Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Thanks for your help today, Marco.” Austin held his hand out for a fist bump as they exited the community center at the end of day one of Austin’s week-long photography camp.
Marco looked so tired even his long hair was wilted, but he shot Austin a smile anyway. “Kids are a fuckton of work.”
“You won’t hear any argument from me. And we do it all again tomorrow.”
“Whoo,” Marco deadpanned.
Austin chuckled and headed for his car. “Have a good night.”
Marco hadn’t just been instrumental in helping Austin run the camp—he’d organized all the equipment for those without any of their own, printed out the materials for the campers, and made sure the room they’d been allotted in the community center was ready to go for the start of camp. And he’d done all of that while Austin had been in Norway.
Austin owed him a beer, a homemade meal, and maybe even his next workshop for free.
They’d left everything locked inside their classroom in the center since they’d be back to do it all over again tomorrow, so Austin only had his own camera bag with him when he got into his car. No way would he leave that behind, even in a locked classroom.
Whereas Marco was tired and looked it, Austin could go for another few hours. Some of the kids were rambunctious, sure, and a lot of them didn’t listen, and even more of them needed instructions repeated two, three, four times. But they were fun to work with, and seeing their faces light up when they captured something wonderful on their cameras was the reason he loved teaching in the first place.
Austin parked in his parents’ driveway a few minutes later and headed inside, where it smelled like tomatoes and spices.
“Smells good in here,” he said, giving the air a sniff as he walked into the kitchen.
“It’s just a simple pasta bake.” Dad straightened from where he’d been peering through the oven door. “Hey, kiddo.”
Austin slipped onto a barstool. “Hey. Mom not here?”
Dad jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Out back. Picking up pinecones from that dang tree. It sheds them all summer. Makes it difficult to mow the lawn.”
“I can do that for you,” Austin said with a frown. “I can come by on Saturdays after the market.”
The kitchen door slid open before Dad could respond, and Mom walked in, blowing a strand of dark blond hair out of her face. “Almost five hundred cones. Can you believe that? Usually it’s only about a hundred per day, but we had that windstorm a couple of days ago— Oh, hi, honey.”
“Hey, Mom.” Austin kissed her cheek when she walked past him. “I was just telling Dad... why don’t you let me pick up the cones for you? I can come by on Saturdays.”
Mom waved a hand. “I go out a couple of times a day to pick them up. If I saved them for you, you’d be out there for hours. It’s a lot of bending and rising.” She chuckled. “Keeps me young.”
“You are young.”
She beamed at him. “Thank you for saying so. I think so too.” She put her hand to the side of her mouth like she was imparting a secret and tipped her head toward Dad. “Your dad on the other hand...”
“Oy!” Dad mock scowled. “I’ll have you know this old guy can still keep up with the young’uns at darts on Tuesdays.”
Austin snorted a laugh. Christ, he hoped he and Cal were still ribbing each other ten, twenty, thirty, forty years from now.
That thought sobered him quickly, because the person he’d been supposed to still be ribbing forty years from now was gone. Cal wasn’t Lindsay’s replacement and he wasn’t Austin’s second choice—that wasn’t how love worked, at least not for him. But it was a reminder that those forty years—hell, the next one year—weren’t a guarantee.
“Tell us about your trip.” Mom handed him the plates for him to set on the table. “Did you have a good time?”
He talked about Norway as they ate, laughing when they both went heart-eyed when he told them about Cal surprising him in Trondheim. Then they ooh’d and ahh’d over his photos of the midnight sun—a handful of which he’d already sold to a magazine, the rest of which would go up in his gallery and on his website.
“How was the school?” Dad moved his empty plate aside. “Did you get to meet any professors?”
“Good, and yes.” Austin helped himself to a second serving. “The school is really cool, and the professors I met seemed nice. Cal and I took one of them and his wife out for dinner. It was a lot of fun. They seemed like they could be friends.”
“Did this trip help you make a decision about the job?” Mom asked. “Or did it simply confuse things?”
Austin barked a laugh. “The latter. I do want the job. I just wish it wasn’t so far away from everything I’ve ever known. I’ve traveled for work before, but this is different.”
“Look at it as a stepping stone.” Mom poured the rest of the wine between their glasses. “There are plenty of people who work jobs they dislike or who work jobs in locations they dislike because they know it will eventually lead to something better. This could be your stepping stone into teaching at the college.”
“Yeah, and I’ve thought of that.” Austin had followed up with Central Wyoming College, going so far as to reach out to the head of the department. He’d gotten a templated thanks, but no thanks email in response. “I had the opportunity to very briefly work with one of the students at the school while I was there, and it was beyond cool. I’d love to do that for a year. But on the flip side...” He sat back, passing a hand down his face. “I love my workshops. If I move away, I won’t get to work with this community.”
“Temporarily,” Dad pointed out. “You can always pick up your workshops again when you get back.”
“It’ll be harder to pick back up. I’ll lose customers while I’m gone.”
“Maybe. But it’s only a year.”
Austin was about to point out—for what felt like the hundredth time—that a lot could happen in a year, when Dad added, “I know. A year is either too long or too short, depending on how you look at it and what you’ve been through. For you, it’s probably too damn short when you think of spending time with the people you love, and too damn long when you think about being away from those people.” Dad leaned forward, his eyes serious. “This is where you’ve got to decide if your fear is going to let you make this decision for you.”
Austin’s chest tightened, and his fork fell onto his plate with a clatter.
“Paul,” Mom whisper-shouted, poking him in the back of the hand with her fork.
His dad made a wounded noise and held up a hand. “I didn’t mean for that to sound so judgmental. What I meant is that if you decide not to take this job because you’re genuinely worried about what could happen while you’re away...” Dad grabbed his wrist. “Austin. There’s nothing wrong with that. You need to do what’s right for you. And if what’s right for you is here , then it’s here. We’ll support you no matter what.”
Austin didn’t break down in tears over that simple statement, but it was a close call. “Thanks, Dad.”
“What does Cal think about the job?” Mom asked.
“He thinks I should take it.”
Her smile went all mushy as she rose and began stacking plates. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said in a mock announcer voice, “find yourselves a man who will support your dreams even when they’re twelve million miles away.”
“Not quite that far,” Austin said, laughing. “But I agree.”
“Speaking of Cal, is he joining us for dessert?”
“He said he would if he could get away.” Austin pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I haven’t heard anything from him since this morn?—”
The front door opened, and the subject of their conversation walked in, tall and broad and bronzed and sexy as hell. Austin’s stomach tumbled over itself at the sight of him.
“Hey, kiddo.”
It didn’t escape Austin’s notice that Dad’s greeting for Cal was the same as it had been for Austin, and the love he felt for his parents tucked itself in nicely next to the love he had for Cal in his heart.
“Just in time,” his mom said. “I made your favorite.”
“How come you never make my favorite?” Austin grumbled.
“I like Cal better.”
Austin swallowed a laugh and pretended to pout. “Yes, that’s obvious.”
“Aw, don’t worry.” Cal sat next to him, smelling of horses and hay, and kissed his cheek. “ I like you best.”
“Somebody better.”
Austin started to rise to help his dad load the dishwasher while Mom dished out bowls of homemade huckleberry ice cream, but then he got a good look at Cal’s face and sat back down.
There was a softness to Cal’s features he’d never seen before, but it was juxtaposed by a tightness to his eyes that was equally out of character.
“Are you okay?” Austin asked quietly. “You look...” Serene. Sad. “Different,” he finally settled on.
Cal squeezed his thigh. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
Without an audience then.
Concern crawled up Austin’s throat, lodging there solidly like an annoying friend. “Can you at least tell me if you’re okay? Physically, I mean.”
“Huh? Oh. No. Shit, sorry.” Cal’s eyes went wide and he sat up straight. He grasped Austin’s hand and held tight. “I’m fine. I swear. I just... I had to do something today that was necessary but also really damn hard.”
Austin’s shoulders unknotted. “You had to put an animal down?”
“No, nothing like that.” Lowering his voice as Austin’s parents teased each other at the counter over who had the biggest bowl of ice cream, Cal said, “I told my mom today that I’m done.”
Done? What did he?—
Oh. Done. As in done. Well, shit.
Austin couldn’t help but be happy for him. Cal needed Barbara in his life like he needed faulty ranching equipment. But sadness swept him through too because he couldn’t imagine how hard it must’ve been for Cal to make that decision and then follow through with it.
“I’m sorry, Cal.”
“It needed to be done.” Cal’s shrug was anything but casual. “I didn’t like doing it, but I liked the alternative less.”
“Still.” Austin squeezed the back of Cal’s neck. “I’m sorry you had to do that at all.”
“What are you two whispering about over here?” Mom asked, placing a bowl heaped with ice cream in front of each of them.
“I’m trying to convince Cal that his favorite dessert is banana cream pie so that you might actually make it one day.”
Mom laughed.
Cal grimaced. “Bananas are gross.”
“You could pretend to like them,” Austin muttered.
Cal shuddered.
Later, when the sun began to set, they drove home separately, parking in their own driveways. By the time Austin got out and retrieved his camera bag from the back seat, Cal had plopped himself in one of the two turquoise Adirondack chairs under the tree in Austin’s front yard.
Austin joined him and kicked his legs out. “Aside from the thing with your mom, how was your first day back at work?”
“Good. It’s nice to be back, but at the same time, I could’ve done with an additional week off.”
Austin side-eyed him. “Reeeeally? I’ll have to remember that when we’re planning our honeymoon.”
Cal’s cheeks pinked, and damn, if that wasn’t the cutest thing Austin had ever seen. “You’re, uh...” Cal cleared his throat. “You’re getting a little bit ahead of yourself, don’t you think?”
“Am I?” Giddiness had Austin grinning into the darkening evening. “Maybe just a little.”
Silence fell between them. Above, stars began to wink to life, and somewhere nearby a dog barked. Possibly Sully, possibly a different dog.
Austin liked this, sitting with his best friend on his front lawn. Liked that they could still do this, even after their relationship had changed. Liked also that they were still them , that things hadn’t changed so drastically that they couldn’t be themselves with each other.
Next to him, Cal’s eyes were closed, and he was a silhouette against the sky. He looked as relaxed as he had while they’d been in Norway, and Austin was glad that a little bit of the vacation vibe had followed him home. Austin wanted to capture this moment forever, dig his camera out of its bag to snap this image into eternity.
But there were some moments that were meant to be lived in the here and now.
This was one of them.
“How was your first day of camp?” Cal asked lazily, as though he were already half asleep.
Considering he’d been up before the sun, Austin couldn’t blame him.
“It was good. A lot,” Austin said with a chuckle. “Twenty kids asking questions at once can get overwhelming.”
“You love it.”
“I do.” He paused for a second, listening to the sounds of the night—dog walkers, the occasional bird, and the wind shifting through the trees. “Hey, Cal?”
“Hm?”
“I think I’m going to take the job.”
He was still worried—that wouldn’t easily go away. But if something happened to someone he loved while he was in Europe, not being here wouldn’t change that. And if someone got sick, well... it wasn’t like this job was a one-way ticket out of Windsor. He could come home anytime.
Cal opened one eye. “Good. You should.”
“Even if it makes you sad?”
Cal’s smile was soft. “I’m also happy for you. You’re going to kick ass at that job.”
“Maybe this week we can talk about logistics? We need to figure out when we’ll actually be able to talk, given the time difference. And I’ll be home for Christmas and Easter, but we need to figure out when you’ll come see me.”
The other eye opened and Cal stared at him balefully. “That trip takes nine thousand hours. If you think I’m making it again, you’re delusional.”
Chuckling, Austin rose. “We both know you will. Now come on. Let’s get you into a bed before you fall asleep out here and I have to carry you inside.”
“Sure.” Cal stood with a grunt. “Walk me home, will you?”
Austin’s heart fell to his feet, disappointment that Cal didn’t want to spend the night with him hitting him hard. They’d crashed in Austin’s bed last night once they’d arrived from the airport—maybe Cal just wanted a night in his own bed?
Austin forced a smile. “Sure. Come on.”
His steps were nearly silent on the sidewalk, and it wasn’t until he was halfway to Cal’s that he realized he was hearing only his steps. Hadn’t Cal followed him?
Turning back the way he’d come, Austin found him on his front porch.
Walk me home , Cal had said.
And he stood on Austin’s porch. Waiting for him with an expression that said where the hell are you going, Aus?
Austin’s eyes watered. He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat as his heart settled back in his chest.
Then he headed back up the street.
Because the road to his cowboy would always lead him home.