Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
SUPERBOY
I introduced Pun and Arran, but didn’t rush off. Instead, I stick around for a little bit, helping out with the signing, helping sell comics with Pun. It’s going well, and there’s a fair few people here to get Arran’s signature, even despite the short notice of the event.
Eventually, in a little lull in the signing, Arran pulls me aside and tells me to ‘stop stalling’, ushering me out the door, insisting that Pun can more than handle him. I glance at Pun, recalling our earlier conversation, and actually see him blushing, which might be a first for him.
Succumbing to Arran’s gentle prodding, I hop on the subway to head out to Brooklyn to go and find Cal. I know what he’s doing: he’s got that blacksmithing group that he joined today, before his shift tonight, I remember him telling me. I hop onto Google and search for that kind of social group or activity in the area, and I can’t say I’m entirely shocked when only one comes up (though I am surprised to see there are a number of metal-workers in the city, even some that advertise being able to make ‘any sword, any size, to your choosing’).
Hopping off the subway and coming up about a block away from the social club’s venue, I make my way there, subtly aware that my pace is becoming faster and faster as I get closer, until I’m across the street and moving at full gay speed and then some.
It appears to be an old garage, refitted to make it into an approximation of a classic blacksmiths, whilst maintaining enough modern elements to make it seem like a cross between the medieval and the modern all in one.
Honestly, only in New York, I swear.
I wait outside, swaying from foot to foot, falling in time with the sounds of metal hitting metal, hammers bashing the work against the anvil, I assume. I bite my lip, thinking how to approach this. The whole way over I didn’t really think it through, I just thought I’d walk right up to Cal, say I’m sorry for being an ass and of course he’s right, and his words hurt but I maybe needed to hear them, but whatever it’s all water under the bridge and ask his forgiveness. But then, it occurs to me that that’s probably really rude to the rest of the group doing blacksmithing in this weird hipster’s wet dream of a workshop.
The large garage door is up, and I can feel the heat from around the corner, no wonder they need to keep it wide open. For a minute, I wonder how they got the zoning rights to even do this in the city, but I suppose it’s not that different than you’d get in a garage, and really, not the weirdest thing you can probably find in the city.
I shake myself out of the distracting mental diversion, again thinking better of just marching in and calling for Cal, because aside from being rude, it’s like an actual blacksmithing workshop: there’s anvils, furnaces, molten metal and more, right? If I just blindly walk in, I could get hurt, or hurt someone else! Yesterday alone has proven what a klutz I am.
I’m stalling. Again. Screw it, I’m going to march right in. I pause, willing my foot to move but somehow coming up short. Then I push myself forward, and round the corner.
“Cal, look, I’m s—holy shit!”
I turn the corner and see a short, muscular man beating a hammer into red hot metal on the forging anvil. As each strike lands, sparks fly off. The heat is palpable, even with ten feet between us.
As such, he’s stripped down to his waist, because he’s so hot. It’s evident, as a fine layer of sweat coats him from navel, up his body, my eyes reverse-tracking a drop of sweat trailing down his abdomen, rising and falling over tense abdominal muscles that expand and contract with each rising and fall of his hammer. His chest becomes taut with every rise, hammer gripped tightly, making the muscles in his biceps, tricep and shoulder pop, and as he slams it into the livid metal again, I see the veins standing out on his forearms, his hands covered in thick workman’s gloves.
With another swing upwards, my eyes follow, a new drop of sweat landing on his neck, the thick cords standing out as he grimaces with the downswing. Curly black hair dances on top of his head, wet with the heat and effort, and despite the thick, round black goggles over his eyes, I know that this man, this ripped statue of flesh, is somehow Callum.
“Hey! What the hell d’ya think yer doing, barging in here like you owns the place! People are working here!”
I’m startled out of staring and look over to see a large, burly woman with a mop of auburn hair, tied tightly back into a ponytail of curls bursting out the back of her head. Her arms are thicker than my whole torso as she bares them across her chest, biceps bulging. She’s fuming, her skin ruddy red hot, from anger as much as the heat, a smattering of freckles over his nose and cheeks giving an endearing air if her demeanor didn’t somehow make it seem like they were all crossing their ‘arms’ at me too.
I look around the room, seeing a bunch of other metal workers, all paused in their activities and staring at me.
“Jesse?” My attention falls back on Callum, who’s lifting the goggles up his head, pushing into his black curls. The long, thick black lashes that frame his icy blue eyes jump out at me, somehow seeming bigger than I’d ever seen them before.
“Hi, Cal! I, err, just came around to say I’m hot—I mean, sorry! I’m sorry, and I came to see you to say you’re shirtless—right! You were right! I’m a doofus, you’re right, and I don’t want us to be ho—mad anymore, and I’m going to go now, you’re busy and the scary lady looks like she’s going to use me as kindling for the furnace, and I’m sorry! I’m sorry everyone!” I say the last part, turning my attention around the large room, waving my hands and then for some reason, bowing, and then I stumble backwards until I feel the much cooler air of the street breezing across my face and turn into it and run away.
“Jesse, wait up!” I freeze up, just a few feet down the block from the open garage door and slowly turn on my heel to see Cal coming around the corner, throwing a baggy, black t-shirt over his head and covering up the rippling muscles of his chest, abs and those gutters. I choke back a groan as I see those last definitions of his body vanish under the tee.
“Hey,” he says when he catches up to me.
“H—” I try to lean on the wall casually, miss, almost faceplant into brick, recover, and lean my elbow against the wall, resting my face in my hand and smiling like a maniac. “Hey! How’s you, dude? What’s up?”
Cal grins for a flash of a second, before raising his eyebrow at me, a cute little furrow forming in his brow (wait, when did I start thinking he was ‘cute’?). “You okay?”
“Sure! Just dandy! Totally tubular!” What?!
“Oooo-kay. Look, I just wanted to say, I’m sorry too. I mean, I’m more sorry? I was out of line. I think…I think it was jealousy? I mean, not of what you’ve been asked to do, but because you got another opportunity — and that’s cool, you deserve it, I just…man, I am fucking this up.”
I stand from the wall, and step closer. “No, no, you’re not. I know what you mean and I know that you’re just looking out for me.”
“Yeah, Jesse, of course I am. I always will.” Cal smiles, a slight sadness in his eyes.
“I just…you know how much it hurts me thinking that my parents are the reason I got anything, and it just hit a nerve,” I take another step closer.
“I know, I hate that I did that, but I think that’s why I said it. Because I wanted you to not take this…’opportunity’. Look, as much as maybe some green eyed monster of my own ego reared its gamma-irradiated head there, I still think you shouldn’t do it. Because you’re better than that, Jesse. And you deserve better.” He takes a step towards me.
“I know. And I won’t. Sleep with Hank, that is. I…I think I don’t want my career to go that way, even if it could mean my career gets fucked as a result. I wouldn’t want to let you down.”
“It’s not about me , Jesse. It’s about you. You need to decide for yourself if you want to do it, for you, no one else.” He inches closer, and I can feel the heat from his body, a lingering flush from the inferno he was just working inside. A bead of sweat hangs from a curl dangling at an odd angle, pushed aside by his goggles.
“I know. I will,” I throw my arms out wide. “Friends?”
He throws himself into my arms, head just tucking under my chin. “We never stopped, and we never will.”
As we stand there holding each other in the street, I can feel the muscles under the t-shirt, and the image of the lithe superhero sex god body I saw minutes ago burns into my mind. How did I not know? I mean, I’ve known Cal for years, I’d never seen him look like that, never looked at him like that. So hot, so powerful. Despite myself, I take a deep breath, breathing in the scent of the sweat that covers him still, seeping through his shirt.
He pulls away. “Ugh, sorry, man. I am a sweaty mess right now, I probably got it all over you.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” I jump back, eyes widening and hand rushing to my neck, as I cross my legs to cover a mounting situation. “I mean, don’t worry about it! What’s a little sweat between friends, ha!”
He looks at me with a bemused expression. “Are you okay?”
“Me? Sure, never better! Got my friend back just in time for comic con! See you there tomorrow, right?”
“Riiiight,” Cal shakes it off, smiles as he slowly steps back towards the workshop. “Look, I gotta head back in, you sure you can spare us some time tomorrow?”
“Of course,” I yell back after him as I turn to walk away. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, see you in the Javits, dude!”
I march away, forcing myself not to look back to see if he’s looking, until I turn the corner of the block and collapse, hands on my knees as I let out a gasp of air.
Since when was Cal a freakin’ Superman ?! No, a Super boy (Connor Kent was always hotter than Clark)! Since when did I think he was so hot?! And why do I suddenly want nothing more than to be tangled up with him in a bed, after all these years.
As I ponder this new development, I start to recall: it wouldn’t be the first time…