Chapter 14 #2
I’d promised we were casual but somehow, over the past month, I’d slipped into being not-so-casual.
The burn down in my gut when I thought about Callum in another man’s bed was a clear warning.
I’d had a lot of one-night stands in my life, and I’d thought this would be no different, but of course it was.
Whenever Callum lent a hand with a chore, or was there for Jos, it became different.
Every time I saw him in the kitchen, sweaty from a run or morning-rumpled, making breakfast, sex and friendship collided into something more.
Fuck.
The past month of rearranged life would’ve been almost unbearable without Callum, and now I was stuck. Pining like some seventh-grader with a crush. Except with more sex.
Despite the note from Callum at my bedside, I hadn’t talked to Jos about us yet. With this work shift, we didn’t cross paths unless I got up early to see him before school. He was in class when I headed to work, and in bed when I got home.
Tomorrow. Once I’d had some sleep and my brain wasn’t throbbing, I’d tackle that job.
I climbed the stairs to my room, and I was thinking about Callum, or maybe trying not to think about Callum.
The habits of a lifetime failed me, and I put my weight on that traitor step.
The sick-cow moan of bending wood echoed in the narrow staircase.
I froze. Shit. I hoped I hadn’t woken Isabelle.
If I was going to be that careless, I should get a big glow-in-the-dark sticker and mark the spot.
Sounds from below suggested I had disturbed her, and I waited there on the stairs, to reassure her no one was breaking in or being murdered. But it was Jos who showed up at the bottom of the staircase. “Zeke?”
“Shh,” I whispered. “Just getting home. Go back to bed.”
Instead of doing as he was told, he started climbing towards me. “Your face! What happened?”
Giving in to the inevitable, I waved him my way, keeping my voice low. “Come on up to my room. Isabelle’s sleeping. Watch that step.” I pointed.
“Duh. I know.” Jos stepped over the noisy one and followed me, as I led the way.
Once we were inside with the door closed, I turned to face him. “Keep your voice down, okay?”
“What happened?”
“No big deal.” I touched my aching nose. “Just a bump. I bet Callum’s teammates get worse every game.”
“Someone hit you?”
“No, like I said. I was arresting them, they didn’t want to be arrested, they caught me with an elbow. No punching involved.”
“Are they in jail now?’
“Yeah.” And, fuck my life, I had a text that the Crown Prosecutor wanted to press the assaulting-an-officer charge, probably to get them to take a plea deal, so I had to go in and get my bruises documented tomorrow.
“Why were you arresting them?”
“Sorry, I can’t discuss cases with you. It wasn’t a big deal, though. They’d have been out on the street tomorrow if they hadn’t resisted.”
“I hate your job.” Jos sat on the end of my bed. “I hate the shifts and, just, everything.”
“I’m sorry. How was Isabelle? She seems nice.”
“She was okay.” Jos’s cheeks coloured and I wondered if he had a bit of a crush. Isabelle was nineteen, vivacious, and fashion-model pretty. “She made pasta for dinner and she didn’t bug me about things.”
“So it’s okay if I hire her when Callum and I can’t be here?”
“I guess.”
I wondered if this was a natural way for me to get more distance from Callum. Distance I didn’t want, but probably needed. “Maybe I can just hire her regularly, and Callum can move back home?”
“No!” Jos looked up fast, then bit his lip. “I mean, Callum doesn’t want to be home with his uncle. And I don’t blame him. That guy’s a creep.”
“He’s what?” I straightened. “What did he do to you?” If Wayne Fitzpatrick had touched Jos, he was going to find his teeth in another province.
“I was riding my bike, and he backed Mr. Roy’s truck out without looking, almost hit me.
So I slapped the truck to let him know I was right there.
He, like, squealed his brakes, and then he got out and he started yelling.
Calling me a stupid little shit. Stuff like that.
Said it was my fault and if I didn’t watch where I was going, next time he’d drive right over me. But he was the one who didn’t look.”
“Are you okay? Was this today?” I wasn’t usually the guy who punched people, but I was more than ready to take that asshole apart.
“I’m fine. It was a couple of days ago.” Jos shrugged. “But I get why Callum doesn’t want to sleep in the same house as him.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath, willing the red mist out of my eyes. Two days. He’s fine. “Stay away from him, though.”
“No shit.”
We eyed each other in silence for a moment. I couldn’t read what Jos was thinking, so I bit the bullet. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you. Callum says you know he and I are…”
“Fucking? Yeah.”
I wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to police his language, so I just asked, “Does that bother you?”
He shrugged again. “It’s weird. Are you, like, boyfriends now?”
“It’s complicated.”
Jos huffed a laugh. “You mean I’m too young to understand.”
“No, I don’t. I mean it’s complicated. Callum isn’t out as gay to anyone.”
“He said his grandfather knows. But not his uncle. Or his team. Not even Sully.”
“Right. So it’s all a big secret. But I’m out. I even did a magazine interview about being gay on the police force.” I’d almost forgotten, but Jay hadn’t. He’d recognized me. “I can’t go back in the closet. So if we try to be together… there’s risks for him.”
“Do you want to be, though?”
Yes. I hedged, “What would you think?”
“You could do worse. He’s okay. He can cook, kind of. Sully’s cool, and he likes Callum.”
That was as positive as I was likely to get out of Jos. “So we’re not boyfriends yet, but we’re something. All we can do now is go one day at a time. Like we’ve been doing.”
“As long as you don’t do it around me, I don’t care.”
“You’ll be careful what you say about Callum, right?” I reminded him. “Don’t out him, even a little bit.”
“I know!” He bounced to his feet. “It’s like you don’t trust me.”
“I trust you a lot.”
“Not to stay on my own at night, though.”
“That’s not about me not trusting you, that’s about me not trusting the world.” Power failures, lightning strikes, burglars, stove fires. “Anyhow, do you really want to?”
That question was a mistake, because the answer was probably no, but he couldn’t say so. He glared at me and yanked my door open. “Your face looks stupid.” Then he ducked out and I heard his steps clatter down the stairs, although he skipped the bad one.
I sighed. My nose hurt and my lip stung and my head ached.
I was beyond exhausted, and not about to chase after Jos.
That was how life with him seemed to be going— one step forwards, one step back.
But he was okay with Isabelle, he liked Callum if I was reading the subtext right, and he wasn’t going to out anybody.
I took that for a win, at the end of this crappy night, and put my aching face to bed.