11. Callum
ELEVEN
callum
NOW
Things had never been the same between Sam and me. Not that they’d been great to begin with. As kids, Sam and I were close, and I’d like to say that over the years we drifted apart. But it wasn’t like that.
We’d fractured long before his discovery of Damien and me shattered us completely. I never understood why. I still didn’t. Maybe I wasn’t meant to. Maybe the inner workings of Sam’s brain were meant to be a mystery to me.
It was clear now that I’d never known my brother at all. And I never would. That thought should make me sad, but all it did was piss me off. Sam should be here so I could yell at him. Shake him. Find out why he lied. Why he was so fucking selfish.
But if Sam were here, Damien wouldn’t be sitting across from me.
Seeing him in that church had stolen my breath.
I’d tried not to think about it, but the idea had formed in the back of my mind anyway.
It made me feel like a shitty brother, wondering if Damien would show up to the funeral.
I’d chastised myself for the thought as soon as it entered my mind.
But I’d still thought it.
What if? What if Damien came to the funeral? What if I got to see him again? I didn’t know how to answer those questions when they first came to me, and even though the what-ifs had occurred, I still didn’t know what to do.
Damien sat across from me, and the hum of alcohol buzzed through my bloodstream. I wasn’t drunk, but I’d get there fast if I kept going at the pace I’d set.
“Do you know what Sam could possibly have left me in his will?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea. I haven’t lived here since high school. I barely come home. I just… this is Sam’s town.”
“You don’t come home?”
“For the holidays. Other than that, I stay away. Sam didn’t force my hand, but he didn’t exactly make coming around comfortable.
Besides,” I continued, pushing the bottle of whiskey away from me and out of reach.
Drinking felt like a dangerous thing all of the sudden because Damien was right there.
In arm’s reach. In touching distance. Kissing distance. “This isn’t my home. Not anymore.”
“Where’s home?”
“After college, I moved to Fort Frances for a job and I just never left. I have a job I can live with, friends I love. I’ve carved out an okay life for myself.
” A life with boyfriends who never fit quite right.
Too loud. Too quiet. Too judgy. Too insecure.
Not funny enough. Not nice enough. Not like Damien. Too much like Damien.
“What about you? Sam said you lived in Princeton.”
Damien looked at me kind of funny.
“What?” I prodded.
“I’ve never lived there.” Damien paused and we both realized that Sam had told more than one lie over the years. “I—you live, we live just a couple hours from each other. Give or take. But I’m in Stone Creek. I went there after college. I have a business now.”
A couple hours. After all these years, a matter of hours had been all that was between us.
“That’s so close.” The room suddenly didn’t have any oxygen in it.
“I’m surprised we never matched on an app.”
“Well, see, that’s because I dumped the apps a long time ago. Mostly I meet guys down at the bar or through friends.”
Damien looked at me like he was crushed by disappointment. “Ah, the old-fashioned way. So… is there a boyfriend back home?”
I should say yes. Single Callum was stupid and made bad decisions when it came to men. Relationship Callum was loyal and smart and kind. Single Callum was a bit of a slut, and he desperately missed the way it felt when Damien touched him.
“No.” I stopped myself from asking about him and his relationship status, but he offered it up anyway.
“There’s no one waiting for me back home either. Well, my best friend, Bowie, and my pet rock, Spike.”
“A pet rock? Not a dog or a cat?”
Damien shrugged.
There was so much I didn’t know about him anymore, so much we didn’t know about each other, but still, sitting with him felt right. Comfortable. And painful. If I’d been more determined, less scared, smarter, better, I might have fought harder to keep Damien.
But I was young, and I hadn’t meant to hurt Sam. I hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. I was just a guy who’d fallen fast and hard for someone I should have known was off-limits.
Who was still off-limits. Because nothing good would come of going back down that road. The more I learned about Sam and what kind of person he was, the less I cared about what he might think if I kissed Damien right now. Or sometime in the future.
More than sad, I was pissed at Sam for leaving with so many questions unanswered.
I didn’t know why he did the things he did.
Back then, his decisions at least made sense.
Damien was his best friend and Sam had felt betrayed when he found out about us.
He’d been so hurt. So wounded. I understood his anger back then.
Even welcomed it to soothe the guilt I felt for hurting him. For hurting his friendship with Damien.
“I should get home. It’s a long walk.”
Damien looked at me like I had two heads. “You walked here?”
“I needed some air. That house… I couldn’t. It’s like a fucking tomb. It’s so quiet I can hear my own heart thumping in my chest. But I can’t stay anywhere else; it wouldn’t be right.”
“Did you want some company? I need to walk off these drinks anyway.” He motioned to the whiskey we’d both abandoned. Getting wasted sounded better in theory than I knew it would be in practice.
I stood, feeling a little wobbly, but nothing unmanageable. “I mean, it’s a free country.”
Damien smirked. “What a generous invitation.” He stood and watched me grab the bottle of whiskey and the glasses from the table.
“I’m going to give this back to Ginny. Give me one second.”
Damien nodded and stayed put while I made my way to the bar where Ginny waited for me, her mouth set in a thin line.
“Just dropping this off here for you.”
She grabbed my wrist instead of the bottle. “Be smart, Cal.”
“I’m always smart, Ginny.”
“Then be safe.” She tugged me closer and kissed my cheek. “And don’t you dare leave town without coming by for dinner.” Her gaze darted over to Damien and back again. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
“I promise, I’ll try, but I don’t know if I’ll have time.
” I returned the cheek kiss, extracted my wrist from her grip, and met Damien at the exit.
We pushed out the door and into the night.
The temperature had dropped a little since I’d gone inside, but nothing that would prevent us from walking back to my parents’ place.
We didn’t talk for the first block. It was like we were trying to remember how to exist in the same place.
Damien walked next to me, but I felt every single inch of the distance between us.
I felt farther away from him now than I had in years.
Because he was so close and my heart hurt so fucking much.
It had ached back then and over the years that ache never really went away.
Sometimes the noise in my life drowned it out or pushed it down, but it always found its way back to the surface.
Damien was a wound that never healed, and I wasn’t sure being around him was the solution.
But I couldn’t let him leave earlier, just like I couldn’t stop him from following me home now.
“I’m shocked you’re not married by now,” Damien said, breaking the silence.
I was glad that he didn’t seem to want to revisit old memories that we shared. There was no point in walking down memory lane asking if I remembered this or that or the other thing. I remembered everything. Every look. Every word. Every touch. Every tear.
“I got close once, but it didn’t work out.”
“I’m sorry,” Damien said, sounding not sorry at all.
“I’m not. And that’s how I know it would never have worked. What about you? Any ex-husbands or ex-wives out in the world?”
“Nope. Couple of exes, but none ever got close.”
More silence. More cars whizzed past, their headlights blinding me.
More invisible strings, pulling at me, making me notice the way Damien was walking closer to me now.
The distance short enough to where I could feel the fabric of his coat brush against me.
We were magnets being pulled together. I should put more distance between us, but I’d been doing that for years, and it had been a long day, and I was fucking tired.
“Tell me about your friend. Bowie. And Spike. A pet rock? Really, D?”
The air stilled between us, and Damien’s steps faltered at the sound of his shortened name. But he recovered quickly and launched into telling me how he met his pet rock.
“From time to time, I have to give his face a refresh, but he’s been with me through a lot of shit. I know… it’s weird.”
“It is weird, but in a good way. I mean… some people are weird and they kill people because they’re weird. But you’re just pet rock weird and not serial killer weird. So it’s fine. I’d rather snuggle with Crudinski than Spike, but you do you, I guess.”
“Crudinski?” Damien pronounced the name slowly and purposely, like he wasn’t sure he heard right.
“My cat. His real name is Cobra Bubbles, but I call him Crudinski. Or Monster. Or Bubby. Or approximately fifteen other things. But right now his name is Crudinski.”
“What is it with cat owners having fifteen names for their cats?”
“It’s the secret cat owner law. No one tells you until you get a cat, but it’s mandatory to give them as many ridiculous nicknames as you can.”
“Clearly.” Damien’s laugh this time was genuine, and it was easy for my foolish heart to imagine walking with him like this all the time. But our hands would be linked and I’d get to stop and put my head on his shoulder from time to time. I’d get to hold him and kiss him and…
“Your street hasn’t changed much,” Damien remarked, making me realize that somehow we’d already made it most of the way back to my parents’ house.
“Nothing around here ever does.” Except some things did. Because Sam wasn’t here now. “Do your parents still live here?”
“Nope. They moved overseas not long after I started college.”
“God, they’re such assholes.”
“Family, am I right?”
“Who fucking needs it?” Guilt sliced through me, hot and sharp.
“I mean, I love my parents but…” But they’d chosen Sam.
Over and over again. They asked me to be polite and nice and swallow down my own hurt to not upset Sam.
They let Sam shoot barbs at me every time I was home, and they always had a way to excuse his behavior.
I loved my parents, but they never fought for me and sometimes they asked me not to fight for myself either.
It had been a bitter pill to swallow, but it had made it easier to only come home for the holidays. And then only for Christmas.
We stopped before we reached my driveway.
Every bit of alcohol that I drank had worn off on the walk home so there would be no excuse if I gave in to temptation and kissed Damien.
His mouth was a siren calling me home. I wondered if he tasted the same.
If his kisses would still make my whole body come to life or if there’d be nothing between us after all this time.
Turning to face him, I shoved my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t reach for him. So I couldn’t pull him close. So I couldn’t cling to him the way I burned to. The way I’d dreamed about.
“I should go,” he said. And I hated him for being right.
“I know.” I nodded, waiting for his inevitable departure.
Damien looked like he wanted to say more but decided against it.
I didn’t mind. There were already years of unsaid conversations standing between us.
Years of joys and sorrows, of victories that we never got to share with each other.
So much lost to time. And there was no way to get those years back.
No way at all.
I knew we both felt it. The yearning. The pull tugging at both of us. And the chasm in between.
I stood there and watched Damien start to turn and something in me lurched toward him as something in him made him turn back around.
Like two magnets giving in to the force between them we snapped together.
Damien’s hands cradled my face. My fingers curled around his wrist. I was cold from head to toe from the walk.
Frozen everywhere except where we were touching.
“We shouldn’t,” I said unconvincingly, unwilling to let go of him. My other hand curled around his waist and the heat of his body seeped into my skin. “We shouldn’t,” I said again, tipping my face upward. He was a little taller than me now. But still perfect.
Damien’s lips brushed against mine. Just once. And it was so soft that it broke something in me. This almost kiss. This reminder of what it was like to feel the whole of the universe expanding in my chest.
And then he pulled away. He stared at me for a moment and neither of us said a word, because what could we possibly say right now? Today of all days.
I stood there and watched Damien walk away, and I kept standing there waiting for him to turn around.
He never did.