Somebody I Don't Know : Book 1 of the Teeth Series

30

If there was one thing that Fallon Harding hated it was being out of the loop. Especially when the loop in question was her own life. Never had she felt so completely clueless however, as she did the night following she and Calum's adventure to the art museum.

Something had shifted and the not-knowing was eating her alive. Why did it seem like every time they took a step forward with each other something caused them to take two steps back? Fallon wanted to believe that she and Calum had a love of destiny. She wanted with all of her heart for them to work through the pain of their past and return to the love they had formerly shared. If that was what was meant to be, then why did the universe seem to be making it so fucking hard?

The Calum she knew was overly clingy, forever driving her crazy by consistently being underfoot and dependent on her for reassurance in all areas of their relationship. Some kind of switch had been flipped however and the Calum she had seen that morning was distant and almost cold towards her, indifferent to her existence.

It hit her like a semi-truck out of nowhere—they had switched roles. She was the one looking for reassurance that whatever they were trying to do still stood a chance in hell and he was pulling away. Using her go-to move when she was facing a situation that made her uncomfortable.

So why was Calum uncomfortable. Surely it had to at least partly involve Ashton who had made his feelings about Fallon, or at least her relationship with Calum, known. It also could have been heavily influenced by his conversation with her sister.

She swore under her breath and rolled over to her side in the hotel room bed she found herself. It had been nearly two hours that she had been tossing and turning in the luxury sheets and she couldn't take one more singular moment alone with her thoughts.

A moment later, her feet clad in a pair of slides she marched down the carpeted hotel hallway and slapped her hand against the door of the room she knew to be Calum's. He wasn't a super light sleeper so it took a full five minutes of her sporadic knocking before finally the door opened revealing an incredibly sleepy looking Calum.

"Fal?" He croaked out, his voice thick with exhaustion as he used his knuckles to rub at his eyes. "What..what are you doing here?"

His arms raised above his head drawing her attention to his toned, tan chest as he yawned and she momentarily forgot the reason she had come.

She sputtered for a moment before finally regaining control of herself enough to ask "Can we talk?"

Calum responded by taking a step backwards to allow her inside. He turned to face her as the door slid shut behind them and she took a seat on the corner of his mattress.
"Fal, what's this about?"

She fumbled for her words and cursed herself for what his deep morning voice was doing to her insides.

"I just need to know what's going on."

"I don't understand." He said flatly, clearly not up to long winded words after just being woken up.

"This morning. Everything was fine, I mean the whole thing with Ash was fucked up and not fine but we were." She rushed out. "We still felt normal through breakfast but then it's like something changed and I didn't get the memo. You shut down on me and then avoided me the rest of the day and I've been lying awake for hours trying to figure out what the fuck I did."

By the time she finished her breathing was shallow and ragged, her eyes were clouded with tears and Calum's brown eyes were fully dilated to an almost black though that was hidden in the darkness.

Calum took a step towards her and Fallon felt the full weight of his attention and he licked his lips, his pink tongue running along the full length of his mouth, and began to speak. "You haven't done anything Fal.." His hand reached out, his long fingers wrapping around her wrist and slowly ascending towards her elbow as goosebumps rose on her skin. "I, it's just.."