he pulls me off the bed so I can walk back downstairs with him. Downstairs already smells like food and I hadn't realized I was hungry until now.

"See you tomorrow, T." With one more kiss, we depart at the bottom of the stairs as he disappears into the garage and I make my way into the kitchen.

"Teagan get in here and tell me all about it!" My mom jokes, I take a seat at one of the barstools so I can talk while she cooks.

"Oh, it was amazing. The most beautiful place I've ever seen. Calum is so sweet and romantic. For our last day there he planned a full spa day and then it ended with a private dinner under a candlelit canopy on the beach. We rode ATVs and rode a glass bottom boat; we also rode bikes around the island. We should look into going back there; it's incredible. The water is so blue, more so than I've ever seen before."

"I never would've guessed he'd be the romantic type, but I'm happy you had a good time with him." She says softly.

"Me too. He's very romantic, its come out more since we started dating. He cares about me; I'm going to miss them when they leave." I sigh, thinking I came full circle from earlier when I thought I was done thinking about it.

"Have you discussed what is going to happen?"

"Yeah, we both said it would be too stressful to continue our relationship and to be apart all the time. That was before we got together though and now I feel like we could do it. I don't want to change my mind because I was so persistent to a point I almost didn't even agree to one date. After Bryan, I didn't want a boy to define me or make me change my mind, so I feel like saying we can stay together will go against all of that. Plus I haven't said any of this to him so he probably still thinks we should just split and call it a summer thing." My fingers run through my hair, and I shake my head.

"It sounds like something you should talk to him about, sweetheart." She looks over her shoulder at me, and I can't help but roll my eyes.

"I know, but I don't want to. What if he doesn't like me as much as I think and I'm wrong about feeling like we could make it?"

"It's all about taking the chances while you have the chance to do it. You'll never know until you try."

She's right, I know she's right. It doesn't change the fact that I still don't want to. Confrontation is one hundred percent not my thing because it terrifies me. I'll never know until I try though, I guess.

+++++

Hey guys!! 

As of now, I don't really know if I will keep up the Wednesday/Sunday updating schedule because it hasn't really been working. Tuesday/Thursdays are my off days so it's easiest to write then but I'd hate leaving you from Thursday to the next Tuesday. I think I'm going to shoot for Tuesdays and Fridays. 

When I posted the last chapter, we had just hit 10K reads with this book but today it has 11K! I can't believe it. Thank you so so much for reading, I hope you're enjoying the book so far. 

A reminder that we're in single digits for the number of chapters this book has left! 

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-kristen