Breakfast at Midnight
Page 8
Of course, if he had done that, he wouldn’t have seen Callum get to the end of the driveway and then spin around with a yelp, as if he had just been bitten by something. “Hold on,” he said as he strode back to Fred. “Hold on, hold on, hold on.” He went right up to him, practically toe to toe, and reached up to grab Fred’s face with both hands. His palms were warm on Fred’s cheeks, and his eyes were burning. “You’re… you’re doing that thing. That fucking thing from shitty romcoms where you think I’m leaving for good. Aren’t you?” He tapped his fingers insistently on Fred’s cheeks. “Aren’t you?”
“Um,” Fred said. It wasn’t every day someone grabbed his face and stared at him like they were trying to burrow their way into his head. “Aren’t you?”
“No,” Callum said. “Jesus Christ, no.” And he kissed Fred—kissed him hard and desperately, like Fred would disappear if he didn’t. His fingers threaded their way into Fred’s hair, tugged at it, and all Fred could do was cling to him and kiss him back.
Callum was breathing hard when he pulled away. “I’m coming back,” he said and didn’t break his gaze. “Do you understand that, you idiot? I’m coming back.”
“Okay.” Fred’s fingers dug into Callum’s hips, and he felt like he’d just run up five flights of stairs. “Okay.”
“Good,” Callum said firmly. “Jesus. The things I have to spell out.” But before Fred could protest, his gaze softened and he rubbed his thumb back and forth over Fred’s cheek. “I need some time,” he said. “That’s all. To work out who I am without my band, and then I can work out who I am with you.”
Another kiss, this one much gentler than the previous one. Once again, Callum was the first to pull away. He gave Fred one last tiny peck before he pulled back completely, and then he tucked both hands in his pockets and smiled. “I’ll see you, yeah?”
“Yeah,” said Fred. He swallowed, Callum winked, and Callum was halfway down the driveway before Fred managed to speak again. “Write to me, okay?” But that wasn’t right. “Make sure you come back.”
Callum spun around to walk backward. He looked at Fred with light in his eyes. “You know it.”
THE LETTER arrived on a Friday, and it wasn’t a complete surprise, not after the phone call Fred had received from Amira two weeks ago. “Uh, Daddy? Why did Callum Mitchell from Leos just facebook me and tell me I had fabulous eyes, then ask for my father’s address?” That had taken a few hours over coffee and cake at Amira’s favorite coffee shop—she wasn’t a Denny’s girl—to explain, and afterward, Fred had checked his mail with more regularity than he’d managed since he moved.
When he finally found a letter that wasn’t a bill, something swooped deep in the pit of his stomach.
Dear Fred,
Will you please tell me why I thought this was a good idea? I feel like I need to have lines of dots, just lines and lines of them
….
…….
………….
to show how long I’ve been staring at this page for. I thought this would be all cute and old-fashioned and romantic. But I guess I’d forgotten how crap I am at writing letters. I can’t even write emails. Jesus. Texting is what I’m good at.
But please see “romantic” above.
You’d better be swooning right now, asshole.
Maybe my best bet is that you’ll find my incompetence charming.
It feels like I shouldn’t be writing. Like goodbye should have been goodbye. The end, final page, no sequel. Like a coming-of-age story or whatever. Like “this was the moment where both their lives changed and they’d be forever thankful.” But I don’t want that. I don’t want this to be “the end.” Because—fuckkkkkkk meeeeee, I’m bad at writing—because that would be a lame crappy ending anyway. I want more. I want to know what happens next.
So. Yes. Writing.
Hi, hello, how are you, do you miss me?
I miss you. I barely know you—but that’s crap and we both know it. I know you a lot. You know me a lot. What more is there?
Okay, okay, I guess knowing, like actually knowing, each other for more than a week might help.
Write me back, okay? If you don’t, I’ll never forgive you.
(just joking)
(sorta)
Callum.
It was the first letter Fred had ever received from the Caribbean. It was not the last.
Callum’s letters came frequently. Fred sometimes received two or even three in a row before he’d had a chance to respond. They were erratic, sometimes full of ramblings that held barely a thread of coherency, sometimes a single line—I don’t know, I’m just thinking of you, so hi above a scribbled smiling face with hair coming out of its ears—and sometimes they were so heartfelt Fred had no idea how to respond.
I don’t know who I am without my band. I was in Leos since I was 18. Who the fuck knows who they are at 18? Or at 23? And Leos…. Leos was all-encompassing (am I spelling that right?). It was like, “Bam, there’s your identity, right there. Because you don’t have time/space/room for anything else in your life.” It was everything.
Until it wasn’t. And then there was you. And I could feel myself looking around that stupid little town of yours, at that fucking Denny’s, and going, “I can see myself here. I could fit myself into this.” Sooooo… thank you for kissing James, I guess??? Because fucking wake-up call right there.
Because, in my head, I was building a life around you. I do this thing where I jump in feetfirst, like getting in way too deep and so far ahead of myself. Seriously, my entire life can be summed up by what I did with that fucking band of mine.
(Er. Lots of swearing in this letter, I guess.)
I’m so glad I don’t have to watch you read this. But I was sitting there going, “I could one hundred percent fall in love with this guy,” and then I was like, “Whoooooaaaaaa, boy, slow your roll, YOU JUST MET HIM” and it’s so stupid, but it was only you kissing James that made me do that. Who knows? If it wasn’t for that, I might be, like, your wife or something. (PS. That’s your cue to write me a fantasy about me cooking you breakfast in nothing but an apron.)
I don’t know, man. Dude. Bro. (That’s me feeling awkward, btw, and procrastinating.) There’s a massive part of me that wants to come back to you and never ever leave your bed, but I feel like I should probably work out who I am when I’m not building myself around someone/Leos. Which is a really fucking weird thing to do. It’s like I’m throwing personality strands of spaghetti onto the wall of myself to see what sticks. (Jesus. This is why you’re the writer.)
Why is this so hard?
Callum.
It took Fred days to write back to that one, and when he did, he dropped his envelope into the mailbox and then instantly wanted it back, wanted to wait for the mailman and grab it out of his hand to rip it into a million pieces. He didn’t. He sucked in a deep breath and made himself walk away, back to his house.
I’m sorry I kissed him. I wish you were here.
Fred.
DON’T BE. Now tell me how your book’s coming along. What’s that heartbreaker Paul up to? And why hasn’t he proposed to Charlie yet?
Kisses and hugs,
Callum.
Callum didn’t like to dwell, as Fred was rapidly learning. If something Fred wrote was too serious, too full of anything Callum didn’t want to think about, he could expect a quick subject change—well, as quick as letters spaced two weeks apart at the very least could be. He still couldn’t believe they were mailing letters back and forth.
It wasn’t a complaint. Callum had started dotting his i’s with hearts, and after the letter where Fred called him a teenage girl, the odd o was heart-shaped now too. Seeing those, seeing the doodles of strangely proportioned faces and balloon letters, the way Callum’s handwriting grew sloppier when his thought hurried… it made Fred feel like he knew Callum better than emails or texts could ever have conveyed.
He put down his pen and turned to his laptop.
FRED STRETCHED hi
s arms high above his head until his back released a series of pops and cracks. He folded his letter into thirds, then picked up the book resting on his desk and ran a hand over its cover. He couldn’t hold back his smile and didn’t bother to try as he walked to the kitchen from his makeshift study set up in the living room. He placed the letter on the counter, put the book on top of it, and traced his fingertips underneath the title: The Alphabet Murders. He opened it to the first page and reread the dedication for the umpteenth time:
C is for courage, charm, and compassion
The same way this book is for Callum
Underneath that, in Fred’s own handwriting, was written, Of course it’s for you. How could it be for anyone else?
He’d already addressed the envelope.
KIM DIAS has been writing for years, but has been making up stories for what feels like forever. She writes love stories, preferably with a side of hot sex; Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Awards constantly inspire her to do better.
When not focused on her studies at the University of Victoria, Kim spends her time working on her novel, which she swears will one day be finished. She loves dogs, reading in front of fireplaces, and days spent in the sunshine. She believes wholeheartedly that stories can change the world.
You can find her online at kimdias.tumblr.com.
By Kim Dias
Bare Studs (Dreamspinner Anthology)
Breakfast at Midnight
Hot Off the Press (Dreamspinner Anthology)
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Published by
DREAMSPINNER PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Breakfast at Midnight
© 2017 Kim Dias.
Cover Art
© 2017 L.C. Chase.
http://www.lcchase.com
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.
Digital ISBN: 978-1-63533-899-7
Published October 2017
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America