The Fear Of Faith [2]

34. Cal

'Who?' Charlie asked.

'If you think I'll ever tell you anything then you're dumb as fuck,' she scoffed. 'You'd do anything to fuck things up and make me look an ass.'

'Tori, jokes aside, I love you really,' he told her, seriously. 'I'm thrilled for you if you've met someone.'

'Yeah, we're just curious,' I told her, not that I did actually care about her love life but I was happy for her if this was something real.

'I don't want to talk about it just yet,' she said, blushing a little. 'It's early days.'

'Sure,' I said with a nod. 'Well, I hope it works out for you.'

'Thank you, Cal,' she replied with a smile.

'Me too,' Charlie said, giving her a reassuring smile. 'I mean it.'

'I know you do,' she said with a chuckle.

After their cheesy exchange, we all continued with our lunches and got back to work. I had expected Charlie and Tori to get it on at least once. In fact, I'd hoped they would, so I'd be reassured she had a thing for him and not me like Bethan had suspected. Now that she had met someone I was relieved that it took the possibility of that away but it was too late to even use that as reassurance for Bethan. She was already long gone.

As the day passed by, I concentrated on my work as Tori and Charlie bickered some more in between clients. I was glad when the final one left and we could begin clearing up, the thought of the beers in my refrigerator calling out to me.

'Did Bethan go home for thanksgiving?' Tori asked me.

I was dying to jump down her throat for bringing it up but I held it in and gave an apathetic shrug. 'I have no idea but probably.'

'You never told me where you went that night,' Tori said. 'When you disappeared from the club.'

'Honestly, Tori, thats because it's none of your business,' I sighed.

'Don't do that,' she said. 'You've been talking to me about all of it and now you shut me out.'

'He doesn't want to talk about it, Tori,' Charlie told her.

'It's good to talk about it,' she continued. 'Keeping things bottled up makes it worse.'

'Maybe but I'm good with that if it means not having to mention her name again,' I said, hoping she'd stop there.

'That's unhealthy, Cal,' she sighed. 'You can't ignore it forever.'

'Tori, leave it for fucks sake,' Charlie groaned.

'Charlie, I'm just trying to help,' she said with a frown. At this point, my blood was boiling inside of me at her putting thoughts of Bethan back into my head and I was getting more angry as Tori's voice continued on. 'He needs to hear it.'

'No I don't!' I cried out, slamming down the pen in my hand and making them both jump. 'Just shut your mouth. Shut it right now before I fucking shut it for you!'

I lurched forward, making Tori scuttle away from me quickly and I headed through the shop to the back exit that led out to the small rear lane. I moved quickly and hit the wall of the building with my fist, hissing at the instant pain as my knuckles split. Turning and leaning my back against the wall, I took deep breaths in and out to calm myself down, instantly regretting threatening her like that.

'Cal.' Her gentle voice called out beside me and I looked to her quickly, seeing fear present in her eyes. 'Cal, I'm sorry.'

'Fuck,' I whispered, dropping my head and sighing to myself. 'No, I'm sorry, Tori. I should not have yelled at you like that.'