41. Callum
FORTY-ONE
callum
NOW
Was Damien on their side? Was he on mine? Why was my head spinning and how did I get it to stop? Drinking didn’t help, but I did it anyway. Ginny and Zeke traded worried glances that I chose to ignore.
How did everything keep getting more and more fucked up?
When the world started to tilt sideways, Ginny was there to snatch my drink away. “Sorry, friend, but you’ve had enough.”
I had to laugh at that because it was true in more ways than the one she meant.
I’d had enough of life fucking with me. First Sam, then my parents.
Damien being here should have softened the blow, but I didn’t know what we were doing or how long he’d stick around.
He had a whole life to get back to, and so did I.
How would we make everything fit? Could we? Should we?
Damien’s hand on my thigh grounded me, and I turned my head. The world wobbled, but he came into view, brow pinched with concern. “Will you be okay here for a few minutes while I run across the street and get a room?”
I waved him off, nodding… I think. Whatever I conveyed, it must have been the right answer because he gave my leg another squeeze and then promised to be right back.
If only we’d made that promise years ago. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so empty now, but I felt hollowed out like a pumpkin and cut up to be put on display. A smile carved into me just for show.
“Hey, this is a dumb question, but are you going to be okay?” Zeke asked.
All night, he’d tried to keep the mood light and fun, but I could see through the act. I didn’t hate him for it, but I was tired of people looking at me with their eyes swimming with pity.
The only answer I could give him was a shrug.
“It’s okay if you’re not… you know, okay.” Zeke looked like he was chewing on glass when he said it, and a laugh bubbled out of me.
“You’re really shit at that, you know.”
He grinned at me, then balled up a napkin and chucked it at my face. “Fuck you. I’m trying to be a good friend.”
The napkin fell short of reaching me, and I let it fall to the table. My gaze flicked down to it, then back up to Zeke’s face. “You missed.”
“I’ll get you next time.”
“Now you sound like a villain.” For some reason, my booze-addled brain found this particularly amusing and I collapsed into a fit of laughter.
Because nothing could be further from the truth.
Zeke was a saint. Sam had been the villain.
My parents… weren’t my parents. The world spun again and this time I didn’t want it to stop until it managed to fling me off.
That’s when Damien returned and slid into the booth next to me. I wanted nothing more than to let him tug me into his arms, but not here. Hysteria was rising close to the surface, and I needed to get out of the bar before I caused a scene.
Damien must have sensed that I needed to leave, probably from the way I said, “Get me out of here.”
I gently pushed at him, urging him to move out of the way.
“You’ve got him, right?” Ginny asked.
“We’re in room 112 across the road.”
Damien slid his arm around me and anchored me to his side. God, his body felt good next to mine. So warm and firm and real.
Real.
But was he? Was this? Fuck.
I didn’t know I needed oxygen until we were outside and I was suddenly surrounded by cold, fresh air. I sucked in a couple lungfuls and let my eyes close, trusting Damien to guide me to where I needed to go.
“Callum, sweetheart, I’m going to need you to pay attention for a minute, okay? Open your eyes for me.”
There were two of everything, which made my head swim, but that meant that there were two of him. Which meant that one was fake. I frowned at fake Damien, or was the other one fake Damien?
“You good?” he asked. “Because we need to cross the street. But I got us a ground floor unit, so no stairs.”
“Good. I’m tired.” I wanted to fall into his arms and let him take my weight, but the last shred of rational thought inside me knew that I needed to get into that hotel room before I collapsed.
With a bit of struggle, Damien shepherded me across the street and unlocked the door with one hand while he kept me upright, which was no easy feat. The room had a single queen-size bed, a small rickety-looking desk and a chair tucked away in the corner by the window.
I dropped down onto the bed, or maybe Damien dropped me onto the bed, but it was soft and comfortable, and being horizontal made the room spin in the other direction.
“You good?”
“Yeah,” I said after a long moment of trying to breathe through the spins.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” The danger had passed.
Damien tugged at my feet, and I tried to move them away from him, but then I realized he was just taking my shoes off. “You’re really nice.”
This made him laugh, but I wasn’t sure why. I wanted to laugh along with him, but when I opened my mouth, a whimper came out instead and, to my utter dismay, my face crumpled.
“Oh, Callum, sweetheart.”
Damien climbed onto the bed and gathered me into his arms. Sort of. I was half on his lap, half in his arms. He ran his fingers through my hair, shushing me as the dam burst.
Maybe it was the fact that I was shit-faced, or maybe it was just all too much, but once I started, I couldn’t stop and Damien held me, combing fingers through my hair, rocking me, shushing me until I was all cried out.
By the time I was done, my head throbbed, my eyes hurt, my throat burned. It felt like I’d been hit by a truck.
Damien didn’t ask what was wrong or try to get me to talk about it.
What was there to say? My brother was dead, my parents weren’t my parents.
I was suddenly alone in the world. Untethered.
Damien washed my face, then stripped me down and made me drink a bottle of water.
He tried for another, but I shook my head.
My stomach would revolt if I even thought about drinking anything more.
He cut me a break and tucked me into bed, moving the wastebasket near my side of the bed. Just in case.
The next thing I knew, muted sunlight filtered through a crack in the curtain. Dust motes danced in the light. I closed my eyes again. Or maybe they closed on their own. In my head, a sledgehammer slammed into my brain with every beat of my heart.
“Are you alive?” Damien asked and I winced at the sound of his voice.
“Unfortunately,” I whispered. Eventually, I’d have to get up and take a piss because my bladder was going to explode soon if I didn’t, and though the world had stopped spinning, everything in it felt too bright, too sharp. It made me want to stay curled up in bed.
“What time is it?” Even the sound of my own voice was hell.
“A little after two.”
“In the afternoon?” I was flabbergasted, but my surprised statement made me pinch my eyes shut as I tried to breathe through the worst of the acute stab of pain.
“It’s a little bright to be two in the morning.”
“Bathroom,” I pleaded quietly and the bed shifted around. Then Damien was at my side again, helping me to my feet.
“Are you going to be sick?”
“I better not, because if I puke, my entire brain is going to leak out of my ears.”
He helped me shuffle into the bathroom, and when I insisted that I could take care of everything, only then did he walk away.
I took a piss that went on forever and eyed the shower, but decided that I wasn’t steady enough for that yet. Though I did turn the sink on and dunked my head under the faucet. I still felt mildly intoxicated, and I was desperate to sober up. Anything to make the pounding in my skull go away.
I returned to the room a few minutes later with a splitting headache and a sense of dread I couldn’t shake.
“Are you good?” Damein asked, his eyes full of sympathy.
“I’m good.” I swallowed past a lump in my throat that indicated I very much was not. But after a few deep breaths, I forced myself to be.
“Do you feel up to getting something to eat?”
I thought about it for a moment before I slowly nodded. “Something salty. And greasy. Maybe fries. Or onion rings. Or a burger.” My stomach clenched but not because I was going to be sick. The idea of food woke it up and now it was going to be a beast to feed.
“If you want to wait in the car, I’ll check us out and we can grab a bite on the way out of town.”
“Why don’t we stay? It’s so late in the day, we could get an early start tomorrow.”
“I can’t.” Damien got to his feet and stuffed them into his shoes. Was he mad at me?
“I’m sorry about last night,” I told him. “I’ll be good tonight. No drinking. Not that I could if I wanted to,” I tacked on. The mere idea of anything alcoholic or sweet made my stomach sour.
“I need to get back, Callum. I have a business to run and a business partner who has been exceedingly understanding about the situation. I can’t keep bailing on him.”
I forced a smile. “Right. Right. Uh, okay. Let’s… go then.”
Damien’s lips flattened into a line but after a moment of awkwardly holding his intense gaze, he let out a sigh and said he’d be right back. I couldn’t help but replay his words over and over again even though it wasn’t fair of me.
Damien had to get back to his life. He couldn’t keep bailing on his business partner.
And I should’ve been far happier that he was a man of integrity, but the feeling that he was going to abandon me wouldn’t go away.
I’d tried to drink it away last night and tried to sweet talk around it this morning, but it sat in the pit of my stomach like a stone.
One day, maybe soon, Damien was going to leave me again. He was going to go back to the life he’d built without me, and I’d let him because I didn’t know how to make myself fit anywhere.
After a fortifying set of deep breaths, I left the room and waited outside for Damien to come back so he could take me home.
“Ready to go?” He offered me a half-smile and didn’t comment when I didn’t try to return it.