Chapter Thirty
DAN
My chest is warm when I wake, pressed against Kallen, my arm hugging him in.
After drawing circles on his forearm to let him know I’m awake, he swoops in and kisses the back of my neck, whispering a soft, ‘Morning.’
I breathe in and out, reach around, then cup the back of his neck as he kisses me from behind some more.
‘Morning,’ I say back.
Natural light seeps into the room, granted we didn’t properly close the blackout curtains last night.
‘Ready for another day in paradise?’ I say, my eyes wandering to the window. ‘Looks like it’s sunny again today.’
Kallen’s eyes drift to the strip of blue through the glass. ‘That’s what we like to see.’
He turns to face me. He looks so handsome, even with tousled bed hair.
‘Still like what you see?’ he asks playfully.
‘Absolutely not,’ I’m quick to say, attempting to hide the smirk plastered on my face .
‘Well, you’re stuck with me for another night,’ he points out. ‘In this big, spacious, just one bed. ’
My face falters when I realise it’s Wednesday already. The warmest winter day in a long time, according to Kallen. I wouldn’t know, though. Winter and warm swimming days don’t handshake often down in Melbourne. Unless it’s a trip to the hot springs.
*
‘What’s your favourite food?’ I ask Kallen later that morning as we float on beanbags in the heated pool.
‘Hmm, aside from Blake’s mum’s dal makhani, which is a creamy curry…maybe pizza,’ Kallen says, his gaze fixed on the sky.
‘Yeah yum. Sounds delicious. And pizza always goes down a treat,’ I agree, a sudden craving for one hopping aboard my inner hunger train. ‘Maybe we should get one for lunch.’
My suggestion has him twisting his head towards me, eyes gleaming as he says, ‘Best idea you’ve ever had, Dan.’
‘Aw, what about my idea of asking to kiss you at the Pride pool party?’ I joke, coming to the realisation that I’ve never been so quippy before meeting Kallen.
Being around this guy seems to be changing me.
I’ve only ever known myself to be quiet, shy, and under-confident.
Lo-and-behold, there’s another side to me shining through.
What’s more, I now get to welcome Kallen with open arms.
He rolls his eyes, a sufficient reaction to my comment. ‘Okay. Your idea of kissing me was up there as well.’ We both l ay back, smiling, the sun hitting our faces. Then, ‘Anyway, Dan, what’s your favourite food?’
‘Umm, maybe Asian food, like pad Thai, fried rice. I do make a mean stir fry…if you wanted to come over for dinner at mine sometime?’
‘Are you asking me over for a dinner date?’
‘Maybe I am,’ I tell him confidently, but my heart races at what I’ve just proposed. ‘Maybe when we get back…on the weekend.’
‘Ugh, I wish,’ he groans. ‘I have my mother’s fiftieth birthday to go to. I wanted to bring Blake, to save me from having to face my family alone. But she’s busy. So it’s a solo mission for me. Such is life, though.’
‘I could go with you,’ I say, no hint of hesitation needed.
‘Oh no, it’s fine,’ he palms off. ‘I couldn’t ask you to do that. You have much better things to do on a weekend than be around a bunch of homophobes.’
‘But what if I said I want to be there to be there to support you?’ Okay, that definitely wasn’t on my bingo cards of things I would say to Kallen Jeffries after being intimate together for the short time we have.
‘I’d say you’re an idiot,’ he voices abruptly. ‘Buuuuut come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind the company.’
‘Well, that’s settled then,’ I shrug, my heart galloping at the newfound emotional investment I have in Kallen. ‘Toowoomba on Saturday.’
He groans one more time. ‘Toowoomba on Saturday.’
We don’t speak for a prolonged beat. We just float, the only s ounds coming from a few squealing kids at the pool’s edge, and the water lapping against our beanbags.
I look over to Kallen. He’s just staring up at the sky, seemingly deep in thought.
I’m tempted to ask what he’s thinking, but before I do, ‘How was your queer upbringing?’ he asks unexpectedly.
I lift my shoulders. ‘It was okay. My dad has always been accepting.’
He sighs. ‘Same with Blake’s mum. I was lucky to get her, otherwise I would’ve been completely let down in the parent department.’
‘What about your dad?’ I ask.
‘He’s never been in the picture,’ Kallen says. ‘He didn’t want a kid, but my mum kept me. I sometimes think that his absence in my life has made me not trust people. It also…I dunno…makes me compare myself to people more. People who have these…supportive families.’
A pang of empathy shoots through me, and I roll off my beanbag into the water. I splash up to his beanbag and hop onto it with him. It’s a tight squeeze, but I roll onto my side and observe his earthy eyes.
‘Kallen Jeffries, don’t you compare yourself to anyone else,’ I say, pointing my finger to his heart. ‘Chosen families are sometimes more important than your biological ones. And everyone’s situations are different.’
‘I know,’ he agrees, running two fingers through his hair.
‘I know I have people around me who love me. And I have Blake’s family, who I spend Christmas and Easter and every other holiday with now.
Which I’m super grateful for. But it’s still hard, you know?
I guess it goes to show life’s not al l sunshine, rainbows, comped outings, and… river romances.’
‘But we can still have all those things, and enjoy the fuck out of them,’ I set as a reminder, trailing my finger down his sternum.
Then, without hesitation, I grin and push him into the water.
He drops below the surface and rises again, his face furrowed. ‘Oh, you’re gonna get it,’ he splutters, swimming toward me.
I’m cackling, so proud of myself as I swim away, letting out a lively squeal. He gets me into the water, even at my strongest resistance, yet I still manage to pull him under.
We gasp for oxygen when we reach the surface, the rhythm of my heart accelerating. We then laugh with each other, as though a well-earned release, hair all wet and messy.
*
Late afternoon dawns. Well and truly sun-kissed, we return to the room before being mistaken for a local fisherman’s lobster haul.
On the bed, we nestle into each other, foreheads touching. I roll onto my back and sigh. ‘Have you had many boyfriends?’
He pouts his lips. ‘Nope. None. I’ve never let it get that far. What about you?’
‘Yeah, I’ve had a couple.’ My voice is diseased with disappointment. ‘They were good until they weren’t so good. Looking back on it, a lot of the time I wanted more sensua l intimacy rather than penetration. So yeah, it came down to the sex.’
Kallen pushes out a heavy breath and says, ‘It’s the thing that puts us into even more of a niche.’
I roll back onto my side to face him, my mouth forming a smile. ‘And here we are.’
He beams. ‘Here we are.’ He kisses me. ‘So, what are you looking for at the moment?’
I pause a moment, then say, ‘Someone.’
‘I’ve never had what I’m looking for, so I wouldn’t know,’ he says with a shrug. ‘You might have to fill me in.’
‘What?’ I ask.
‘The feeling of it. Of when you know you’ve found someone like that.’
‘Well, it’s a feeling that’s a little indescribable sometimes,’ I admit, linking his hand to mine.
‘It’s like you meet someone and all of a sudden, you collide and it’s like a firework going off, and you become linked.
You just click. It’s like a hunger. A beautiful hunger that’s satisfied when they’re around.
They help light your fire. And the fire you make together keeps burning, but the initial explosion bit is done and dusted pretty quickly.
This is what they call the honeymoon phase.
Anyway, they’re all you start to think about, especially when you’re not with them.
And before long, they become one of the most important people in your life, other than yourself, of course, which everyone should totally still be prioritising.
But yeah, you spend more time together and do most things together.
The intense feelings turn normal. You can breathe around them without having a meltdown. ’
He laughs, before saying, ‘Me. I’m the one having a meltdown.’ His smile then fades as he looks away from me. ‘Sucks we have to spend most of our time in an office where any sort of romance is banned by the boss.’
‘Yeah,’ I say, hoping we can still make it work, anyway.