CHAPTER 18 #2
The sound of smashing glass pulls me from the moment, and I glance over my shoulder to find Casey standing not three feet from me, eyes glued to Jed’s hand under my shirt, a look of what I can only describe as shock on his face and broken glass shattered at his feet.
I feel a whooshing in my ears, something almost physical as Casey looks up at me and I know that he knows, that he’s finally worked it out for himself but he’s more shocked than he really has any right to be.
Everything moves in slow motion as I look down at the smashed glass at his feet which is when it must finally register with him too.
He sucks in a breath of air, dropping to his knees. I’m on my feet in an instant, catching his hand before he cuts himself on the broken shards. His hands are shaking as he reaches for the glass, and I don’t know what I was expecting but this is not it.
“Stop, Casey,” I say, “Leave the glass.” A member of staff walks past and I signal to them.
“I’m sorry,” Casey is saying, eyes on the smashed glass. I’m forced to grab both his hands to stop him from trying to pick it up.
“Stop, Case. Someone will come and sweep it up,” I tell him. The staff member is there in an instant, a dustpan and brush to sweep up the glass.
“I’m so sorry,” Casey says to the staffer.
“Don’t worry. Happens at least ten times a night,” the guy says with a casual shrug.
“See? It’s fine,” I say, pulling Casey to his feet.
He comes without any resistance but I can see he’s still shaken, still not himself as his eyes drop to where I’m holding his hands.
I drop the contact straight away, not sure whether I still have free permission to touch when I want.
Casey’s eyes swivel between me and where Jed is probably watching from the bar, but I can’t care about Jed right now, not when my Casey is so shaken.
“Are you okay?” I ask as the staffer leaves with the broken glass.
“Ah, yeah, fine,” Casey returns. “Just, um, light headed I think.”
“Do you want me to take you back to the hotel?” I ask, eyes on him while his attention pings back to the guy waiting at the bar.
“Um, no. No, that’s okay. I don’t want to … interrupt,” he replies. He still can’t look me in the eye and I’m trying not to let that hurt right now. He’s clearly still in shock and I can’t judge his reaction.
“You’re not, Case. Say the word and we’ll get out of here,” I assure him.
Tentative eyes reach mine, anxious swirls of blue and green as he clutches his elbows, like he’s hugging himself. I’ve never seen Casey look so small and vulnerable as he does right now. I reach for him but hesitate again.
“Do you want to go back?” I ask again.
“Only if you don’t mind,” he says, voice quiet.
“I don’t mind. I want to.”
“Okay,” he nods, eyes pinging back to Jed. I turn to face him too, the guy I had all but agreed to go have sex with and send him an apologetic smile.
“Raincheck?” he shrugs, and I just say sure because we both know we won’t see each other again after this night. “Pity,” he adds with a pout.
I get over my apprehension and steer Casey away from the bar by his shoulders. The further we walk from the bar, the more the fog seems to lift for him because he stops just as we near the exit.
“I’m sorry,” he says with an air of desperation. “You don’t have to leave, Harrison. I didn’t mean to … get in the way.”
I turn him by the shoulders so we’re facing each other because I feel he needs to hear this clearly and he’s still not himself.
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be than with you, Casey.” He blinks up at me before he nods like he’s accepted the truth in my words. And honestly, they were said with every ounce of sincerity in my bones. I’ll always pick him. Every single time.
We make it outside and the fresh air hits like a wave. I hear Casey suck in a deep breath, and I feel like I can suddenly breathe again too. We start walking, the strip still teeming with nightlife and loud music as we make our way through the crowds.
“Oh, the guys. We should tell—”
“I got it, Case,” I say, pulling out my phone to shoot off a text to Sonny.
“What are you telling them?”
“That we’re going back to the hotel,” I say gently, wondering what he thought I’d write. That Casey had a possible panic attack and shattered his glass because he finally worked out that I’m gay?
We’re silent as we make the ten-minute walk back to the hotel and it’s not the easiest of silences. I’m not used to quiet around Casey, and I never realised how much I missed his non-stop banter until we’re left with this awkwardness.
We leave the noise and light of the strip behind and reach the footpath along the beach front, the sound of softly crashing waves filling the air. I feel Casey take a deep breath and hope he’s going to say something.
“So that’s your type, huh?” he says, a tinge of irony in his words.
“And what’s that?” I probe.
He pauses and looks up at me, the slightest hint of a smile somewhere in there. “… Brunette?”
I chuff a small laugh. “Brunette, blonde, ginger, black. It’s all the same to me. It’s more about …”
“What’s in the engine room?” Casey cuts in.
I laugh. “Not what I was going to say, but, yeah, it’s more about that.”
The silence returns and I walk on tenterhooks, not sure where we’re heading. Casey breaks the silence again and I am not prepared for the devastation on his face.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Harry?” he asks, words slicing me in half. “I thought we were … we’re meant to be … friends and you kept this really vital thing about yourself from me.”
I want to die with how much hurt is pouring from his words, cutting me to the core. “I know, Casey. And we are. Friends that is. I wanted to tell you. I really, really wanted to tell you.”
“So why didn’t you?”
I sigh. “It’s just … easier this way. Given my job and what I do and being around the locker room. It’s just become second nature to keep my private life away from my work life. It’s—”
“I thought I was part of your private life. I thought we were more than just work colleagues.”
Those words do me in, and I stop and grab his elbow, pulling him to a stop as I clutch onto his arms. He looks up at me and there’s just enough light from the streetlamps to see the devastation in the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.
“You are,” I say firmly. “You are , Casey. You’re …
so, so special to me and you’ve made my move to Sydney so easy and amazing and fun and welcoming.
You are so much more than a work colleague.
You know that. I know you do. If I could go back in time and realise how important you would become to me, I would have told you from the start.
But it’s not always easy, Case, having to do a big coming out every time I meet new people. ”
Something in my words soften him and I see it in the way he sighs softly. “I get it, Harry. I mean I don’t get it. Obviously. But, yeah, I get why you keep it to yourself. You don’t owe me that information about yourself.”
“No, I do owe you, Casey. I owe it to you to be honest, and I should have told you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Harry,” he says, words soft and gentle and more than I deserve.
“Can you forgive me?”
“Of course. That’s what friends do, right?
” There’s a soft smile on his face and I latch onto that with everything I have.
I want to hug him, crush him to my chest and not let go but I hesitate again.
I don’t know how much this reveal is going to change things between us, particularly with how physical we’ve always been with each other.
He may not want that anymore and though it will absolutely kill me, I know I have to respect it.
Although if anybody is not going to worry about boundaries it’s going to be this infuriating, beautiful guy.
The rest of the walk back to the hotel is quiet but it’s not awkward any longer, more contemplative. At least on Casey’s side. I guess I’m still feeling a little out at sea over what he’s really thinking. How I wish I could know what’s going through his overactive mind right now.
We get ready for bed on autopilot but I’m conscious of giving him space and making sure he has time to get dressed before we climb into bed together. The space between us feels vast and I take a small amount of comfort from the blanket of night that surrounds us.
I know Casey is still awake because I’m familiar with the soft sounds he makes when he’s asleep. But all is silent on the eastern side of the bed as we both stare up at the ceiling.
“Harry?”
“Yeah?”
I hear movement on the bed and assume he’s shifted to face me. Looks like we’re going to talk this out after all.
“So, are you like … fully gay or do you like … swing both ways?”
It’s a fair question so I tell him, “I’m fully gay .”
“Right. So like, you only have sex with guys kind of gay.”
“I’m not sure what other kind of gay you’re thinking of there, Case.”
He laughs, the sound soft and sweet. I relish it. “Yeah, course. Sorry. That was a dumb question.” He’s quiet for another minute before he asks, “So, do you, like, have a boyfriend?”
“I basically spend every waking moment with you, Casey. When do you think I have time for a boyfriend?”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” he says. “Is it because of me? That you don’t have a boyfriend? Cos I take up all your time?”
I admit I had started quietly panicking at the direction of Casey’s question so I’m relieved when he clarifies. “No, Case. It’s not because of you.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“I have had boyfriends in the past. But I was single when I came over to Australia.”
“Right,” he mulls. I can almost hear his thoughts, turning over themselves. “So, that guy tonight. The one at the bar.”
I shift onto my side, mirroring him even though I can only just make him out in the dark room. “What about him?”
“Would you have gone home with him? You know, if I hadn’t interrupted you?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Maybe. I was thinking about it.”
“I thought you weren’t into hookups.”
“I’m not really. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hookup or that I haven’t in the past. I just prefer relationships over casual sex. But it’s been a while since I last had sex, and I guess I … miss it.”
“Oh,” he says. Oh what? What does that mean? Oh if I could have any super power it would be reading this guy’s mind.
“It’s just, I thought you were going to go home with one of those girls and I thought it would be a bit sad coming back to an empty hotel room by myself.”
Casey sucks in a tiny breath of air at my words. “I wasn’t going to hookup with one of those girls, Harry. I’d never just ditch you like that.”
“Oh.” Now it’s my turn for the vague answer. Really? He really wasn’t going to hookup with one of those girls?
“But if you did want to … you know, hookup with a guy … you know I won’t stop you, right?” His words are tentative, and I don’t like the way they make me feel, like they don’t sit right in my stomach or something.
“I’m fine, Case. Nobody died from lack of sex.”
He snorts out a short laugh. “I can attest to that. Well, unless you count sex with yourself. I’m pretty good at that.”
Okay I did not need that image in my head, thank you, Casey Calloway. We’re quiet for a while before Casey speaks again.
“So is he the kind of guy you’re into?”
“What kind of guy did you think he was?” I ask, not sure where this conversation is going.
“Oh you know, brunette, tall. Nice looking. A little bit muscular.”
“I mean, I’d like to think I’m not shallow but yeah, I guess so.”
“So you’re into muscles?”
“As much as the next gay guy, sure.”
“Right,” he says again. I want to leave the topic there because I’m slightly uncomfortable about where it’s headed but I have a feeling there’s more to come. Turns out I’m right as Casey takes another little breath. “So … can I ask a question?”
“Pretty sure we’re past that by now, Case.”
“Yeah. Yeah. It’s just … have you ever …?”
“Ever what?”
He’s quiet for almost a minute before he rushes out, “Have you ever thought about me like that?”
I let out the breath I was holding and shift onto my back. I knew this question was coming. I knew it and yet I’m still not prepared. I can’t give him the truth, obviously. If he knew how much I liked him he’d run for the hills, and I value his friendship way too much for that.
“Case, don’t go there,” is what I say. “Don’t make this weird between us. I promise you I have never once knowingly gone after a straight guy. That’s not something I’m into.”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” he rushes to assure me.
“How did you mean it then?”
“Just that. I wanted to know if you’ve ever thought about me in that way.”
I say nothing for a moment, debates rolling through my head in quick succession. In the end I just sigh and tell him, “Pretty sure you already know the answer to that.”
I know that will be the end of tonight’s conversation.