Caleb

by Nicki Rowe

  I can hear my brother, Cody, stirring in the next room. I had told him to go to bed hours ago, but he never listened to me. He liked to read into the wee hours of the night, and I couldn't blame him. I think he had gotten that from me.

  It was just me and my brother. Our parents had died in a car accident a few years ago, and I had been Cody's legal guardian ever since. I had to hire a lawyer to gain custody of my brother, the judge had been skeptical about my ability to take care of a eight-year-old because I had only been twenty-five at the time, and he had taken one look at all of my tattoos and my piercings, and decided I possibly couldn't take care of a child. What did a twenty-five-year know about raising an eight-year-old? Nothing, but I adjusted quickly and learned along the way. It's all I could do. I refused to let Cody go into a group home, so I tried to be the best damned older brother/guardian I could be.

  I worked three jobs to keep food on the table for Cody. I worked at Raven's Moon, a New Age and Organics store in the square during the week, and at The Clip and Save on the weekends. In my free time I made herbal remedies with my friend Viola and we sold those on the side. We even had a display in Raven's Moon and made comission's on those as well. Our herbal remedies sold like hot cakes. People nowawdays were always looking for a natural way to get rid of their aches and pains, the common cold, or even acne.

  “You missed meeting Caleb,” Diego informs me.

  I roll my eyes at him. I knew he had invited both me and Caleb Samuels, the new guy in town, along so he could play matchmaker. “I'm sure I will see him at that open house thing tomorrow. Cody's in his class.”

  “He's cute,” Diego says, and I can hear Carter laughing in the background.

  Sometimes I really hated these two. While I appreciated Diego's efforts to set me up, I really didn't have the time to date anyone. I was too busy with work and Cody. The last time I had tried to date someone was the two times Diego and I had went out nearly a year ago before Carter got his head out of his ass and claimed Diego as his own. We had both known he was in love with Carter, so Diego and I had decided to just be friends. I wouldn't have it any other way. Diego and Carter were made for each other. I didn't need someone....okay, I was lying. I was often lonely, and wished I could curl up against someone at night, but it didn't change the fact that I was just too damned busy. Between running Cody to his book club, and weekly meet ups with his friends to play some board game I never heard of, and going to work I barely had time to catch up on TV. Besides I had certain kinks and proclivities that not many men were willing to take on. Outside of the bedroom I liked to be the one in charge, taking care of my partner, and in control of things, but in between the sheets I liked to give up that control and submit to my partner's every desire. It was hard to find someone who was willing to be in control in the bedroom, but give up that control in their every day life.

  “I'm just saying,” Diego said.

  “Good-bye, Diego,” I replied.

  He just chuckled at me. “Don't forget you and Mason are coming over tomorrow to help me move Pops' old couch.”

  “Is this really a three person job?” I asked just to be an ass. “You and Mason can manage, right?”

  “If you don't come I am replacing you as my best friend with Mason,” he deadpans, and I think he may be half serious. Diego was very persistent and had a way of making things go the way he wanted.

  “Fine,” I say with a sigh. I glanced down at my tattooed hands and decided I should probably get something to cover up the bare part of my wrist. A nice Ankh would look good on the outside of my left wrist. “They still opening up that shop on Eighth and Avenue A?”

  “The tattoo one? Yeah, but not for awhile. Why?”

  “I'm itching for a new one.”

  I had always loved tattoos. I thought the art adorning people's bodies was beautiful, even when I was a kid I wanted to be covered in tattoos. I couldn't draw worth a shit, but I loved art, so I decided to cover my body in it. Every time I wanted a tattoo I had to drive up to Seattle to get one, but a few guys from my favorite shop in Seattle were opening their own shop in Glensville, and I couldn't wait until the remodel on the building was complete. I still had parts of my legs and stomach that could use more ink.

  “You just got one,” Diego admonished.

  I just shrugged even though he couldn't see me. “Time for another.”

  “Baby,” I heard Carter say through the line. “How about you hang up with Edward, and come here?”

  I pretended to gag into the phone. These two were so cheesy it was borderline gross.

  “Got ta go!” Diego said swiftly, and hung up the phone before I could get a word out.

  I just chuckled as I flipped over and pulled the covers up to my chin. I could still hear Cody shuffling around in his room, but I couldn't bring myself to make a fuss of it. He still had two more days of Summer vacation, I would let him enjoy his freedom.

  ~ ~ ~

  I woke up to the sound of Cody beating down my door. We had rules about knocking before entering each other's bedroom, but his knocks were so loud I had to constantly remind him to be gentler.

  I groaned and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I found Cody beaming up at me with a book tucked under his arm, and his glasses were sliding off of his nose when I opened my bedroom door. He looked a lot like I did at that age, and he acted a lot like I did too. I hadn't been like most ten-years-olds and neither was Cody. He always had his nose in a book, or was on the internet looking up how things worked. He was full of useless information, and was constantly babbling on about something that no one really cared about. I always listened when he was telling me about facts about bees or the first moon landing, but I knew it grated on other people's nerves. It had grated on my mom's nerves, but me and Dad had listened to Cody whenever he talked.

  “This morning is pancakes at The Diner,” he tells me helpfully like I don't know it's Saturday, and we have a tradition of going to The Diner (yes, that is the official name), ordering the tallest stack of blueberry pancakes, and seeing how fast we can eat them. It was a tradition our parents had started when they began dating, and it was a tradition Cody and I continued even after they were gone.

  “Let me get dressed,” I said.

  He just shrugged at me and went out to the living room where I knew I would find him curled up on the couch reading when I was done showering and changing.

  We lived in a small two bedroom apartment on the edge of town. We didn't live in the poorest neighborhood, but some of our neighbors were struggling to make ends meet. The apartment had a modestly sized living room, a galley style kitchen, two small bedrooms and an even smaller bathroom. It wasn't much, and I wished I could have provided Cody with more, but he assured me he didn't mind living there.

  I showered quickly and dressed in a pair of dark hemp pants and a powder blue shirt. I styled my floppy hair so it fell halfway in my eyes, and looked messy, but not like I had just woken up.

  As I thought, I had found Cody on the couch with his face buried in the pages of Sherlock Holmes. The kid was smarter than I would ever be. I had gotten decent grades in high school, but I never made the honor roll as Cody had several times. I was pretty sure he was going to be valedictorian when he graduated from high school in seven years.

  “Ready?”

  Cody tucked a battered Ace of Clubs card in between the pages of his book. Our father had been really into magic, and the card had been a part of the deck that Dad had used to do his tricks. It was one of the few things that Cody still had from our father.

  We didn't have much of our parents' things. I had to sell most of the stuff in order to get money for rent when I first became Cody's guardian, like Dad's old Chevy and Mom's one and only Chanel purse. That time had been hard on both of us, and I think Cody resented me for awhile after that because he thought I had been trying to erase our parents.

  Cody and I piled into the hunk of junk I had been able to purchase from Lucky Dickson. He had apologized that it needed a lot o
f work, but he had offered me a fair price, and Dustin Locke had offered to fix any problems for very cheap. I knew Lucky had been sad to get rid of it. Lucky had a thing about collecting broken down things and trying to fix them. I think Declan only tolerated it because he loved Lucky so much.

  The Diner is packed with people when we arrive, but the waitress found us a small booth in the back by the kitchens. It was cody's favorite booth, he liked watching the cooks make the food.

  I see some firefighters sitting a few tables away from us. I only know a few of them because they had been there the night our parents had died. I saw Jefferson and Jakson ribbing one of the guys I didn't know. Both Jefferson and Jackson had been there the night Mom and Dad died. They had tried to pull them from the wrecked car, but by the time they had gotten them free, Mom and Dad were already dead.

  Over by the window is the new guy in town. I only know this because I haven't seen him before and Diego told me what he looked like. From far away I couldn't make out the details of his face, but I can tell that he is good looking; from what I could see he had light brown hair and stubble dotting his cheeks. He's wearing glasses, and his clothes were dark, like he didn't want to draw attention to himself. He wasn't paying attention to what was going on around him in the diner, and I'm glad, because I don't want him to see me looking at him. I should probably go over an introduce myself since Cody was going to be in his class, but I didn't want to interrupt his breakfast.

  The waitress brings our stack of pancakes; she already knows our order because we come to The Diner so often, and Mom used to work there before the accident. She winks at me flirtily and I don't have the heart to tell her she's barking up the wrong tree.

  “What's the record?”

  “Three minutes, ten seconds,” Cody answers. He always knew the time down to the seconds. “On your mark. Get set. Go!” he says, and shovels the first bite in his mouth.

  ~ ~ ~

  After I drop Cody off at his friend Andrew's house I make my way over to Carter and Diego's. It's half past ten, and after I helped Diego, I still had to work a five hour shift before the open house at the school that night.

  I can hear Diego's laughter and Roscoe's barking coming from the backyard. I circle around the house and find the lovebirds watching their dog chase a squirrel up a tree. Diego is leaning back against Carter's front, and they look so blissful, it makes me jealous. I didn't realize how much I wanted that until I saw them being all lovey on each other. I didn't know I wanted that until I started seeing all the couples around town.

  Diego sees me and comes down the grass to greet me. He's smiling as Carter swats his ass as he walks away.

  “We're just waiting on Mason.”

  I nod. It's not unusual that Mason was late. He's was famous for being late, and being a klutz. For fuck's sake, he stubbed his toe standing still. I will forever wonder how he managed to injure himself on an almost daily basis.

  Speak of the devil. I heard Mason's car pull into the drive, and Diego and I walked around to the front of the house to greet him.

  Mason waved as he turned off his car and stumbled as he stepped out. “Whoa!” he exclaimed, righting himself.

  Both Diego and I shook our heads at him.

  “Can we go?” I asked. I know I was being impatient, but I could not be late to work again. I had been late last week when my tire went flat, and I hated that Mr. Aberny was now watching me like a hawk.

  “Keep your pants on,” Diego said. He jingled the keys to Carter's truck in my face, and walked to the massive vehicle. “We're going.”

  We all stepped up into the truck and then we were on our way. Diego's father, Pedro, lived in an apartment complex near the police station. He greeted us, beer in hand, when we opened the door.

  “Pops,” Deigo said, “You look happy.”

  Pedro chuckled. “Patrice down the hall is coming over to see the new couch later.”

  “Gross,” Diego said, scrunching his nose. “Pops, while I don't mind you dating Patrice, I really don't want to hear about it.

  “Hush, hijo.” Pedro waved him off. “Help me move this, boys.”

  We all hefted the heavy floral print couch Diego had grown up with and carried it down the hall. Luckily, Pedro lived on the first floor so we didn't have to worry about stairs.

  We loaded the ugly, threadbare couch into the back of Carter's truck and that was that. We drove back to Carter and Diego's after taking the couch to the dump, and I was able to make my shift on time. Now I just had to make it thorugh the next five hours and the open house.

  Chapter Two

  Caleb

  The open house had always been my favorite night, even when I had been teaching in Arizona. I loved meeting the kids and their parents before I would teach them. The open house was different in Glensville though. Since everyone knew everyone, instead of a meet and greet party, the open house was more of a big community party where everyone laughed and talked about their day as if they did this sort of thing every day. I met a ton of parents, and even more kids. I met a few teachers like Joyce Bowman and Logan Price. Logan had the classroom next to me and taught fourth grade.

  Towards the middle of the night I saw a man that seemed to be in his twenties with tattoos covering every surface of his flesh (that I could see). He was ushering a kid who seemed to be reading the entire collection of Sherlock Holmes. The man was gorgeous. He had floppy dark brown almost black hair, what seemed to be a hundred tattoos, a straight nose complete with septum piercing, and a square jaw that was sadly hidden behind a thick beard. He looked to be my same height, but slightly more slender than I was. He smiled over at one of the parents and I was suddenly dazzled by his perfectly white teeth.

  He saw me looking at him, and started to make a bee line for me. I was still curious why this man was here, and why he had a nine- maybe ten-year-old child with him. There was no way he was old enough to be the kid's father.

  “Hi,” he said. His voice was rich like mulled wine.

  “Howdy,” I say because I'm an idiot. I didn't even say howdy when I lived in Texas. What the fuck?

  He just smiles at me. “I'm Edward Knight,” he says, and the name suits him. He looks like he should be named Edward Knight and nothing else, not Ed or Eddie, but Edward. “I'm Cody's brother.”

  “Oh!” I say. I knew all about the Knights' situation. Everyone kept telling me about how they had lost their parents two years ago, and Edward had became legal guardian to his brother. I thought Edward was really brave and loving for stepping up the way he did. “I'm Caleb Samuels. I've been waitin' to meet ya'll.”

  Edward just cocks his head to the side, and I find the gesture so adorable, I have to mentally tell myself to stop acting like a fool. I can feel the heat coming from his body even though there is a good foot between us. I wondered if it would be rude to step out for some air and to cool down.

  “They tell me Cody's very smart.”

  Edward nods proudly. “Kid's got a mind like an encyclopedia.”

  Cody comes over, and looks up long enough to tell me something about the mating rituals of penguins and then goes back to his book. He is then off to sit on the floor by the wall while all the other kids are talking to each other and joking around. My heart immediately goes out to him. I was much like him when I was younger. I didn't have many friends either.

  “His only two friends are homeschooled,” Edward says, shaking his head at his brother. “I've been trying to get him to make more friends.”

  “He'll come out of his shell soon enough,” I say.

  He smiles, and his teeth are dazzling me again. “How do you like Glensville?”

  “To be truthful, I love it. I met a ton of people. Ya'll are so friendly.”

  “I heard you were at Carter and Diego's birthday.”

  I nodded. “They told me about you.”

  That was true. They had told me about their friend Edward who couldn't make it. Diego kept dropping hints that Edward was single and cute, and I had j
ust sat there in silence because I didn't know what to say. But Diego had been right. Edward was cute. He was very, very cute.

  “Edward!” Someone called his name and Edward excused himself.

  He didn't come back over to talk to me for the rest of the night, but that didn't stop either of us from glancing at one another from across the room. If I was a braver man I would have gotten his number or something that night.

  ~ ~ ~

  When I woke up the next morning there were several missed calls from Diego and one missed call from Jayson. Diego's voice mails were very excited because he knew I had met Edward the night before, and he told me he would keep calling me all day if I didn't call him back. I had a feeling he would too. Jayson just wanted to know if I wanted to have dinner with him and August that evening.

  “Honey,” Greta's voice called from the other side of my door. “You awake?”

  “Yeah. You can come in.”

  Greta poked her head around the door, and smiled sweetly at me. Greta Pile was the type of woman I had always wanted for a grandmother. My grandparents had been strict and believed kids should be seen and not heard. Greta was completely the opposite. She was loving, kind and sort of the honorary grandmother of the entire Glensville community. She was sassy, and despite her age there was a spring to her step that even I lacked at twenty-six.

  “I brought you some tea, honey.”

  Greta handed out the steaming mug to me, and I took it gratefully. For some reason I always woke up shivering and feeling like my blood had turned to ice in the middle of the night. No matter how many blankets I slept with I always woke up cold. Greta had noticed it the first morning I had moved in, and had brought me a hot tea every morning since.

  “What do you have on your agenda today?”

  I thought it over. “Not much. I was just gonna go to the gym, and maybe to the bakery to try one of those cinnamon buns everyone is ravin' about,” I replied with a wink. I knew the recipe the bakery used was her own; she had owned the bakery before handing it over to Jayson a few years ago.