30. CALLUM
30
CALLUM
This was not how I pictured the night ending.
I wanted to spend the night with Chloe. At the bar, in my bed, her bed, on the couch watching a movie. . . I didn’t care. I wanted and needed to be around her.
After seeing the picture that Audrey purposely sent me, I couldn’t sit by on the sofa and wait for her. I changed quickly and caught a ride to the bar they were at.
Finding her sitting across from someone else had me curling and uncurling my fists. My blood was pumping with frustration. Frustration that someone was sitting with my girl.
Audrey’s interruption was for the best. With how uncontrolled I was becoming, there was no telling what would happen between Chloe and me. I saw the way she curled into herself when I asked if she slept with nameless people—the bite in her tone when she said don’t .
I know she has a past, we all do, but hers, I fear, lingers and holds her captive like mine does. I would never want sex or any relationship between us to tighten her cuffs.
Tonight wasn’t the first time she’s behaved this way. She takes random showers or disappears into her room for half an hour. I’ve worked to categorize what triggers which response, but there isn’t a consistent pattern. Except for her body language. Her eyes go molten, and knee bounces. If she’s talking, she goes silent as if something is trying to escape and she doesn’t want it to.
Am I any different ?
When we get back to our flat, I’m a silent tornado. Audrey already knows the drill, prancing like a tipsy deer back to her room to clean it. Opening her door in leggings and a jumper, I hand her cleaning supplies and a cordless vacuum.
I start in the living room, fluffing and chopping pillows on the couch, reorganizing books on the shelf, ensuring each one is lined up correctly, and picking up any big pieces of dust or trash.
Then, the dining area.
Then, the kitchen.
Chloe stands by the front door, watching.
“Are you going to help?” I snap.
She blinks fast and I wish I instantly regretted my tone, but I don’t. What does she not understand about my mother being in Chicago? She’ll come here.
Our place is a mess. She can’t see it like this. I know better than this.
Chloe takes a hesitant step forward into the kitchen. Her lip pops from between her teeth. “How can I help?”
Audrey returns with the vacuum passing it to Chloe. She takes it and still in her leather boots and mini skirt, she starts vacuuming the place. I know we are going to have to do this again in the morning, maybe by the hour till Mom shows up, because of Tucker’s hair.
“I’ll keep him in my room,” Chloe says, cutting the vacuum.
I nod a few times. Make my way upstairs.
She follows.
I turn left and go into her room.
“I try to keep it picked up.”
“It’s fine, Henry.”
Picking up clothes, I don’t know or care if they are clean or dirty, I toss them into her laundry basket and tuck it into the closet.
Making and remaking her bed, I have to slam my eyes shut. Her bed reeks of her in the best way possible. Overwhelming my senses just as she does whenever she’s around. I wish I could lay down with her and curl up in these sheets.
But I can’t.
My mind won’t let me.
Chloe helps but is moving too slow.
What if my parents show up right now? What if they see her room like this?
Her room. It halts me in my tracks, feet skidding on the cool tile floor.
Chloe’s room.
My girlfriend’s room.
They don’t know she’s living here. I never ended up telling them that. If she’s living here, shouldn’t she be in my room?
Mom is never going to believe that she’s my girlfriend if we aren’t sharing rooms. She’s going to hate that she’s even here.
My chest is tight. I rub a hand over it, trying to find some air.
Chloe walks into her en suite. I didn’t even know I was cleaning in here, my blinders on too tightly.
Turning on an additional light, the space is illuminated, clearer. . .or maybe that’s my head? She moves around me, bracketing me to the counter. Her tattooed hands inch closer to me till her thumbs loop my pinkies.
“Cal.” I ignore her. “Callum,” she says more firmly. “Look at me.”
Tipping my chin up, I find soft eyes—compassionate grays reflecting against my hurt and jaded blues.
“What’s going on?” she asks softly. “Talk to me, please.”
“It’s too much.”
“It’s not, Callum. I can handle it.” I’m hanging by a moment in this bathroom. What else do I have to lose? Her? “If you’ve got me, I have you.” Chloe squeezes my hand. “We have each other.”
Her words have me relinquishing my spiraling thoughts.
“Got it.” Chloe pauses for a second, silently nodding. “We’ll hide or remove my belongings, take my toothbrush to your bathroom.” Chloe tells me precisely what’s going to happen. She doesn’t phrase it as questions, asking if it’s okay, just does. “Okay?”
“Okay.” My voice is hoarse.
“Now that that’s covered, want to tell me what’s really going on?”
The counter is cutting into my butt, but I fear moving. If I move, will I lose her proximity and touch? Will she see everything I’m not and all the ways I’d fail her if she ever allowed me to be hers?
We exhale at the same time. I quickly inhale, wanting to share air with her. Breathe in more of the life Chloe has already restored in me. She doesn’t see it or know it, but she has. Since she’s moved in, my life hasn’t felt black or white.
“Or you don’t have to. I want to be who you’ve been for me. When you’re ready, I’m here.”
My eyes shut. A neon sign that flashes, Callum Sullivan is thirty and still desperately trying to get his mother to love him , is above my head.
Does she see it?
Does Chloe know that my own mother doesn’t think I’m good enough to love?
Does she see the broken boy?
I want to tell her, but I’m scared. Chloe says she won’t judge me, but everyone always has.
Chloe hasn’t. My heart chants with each beat.
Chloe is the exception.
“People who say they don’t have a favorite child lie. I never wished to be the favorite, only enough to be seen. Loved.” I hear Chloe’s sharp inhale. “Growing up I strived to be like my older brothers. According to my mother, they were perfect, which meant I had to be too. But I failed time and time again. I didn’t look like them. I was interested in different hobbies but still participated in theirs. None of that ever mattered.
“What’s worse is that they noticed. My initial naivety spring-boarded their cruelty. I hated the way they treated me, but I thought I deserved it because I could never accomplish what they did. That by picking on me, they were helping me be more like them. I was so misled.”
“How is it now?”
“Those pressures never went away.” Isn’t pressure supposed to create diamonds? “Do they ever when they are ingrained in you?”
“No, I can’t imagine they would.”
“They’ve never been to an opening, there’s always something more important going on. I got into Imperial College, they got into Oxford and Cambridge—I did too, in case you wanted to know.” Chloe quietly laughs and it vibrates through my chest. “If I have an idea and call to share it, my brothers already had that idea, or theirs is better.”
“They are married, aren’t they?” I nod. “That’s why you needed me.”
I needed her for that, but I didn’t realize how much my life generally needed her.
The emptiness I’ve felt for years—maybe my entire existence—was a place for her.
I nod again, finally opening my eyes to look at her. I didn’t expect tears, my life isn’t traumatic by any measure.
“Cal, you have no boxes to check with me. My only expectation of you is to be you.” She wipes at a tear on my cheek. Her words are a warm hug I’ve needed for so long. Her hands snake up my forearms, then around my neck. “I wish they saw how incredible you are. Intelligent. Clever. Ambitious. Organized. Protective. Intentional. If they never see that, that’s a loss they have to live with.”
I go to open my mouth, but Chloe shakes her head no.
“We can finish picking up or doing whatever you need to do, but I’m not letting you verbally disagree with me about how I see you. How I feel about you. Their opinions aren’t my opinions. I know their opinions matter, that it’s all you know, but I hope you realize how special you are to me. ”
Chloe seals her lips over mine. My heart skips a beat and I lean into the touch, but it was quick. Pulling away, she uses her thumb to wipe the red lipstick from my face.
***
An hour later, there’s a gentle knock on my door before it opens.
“You up?”
Tucker barges in, using his solid head to open the door. He jumps up on my bed circling before lying down at the foot.
“Can I come in?”
“You’ve never asked before.”
“True.”
She’s in her sleep uniform but instead of bare legs, she’s in a loose pair of pants.
I pat the spot on my bed next to me.
Padding over to the side, she drops her phone on the bedside table before pulling back the covers.
“You’re staying?”
“Boyfriend-girlfriend. What if your parents show up in the middle of the night and I was in a different bed.” she states in a playfully soft tone. “Is this okay?”
“Yeah.”
Chloe climbs in and looks perfect. Her dark hair flows out on the pillow. Peaches overtaking the smell of my detergent—I can’t wait for the morning when her smell lingers.
She rolls onto her side, watching me. I mirror her position, sliding down from the headboard I was sitting up against to read.
“Didn’t know you wear glasses.”
“Contacts. I use dailies.”
With a genuine smile, she scans my face. “You should wear them more.”
If Chloe looks at me like that, I’ll never take them off .
We lay there for a little while in silence. Watching each other, breathing the same air. My rapid heart and mind finally settling.
I stretch my leg, foot grazing her shin. “Pants?”
“Constricting, I know.” Chloe pretzels our legs, scooting closer to me. “Didn’t want your parents showing up and catching me half dressed.” I silently laugh.
“What’s your shirt say today?”
“Hot boys read. Know any?” I appreciate how light Chloe is right now. The casual way she’s being playful but gentle with me. She’s like a Rubik’s Cube and slowly, I’m figuring her out. Completing one side and revealing a new part of her.
“First you think I’m pretty, are you admitting to thinking I’m hot?”
Her head falls back revealing her narrow throat. I want to kiss it. Lick it.
“Oh, Pretty Boy. Our place couldn’t take your ego getting any bigger.”
It doesn’t pass me that she said our place. Chloe always refers to the flat as my place or Liam’s place. She’s never called it hers or acknowledges that she lives here.
Chloe’s head straightens and sparkling eyes mesmerize me.
“How are you so unapologetically yourself all the time?” I ask her.
“I’m not,” she breathes out. “Maybe with you, but not everyone else. That Chloe is on. That Chloe is the one everyone expects to always be okay. That Chloe is cold, a bitch, the person you bring into a cat fight.”
“Who is this Chloe?”
“I don’t know. I’m twenty-eight and I’m more confused about who I’m supposed to be than I was at eighteen and being told to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life.”
“Doesn’t change when you’re thirty.”
“Maybe ever, huh?”
“Tell me something about you that no one knows. ”
She fiddles with the sheets. “I hate my job. I think about quitting every other day. It’s not what I wanted to do.” I tilt my head, giving her space to speak. After she talked me down in the bathroom, she deserves it—deserves the world, too. “I thought I’d be skating professionally, maybe the Olympic Team or those shows on ice—I loved those as a kid.” Chloe’s mouth ticks up. “After skating, I wanted to follow in my dad’s footsteps, be a coach. Maybe open a skating school.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Chloe sucks in a cheek, biting down on it. “Things change. Your turn.”
“Sometimes I think about asking Liam to buy into the company. Be part owner.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Why haven’t you asked him?”
“What if he says no?”
“What if he says yes. You’re incredible at your job, Cal. Liam’s told you Hayes Hotels wouldn’t be what it is without you. Give me a better reason.”
The words scrape across my tongue. “I could be terrible at it and fail miserably.”
“So? Aren’t mistakes a part of life? No one is asking you to be perfect. If you mess up, learn from it and try again. But if you ask me, I think you’d kick ass.” Chloe winks.
“You might be right, Henry.”
“Let’s get one thing straight, Pretty Boy. I’m always right.”
***
Ithink this is what heaven is like—Chloe asleep in my arms, lightly breathing, her lips parted. Hair spread out around her and arms wrapped around my waist .
If it’s not, I don’t want to go.
My stomach contracts, the muscles seizing as her finger tips mindlessly move across my abdomen. The lightest touches above the waistband of my shorts.
I don’t wake her, wanting to commit this view to memory.
After she fell asleep last night, I snuck out of the bed—when I unwrapped her from my body the faintest frustrated groan slipped from her—to open the drapes and blinds. My room doesn’t get the same morning sunlight that hers does, but I know she sleeps best when they are open.
I can see the sunrise, letting me know that it’s about seven. The sky is painted in colors that remind me of Chloe. Ebbing and flowing seamlessly. Shades of pink like her lips or when she blushes. Peachy-orange like the way she smells. The purple reminds me of wildflowers—an aster daisy—the ones that can grow, thrive, and adapt in the roughest environments as she has.
I know she has. I’ve seen the signs, even if she hasn’t come out and said it.
Her shoulders shift, eyes flutter with a big yawn.
“Mm. Good morning,” she says against my chest, over the tattoo on my ribcage.
“Morning, Dais.” I kiss the top of her head.
“I love this bed.”
“I can trade you.”
“Only if it comes with this body pillow.” Chloe squeezes her arms around me. “Even though it was like sleeping on rocks.”
I smile, looking down at her.
My door flies open.
“Callum,” Audrey says and then I hear her.
“Callum Jasper.”
Mom.
Audrey leans on the door, hazel eyes silently screaming I’m sorry, I tried to warn you.
My mother follows her in, arms crossed in front of her chest.