Chapter Six
Caleb
“You’re such a liar!” Kayden laughs even harder, tears clinging to his dark blond eyelashes. The sun disappears into the ocean behind him, and he’s illuminated by the remaining light, his curls glowing like a halo around his bright face.
“I’m not lying. Just ask your mom. It’s the honest-to-God truth.” I cross my heart solemnly.
We finished dinner ages ago, but we continue to sit on Kayden’s tiny balcony, our empty plates on the makeshift cardboard table, trading stories from when Sal and I were in high school and then later, when Kayden was a kid.
“How do you even come up with shit like that? You just pull it out of your ass?” Kayden’s gaze shifts between his plate and my face.
I love it when he laughs. It’s like his whole body becomes alive, one wave after another rippling through his chest, until the sound bubbles so vivaciously and uninhibitedly from his lips.
There’s nothing like it. It feels like the first day of spring when everything explodes in a cacophony of colors and sounds.
He didn’t always laugh like this, but now, since he’s come back, it’s like this huge weight has been lifted from his shoulders.
I know what it is, of course, I just never expected how I’d react to it or how I’d react to Kayden owning himself like he does right now, at this very moment.
With such raw beauty and immense strength. With such pride. I’m in awe.
“Hey, don’t talk about my ass,” I wink, and Kayden blushes even deeper, the pink spilling from his cheeks, down to his chin, and further down his long, delicate neck.
My gaze drifts further down, lingering a little too long on his chest, but it’s far from the first time I’ve caught myself checking Kayden out today; my eyes often straying to parts of his body that they have no business admiring.
“You’re incorrigible,” he says, and isn’t that the fucking truth.
He shakes his head, and those fucking curls go all wild and rebellious again, but this time he makes no attempt at brushing them out of his face.
My fingers itch to touch him, tuck them behind his ear, as I did earlier in the kitchen, when my fingers went rogue on me.
I clench my fists against my thighs and force a lightness into my voice.
“I know, but I’m not lying, sweetheart.”
“Really? I don’t remember.” He frowns at me, and I recognize the curiosity in his eyes. “I really said that?”
“You really said that. And with such fucking conviction too. You were pretty badass even back then.”
“Stop!” he groans, burying his face in his hands, and it’s only now I notice the tattoo on his left wrist. “I’m mortified.
On behalf of my five-year-old self, I’m officially mortified.
” His voice is muffled behind his hands.
My eyes remain fixated on the four small stars like tiny dots against his skin.
I wonder what they mean. If they mean anything at all, or if they’re just stars.
Kids get all sorts of random shit tattooed on them these days.
Then again, Kayden’s never done a random thing in his life as far as I know.
He’s always so deliberate, so mindful. I guess he’s had to be, with the twists and turns his life has taken along the way.
“Don’t be mortified, K. It was the cutest fucking thing ever.
You were the cutest fucking thing ever as you stood there, stomping your yellow rubber boots into the ground, insisting you were gonna marry me one day, when you were older.
Shit, the look on Sal’s face.” I cackle at the memory of sheer fucking horror painted across my best friend’s face at the thought of his kid growing up and marrying the biggest hound dog ever.
“Shut up!” He glares at me from behind his fingers.
“I don’t think I like you anymore, Caleb.
” There’s a hint of a pout in his voice, and the lines blur again, the recollection of Kayden as a kid clashing with how he looks right now, sitting across from me, all grown and…
I stop that thought from wandering into dangerous territory.
“Ah, you like me just fine, sweetheart. I’m not marriage material, though, but I guess that’s what happens when you chase down an ice cream truck to get a five-year-old a Bubble Gum Swirl.”
“A Bubble Gum Swirl? Wow, that’s really all it took?”
“Sure was.”
Kayden doesn’t say anything for a while as he gazes over my shoulder out into the distance, seemingly lost in a moment he doesn’t recall. It’s not uncomfortable, the silence, just a quiet togetherness that I’m not used to. Eventually, I ask, “Did you know back then? That you were a boy?”
Kayden nods as his eyes lock onto mine. “Yes. I mean, I don’t think I had a word for it back then, or a concept, but I knew.
I knew that I wasn’t…” He hesitates as he plays with his napkin.
“Yeah, I think I knew, Caleb. I guess I’ve always known.
I just…” His eyes glaze over, two pools of blue swimming in front of me.
I grab his hand across the table and squeeze his fingers. “Hey, it’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I’m just a nosy motherfucker, K. I’m sorry if I overstepped.”
He chuckles quietly. “That’s just the thing.
You did, and you didn’t. Overstep, I mean.
” He bites his lip as he seems to mull something over in his head.
“That’s what I like about you, Caleb. What I’ve always liked.
You don’t treat me like I’m this fragile thing…
like I’ll… fuck, like I’ll break if we talk about real stuff. You know, stuff that matters.”
My chest twists into knots that tangle around my heart. This man, this beautiful man, so wise beyond his years, so open.
“I know you won’t break, K. You’re the strongest person I know.”
His face lights up with wonder, like I’ve just told him he’s won a million bucks, or a trip around the fucking world. “Yeah? You really mean that?”
“Oh, absolutely. But you’ll still never beat me at pull-ups.” I get up as I grab my plate and cutlery.
“You’re so full of yourself,” he groans, then grabs his plate and stands too.
“Thanks for the tacos. Best damn meal I’ve had in ages.” I move into Kayden’s bedroom, maneuvering past his now-finished bed.
“Better than Mom’s chicken casserole?” There’s a glimmer in his eyes that I can’t decipher. If it weren’t Kayden, I’d think he was flirting with me. The way his voice just dipped and his slightly hooded eyes. That eagerness painted across his sun-kissed face.
“Sweetheart, there’s no way in hell I’m answering that question. I’m not done with this life yet.”
Kayden snorts, “Always so dramatic. Mom won’t kill you over that.”
“You sure about that?”
“Disown you, maybe,” he grins.
In the kitchen, we do the dishes together, and it feels strangely domestic.
Occasionally, our elbows brush, or Kayden’s fingers touch mine when I hand him a plate to dry.
That odd feeling of familiarity and closeness, and if I’m being honest, attraction, because I now recognize it for what it is, continues to linger inside me.
It’s like a push and pull. I want to get closer to him, and still, there’s that voice inside me, the voice of reason or whatever, that tells me to back off, to stay away, to ‘don’t even fucking go there, Caleb Morgan.
’ But the more time I spend with Kayden, in his space, it gets harder and harder not to pay attention to those tiny sounds he makes when he lifts onto his feet to place a bowl in one of the cabinets, or his scent that wraps around me when he reaches past me to place a glass on a shelf.
Anyone but him, I chastise myself. You can fucking lust after anyone but him. Not Kayden.
“... a movie?” Kayden stares at me expectantly as he wipes his fingers with the kitchen towel.
“Sorry, what?”
He smiles softly. “Are you tired, or do you wanna watch a movie with me?”
I know the answer to that. Or at least, I know what it should be, and still, on its own, my mouth forms into a “yeah, sure.” I curse myself the second the words have left my lips, because there’s that light in Kayden’s eyes again.
A light that I shouldn’t crave so much. A light I’m becoming slightly addicted to, if I’m being honest with myself.
So I backpedal as fast as I can. “You know what? On second thought, let’s do a raincheck on that. ”
“Oh. Yeah, sure. Of course.” Kayden twists the kitchen towel between his fingers like he’s trying to strangle it.
My heart sinks in my chest, but it’s better I disappoint him now than hurt him later.
Because I probably will, if I let this go where I’m afraid it’ll go, the more time I spend with Kayden.
I scratch the back of my neck as I stare at my feet. “It’s just that I have a ton of e-mails, K. The delay left us with quite the backlog.”
“No, it’s okay.” He attempts a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“I understand. Some other time. Or not.” He turns, throwing the kitchen towel over the back of a chair on his way out of the kitchen.
I follow him, and when we reach the front door, Kayden seems to have put on the mask that I recognize from when he came home from Boston during his transition.
I can’t get a read on him, and it fucking kills me.
“Thanks for all your help today, Caleb,” he says in a voice so neutral it feels like a punch to my gut.
“I’m really grateful you wanted to help me out. ”
“Of course,” I mumble, and I wish I could go back in time so we were still sitting on the balcony, the last rays of sunshine caressing Kayden’s curls.
I wish I could freeze that moment and pretend, for just a second, that I could be the kind of guy who deserved to sit with Kayden like that every night or on a couch, watching a goddamn movie with him.
But I’m not that kind of guy. I never was.
And I’m kidding myself if I think I can be.