13. Callum
THIRTEEN
callum
THEN
When Sam was gone, Damien and I used to exist separately.
Now, though, ever since the summer, we gravitated to each other more and more when Sam wasn’t around.
It felt like a deception, though it wasn’t intended to be that way.
But if Sam asked, I’d deny it. I’d swear on all the graves necessary to make him believe that there was nothing in the way I looked at Damien.
That there was nothing there because I felt nothing at all.
That Damien was invisible to me, but nothing could be farther from the truth.
Damien was the air I breathed. The dreams I dreamed. He was my secret obsession.
Since the summer, I’d fully embraced the fact that I was so, so, so fucking gay.
So very, very completely gay. It had been a scary thing to realize at first, but now, even though I wasn’t out, I knew myself better.
I was more aware of why I felt different from my friends.
Why their enthusiasm for some things didn’t match mine.
Why sometimes I felt out of sync with them.
It explained how I could feel lonely while in the same room as them, and knowing the reason for that made everything easier. Everything except being around Damien.
That got harder as each day went by and my stupid feelings didn’t disappear.
Absence made the heart grow fonder, sure, but it also made a closeted gay boy braver when it came to jerking off while thinking about his brother’s best friend.
The more he hung around Sam, the less he was around me, which meant the less eye contact I’d have to worry about making, knowing that I’d rubbed one out in the shower with his face burned into my memory and his name a ghost on my lips.
Never spoken aloud. I wasn’t brave enough for that. I mean, what if someone heard me over the roar of the water? I felt like if I said it out loud, that he’d somehow know. And sometimes I wished he did know.
Ever since discovering I was gay and embracing it, letting the truth of it settle into my bones, it became this big secret.
This cloud that hovered over my every interaction.
At first I was worried that people could tell just by looking at me.
Did Mom know? Did Dad suspect something? Would Sam out me?
But after a while, it became clear that no one had sensed the monumental shift inside of me, and I battled between being relieved and disappointed.
I wasn’t worried about whether or not my family would accept me.
Dad’s best friend at work was a lesbian and they’d been over at our house for Christmas a few years ago.
Mom had always instilled into Sam and me a sense of social justice.
She taught us that love was love. That people deserved dignity and respect no matter who they were or who they loved.
I wasn’t afraid of coming out because I worried about their reaction. Only, maybe I was. Maybe I was worried about Damien and how he’d react when he found out. Would he think of our stolen hours this summer differently? Would it freak him out that we’d been so close a few months ago?
I also worried that they wouldn’t react at all. That I’d spent all summer and the months since then agonizing over this, and I’d finally come out, and I’d get a head nod from Dad and a that’s nice, dear from Mom. And this life-defining shift inside of me would go largely unacknowledged.
I made it all the way to Christmas break without telling another single soul, besides Zeke, my secret.
My truth lived under my skin, and I felt like everyone could see it but wasn’t acknowledging it.
That was probably all in my head. Nothing had changed about me.
Not a single thing except for the fact that I was more comfortable in my own skin.
The house was decorated for the holiday and school had just ended for Christmas break.
As usual, Damien was staying here over the holidays.
His parents had big important jobs and they often worked straight through the holiday season.
Now that Damien was older, they’d stopped keeping up the pretense that they gave a shit.
Mom and Dad were out to dinner with the grandparents who had just dropped Sam off after their trip.
Sam wasted no time changing his clothes and having a shower.
Apparently there was a party he was dying to go to.
I hadn’t expected to see Damien sitting on the couch when I went downstairs, but he was stretched out, looking comfortable and far away as he read a book.
“You didn’t go with Sam?” I asked, dropping down into the chair that sat adjacent to the couch. There was room on the couch if I sat near his feet, but I didn’t trust myself to get too close to him and not get weird about it.
“Sam is convinced that if I go, Marissa won’t look twice at him.”
“He still hasn’t forgiven you for Shaye crushing on you instead of him?”
Damien rolled his eyes. “I love him, but he’s weirdly possessive sometimes.”
This much was true. Sam had always guarded his things like he was a starved dog.
It wasn’t like he’d ever gone without; it was just the way he was wired.
And Mom and Dad never did much to curb this behavior.
Mostly because Sam had been careful to paint his possessive nature in a more acceptable light.
Sharing was caring, unless you were Sam, and then you were just “exercising healthy boundaries.” Who the fuck thought teaching this kid therapy speak was a good idea, anyway? That’s what I’d wondered.
It was another reason my crush on Damien was inconvenient and potentially destructive. Sam would shit a kitten if he figured out that I even so much as looked at his best friend with anything other than the vague kind of friendliness I’d offered up over the years.
Being friendly to Damien was allowed. Being friends would be fine, but with limits. And crushing on him would absolutely make Sam lose his shit.
Not that I could stop, even if I wanted to.
Crushing on Damien felt like the first normal thing I’d done as a teenager.
My friends had all lived through their first crushes.
And their second crushes. Probably a hundred by now.
In some ways, it felt like I was behind.
Like my late discovery, or admission, of my sexuality had robbed me of experiences I should have had years ago, but was too busy wondering why I was fucking weird.
Why Katie’s boobs never got my attention in the seventh grade.
Why, when everyone else was mooning over Morgan Daniels and her new modelling gig, I’d been unable to drum up even the slightest bit of interest.
“What are you reading?”
“Skitter by Ezekiel Boone. It’s like… the apocalypse comes, but it’s spiders.”
A shudder tore through me. “That’s… no. No, thank you. Where did you even find a book like that?”
“The thrift store. You’ll find the craziest books of your life there.”
Another shudder rippled through me, and Damien actually grinned at me. “Are you afraid of spiders?”
“Afraid of? No. Disgusted by? Definitely.”
“I’m not sure those are different things.”
“They’re absolutely different.” I was no wimp, but a book about a spider apocalypse would be enough to give me nightmares. I kept that part to myself. “It’s Christmas. Shouldn’t you be reading A Christmas Carol or something?”
“Does my spider book bother you?”
He arched an eyebrow at me, and I hated how much I loved having his attention. I hated that this small interaction was the most fun I’d had in months. That just being around Damien made everything better and brighter.
“You’re delusional.” I stood up and headed for the kitchen, intending to get a snack, when I heard Damien shift. He rose, spider book in hand. My skin crawled at the sight of it as if the book itself was some kind of threat.
“Get that thing away from me,” I said, making Damien grin at me like he’d won a prize.
“You’re afraid of a book? That’s not very progressive of you.”
He took a step forward, and I took a step back.
“I’m not afraid of the book. It’s just… it came from the thrift store, so it probably smells like patchouli.”
Damien brought the book up to his nose and gave it a sniff. “It smells like a book.”
“Patchouli and old paper. I’m probably allergic. I feel a sneeze coming on.” Was I being ridiculous? Absolutely. But I didn’t care. It was all in good fun and Damien seemed to enjoy rising to the occasion.
“Maybe you’re allergic to me?”
“I doubt it. You’re here all the time.”
“Yeah, but you avoid me like you’re allergic.” He put his book down and approached me.
I should’ve stepped away and put some distance between us, but I couldn’t. My feet had grown roots and anchored me in place. I was stuck, while Damien moved so effortlessly, closing the distance between us. We stood in the doorway, half in the living room, half out.
The simple fact was that I couldn’t even protest. Couldn’t argue.
He was right. I’d been avoiding him as much as possible.
Hoping that my stupid feelings for him would go away, but it didn’t work.
Then I’d been avoiding him because every time I touched myself, he was all I could think about.
Damien in the water. Damien glistening in the sun. Damien licking moisture off his lip.
At the time, avoiding him seemed like the smart thing to do. He was Sam’s friend. Sam’s best friend. Sam’s straight best friend. I’d heard all about the heartache of being gay and falling for a straight guy, and I didn’t want that to be my fate.
Damien was closer now.
“Why?” he asked, holding my gaze.
“Why what?” I’d fully lost the plot. The entire context for his question had flown out the window.
The simple fact was that Damien made me kind of stupid.
It was hard to be cool and smooth around him and do things like form full sentences and follow the thread of a conversation when I was too busy remembering the way his body moved whenever he climbed out of the pool.
Damien. Got. Closer.
My heart thrashed in my ribs like it was a rabbit running a marathon. I suddenly had a taste for what prey animals must go through when they were being stalked by a predator.
Not that Damien was a predator. He was more like a hunter, and I felt like his quarry.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he repeated, his voice low and soft and maybe sounding a little hurt.
“I’m sorry,” I said, surprising myself with how much I meant it.
Damien was so used to being ignored by his parents, it felt like such a cruelty that I’d worked so hard at doing the same thing.
“I really am,” I added, my hands fluttering nervously at my sides.
I wanted to touch him. To smooth the crease between his eyebrows. To… to fucking kiss him.
My gaze drifted upward to where the mistletoe hung above us, and I tried to look away before Damien realized what I’d spotted. He held my stare for what felt like forever, and then he glanced at the mistletoe too.
“Uh-oh.” Damien said, sounding not at all worried. “Now you have to kiss me.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. Did he know? Did he know that I’d wanted to for months? That I’d never kissed anyone who counted. Because Sarah Jasper didn’t count. It had been like kissing a wall. Like kissing a pillow. I might as well have kissed my hand.
Before I could formulate a response, any response at all, whether it be a witty rebuttal or some kind of deflection, Damien’s tongue darted out and he licked his lips and then…
They brushed against mine, just the corner of my mouth at first, and I fucking whimpered.
The sound ricocheted through the room like a gunshot, and I gasped, then staggered away from him and headed up the stairs.
My vision swam as terror flooded my body.
I’d whimpered. Fucking whimpered because of a kiss.
A joke, clearly, but a kiss, nonetheless.
“Callum—wait.”
Damien followed me, and I tried to dart into my room and shut the door behind me, but he was there, pushing his way into my room. A place he’d seldom been.
I tried to slip into the attached bathroom, the one between my room and Sam’s, but Damien was there, pushing the door shut, caging me in.
“Callum, look at me.”
I shook my head. Damien took a deep breath.
“Callum, please. Will you please look at me?”
I didn’t want to, but I did. First I peeked at him over my shoulder, willing my body to stop being a slut. I should not be getting hard because Damien had me trapped in my own room. I should not be getting hard because Sam’s straight best friend gave me an almost-kiss as a joke.
When I turned around, I couldn’t look at him, though.
I kept my gaze trained down and to the side.
Like maybe if I didn’t look directly at him, he wouldn’t notice the way I wanted to do nothing but look at him.
Stare at him. Drink him in. I wondered if he knew what he’d given me or what he’d taken.
My first kiss. A joke. A mistletoe kiss that didn’t mean anything to him but everything to me.
“Callum,” Damien said and, for some reason, his fingers brushed the underside of my chin. He directed my head and I was gently coaxed into looking at him.
And then, impossibly, Damien leaned in again and he kissed me. Properly. His lips brushed against mine, soft and warm and perfect. It took me a full second to realize he was actually kissing me, and he nearly pulled away before my brain got the memo and I started kissing him back.
It started out as a chaste dance our lips were doing, and then Damien got closer and his cock brushed against mine and one of us groaned. Or maybe both of us did. He rocked against me, deepening the kiss.
It was dizzying to be kissed by Damien. It made me feel like I was flying.
Like I finally understood what all the fuss was about.
It seemed too good to be true that he was here, in my room, kissing me.
That somehow we’d gone from people coexisting in the same house, to people occupying the same space, trying to climb inside one another.
Damien pulled away and looked at me. His pupils were huge and black and his mouth was open slightly. I could hear him breathing and I wondered if he could hear the way my heart crashed against my ribs.
Before I could move, or speak, or ask what the fuck, the front door slammed shut. At the sound of Sam’s voice, Damien grimaced and took a step away from me. Then another. And suddenly he was gone and I was left with more questions than ever.
What was that? Why did he do it? Why did I let him? Why was he hard? And most importantly…
When could we do it again?