Only Oscar (Wattys 2022 Shortlist!)

Chapter One

So much wasted energy. Did it really matter in the end? When they were old and grey and looked back on their lives, would it feel like they'd lived them to the full?

Callie wasn't convinced she could. Not yet anyway.

It wasn't that she didn't want to be successful in her chosen field. To earn a living doing what she loved was always the dream. But she wanted so much more. A home, a family, a guy she loved so much she would give up everything to be with him. A guy who loved her so much, he'd let her go before she could make that big a sacrifice.

Another Callie contradiction, Oscar would say. According to him, she was full of them. She lifted the cocktail stick from her glass to snag the cherry, smiling wryly as she chewed.

He was probably right. He usually was. Annoyingly.

When the screen of her cell-phone lit up, she knew it was him. He had a knack for texting when she was thinking about him or calling when she needed to hear a friendly voice.

'Drunk yet?' the message inquired.

'Getting there,' she texted back.

'Let me know when you're ready for someone to take advantage of you an I'll be right over.'

He probably hadn't meant it the way it translated, but there was enough of an opening for Callie to mess with him. Her thumbs wavered over the screen for a second while she considered what to say. 'Like you'd know where to start...'

She caught the corner of her lower lip between her teeth, added a winking emoji and hit send before she changed her mind. She'd never edited her texts to him, before. Why start now?

There was a brief pause. Then, 'If you're flirting with me pickings must be slim.'

Nope. As it happened, there were a couple of possibilities stood at the bar. Typical end-of-the-week stock market types still high on adrenaline, they'd been sizing up her group like prey for the last half hour. It was only a matter of time before drinks arrived with compliments from the gentlemen. Guys still did that in New York.

When the relatively cute blonde guy on her left made eye contact and smiled encouragingly, Callie looked away before he interpreted it as an invitation. She didn't need another bad choice to add to her list.

'Still early...' she texted back with a smiley emoji and one blowing a kiss, waiting for enough little service bars to light up and the message to send before she set her phone down.

"That's your problem, right there," Talia said with a nod at the table.

"Bad cell-phone reception?" Callie inquired.

"Oscar."

"My love life has nothing to do with Oscar."

"I think it has a lot to do with him."

"It's not like he sets me up. He's never liked anyone I've dated. If anything, he can see their flaws before I do." And relentlessly listed every last one of them while she jumped to their defense until the day she dumped them, typically around the six-to-eight-week mark. That was usually when her restlessness set in.

"Which would be totally acceptable if he was your gay best friend," Talia countered. "But he's not, is he? He's your back-up guy."

Callie blinked. "Seriously, you're throwing stones? I'm not the one keeping a walking sex toy in reserve until something better comes along."

"The arrangement I have with Aaron suits us both," Talia shrugged nonchalantly. "We may have sucked at being married but the sex was never a problem."

"And he's fine with being demoted from 'til death do us part' to booty call?"