One Door Closes (19 page)

“Mmm.” Will squinted. “You okay?”

That was the first thing he asked? Calvin stroked Will’s wrist. The hairs on his forearm tickled. He smiled wryly, and Will’s expression ticked over into confused. “Are you?”

“I’m...” Will looked up, sleep still hovering about his eyes, then seemed to change his mind, and faced Calvin. “Yes?”

This was going nowhere in a very amusing manner. Calvin couldn’t help the grin, and Will sat up, bracing on his elbows. The sheet slipped down his chest.

“What?”

Calvin caught his wrist firmly this time, and maybe that said just as much about him, how fast he moved to grab hold. “What do you want to know?”

Will’s thumb tapped twice against the mattress. “I don’t know how you feel about this,” he said plainly. “And I think I really need to.”

Calvin sighed. “Look, this can’t keep being a thing.”

But Will was already shaking his head. “It’s not that. I don’t want to assume, and I don’t want you to assume you know how
I’m
feeling. The last time we did that, we had the mother of all breakups.”

“If that’s the case—” Calvin paused, aware of the weight of his own heartbeat. He drew his hand out of Will’s reach, but not too far away.

Will waited.

“It was a lot.” Awkward, no matter how he sliced it. He made himself look at Will so that there could be no question. How in the world did people articulate anything about this? It either sounded too intimate or too artificial. The last thing he wanted was empty words. “I’m extremely glad it was you.”

Will’s cheeks colored very lightly, and the rush of it spurred more words in a tumble.

“It could have been too much, it was too much, sometimes. But it was really good, I don’t mean that I—”

He fumbled and Will shifted closer. “I know what you mean.”

There was something more intimate about the brief space between their fingers than actually holding Will’s hand. “I spend so much time working through the angles before I do anything. Thinking it through three times. This wasn’t like I expected it to be. I’ve had a while to wonder what it would be like, finally doing it. I feel like I should need more time to figure things out. But I don’t.” He met Will’s eyes. “It’s just
good.
”

Will’s smile looked fragile. Calvin drew a breath. “Last night was terrific.” More than terrific. The memory of it tugged at him with firm fingers, just a step away from flaring as brightly as before. “I can’t regret it. You’re the one I... I’m really happy it was you,” he repeated.

But there was a lot more standing between them than there had ever been as kids, things he was suddenly tired of keeping secret. Time to let Will hold the dangerous weapons, now while everything insisted on settling so perfectly, a strange certainty where there had always been upheaval.

“You look like you might be regretting something,” Will said carefully.

“Not what we did.” Will could have helped him if he’d just set aside his fear and reached out. “I swear I’m not upset about that. God, Will, you make everything better.”

“Okay.”

“It’s just been a while since things have been better. There’s a lot of stuff I’d rather forget about. I didn’t think it would swing back.” Funny how many ripples there were when a stone dropped. “You know Angus blackmailed us?”

Will watched him intently. “I figured.”

“He scuttled the credit union loan and kept us from going after it because...” Danny’s story wasn’t his to tell, and he didn’t know it anyway. “Because he knows things about me.”

“Do those things really have that much pull?”

“Depends where you tug.”

“I can’t see you getting into enough trouble to cause this result.” Will reached for Calvin again, but Calvin staved him off. He wasn’t sure he’d have the momentum to bring up all this sludge later.

“You haven’t seen me in a while.” Cold, but still the truth.

“What did you do?”

There was a time when it had all been deadened, pill after pill after pill. Ages and ages before his mind subsided onto an even keel. So many days when he hadn’t been able to distinguish between what he’d really thought, and what he’d been afraid he thought. If he’d been aware of how it would affect events in his future—

“I fell apart,” Calvin muttered. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever felt. Never wanted to kill myself or anything. But the idea made sense for the first time. You just want the silence, you want everything to be quiet for one minute. It’s like someone is thinking your thoughts for you. And you wonder how you ever got so far away from the person you used to be. If you’ll ever get back there. And then you know you won’t. Won’t ever be that way again. Part of you did die.”

He plucked at the blanket. “Doesn’t mean that what comes along in its place is worse, or bad at all. Just that you’ve changed, at the base. You have to get to know yourself all over again, and then things happen that make you remember the person you used to be, so vividly you can taste it.” He held Will’s eyes and tried not to look sad. “And that’s hard.”

“I can’t apologize for coming back and mean it.” Will’s voice sounded like it was about to crack.

“Not what I’m after.”

A moment of silence. “What does he have on you?”

Calvin exhaled, hard. “Antidepressants. A shit-ton of them, before I found the one that worked. Some of them caused side effects I had to take other meds for. I was on a lot of stuff sometimes.” It felt good, like venting the most ingrained of toxins.

Will’s hand touched down on his shoulder for the first time since the conversation had begun, cautious but there. “How did he find out?”

“I don’t know. My last therapist was over in Davenport. Not even Audrey knew I was seeing him. By that time, I’d...it’d been three years already. I’d been out of the house for a while. She didn’t need to be bothered with it anymore.”

“So you didn’t have anyone to help you.”

Calvin didn’t answer, and Will let that go gracefully. His next words, however, were brittle. “And what exactly was Angus hoping to force you into, besides selling the house?”

“Kids’ group.” Will’s muscles twitched. “The drugs were prescription. I didn’t use them to...I wasn’t...”

Will nodded before he could finish, dismissing the fear. “This isn’t as bad as you’re making it out to be.”

“It’s pretty bad. If I can’t even host a kids’ support group, there’s no way this place will be licensed for fostering. I don’t even know that I want kids, I just—some part of me must, right? When I think about losing the chance, I feel sick. This house isn’t supposed to be empty.”

“You can’t do this for someone else, though.” Will inched closer until Calvin could feel heat beating all down his side. “You can’t just fill a house.”

“It’s what she wants.”

“Wants?”

“Wanted.” Behind him, the curtain lifted to let in a curl of breeze. Calvin’s skin prickled again.

“Well,” Will said after a minute, “I want to help you keep this house. Fix it, build it up and out, shrink it down. Whatever you need to do, and later, if you... I get that things change. When they do, we’ll do what you need to do then, too.”

They weren’t going to change like that, though. Something solid and ingrained inside Calvin knew it. Even if he left the house, this place had a specific purpose, and he would find someone else to envision it, fill it out. Without the kids, without the good energy, the place was unbalanced, tipping a scale too far in one direction.

“That is...” Will’s hand hovered. “...if you want me to be the one to do it.”

For an instant, Calvin thought Will was answering his unspoken thought. Then it popped back into place, the limbo he’d been left in and the familiar gaping space, shaped in Will’s likeness. He rested his forehead against Will’s temple. “I want you to be the one to do it. I don’t want another contractor, I don’t want anyone else’s ideas.”

Will’s breath flowed in a steady stream across his cheek, and Calvin shut his eyes. Inhaled. Will smelled like heat, faintly of sweat. It was different from their younger years, especially this new scent of bodies together, and it made his pulse race. He turned his nose flush against Will’s skin, right below his jaw. He could almost taste that flavor, and it left a quickening skitter in its wake.

Will’s breathing changed. His lips hovered over Calvin’s skin. “You’ve changed,” he whispered. Again, that tinge of wonder as if Will couldn’t believe what he was looking at. “And you haven’t. But you really have.”

He wanted to tell Will how he couldn’t stop looking at him, how his mind filled itself with images jumbled together from disconnected years, until the Will in his high school memories bore the semblance of the older Will’s face, the deeper timbre of his voice. He wanted to tell Will how he couldn’t separate the two versions anymore, how it was all running together, settling into him as if it had always been there.

“There are days when I don’t feel like the kid I was at all,” Will said. The sense of anticipation banked back, smoldering slowly. “I don’t recognize myself. That’s usually a good thing.”

Calvin slid his arms around Will’s waist. “You think you were a bad kid?”

“No. But I’m still better off now.” A world’s journey dwelt in those words, as complicated as the journey Calvin had made. Will sounded so very certain. He didn’t need any kind of validation, not about this.

Just as they had dipped into comfortable silence, Will went on. “That night, when we almost... I’m pretty sure I did what I did because it was what I was used to.” He touched the place he had kissed, beneath Calvin’s lip. “My parents have a lot of passion in their relationship. You remember?”

It was a gracious way of putting it. Calvin recalled breakups and reunions, volatile fights that echoed through the screen door while Will pushed him down the porch steps and away for the duration, an immobility to his face. But even then, Calvin had grown used to the knowledge that the dissonance was never set in stone. Inevitably, the two halves twirled back together, becoming whole.

Will sighed, long and deep. “My sister, too, God knows I heard about it. Everything was always huge, raw. They all had a lot of physicality. I guess nothing seemed real in my house unless it was physical.”

“Sex.”

Will squirmed. “You’re going to get the wrong idea about my family.”

Calvin smiled into Will’s chest, keeping the amusement in with supreme effort. “I remember your sister’s meltdowns.”

“The weird thing is, it didn’t bother me that you weren’t into holding hands. Or kissing in public. I just... It tripped a line somewhere. What I felt for you was so strong. Bigger than me, or you. I thought we should have been sleeping together by then. I was upset that we weren’t.”

Calvin looked him over carefully. “You spend some time in therapy, too?”

“Hell, no. This is me slamming my head into the same wall for a decade. Took me twice as long to figure it out as it would have with someone else to talk to, I’m sure.”

Calvin considered. Will’s hand wove through his hair in lazy strokes, and he found himself mouthing easy kisses into the dip of Will’s throat. It came so naturally. “Do your parents know how you felt?”

“They know I was angry for a long time. Then sad. They don’t know I’ve seen you again.”

Did Will want to tell them? How awkward would that meeting be, if they were under the impression that Calvin was responsible for Will’s melancholy? But it wasn’t something Calvin was ready to discuss, not with this just resurrected, and still fragile.

“Most of the time, my anger was aimed at me,” Will said. “I don’t know if they know that.”

Calvin tucked a hand over Will’s nape, squeezing. Will’s eyes locked to his, and Calvin stroked his jaw with his thumb. “I’m not angry at you. Whatever else is going on, that’s the truth.”

Will kissed him on the mouth, another tender, assured taste that left Calvin overwhelmed, worried about his lack of experience. But Will slid his hands up Calvin’s back and urged him forward, snugging their bodies together in a devastating roll. Calvin groaned and Will caught the sound, turned it into a different kind of kiss.

He moved to the side of Calvin’s throat where his pulse beat. “You,” he whispered. “I
missed
you.”

It was so earnest, a million words that weren’t ever going to be spoken, and not because Will wasn’t willing. Calvin struggled to find the necessary phrasing and failed. He tried to keep up with Will’s kiss, but it was hard to do anything but react. Will teased Calvin’s mouth open as if he were opening Calvin himself, searching him.

Calvin’s body buzzed, and the sensation climbed like numbness, tingling around his lips and nose. He pushed up into Will, and Will took the momentum, redirected it, easing Calvin down onto his back and cupping his face, his grip hot down Calvin’s nape. It was tough to remember that he could touch, even trickier to get himself to do it, but Calvin slid his hand down Will’s flank to the soft skin at the back of his thigh. Will shuddered and the kiss broke.

Calvin sucked in a breath, but Will shifted his hips, a brief sideways slide, edging Calvin’s legs wider and rolling down into him. Calvin arched his head back, dragging his mouth free so he could breathe.

Will peered at him intently. “You—”

“Embarrassed,” Calvin choked out, and was furious at his blush. But Will didn’t smile. He stilled, nothing but hot weight against Calvin’s body. He could feel how hard Will was, how hard
he
was, he hurt with it. It was more torturous not to keep moving.

They were so close. So close to just... If he hitched up just a touch, Will would be right there, nearly inside him. Everything tensed at once, the pressure in his belly doubling. Will’s hand tracked down his body then, fingertips brushing Calvin’s navel. Calvin grabbed his wrist, shifting restlessly.

“It’s fine,” Will said. Just a whisper, really, but it sounded loud. He remained absolutely still, just the rise and fall as he breathed. “Tell me what you want. Tell me what you
don’t
want.”

“Not quite up for that,” Calvin decided, and gestured pointlessly, but Will nodded. He caught Calvin’s hand and laced their fingers, then settled their hands against the pillow by Calvin’s head. Squeezed firmly, and that was what pushed the rest out, words Calvin hadn’t planned on. “Not yet.”