Flight Risk (Antiques in Flight) by Nicole Helm Page B

were on Callie. She didn’t meet his gaze.
    “Yeah, sure,” she echoed, sounding anything but.
    “I’ll walk up to Bennie’s and grab us a pizza.” Em picked up her purse and slid it onto her shoulder.
    “You don’t have to do that. We can call some place that will deliver.”
    Em was already halfway to the door. “Don’t worry about it. Short walk. Besides it’ll give me a chance to see if Pete’s working. Work up a little discount.” She winked over her shoulder before she disappeared out the door.
    Trevor got the distinct impression he and Callie were being left alone on purpose. Unfortunately, he didn’t know what to do about it.
    “Em and Pete got a thing going?”
    Callie looked at her feet. “I don’t know if I’d classify it as a thing. She goes in and flirts. He gives her a discount on pizza. Since it’s about the only way I get a meal that isn’t veggie frou-frou gunk, I hope they get married and have lots of little baby pizza makers.”
    Trevor forced a chuckle out, but quickly, uncomfortable silence settled over the living room. He really hated that he’d somehow managed to make things awkward between them, and he had no idea how to fix it.
    “Want a beer?”
    “God, yes.” She pushed off the couch and followed him into the kitchen. Awkward silence followed them as Trevor pulled two bottles from the fridge. He held one out for Callie, opened his mouth to say something and nothing came out.
    Callie took the outstretched bottle from his hands. Their fingers brushed, but she showed no outward sign of reaction.
    “Wanna go drink it out on the porch? I’m going to pass out from all these hairspray fumes.”
    Callie nodded and silently followed him to the front door.
    The warm day was slowly cooling into the perfect spring evening. The sun had begun its slow descent. Around them, bugs created a low hum of noise, only punctuated by the distant shrieks of children playing or the rumble of a car pulling into its garage.
    The two big trees in the front yard gave an illusion of separateness from the rest of the neighborhood so as he and Callie sat on the small concrete stoop, almost close enough to touch, it wasn’t hard to pretend they were all alone.
    Maybe he couldn’t talk to Callie about what was happening between them, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t talk period. “Should I be worried about this whole prom thing?”
    Callie smiled, took a slow sip of her beer. “Nah. Shelby’s a good kid, and Dan looked like he might spontaneously combust if they even held hands. He’s afraid of you, which was adorably naïve. I think you’re safe.”
    “I don’t want her to be messed up because I couldn’t do the right thing here. I can’t be her dad, but at the same time it doesn’t seem right to just be her brother either.”
    Callie patted his shoulder, and it was the first initiated physical contact since that stupid moment. Maybe they were on their way back to normal.
    “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You do your best, Shelby will do her best, and everything will work out.”
    Trevor shook his head and looked down at the cement below him. A small trail of ants made their way across the cracked surface. “I guess you’re right. With all her faults, she’s got a good head on those shoulders. I mean, she’s not like…” He censored the thought, but a few words too late.
    “She’s not like me.”
    “That’s not what I was going to say.” At Callie’s raised eyebrow he set the empty bottle down. “Okay, that is what I was going to say, but I knew before I said it that it wouldn’t come out right, so I didn’t say it.”
    Callie shrugged, picked at the label of the bottle. “You’re right, though. Shelby’s got that kind of maturity I didn’t manage to scrounge up until, oh, a year ago. She won’t make the mistakes I did. She’ll be the one who makes all the right choices.”
    Trevor looked at Callie, hated that he’d put sadness back in her eyes. That he’d