Chapter 9
NINE
TONIGHT - CNBLUE
As much as everything had changed on the swing set of a random children’s park in Cheongdamdong, Cal and Lia had both been swept away from each other by their work.
Cal was trying to fit as many appointments with agencies as he could—he was long past being subtle about the band seeking new representation.
So much so that Teddy had to sit him down and tell him to focus on the album first—let that speak to the agencies.
Lia, meanwhile, was always on calls now with people he didn’t know, talking about things like “venue deposit,” “social media,” or “audience engagement.” She seemed happy, though. The spring in her step whenever she showed up for breakfast made her radiate brighter than the still sleepy sun.
But they did have their breakfasts. Thirty minutes to an hour of each day where they sat together on his kitchen island, talking (or more often than not), not talking.
It gave Cal a particular pleasure to start his day with a bit of making out.
It felt like he was stealing time when he could, and Lia didn’t mind being his willing accomplice.
Here was a fun fact that Lia didn’t realize she needed to know—Cal Ahn was an excellent kisser.
He liked to be the one to pull you close, liked to press his lips against yours as he touched as much of your body as you allowed.
He liked to touch the tip of his nose to the sensitive spots on your neck that he could find, and liked saying things in between kisses like, “You taste so good.” “May I kiss you again?”
“What are we doing?” Lia asked him, even as her fingers were already slightly tucked in the waistband of his running shorts. The thing about Lia was that she was a greedy kisser too, and kissing Cal always left her breathless. Not him, though. He had the lung capacity of—well—a singer.
“I don’t know,” Cal admitted, his forehead pressed against hers as they caught their breath between kisses. “But I know I like this. This feels nice. You feel nice.”
There really wasn’t much of an opportunity to talk about what this was, what it meant, what it would be—Cal was never a details man, anyway. Who needed details? Psh. All he knew was that Lia was here, now, for however long it would be (56 days), and what would happen after…was an after problem.
Cal
Your brother is scary.
Lia
Oh no, did you try to wake him up from a nap?
Cal
He kicked me out of my office? He said I stopped being helpful to him an hour ago.
Lia
Aw, poor baby.
I’m at home if you want to hang out.
Cal
Hey Lia
Do you want to see my cat?
There was always something special about the first time.
The first time Cal debuted on stage with the band, the first time the band won a music show.
The first time the band went on tour around Asia.
The first time he managed to open his brain big enough to realize that men could be just as hot as women, and he was into that, actually
First times were always great. But to Cal, the best kind of first time was knowing it wasn’t going to be the last, knowing that there was time to enjoy it, and fully let yourself get lost in that first blush of feeling.
It was late in the night when Teddy kicked him out of the office. To the surprise of everyone, Cal had become something of a perfectionist about the album-in-progress, and was hovering over Teddy’s shoulder as he reviewed their demos of demos, asking if they could change something, add something…
Yeah, Cal understood why he’d been booted.
So he sent Dongyeon home, made sure Teddy had a driver waiting for him anytime he decided to head back to Hannam, and headed home himself.
And there was a comfort to that, to knowing there was someone to make sure they got home safe, and someone to come home to.
“You’re so corny.” She’d giggled in between his kisses, moments after he'd burst through his front door, tossed off his jacket and his shoes and found her eating grapes on his kitchen island. Lia thought he had a cat. He did not.
“Also a little horny. For you.”
“That too.” Her hands pressed against his chest as he pushed her against the back of her bedroom door. He’d always vaguely enjoyed Lia’s perfume, but up close, against the pulse of her neck, it was addicting.
“It’s the same store you bought the bathroom hand soap from,” Lia explained. “I wanted…I wanted something to remember living with you by. Back when I was hiding the fact that I was a BoLT.”
“Ahh Lia. I hope you never have to hide from me again,” he said, and he truly meant it. Because he could get addicted to the feeling of Lia’s skin against his, to her body in his arms.
“Huy.” Lia put her hands on both his cheeks and squished them together, making her giggle as Cal glared at her. “Relax. We can do this as much as we want. We have time.”
“It doesn’t feel like it, though,” he argued as she released his cheeks.
He stood to his full height, towering over her, resting his arm across her head and his forehead on his arm, his other hand on her waist in a light hold.
“It feels like I’ll do something wrong, you’ll disappear, and I’ll be alone again. ”
He recognized the look she gave him then. It was the same look she’d given him the first time he’d bought her breakfast, or that time they’d sat on the swings and he said he wasn’t good enough. Lia tiptoed and caught his lips in a kiss, her hands looping around his neck, drawing him lower.
“You’ve never been alone, Cal. Even more so now,” Lia told him, pressing her forehead to his. Then she went back down. Cal felt her waist move as she nervously shifted her weight from foot to foot. She seemed uncharacteristically shy and nervous, which reminded him of the day he met her.
“Have you…done this before?” she asked.
“Yes.” His eyes widened, because he never actually considered that when Lia agreed to this, she possibly would never have done it before? Which was very narrow-minded of him.
“I meant, uh…you’ve done this before, with a woman?”
Oh. “Yes.” He grinned at her.
“You debuted really young, okay. I was just checking.” He could see her face turn an embarrassed flush of red.
“I was already 20, FYI. And I thought I was super straight at the time. So I have slept with women.”
“Wow, edi ikaw na.” Lia rolled her eyes, but there was a kind of endearment to the sarcasm that Cal knew to be a particularly Pinoy thing. He laughed and bent down to hold the backs of Lia’s thighs to lift her up and press her back against the door, wrapping her thighs around his waist.
“And you?” he asked, kissing the back of her ear. Surprise, it made her shudder and giggle. Good to know. “Have you?”
“Slept with a woman? Can’t say I have.”
“Very funny.” He stopped, and the little whimper she made seared into his brain. “But seriously, Lia. Is this your first time?”
“It’s not,” she assured him. “It’s just been a while. A year.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “I haven’t been with anyone since Bomseok either, so.” He winced, because he was pretty sure somewhere out there was a rulebook that said you should never mention your ex when trying to have sex with someone new.
“It’s okay,” Lia told him, cutting off his errant thought with a kiss, grinding her hip against his. “I trust you. And just in case, I know where you live, so…”
That made him laugh, holding on to her bottom as he whirled them both around, making her shriek in surprise before he gently deposited her on the bed. He took off his jacket and tossed it aside, and—
“Should we have a safe word?”
He gave it some thought. He tugged the hem of his shirt from the waistband of his jeans, watching as Lia’s eyes grew almost comically wide at the sight.
“Donggu,” he said, pulling at the hem from the back.
“No!”
“Cat.”
“Cal!”
“Tap my cheek and tell me if you want me to stop or slow down,” he said instead.
“Okay.” She was still looking a little…panicked, he would say? He didn’t know what to make of the expression on her face, even if that was definitely heat in her eyes, even if her breaths were coming in quick. He took one step to her and she stiffened. “Wait! Do you have condoms?”
He showed her the pack of three he’d purchased on his way home. Lia raised a brow at him.
“Three agad?”
“They were a pack of three!”
“Okay, okay. Lube?” she asked. “This will be so much easier for me if we have it.”
He frowned, because he was sure he had…right.
Cal pointed at the bedside dresser beside her bed, which had been beside his.
“Bottom drawer.” She blinked at him in confusion before she retrieved the brand-new bottle.
“That was me being presumptuous while we were on hiatus. It hasn’t expired yet, I don’t think… ”
“You’re right.” Lia said, examining the back of the bottle. “Huh. This is your nightstand?”
“I moved it here because I figured my guest needed one. So can we…” He tugged at the neck of his shirt, ready to pull it up and over his head, when Lia panicked, set the lube aside, and made a little noise.
“Lia, do you not want to have sex with me?” he asked, hands on his hips.
Or, what was a less threatening pose? He couldn’t exactly cup his hands to his face like a flower.
“We don’t have to. Just because we kissed doesn’t mean…
we can do something else. I’ll just need ten minutes for a cold shower. Twenty?”
“Noooo.”
“No? I can’t walk around with this—” He indicated the tent in his pants, which Lia stared at a little too long, her eyes still wide. Her mouth hung open slightly.
“Oh my god!” That was definitely hunger and desire in Lia’s eyes, it flared like a firework in the middle of a song’s big finish. “Ahn Yongjin has a boner. For me.”
But she shook her head and grabbed a pillow over her head to throw over her eyes, and he was sure he heard her groan something along the lines of “putangina,” “delulu-d too close to the sun,” and “bakit ang gwapo?”
“Bakit gwapo? I think we already talked about this?”