One Door Closes (12 page)

“So what is this, then?” If Devon thought his acknowledgement was supposed to cow him, he didn’t know Calvin. “This is you helping? You don’t even want to be here!”

“You have no idea what I—”

“You have a fucking bag packed and ready to go in your closet,” Calvin shouted. “Your room isn’t your room, it’s just a place you sleep. And you might give me money to cover your expenses, but you’re not really here in the ways that count. I know you’re just itching to get out of here, to put it all behind you again.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve done this before! Do you even know what it was like after you left? I get that you had to go, we all had to go eventually. But you never once came back. You never once called to make sure Audrey was all right, to see if she needed help, maybe just to say hi.”

“I sent her letters all the time.”

“Oh, good. Letters. About what you were doing? About how tough life was?”

“Don’t you dare think you know anything about what my life was like, or what I wrote to
my
mother,” Devon hissed, stabbing a finger into Calvin’s face. Calvin took a step back, but he was nodding, and Devon’s glower deepened.

“Then where were you? I don’t really care if you had any money, Devon, you could have come back and been here with her
sometimes
. She put up with a lot of crap every year, from social workers, adoption agencies... Did you know she fought for five boys that they wouldn’t let her have, who I’m sure went to the shittiest foster families in the state because no one else would take them, except for how they might bring in more money? She did it because of you! Because
you
got turned down for home after home before she got you, because there were so damn many of us who reminded her of
you.
” He waved at the staircase, the rooms, the doorways and the halls. “This whole place was built around you, and you couldn’t even bring yourself to come back and see it.”

Devon had gone pale and silent. Calvin could tell he’d hit on something Devon had never heard before, and it choked the words in his throat like the caustic bile it was.

He swallowed, rubbing a hand against the side of his leg. “She might have given this place to the three of us. But you were the one she most wanted to come back.”

“She never told me,” Devon whispered. “She never...”

Of course she never had. It would have sounded like a guilt trip, and as they’d all just agreed—the only thing they could agree on, most likely—Audrey wasn’t that kind of person.

“Look, we were all a bunch of little shits back then.” Calvin felt so damned tired, and already wretched over what he’d said. “But we’re not kids now. If you’re going to leave again in the end, then just do it. Do it before we all get too tied in to make up for your loss.”

He found he had nothing more to say. It was easy to turn around and leave the room then, to let the weight fall in and crush the space behind him as it so wanted to do. Staying there under its heaviness was worse than any level of embarrassment.

Chapter Six

Jerritson Urban Designs had a modest but attractive waiting room, an office transformed from the lower story of a Victorian on the south end of Main Street. The sign outside had been dwarfed by the advertisement for the employment law firm on the floor above it, but from the décor and quiet atmosphere, Calvin figured word of mouth and old-fashioned customer loyalty covered most of Jerritson’s bills.

For all the dark, shiny woodwork spilling across the ceiling, the room was bright and welcoming, the walls a cool green and the drapes drawn all the way open. The front desk was vacant, a stack of forms to one side and a tidy setup of pens, a multiline telephone, a lamp and other office accoutrements laid out over its surface. The computer screen was dark.

Calvin tapped his fingers atop the counter. There was no bell, just an open door leading to a set of rooms beyond. Offices, maybe a small conference room. Under the large window behind him, three chairs sat side by side, edged by a magazine-covered table. Calvin considered just sitting down and waiting for someone to emerge. The idea of calling out in this silent place felt offensive.

“Hello?” he tried anyway.

Footsteps came quickly from the hall beyond the doorway. Will entered the waiting room and stopped short. “Cal.”

“Hey.”

Will was in clean navy trousers and a button-down, more formal than his norm. The clothing clung to his shoulders and hugged his waist and thighs. The only throwback to his daily grind was the pair of work boots laced firmly on his feet. He looked put-together, almost decadent next to what he usually wore, and it kindled a profound ache in Calvin’s stomach. He felt sweat break at the back of his neck and forced himself not to draw attention by wiping it away. The whole point of this visit was that Will wasn’t...wasn’t supposed to be here, not on the corporate side of things.

“Hey.” Will wasn’t thinner, but he looked it, somehow. The way he held himself, maybe, as if he were just waiting for a chance to sink down and sit. “What can I do for you?”

“Is Mr. Jerritson in? I don’t have an appointment, but if he’s here, I’d just—I’d like to talk to him.”

Will’s mouth bent in such a way that Calvin already knew the answer. “He’s overseeing a big contract out of town. Emergency came up with the foundation and he decided he should see to it personally.”

Calvin felt the hollowness resettle. It was hardly better than the ache. “Is there a number where I can reach him?”

Will studied him, eyes probing with a thoroughness that conflicted with the lack of energy everywhere else. A clock Calvin hadn’t noticed before ticked noisily somewhere in the room. Was Will still not sleeping well? Did he have someone over at night, was that why he was—

“I can give you his cell number,” Will said. “But I was going to call him for you anyway.”

“You were?”

Will nodded haltingly. His gaze slid away and back. “I saw enough the last time Angus showed up to know I got you into something. Back at the house. I’d like to get you out of it.”

“No,” Calvin said dully, “no, you didn’t do that.”

“Are you all right?”

This wasn’t the line of questioning Calvin had expected Will to follow, the personal rather than the tangible. The latter was so much more lucrative in terms of figuring out what could be done. In Will’s place, Calvin would have asked for details, picked it apart and determined what he could contribute to or subtract from the equation.

But maybe that was exactly what Will was doing.

“I’m fine. We’re fine. I just have a big problem on my hands.”

Will frowned at the far wall, then set his jaw. “Tell me what’s going on? Maybe there’s something I can do, something you haven’t thought of.”

“The house is going to be repossessed. Audrey...” It shouldn’t hurt to say her name anymore, not after last night. It was just a name, its power nowhere close to that of the person who had owned it. “She was sick for a long time.”

Will nodded.

“And she didn’t—I mean, she could have told me.” So childish. He should have damn well
figured it out
, but he’d been too absorbed in his own troubles. Just like he’d accused Devon of being. “She’d stopped fostering a while before. I didn’t even see it for what it was. She had to mortgage the place, and the funds were coming up due and she heckled out that deal with the city council involving the youth group, so she could get the place back up to code in exchange for a break on the loans. The building’s practically as old as the town, I’m pretty sure she pushed the posterity angle. But the council wants to condemn it—”

“Of course they do.”

“They want the land,” Calvin said, wondering, but Will didn’t pursue it. He just motioned for Calvin to go on.

“So.” He stared at his hands for a moment and let them drop. “We have till tomorrow to have a contract finalized and signed. You’ve seen the place.”

“Did she have some reason to think the three of you could afford something like this?”

“No, we’re not rich. We do all right, I mean, I do. I’m okay on my own.” Something told him he wasn’t making what Will was making, and he was suddenly loath to talk about his job in detail. Why had he thought things were going to go well at all? He was living in a house with two strangers and none of them had planned to take on this big of a burden. Calvin shook the thought aside.

“Devon has money,” Will stated, as if they’d discussed it. Calvin wondered if they had. In between other things. Maybe he’d approached, and Devon had turned him down, and that was where the discomfort over it all came from, as well as Will’s insistence that he wasn’t interested.

“Devon’s a freelancer,” he said. “And Danny has a little, but he’s just a kid. I don’t know why she thought he could pull this kind of weight.”

But that, that was all mirror work, poorly deflecting the guilt that soured his innards. Audrey had done so damn much for him, for all of them, and she’d done it by herself. Calvin exhaled, as hard as the ice that crept around the memory. “I left her in the cold.”

A whole bunch of spoiled brats with no clue about anything, that was what they were. And she’d never let on.

“We can slow down the timeline,” Will said, visibly picking his way around the thought. “If you need it.”

“Will, I’m not going to be able to make the bill at all.” Calvin’s throat felt as raspy as coral. “Not even close.”

Will’s frown deepened. “Was your car loan denied?”

Calvin had no idea what expression had formed on his face, but by the way Will’s gaze fixed, he could guess. Will came a little way around the desk.

“I haven’t heard about the car loan yet,” Calvin said. “Hopefully today. But we didn’t get the loan in town. So we can’t start the rest of the work.”

Will edged into his personal sphere, something too aware behind his eyes. “What did Angus say to you?”

Calvin was right on the edge and half willing to jump off. The plunge felt limitless, but the beginning of it was only a single step.

He could just admit all of it. And not the furtive skirting he’d done around the truth for his brothers.
All
the nasty details. The worst two years of his life and the half a decade building toward them. His past might still stand between him and his mother’s house, but at least one barrier would come down. It would be painful while he purged, but so much better once it was out of his hands.

In the end, though, it refused to come, the tangle too hot and convoluted for the open air. Especially for Will’s perusal. Calvin couldn’t handle that sort of guarded awareness in Will’s eyes, of all people’s. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Will nodded, jerky. The exhaustion wheeled back into his frame with a vengeance. “All right.”

“I know this isn’t what you need from me—”

“Oh, God, screw what I need,” Will said in a rush, and sank back against the desk, his face in one hand. Something so incredibly desperate echoed in his voice that Calvin stepped forward. Will’s laugh was nothing but a scrape of a sound. “I’ve never known what I need.”

Calvin had never heard such hatred, as though Will hadn’t been able to stand himself for a long time.

“I did this,” Will murmured at last. “I pushed it. Again.”

“Will, what’s going on with you?”

Will was already shaking his head. Calvin winced at the ache in his eyes. “You ever have nightmares?”

None that he could remember with clarity. “I—”

“Never been an insomniac.” Will spoke over him like he hadn’t said a word. “They’re not even scary. Someone’s talking. Always talking, and I know the voice, but I can’t understand. I can’t
sleep
.”

The notion, faint as smoke, pooled in Calvin’s belly, swelling with each word. “Who’s talking to you?”

Will paused to stare. “What? It doesn’t matter who, I just can’t...” He shook his head and finished his self-denunciation on a shuddery breath. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not thinking straight, and it’s getting you into trouble. Angus retaliated. That’s on me.” He eyed Calvin for a disquieting moment. “I’ll find someone to go to your house in my place tomorrow.”

“What?” It was completely out of left field. But Will looked steady again in ways he hadn’t for days, as if he’d found an answer he hated but couldn’t argue.

“It’s clear I unsettle you, Cal. Calvin. Being there. It’s been awkward for you. I can see it.” His tone turned pleading, and he drew himself visibly inward. “When I look at you.”

“Will.” He reached, needing to touch, just the once, just
needing
to—

“Just—” Will lurched up, out of reach. “I’ll take care of it. I’m sorry. I have to get going. There’s a client meeting I can’t miss.” He raised a hand awkwardly and retreated toward the back rooms.

Watching Will walk away was like having something torn out of the center of him, a shrill clamor in Calvin’s gut with no relief.

In the end, all he could manage was Will’s name.

The other man froze, then gave Calvin the weakest smile he’d ever seen. “It’ll be okay. Jerritson’s not going to let your mother’s place go, not if I have anything to say about it.”

It should have comforted him. Instead Will’s promise felt purposeless, a shot veering far from its target. Calvin nodded, sure that if he just mustered the emotions, they would swing up again in full. But nothing happened. All he could think of were empty rooms.

Empty hands. The only time he’d actually gotten hold of Will, that first day when he’d clasped his hand to shake it, sprang full-bodied into his mind, and Calvin reeled at the way it tightened inside, the craving that smarted like a physical injury.

He gave Will a smile nonetheless, or something like. Thanked him, because whatever else, it was deserved. It was far less than he owed Will for all his effort.

He very nearly asked Will to come by the house again, regardless of the job. Eventually he let himself out without speaking.

* * *

It hadn’t been his room for very long, but he was attached to aspects of it that he hadn’t even considered—the bathroom with its heavy door, the rippled glass in the window frames, the too-large doorknob that squealed when twisted to the right. The knots in the wood of each lintel and the holes where they’d fallen free. The ornate bookshelf that probably belonged in a museum somewhere but was instead filled with
his
books and movies, the oddities he’d collected throughout his life. Even though the room had been empty only a month ago, it was impossible to imagine it empty again, or filled with someone else’s belongings.

But that was a dream anyway. No one would be living here once Angus had his way. The house would no longer exist.

So Calvin circled the room again and again with his eyes. He tried to commit it to memory so that he could recreate it someday. Nothing seemed to stick.

The motorcycle’s rumble filled the drive. Twilight was sinking fast, blurring the world together. The overgrown grass seemed to grow right up into the tree trunks without stopping and the road was nothing but a pinkish brown haze beyond the gate. Depth perception was shot in more ways than one. Even the sound of Devon’s boots on the gravel made him seem only feet away.

The front door opened and shut. Calvin thought about going back to memorizing. Except there was no point. Now that Devon was home, and before he found a reason to leave again, the three of them had things to settle. Tomorrow would show up whether they avoided it or not.

Devon trudged up the stairs, through the lounge to his room, and Calvin sat up, throat swollen. He felt planted to the bed. It was a much better place than with anything else that awaited him in the house.

He forced himself up, though, and headed for Devon’s room. The door was open, the overhead light bright inside. As he neared, he heard Devon’s voice.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do...No, I still have to figure that part out.”

He was on the phone. Calvin paused in the darkness of the hall.

“I will. Just as long as you...Yeah. Please.”

So this was how Devon sounded when he was on good terms with someone. The kid in Calvin stretched after it, yearning like he used to. He’d barely known Devon as a child, but he’d still wanted to be liked by him. Respected and valued. Because Audrey had loved him.

“Sure,” Devon said. “Hey. Will?”

Calvin’s head jerked up.

“Thank you.” Such warmth in Devon’s tone. Calvin couldn’t help but imagine how Will must have sounded, answering back.

The call ended, and Calvin lingered interminably before tapping at the door. Devon sat on his bed, in the middle of pulling off his boots. He raised his head at Calvin’s knock, looking oddly relaxed. The expression on his face was pensive, not in the same space as the rest of him.

“Hey. Calvin.”

The last thing Calvin had said to him had been full of vitriol. And yet Devon was smiling, as if none of it had happened. As if whatever had occurred in between had banished it completely. Calvin coughed and avoided his eyes. “Listen, can you come down? I need to talk to you. The both of you.”

Devon opened his mouth, then just nodded. Calvin backed out of the room and headed downstairs. He skimmed the banister as he descended, saddened all over again by the familiar flow of wood under his palm. A light beamed from the dining room, so he veered in that direction with a sinking sensation. Best to make an end of it where all the negativity lived, give things their proper closure. Danny sat at the table with a glass of water that he was pushing around with his fingertips. He stopped when Calvin entered.