damien
EIGHT
THEN
THEN
“You’re being weird.”
Sam’s accusation slapped me across the face. And if he noticed the way I flinched at his words, he didn’t care.
“Excuse me?” I said, hoping that maybe I’d heard him wrong.
We were hanging out in his room. Summer was almost over.
Another school year was barreling toward us at full speed.
Sam’s job would end in a couple weeks when school started and this year I hated the approaching school year for a different reason.
Callum Weeks.
In some ways, it would be good to put some distance between us. Cal and I had grown closer these past weeks as Sam mowed lawns and Cal taught me how to swim. I still wasn’t very good, but at least now I could swim enough to not drown in someone’s swimming pool.
But Sam was right. I had been acting weird.
It was hard to not, when even thinking of Cal made my dick twitch.
The stupid thing had decided that it liked Callum.
That thinking of Callum would make it respond the same way it did when I thought about that time I got to second base with Jennifer Cortez.
It might have been Olivia’s hand down my pants at the last party Sam dragged me to, but it was Callum my stupid brain was thinking about.
But I thought I’d hid my turmoil pretty well.
I thought I smiled at the right time and laughed at the right things.
I didn’t give Cal any special attention when Sam was around.
When Sam was here, we pretended the other one didn’t exist. Like we’d always done.
I’d always been Sam’s friend first and foremost. I knew Callum by proxy.
Sam spun in his computer chair, his backward hat sitting slightly crooked on his head. My fingers itched to reach out and adjust it, but I left it alone.
“How am I being weird?” I asked, rolling over so I could sit up.
I’d been lounging on Sam’s bed and we were talking while every so often Sam stopped to text people.
He had always been the more social one out of the two of us.
Nearly everywhere we went, it was Sam’s idea.
I didn’t mind going along for the ride. We’d always had a lot of fun together.
“I don’t know.” Sam squinted at me. “But you are.”
There was no way he could tell I’d somehow discovered that I was suddenly attracted to guys.
Well, one guy in particular. Sam had bragged before about how intuitive he was, but that was just Sam wanting to be the most important person in the room.
Sometimes, I thought that was why he dragged Callum so often.
Because he was in some sort of one-sided competition with Cal, who honestly couldn’t care less about being better than anyone.
“I’m not being weird. You’re being weird for thinking I’m being weird.”
“I don’t know. There’s something off about you,” he insisted.
The way Sam looked at me made me uncomfortable.
I never did like being scrutinized. I blamed my parents, who seldom noticed me, even when we were in the same room.
It was easier for me to live in the shadows, Sam’s shadow in particular.
When we walked into a room together, everyone’s attention was on Sam and I liked it that way. And so did Sam.
“The only thing off about me is my choice in company. I should go home where I’m also not wanted, but at least they don’t call me weird.” I went to stand up and Sam lunged, tackling me and dragging me back down to the bed with him.
“Don’t go. I was just fucking with you.”
“Well, it sucks.”
“Sorry. I guess I’m being the weird one. I just missed you this summer. That’s all.”
“You could have worked less.”
Sam let out a sigh and rolled onto his back. “You could have worked with me like I planned.”
“Yeah, and die of hay fever.”
“Never in the history of the planet has anyone died from seasonal allergies.”
I turned my head to the side and looked at him.
“Are you for real right now? Are you guilt tripping me because I didn’t want to spend the summer with my eyes puffed up and teary as they involuntarily wept, just so I could push a mower in the hot sun and spend ten minutes each day, on our breaks, keeping you company? ”
“Yeah, I am. What kind of a friend are you if you’re not willing to suffer for me?” Sam laughed until tears leaked from his eyes. “Man, I’m sorry. I’m being a bitch. I blame the heat. It probably fried my brain.”
“It does suck that I couldn’t work with you.
I’ve missed you.” And I had, but mostly I was lying.
I wasn’t sorry that Sam had something to keep him busy and that I used the time to get to know Cal a bit better.
For the first time since meeting Sam, I wondered what it would have been like to have met Cal first. To be his friend instead of Sam’s.
I tried to reverse everything in my mind.
Tried to imagine Cal as my best friend, which would make Sam the one I was crushing on in this alternate reality.
I couldn’t conjure up even an ounce of pretend attraction for Sam.
Even in my alternate universe, Callum was the one I thought of when my mind wandered.
He was the one I obsessed over and dreamed about.
Only, in my fantasy world, I didn’t have to pretend that he was invisible whenever Sam was around.
I desperately wanted to know why Sam had such a beef with Callum.
It was clearly a one-sided thing and if Cal knew the reason, he was keeping it to himself.
In fact, Cal and I never even talked about Sam when he wasn’t around.
It was like this unspoken agreement. When it was just Callum and me, Sam was off-limits.
We didn’t talk about him or think about him.
It was Callum and me and no one else, nothing in between us.
“We should go down to the pool,” Sam said and my stomach spun.
“I don’t know if I want to.”
“Come on. You don’t have to go in the deep end. But it’s hot and boring in here.”
I hadn’t told Sam about the swimming lessons. I didn’t know how to explain that to him. Oh, by the way, while you’re at work, I’m in your pool, perving on your brother while he teaches me to swim.
“Yeah, but Cal is out there, and I’m not in the mood for your catty sibling shit.
” Sam knew that I hated it when he got all sibling-rivalry around me.
It was uncomfortable as fuck before when I didn’t feel one way or the other about Callum.
But now, I didn’t think I could put up with Sam being a jerk to him for no reason. Not without saying something.
“See, weird.”
“It’s not weird to not want to be subjected to you and Callum sniping at each other.”
“You don’t have brothers or sisters, so you don’t get it.”
“If that’s how siblings act, I’m glad I’m an only child. Who needs enemies when you have a brother, right?” I tried to get up again, but Sam grabbed me around the waist and pulled me back down.
“Okay, okay, you win. I’m sorry. I’ll be good. I promise.”
It was a lie, and we both knew it. For some reason, being around Callum was a sore point for Sam. It was as if he was wounded by his very existence.
“Is it really just the fact that he’s your brother that makes you hate him, or is there another reason?
” I didn’t want to know the answer. I was sure of it.
Sam’s animosity toward Callum seemed to be personal.
It went beyond a simple dislike because he was his brother and therefore contractually obligated to at least be annoyed by him at all times.
Sam jumped out of bed and tore his shirt off. “Come on. Let’s go to the pool.”
I’d seen Sam shirtless before, but now he was broader than he used to be and more tan.
His wiry frame was taking on some muscle tone.
And nothing in me stirred when I looked at him.
I might as well have been looking at a rock.
At least my sudden sexual awakening hadn’t awakened me to all men.
Just Callum so far. And guys who looked like Callum.
Which strangely enough, wasn’t Sam. Sure, there was a bit of a resemblance there if you squinted, but they plainly took after different members of their family.
I’d tried to not be around Sam and Callum at the same time ever since my inconvenient-as-fuck crush had started to blossom, but there was no getting out of it today. Maybe Cal would decide to go somewhere once he realized that his peaceful time poolside was going to be interrupted by us.
I just hoped my stupid body would behave.
If I got a boner for Callum with Sam standing right there, I might die on the spot.
My sudden sexual awakening wasn’t something I’d shared with Sam.
Or Cal. Or anyone. Right now it was this secret that burned in the center of my chest. No one knew, and I didn’t know how to tell anyone. Or if I should.
If I told Sam, he’d want to know how I knew, and how I knew was Callum.
I couldn’t tell Sam that I found out I was bi because of Callum and the summer he’d spent shirtless.
Honestly, it probably started long before this.
If I thought back, I’d always wanted Cal’s attention.
I loved it when I’d come over and he’d greet me with a smile and a polite hello instead of ignoring my existence.
Even though it most likely started back then, my body took a while to catch up to my brain.
Now that it had, there was no putting the genie back in the bottle.
I wasn’t straight. And not only was I not straight, my best friend had no idea because I was at least in severe like with his brother.
If not in love. It couldn’t be love, because Sam would maim me for falling in love with his brother.
As we exited the house, I silently prayed for the strength to not act weird around Sam and Callum.
When we got outside, Callum was reading by the pool as he often did.
Sam paid him zero mind and instead walked straight to the edge of the pool and dove into the deep end.
I watched him swim to the bottom and then turn and shoot back up.
By the time he surfaced, Cal was going inside, the patio door sliding shut behind him.
He hadn’t said hello or even looked at me. He just stood up, went inside, and shut the door. I hated that he hadn’t stayed around, that he’d run away from me so swiftly after we’d spent so many afternoons together.
Sam’s head popped out of the water, and he swiped droplets off his face with his hand. His gaze darted to where Cal had been sitting and his smile grew when he realized that Cal had already abandoned the pool, surrendering it to him.
“Come in the water, D. It’s perfect.” He started to swim for the shallow end, expecting me to enter from there.
I almost didn’t. I almost jumped in the water so I could show him all that I’d learned.
But something stopped me. If I showed Sam, he’d ask questions and I’d have to tell him the truth.
That Cal had been teaching me how to swim while Sam worked.
That while he was sweating, I was hanging at his house, swimming in his pool.
Being taught by Cal, someone Sam had decided to dislike for reasons that I’m sure made sense to him.
I walked to the shallow end and sat on the side of the pool, then slid into the water like I’d done a thousand times before.
Keeping my little secret safe. I didn’t want to tell Sam because I didn’t want to share this with him.
He’d find a way to be weird about it or to make me feel weird about it.
And part of me worried that I wouldn’t be able to confess to one thing without Sam guessing the other.
Instead, I got in the water, and immediately splashed him. He grinned at me.
“Oh, it’s on!” Sam was gleeful as he brought his arms back and got ready to splash me in return.
Suddenly everything was normal between us. No lingering awkwardness from the questions Sam wanted to ask. No silences as I held things inside and kept them away from him. Just us and the water and a hot summer day, like it was before things had started to shift inside me.