Chapter 24 Miguel
TWENTY-FOUR
MIGUEL
The key turns in the lock before I even make it to the door.
Good. He listened.
“Caleb?” I call, wiping my hands on a dish towel as the door swings open. “Sharks game is on, I got popcorn, I—”
Caleb steps inside and whatever I was going to say dies in my throat.
He looks wrecked.
Not post-game wrecked either. Not “I pulled an all-nighter” wrecked. The other kind, eyes a little too bright, shoulders up by his ears, hoodie zipped all the way to his throat like armor. He closes the door behind him and just stands there with his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Hey,” I say, softer. “C’mere, hermoso.”
Caleb swallows and tries for a smile. It doesn’t make it all the way to his eyes.
“How bad?” I ask.
“I told him,” he says, voice rough. “About… us.”
My chest tightens, and I cross the room in three steps.
“And?” I ask, stepping into his space. “Is he alive? Are you alive? Do we need to send Harrington a fruit basket for being a snitch?”
That gets me the tiniest huff, the ghost of a laugh. Then it cracks and his face crumples.
“Hey,” I murmur, pulling him in. His body hits mine like gravity finally remembered him. He fists his hands in the front of my hoodie and buries his face in my chest. His breath comes fast and shallow, not quite panic-attack territory yet, but close enough to make my own lungs clench in sympathy.
I wrap him up, one hand at the back of his neck, the other spanning his spine. He’s cold from the outside air and hot everywhere else, buzzing under my palms.
“Slow down,” I murmur against his hair. “You’re here. You’re okay. Let’s start there.”
“He knows,” he mumbles into my shirt. “He knows, and he… I don’t… I can’t tell if it’s good or bad, Miggy, I can’t—”
“Okay, okay.” I steer us sideways until the backs of my legs hit the couch. “Sit with me and tell me. One thing at a time, yeah?”
Shaking his head like if he stops standing, the world will swallow him whole. His fingers tighten in my hoodie.
“Caleb.” I put a little steel in it. “Sit. I’m right here.”
It takes a second, but he lets me maneuver him down. I drop onto the couch and drag him with me so he ends up half in my lap, knees bent, one leg tucked under him, one foot on the floor. He’s still clinging like someone might pry us apart if he loosens his grip.
Fuck.
I tuck his head under my chin and let him breathe for a minute. His heartbeat thuds against my ribs, all out of rhythm. “Okay,” I say when his breathing evens out. “Start wherever you need to. What did he say?”
Caleb lets out a shaky breath that’s almost a laugh.
“He asked if it was a phase,” he says, voice muffled. “An ‘experimental attachment.’ I think my soul left my body for a second.”
Heat flares in my chest.
God, my stepdad can be such a prick sometimes.
“Experimental,” I repeat, my voice going flat. “Like you’re trying a new shampoo.”
“Yeah, with my stepbrother,” he mutters. “Very on-brand.”
I want to put my fist through Ashton’s perfect drywall.
“What did you tell him?” I ask instead.
“I told him it wasn’t,” he says. “That it’s serious. That it’s been serious in my head since I was sixteen and in real life since Halloween.”
My heart stutters.
He’s known that he’s loved me since he was sixteen.
It’s been longer for me.
“Yeah?” I murmur. “You told him that?”
He nods against me.
“And?” I prompt because I know Ashton Burton. He doesn’t stop at one question. The man cross-examines until his intended target is a pile of ash.
Caleb’s fingers twist into my hoodie again, knuckles white. “He asked how long. He asked why I didn’t tell him. Did the whole ‘I rescued you, I paid for therapy’ speech. I told him he makes me feel like everything’s a test.”
My jaw locks. How fucking dare he use that, like him saving his own kid should be some fucking pat on the back.
Fuck him.
It takes everything in me to not set Caleb down and drive over to the house and give him a piece of my mind. “Good,” I say, and I mean it. “About saying it. Not about him making you feel like that. That part’s shit.”
His shoulders do a little tremor that might be a laugh or might be the start of tears.
“I told him…” Caleb swallows. “I told him you’re the reason I’m still here.”
The room tilts for a second. Caleb’s said as much to me before, drunk and half-asleep, fingers tangled in my shirt, but hearing that he said it to his dad, my throat goes hot.
“And?” I manage.
“And he…” Caleb sniffs, scrubbing a hand under his nose. “He didn’t know it got that far. I mean, he knew, but he didn’t know.” His voice cracks. “Said he was sorry. For… making me feel like a project. For loving me like a report card.”
A hot, complicated knot tightens in my chest. I can picture Ashton in his office, tie loosened, the first crack in the mask he’s worn since Caleb came back into his life.
“Good,” I say again, quietly.
“It felt… huge,” Caleb says. “And also like… I don’t know. Like he was sorry in theory, but also still him. Still worried about my ‘future’ and how ‘tangled’ we are.”
The part that hooked his brain and won’t let go.
“He say the word ‘ruin’?” I ask. “Your dad loves that one.”
Caleb huffs a humorless breath. “He got close. Asked if we break up, what happens. Asked if I thought this through. And then he said he’s not gonna forbid it. That he’s… ‘processing.’ He understands that you’ve made me want to stay.”
I blink.
Huh.
Not where I expected that to go.
“So he didn’t say, ‘Stop seeing him or I cut you off’?” I clarify.
“No,” Caleb says. “He didn’t. He said he doesn’t want to lose me over this.
That he wants to… learn.” The last word wobbles.
“But he also said he doesn’t agree. Which, like?
What the fuck does that even mean? He doesn’t agree with…
me being in love with you? With the fact that you exist? With me existing like this?”
I don’t know why, but there’s something about the way he said that. It really fucking irks me.
His breathing speeds up again, hitching. His body tenses, like the couch is suddenly too small, too unstable.
“Hey,” I murmur, tightening my grip. “Easy.”
“Dad wants to talk to both of us,” Caleb rushes on, words tumbling faster.
“Together. He asked if you’d… He wants us on the phone at the same time or, I don’t know, in person when he visits, and I said maybe, and now—I don’t know, Miggy, what if he changes his mind?
What if he thinks about it for a week and decides actually no, this is disgusting, this is wrong, and then—”
His voice fractures on the last word. The rest dissolves into breathless sound.
“Caleb,” I say, trying to keep my own voice steady. “Look at me.”
He doesn’t. His eyes fix somewhere over my shoulder, glassy, unfocused. His cheeks are flushed, and he's breathing too fast.
“Ground’s gone,” he whispers. “I don’t… I can’t tell if I just blew everything up or if…”
“Baby.” I put a hand on either side of his face and gently turn him toward me. His pupils are blown wide, the edges of his vision already locking down. “There you are. Breathe with me, okay? You’re starting to tip.”
“I’m fine,” he says, too quickly. “I’m—”
“Nope,” I cut in. “We are not gaslighting ourselves today. You’re not fine. That’s okay. Let’s ride it out the right way.”
I slide off the couch to the floor, tugging him with me, until we’re both sitting with our backs to the couch, feet flat on the rug. Easier to ground when you can feel the floor. Caleb presses his palms against his knees like he’s trying to hold himself together by force.
“Hands,” I say softly. “Give me one.”
He peels his right hand off his leg like it’s stuck and lets me take it. His fingers are cold and shaking.
“Okay,” I say. “You know the drill. In for four, hold for four, out for six. We’ve done this a hundred times. I’m not going anywhere. Ready?”
Caleb nods, the movement jerky.
“Say it,” I prompt. “Just that part. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’”
His throat moves as he swallows. “You’re not going anywhere,” he whispers.
“Good.” I squeeze his hand. “Now breathe with me.”
I exaggerate my own inhale so he can hear it. “One, two, three, four,” I count. “Hold. One, two, three, four. Out. One, two, three, four, five, six.”
The first few cycles, his chest still stutters too fast, his shoulders rising like he’s bracing for impact. His eyes keep darting away from my face, like there’s some danger in the corners of the room only he can see.
“Stay with me,” I say. “You feel the floor under your feet?”
He glances down. “Yeah,” he rasps. “Yeah.”
“Good. Tell me three things you can feel,” I say. “Right now.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, jaw clenched.
“Couch at my back,” he forces out. “Rug under my feet. Your hand.”
“Yeah.” I rub my thumb over his knuckles. “You know I have you. I’m right here. Two things you can hear.”
Swallowing, “You,” he says. “And… the fridge.”
The fridge hums in the background, steady and mundane. “Perfect,” I say. “One thing you can smell.”
His nose wrinkles. “Your cologne. It’s a little strong today.”
“Okay, rude. I smell great.”
A tiny, hiccuping laugh escapes him.
“There he is,” I murmur. “That’s my baby.”
His breathing slows another notch. It’s not perfect, but less like he’s about to launch out of his body.
“Okay,” I say after a minute, when color has started coming back into his face. “Now. Tell me what your brain is screaming at you.”
Then he let out another humorless laugh. “That this is temporary,” he says. “That Dad’s just… being calm for now. That in a week, he’ll call back and tell me he changed his mind and that if I don’t break up with you, then… that’s it. No contact, no nothing.”
My jaw tightens. “Okay,” I say. “And then what’s the next part?”
He looks at me, eyes raw. “That if that happens, I’ll have to choose,” he whispers. “And that choosing you means I lose him. And choosing him means I lose you. And I can’t lose either of you, Miggy. I can’t. I don’t have enough people to spare.”