by Kim Dias
Fred froze. He knew if he stopped too long, if he thought too hard, he’d come up with all the reasons why he couldn’t, why he shouldn’t.
But it was a cold night. Callum was shivering in his hoodie, and Fred wanted to pull him into his arms. He wanted to peel off Callum’s layers and find out what lay underneath. He wanted to see if his hands could span Callum’s hips as easily as he imagined.
Fred looked at Callum, at his hopeful face, his messy hair, his pretty eyes. He swallowed. Said, “Yes.”
“Where do you live?” Callum asked. “I’ve got my car, I’ll follow you.”
FRED HADN’T expected to be alone in his pickup. He hadn’t expected the time to go over all those couldn’ts and shouldn’ts: He’s half your age. He’s barely older than your daughter. He obviously has a story, something must be wrong, how many twenty-three-year-olds do you know who’d spend four nights in a row at Denny’s? By the time he pulled up in his driveway, Callum’s small Hyundai a minute behind him, he had all the reasons in the world swirling around his head.
Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, James’s pet name for Fred hadn’t been “you stubborn bastard” for years with no good reason. It used to be affectionate. When they’d decided to adopt and run up against every imaginable obstacle everywhere they turned, James had started having second, third, fourth thoughts. Fred had taken James’s hand, gritted his teeth against his own second, third, fourth, fifth thoughts, and kept pushing. “You stubborn bastard,” James said the first time he saw Amira in Fred’s arms. He kissed him so hard it hurt. “You stubborn bastard, I love you.”
A less fond memory that was remembered more easily: James telling Fred to get out of bed. Fred knew he should listen, knew he should throw the covers off and stand up, knew staying in would only lead to another fight—and he stayed anyway. “You stubborn bastard,” James had said, and slammed the door on his way out of the bedroom.
When Callum’s car pulled up behind him and Fred had to climb out of the truck, Fred’s breathing had finally evened out. Looking through the windshield of the Hyundai, he could see Callum had undone his hair on the drive over. It fell around his face, making him look softer and older at the same time. Fred’s breath caught, but when he went to unlock his front door, he managed to keep his hands from shaking.
Hands slid over his hips and a body pressed itself against his back. “Hey” whispered in his ear, and Fred shoved the door open so fast it banged against the inside wall. He stepped out of Callum’s embrace, his skin left cold and his chest relieved. It had been so long and Callum’s hands made him feel desperate and out of control, the way he had as a teenager, the way he had during his honeymoon with James.
Fred flicked on the lights, then kicked off his sneakers in the hall. Callum followed suit, though he had to hop on first one foot and then the other to unzip his leather boots. He gave Fred a sheepish smile once the second one was off and Fred pretended not to notice his mismatched socks—one blue, one black.
“This is me,” he said as he led Callum into the living room. He cringed the moment the words left his mouth. They sounded idiotic, and the room was not exactly impressive. Or homey. At least he wasn’t using a cardboard box as a coffee table anymore, but it could have been much better. Amira told him so every time she visited.
The couches were mismatched, one from a garage sale, the other from Craigslist. Water stains and coffee marks covered the surface of the coffee table. The only thing in the entire room Fred was proud of was the bookshelf. It was the only thing he’d brought from his and James’s house. James had offered him more, but Fred hadn’t been able to bear the thought of seeing anything else from that house every day.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s….”
“It’s fine,” Callum said. “You’re talking to the guy who’s been living out of his car for a week.”
“You….” Fred blinked. “You what?”
“I….” Callum held Fred’s gaze for a second before he looked away and wandered over to the bookshelf. He trailed his fingers over the spines of the books, tipping his head to the side to read them. He shrugged, and it was such a far cry from casual that Fred cringed on his behalf. “It’s complicated,” he said. “And not half as bad as it sounds. I have a very comfy car.”
“Um,” Fred said, and Callum turned to look at him.
“Can we maybe not?” he said. His tone was somehow defiant and pleading all at once. “I’m not, like, homeless. I didn’t come home with you just so I could use your shower and then run away or whatever. It’s… it’s temporary for now. I’m looking for a place, I’m gonna find a place, and it’s not…. It’s like when you say you’re living in your car, people are instantly all, ‘Ooooh, that’s serious,’ and it’s not. It’s just….” He shrugged again. “Circumstances. Things.” His hair fell into his eyes and he pushed it away impatiently. “So can we just not with the living in the car?”
Fred looked at him. At his heaving chest, his messy hair. At his left hand, where his index finger picked at the skin around his thumbnail.
He really didn’t want to be one of those people who were all ooooh, that’s serious, the ones Callum spoke of with such derision.
So he nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
Callum squinted at Fred like he couldn’t quite believe he was getting away with it. He spoke slowly. “Thank you.”
“Welcome,” Fred said, and a grin flashed his way before Callum turned back to the books.
It didn’t take long for the silence to make Fred itchy. He’d always been a bad host, and he’d never found himself in quite these circumstances before. He was about to open his mouth and let whatever inane thing he thought of come out, but then Callum spoke up. And he said the worst thing Fred could have imagined.
“Frederick James!” he exclaimed, pulling a book from the shelf. “Oh my God, I cannot believe I didn’t mention him earlier when you asked me about books. I got every single one of his books out of the library about a billion times when I was a kid—well, you know, a teenager, but seriously, every single one. He was the first person whose books were ever like, ‘Hey, being gay isn’t all coming-out stories and homophobia,’ you know?” He turned to Fred with shining eyes. “I can’t believe you’re a fan too.”
“Er….” What was Fred supposed to say? I’m not? I haven’t been for years? It’s hard to be a fan of someone when he’s utterly incapable of pulling himself together and getting shit done?
He settled for, “Yeah.”
“Love him,” Callum said. He smoothed a hand over the cover. “This one isn’t my favorite, but, well, it’s still good, isn’t it? He’s never written a bad word in his life.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” Fred said, and Callum flapped a dismissive hand at him.
“How dare you,” he said. “That’s fuckin’ blasphemy.” But he put the book down, slid it back into the bookshelf, and turned to Fred with a shy smile. “Hey. Sorry. I get a bit overinvested in… I like books.”
“I can tell,” Fred said. He tucked his hands into his pockets and tried not to fidget. The room was quiet now, quiet and sharp with expectancy.
Callum made the first move. He stepped forward, one step after another, until he was right in front of Fred with only a few inches of space to separate them. “Hey,” he whispered, and reached out to press both hands flat against Fred’s chest. Fred put his hands on Callum’s hips; they were skinny under his palms, just like he’d imagined, and he sucked in his stomach, acutely aware of that twenty-six-year age difference and all that came with it.
“Hey,” he said; he found himself unable to raise his voice over a whisper.
“Hey.”
Fred didn’t have time to reply, didn’t have time to think about whether he would reply, because Callum’s lips were on his. He tasted minty; he must have been chewing gum on his way over. His mouth opened soft and easy when Fred swiped his tongue over his lower lip.
Th
e kiss deepened, Callum making gorgeous little noises as it did. Fred’s hands tightened on Callum’s hips. Eyes still closed, he maneuvered them sideways toward the couch. Callum took the hint quickly and sat. He pulled Fred down with him, as if he couldn’t bear for their lips to be parted for even a second. Fred half fell onto the couch beside him—and heard the unmistakable snap of plastic cracking.
Fred jerked away from Callum. He reached behind himself, groped for the offending object, and his fingers closed around a CD case. He pulled it forward and peered at it. It was one of Amira’s, he saw that in a second. Some boy band or the other, four skinny boys in tight jeans in front of an obnoxious yellow background. The band’s name was scrawled above in glitter: Leos. A slim crack now ran right through the center of the O.
Fred managed not to roll his eyes. He loved his daughter, but honestly. He was about to toss the case onto the coffee table and return to Callum, see if he’d make more of those needy almost-whimpers. Then a pair of eyes in one of the boy-band members’ faces caught his attention.
Fred froze. His gaze flicked from the CD case to Callum’s face and back again. The face on the cover was shiny, smile wide, plastic as a Ken doll. Callum was pale, dark purple rings under his eyes, hair flat.
But it was unmistakable.
“You’re in this?” Fred said. He hadn’t meant to sound quite so shocked. “What are you doing here?”
Here in my house. Here in my Denny’s. Here in my life.
“Didn’t take you as a Leos fan,” Callum said weakly. He pronounced it oddly, Lee-oss, as if it was Greek. Just went to show how much Fred knew.
“I’m not,” Fred said shortly, before he realized how rude it sounded. “It’s my daughter’s.” And, shit, Callum hadn’t known he had a daughter either. Ah well—Fred hadn’t known he was in one of Amira’s favorite bands. A relatively successful one too, if he wasn’t wrong. He’d seen more of their CDs around his house, left from the occasional weekends Amira stayed with him.
“Huh.” Callum nodded. “That makes more sense. I mean, no judging, but you didn’t really fall into our usual demographic.” His smile was twisted. “I thought you’d recognized me, that first night. It freaked me out a bit, honestly.”
Fred shook his head. He reached forward to touch Callum’s hair, gently pushing it behind his ear. “I’d never seen you before,” he said. “You… you didn’t really fit in.” Callum’s wry smile let Fred know he’d already known that. “And I… I wanted to know more.” He’d had no idea more would end up meaning member of an at least nationally famous band.
Callum bit his lower lip and ducked his head. “Well, I guess you got that.” He reached for Fred and got a handful of his T-shirt, used it to try to pull him closer. Fred resisted.
“Why are you here?” he asked. It was blunt, of course it was, but Fred didn’t mind. He’d managed to clamp down on his curiosity earlier, but now Callum was here and there was so much more to his story than Fred ever thought there would be and he wanted to know.
“Uh…,” Callum said, and then his smile turned wicked. “You have really nice arms and I kept wondering how your beard”—he brushed light fingers over Fred’s chin and cheeks—“would feel on my skin, and you have big hands and—”
“No,” Fred interrupted, though he could feel himself blushing. Since when had his arms been considered nice? “I meant here in town. Here at Denny’s.”
The smile dropped from Callum’s face and he sighed. “Yeah, I was worried you might,” he said. “Look, it’s like the car thing again—can we just maybe not?”
No, Fred wanted to say. We can’t just not. What’s happening? What’s wrong?
But he swallowed the words and nodded. Callum wanted to change the subject—it was hard to take can we not? in any other way, really—and Fred wouldn’t let his curiosity get in the way and make Callum uncomfortable. It was strange; he’d forgotten what it was like to feel that desire to know more, to discover how the story went.
“People aren’t stories, love,” James used to say. Fred pushed his voice out of his head; there was no space for it there anymore.
“Okay,” he said to Callum. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—” But Callum was already pulling him in for another kiss, his hand still fisted in the front of Fred’s T-shirt. His mouth opened under Fred’s and he tightened his grip, twisting the T-shirt out of shape. Fred couldn’t bring himself to care.
The kiss tasted like desperation. Callum’s teeth scraped Fred’s lower lip repeatedly and his grip on Fred’s shirt didn’t loosen for a second. Fred tried to keep up, tried to slow it down and gentle it, but every time he tried, Callum made a sound that felt a lot like please and pulled Fred harder against him. Fred brought his hands up to the sides of Callum’s face, combing his fingers through Callum’s hair, trying to soothe him from… this. Whatever this was, wherever it was coming from.
“Hey,” he said when he managed to pull him away. “Hey, hey, hey, slow down, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yeah,” Callum said. “Sorry.” But when their lips met again, he still moved too fast, too hard, too strong. Fred winced when Callum bit down too hard on his lower lip.
“Sorry,” Callum said. “I… bedroom?”
“Uh,” Fred said. “Sure.” Callum let go of his T-shirt and Fred stood up. He caught Callum’s hand and pulled him to his feet, then led him to his bedroom. He kicked the door closed behind them for no reason—it wasn’t as though there was anyone else in the house. His movements were stiff, uncomfortable. It felt as though a hand was gripping his stomach.
He hoped Callum might calm down a bit once they were there, or maybe that he’d be able to calm Callum down. Soothe him with kisses, undress him slowly. James had always called Fred a romantic—and, Christ, would Fred ever be able to have sex without thinking of him?—and while Fred didn’t think that was entirely true, the idea of rushed, impersonal sex, sex like Callum’s kissing had become, held no appeal for him.
Fred stood beside the bed and pulled Callum against him. His hands spanned Callum’s hips; he liked how easily he could hold him there. He bent his neck to lean his forehead against Callum’s. “Hey,” he whispered.
Callum kissed him. Their teeth clacked together; Callum didn’t seem to care. His hands scrabbled up under Fred’s T-shirt, tugging at it. “Off,” he said, breaking their kiss—Fred tried to ignore his relief.
Fred pulled his T-shirt over his head. By the time he tossed it onto the floor, Callum had yanked off his hoodie and was fumbling with the buttons on the shirt he wore underneath. His hands shook; Fred frowned.
“Callum,” he said, and when Callum didn’t look at him, repeated it. “Callum.”
Callum looked up, all wide eyes. “What?”
“You know we don’t have to do this, right? There’s… nothing. No pressure. No anything.”
Callum’s eyes darkened and his face closed off into a scowl. He got the final two buttons undone and stalked forward, shrugging the shirt off his shoulders as he went. He got his hands flat on Fred’s chest again and shoved. Fred landed on the bed and barely had a chance to register what had happened before Callum straddled his hips. He ground down on Fred’s cock. He didn’t speak—it only took a second for him to lean down and kiss Fred again—but it was the most obvious yes Fred had ever experienced in his life.
He didn’t like it.
Callum felt like desperation. It wasn’t the good kind of desperation either. It was… tight. Frenetic. Wrong.
When Callum pushed a hand down Fred’s jeans, awkwardly, wrist twisted from the angle, Fred made his decision. He took hold of Callum’s forearm, making sure to keep his grip soft; Callum’s entire body was vibrating and the wrong move might shatter him. “Callum,” Fred said as he gently pulled Callum’s hand away from his cock. “Callum, honey.” The pet name slipped out before he thought about it. “Callum, I… I don’t think I can.”
“I….” Callum’s face was utterly blank for a second. “What?”
“Not tonight,” Fred said. “Not like this.”
“Like what?”
Fred took a deep breath through his nose. Not when something is so obviously wrong. “You’re… you got… weird,” he said, but weird wasn’t the right word. “Off. Upset.” Wrong was what he wanted to say, but that was even more offensive than weird. “And you’re gorgeous, you really are, and I like you, but I can’t. Not when you’re like this.”
Callum’s chest was heaving. But Fred kept his eyes on Callum’s face and saw the exact moment that his gaze turned inward. It was as though a shield went up right in front of his eyes and turned them distant and impassive. They were such a far cry from that laughter-sparkled gaze that Fred almost couldn’t believe they were the same.
“What’d you like me to be like?”
For a second, the question didn’t register. The moment it did, his stomach tightened and twisted. “No,” he said. “No, that’s not what I’m… I’m not asking you to be someone. I’m just saying I can’t have sex with you, and I’m sorry, but you’re not….” You, he wanted to say. Which was ridiculous—they were virtual strangers. But Fred somehow instinctively knew that this closed-off façade was not Callum. He didn’t know who it was, but it wasn’t the man who’d argued the virtues of the Hufflepuff house so passionately just a few hours earlier.
Callum kissed him again. Fred instinctively kissed back, and he slid one hand up to comb it through Callum’s hair, hoping to be able to gently pull him away. But Callum deepened the kiss urgently the second he did, as if he read Fred’s intentions and wanted him to abandon them before he could follow through.
Fred didn’t know where any of this had come from, and he didn’t know what to do with it. Callum’s fingers dug so tightly into his shoulders it felt like they might go straight through his skin. If this was so important to Callum, so important that he’d kiss so desperately, cling so tightly, could Fred really deny him?
Then he felt hot liquid on his face, pressed from Callum’s cheeks onto his own, a few drops of….