Callum
FORTY-SIX
NOW
Had I packed up my whole life and moved to a new city on a whim without a guarantee that once I got here Damien would even want me around? Yes. Would I do it again just for a chance at this? Also yes. Immediately and eternally yes.
Damien was it for me. He’d always been it for me. From the summer I noticed him, when we still had the gangly teenage limbs. He was beautiful then and beautiful now with a couple days’ worth of scruff on his face and a confused look that wouldn’t quite go away, even as I toed out of my shoes.
Finding Damien’s business had been the easy part.
Convincing Bowie to give me Damien’s home address had been considerably harder.
It took a few weeks of me keeping in touch with Damien, of me nagging at Bowie, telling him about my plans, showing him proof that I was serious, before he finally believed me.
I loved that for Damien. I loved that he had a friend who loved him the way Bowie loved him. He deserved that. And so much more.
Damien lived in a condo not far from where he worked.
He had the unit on the end, so he only had to deal with neighbors on one side of him.
It was a cute building with white siding and blue shutters and everyone had a fenced back yard.
The yards were the size of a postage stamp, but Damien hated lawncare anyway.
I wondered if his allergies still plagued him.
Damien took the six-pack from me, removed two, and put the rest in the fridge.
“I can’t believe you’re here.” He cracked his beer open and took a long swallow.
“Can we sit down?” I asked. “Pizza is a lot easier to eat if I don’t have to hold the boxes. And the flowers.”
“Right.” Damien’s cheeks turned a ferocious shade of red and he grabbed the flowers from me, finally registering that they existed.
They’d been an impulse, but seeing the way his eyes softened when he looked at them made me wish I’d bought him flowers a long time ago.
And that made me wish I’d done a lot of things a long time ago.
“Just, uh… the living room is through there. I’ll be right in.”
Damien’s front door opened up into a small boot room just off the kitchen. The cabinets gave away the age of the building, or at least the last update, which would have happened sometime during the ‘90s. But it was clean and cute and walking inside of it made my heart race.
I’d never seen Damien’s room when we were teens, so this was the first time I’d ever seen him in his own environment.
His home was tidy. Counters that were clean of clutter except a knife block and a few mushroom-shaped canisters.
Damien even had a fucking vase to put the flowers in, which I was surprised at, to be honest, but I kept my mouth shut and wandered into the living room.
His living room was bright. The back wall was basically all windows, and it drenched the room in the fading sunlight.
Mushrooms made another appearance in his decor choices.
His large sectional couch had a few throw pillows on it, and all of them had the same red-capped mushroom art.
An unfolded blanket was draped haphazardly on the back of the couch like he’d been burrowed under it until just a few minutes ago.
The television was paused, and I had no idea what he’d been watching. I set the pizzas down on the coffee table, sat down, and opened my beer. That first sip went down so nicely, and I thought about draining the entire beer and asking for another.
Nervous? Me?
Yeah, okay, probably.
Damien sat down next to me, hit play on his TV show, and flipped open a box of pizza like it was a regular Saturday night and we’d done this a million times.
God, how I wished that were true.
“What are we watching?” The pizza had cooled a bit on the way over, but I still blew on it before taking a bite.
“Sons of Anarchy.”
“I’ve never seen that one.”
Damien paused and looked over at me, then reached for the remote. “Well, then we have to start over, don’t we?”
The butterflies in my stomach did a fucking swan dive and my whole chest emptied out. The way he spoke gave those words weight.
“Yeah, I guess we do.” I fucking smiled at him because how could I fucking not.
I can’t say that by the end of the first episode that I knew who was who or what was happening because I’d been paying more attention to Damien than anything else.
After he ate half a pizza and drank two beers, he leaned against the back of the couch.
His legs were spread and he had one arm resting in his lap.
The other was on the back of the couch, a beer dangling from his fingertips.
He appeared to be watching the show, but I had an uncanny feeling that I was the one being observed.
I did my best to follow the show. I really did, but I knew that I was going to have to go back to my apartment and sit among my boxes and rewatch these episodes as I unpacked.
The night Damien had driven away, I knew what I had to do.
What I wanted to do. Making the decision had been the easy part.
Getting my shit together had taken weeks.
I had to convince my job to let me go fully remote, then I had to sell my house.
I decided against buying a house here, only because the next time I bought a house, I hoped Damien would be involved in the process, that maybe we could start to make all those old dreams come true.
Or maybe we’d make new ones. I wanted to leave those options open.
“How did you get Bowie to agree to tell you where I live?” Damien paused the episode and turned to face me on the couch.
“A lot of nagging. Weeks of nagging. He’s protective. And stubborn.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. I like that you have someone like him in your corner. Anyway, when I sent him screenshots of my rental agreement, he finally cracked.”
Damien’s eyes narrowed, then went wide as he took in what I said. “Rental agreement?”
“I sold my house. I’m renting a two bedroom over at Cedar Court Apartments.”
“That’s like…”
“Four blocks over? I know.”
“You moved?”
“Yeah.” I set my half full beer on the coffee table and wiped my sweaty palms on my pants.
“I sort of wanted to start over. You see, there’s this guy that I’ve been mostly madly in love with since I was a teenager, and I made him a lot of promises that I never kept.
And maybe, if he’ll let me hang around, I can start making good on those promises. ”
“Callum…” Damien looked like he was barely breathing. “Are you serious?”
“Bowie seems to think so because he gave me your address, finally. He made me work for it, though. He’s a good friend.”
“He’s the best,” Damien whispered, his voice choked with emotion. He cleared his throat. “And here I thought you’d have to leave soon because the drive back is so long. I thought maybe that’s why you’ve been nursing that second beer for an hour.”
“Worst-case scenario, I walk four blocks home and get my car tomorrow. I was actually taking it easy because, well, I sort of don’t like this beer, but Bowie said it was your favorite.”
Damien shook his head. “You don’t have to drink my beer to impress me, Callum. You don’t have to watch my favorite show, or eat my favorite pizza.”
“What if I like your favorite show?”
“Name one character from Sons of Anarchy. You know, the show you’ve been watching for the past two hours.”
My mouth opened and closed, then opened again. “Charlie Hunnam.”
“That’s the actor. Who does he play?”
“The… son of anarchy?”
Damien reached over and shoved me playfully. His hand was warm on my shoulder, and I savored that brief contact.
“In my defense, I’ve been sitting here for two hours trying to get up the courage to tell you that I’m sorry I failed you then and I’m sorry I let you down more recently.”
“Callum, your brother died.”
“I know. And he wasn’t my brother. Not by blood or love or anything else. I’m sorry we were ever apart, and I’m sorry for how we reunited and how tangled up I was and how unclear it made me about my intentions toward you.”
Happiness glowed in Damien’s expression. I could tell he was trying hard to keep himself in check from the way his lips kept twitching up into an almost smile before he’d pull them back into a flat line.
“Your intentions?”
“Yes. I intend to take you out to dinner tomorrow night. Be ready at seven.”
“Is that all you intend to do?” Damien had somehow moved closer and his knee pressed against mine.
“I intend to take you to dinner and maybe for drinks in a nice quiet bar where we can talk until closing. Then I’m going to take you home and kiss you goodnight at the door.”
Damien’s arm was draped over the back of the couch and he was dangerously close to touching me. I kept my eyes focused on his face, determined to not let my gaze wander to where his knee pressed against mine or where he was almost touching my shoulder with his fingertips.
“Is that all you intend to do? Kiss me goodnight?”
“Oh, no, not even close. I intend to make you fall in love with me again.”
Damien stared at me. He didn’t move or breathe or even flinch, and then he let out a long, slow breath. “And if I already love you?”
God, he sounded so miserable. Well, not miserable, but… tortured. Like loving me was an old wound that had never healed. I knew how that felt because it was the same for me. Every day of my life from then until now.
“Then I intend to make you believe that I love you too. That you’re my everything. That if I have to, I’ll spend the rest of my life convincing you that I’m crazy about you. That I can’t breathe without you.”
“Fuck, Callum,” was all the warning I got before Damien launched himself at me.
Our mouths clashed with a violent clack of teeth before Damien immediately gentled the kiss, like he could settle now that he was touching me.
Well, more like now that he was on my lap, straddling me, pinning me to the couch, kissing me wild and deep before pulling away and staring at me with eyes full of tears and the most heartbreakingly tentative smile on his face.
Happiness was fragile, but hope was strong.
“I can’t breathe without you either. I feel like I’ve been drowning every day since that afternoon in the pool.”
I studied his face, his long dark lashes, the pink in the apples of his cheeks, the slightly crooked front teeth. Everything about him was perfect and beautiful.
“Then maybe it’s time we both stopped treading water and got out of the pool.”
Damien narrowed his eyes, but his smile brightened. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m trying to say that I love you. I’ve always loved you. I’m always going to love you. Let me take you to dinner. Let me show you that I can be who you need me to be. Let me show you that you deserve so much more than I’ve ever given you. Than anyone has ever given you.”
He stared at me quietly, and I watched the way he tried to steady himself with a deep breath, then another.
I reached up and cradled his cheek in my hand and he closed his eyes and leaned into my touch.
And then he leaned forward and kissed me again.
Slowly this time. Soft and achingly sweet.
No tongue at first, just his soft, pillowy lips moving against mine, making my heart flutter before he pulled away.
With his eyes still closed, he pressed his forehead against mine. His hands were resting on my shoulders and I felt the way his fingers flexed and he gripped me tighter.
“I’ve loved you for years. I tried to stop.”
“I know you did.” I let out a weak laugh, some of the tension easing out of me. “I’m glad you failed.”
“Me too.” Damien kissed me even though he was smiling and laughing now. “I love you.”
“Is that a yes, you’ll let me take you to dinner?”
“It’s a hell yes, with a side of please stay the night if you can.”
“Well, you’re in luck, because I think I’d die if I had to leave right now.”
“Oh, we can’t have you dying.” Damien purred and moved closer, winding his arms around my neck. “Not when I just got you back. You’re not going anywhere. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Tell me again.”
He brushed his lips against mine, and I heard the hope in his voice, the elation that chipped away at the longing.
“I love you. I’ve always loved you. I’ll always love you.” I wrapped my arms around him, skated my hands down his back, and pulled him closer.
Damien kissed me at that exact moment.
And I was home.