Anna Martin's First Love Box Set: Signs - Bright Young Things - Five Times My Best Friend Kissed Me

by Anna Martin

  “What changed?”

  “This device, I think,” she said. “The promises of an easier recovery, better control over it all, less of the side effects that can go on for years with a regular CI.”

  Luc nodded. “Caleb could have gone for a regular model too. I really hope this one works as well as they’re promising. His family is from Boston, so the only person he has to help him is me.”

  “Really? How old are you?”

  “We’re both eighteen. I live here, in Ridgewood in Queens, but we’re going to stay in the hotel with everyone else because of monitoring for the trial.”

  “Yeah. We live in Maine; had to come all the way down here.”

  “Did you have to take time away from your job? We’re hoping to get it all done before we start college this fall.”

  “I’m a teacher,” Katie said with a smile. “Jeff is too. The trial being over the summer is the best thing that could have happened for us, since we can both take the summer off.”

  Luc blew his nose and leaned back in the chair, feeling the edges of a headache starting to creep around his eyes. He wished Ilse was there.

  “What do you think it’s like for them?” he asked, his voice lower now, almost a whisper.

  “I don’t know,” Katie said. “I used to think about it a lot. The only people who can sympathize are other deaf people. I guess that’s why there’s such a big deaf community.”

  “Yeah, Caleb hasn’t really ever been part of a community.”

  “Wow. That must make it even harder. I know Jeff says it’s one of the few places he feels like he can just be himself.”

  Luc shrugged and wondered how much he should tell this almost-stranger. The fact that she understood—or seemed to understand, anyway—urged him to continue, to get all of his worries off his chest.

  “Caleb’s always been pretty isolated, I think,” Luc said. “He has communication problems… he’s getting so much better, though. We’re hoping this will help even more.”

  “I don’t know how much this is going to change Jeff’s life,” Katie said. “I want to think that it makes his quality of life better, rather than his life as a whole. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah,” Luc said softly. “We haven’t been together for that long, but things have already changed so much. It’s scary. I don’t want to think about what’ll happen if this doesn’t work out the way we planned.”

  Panic started to claw at his chest again, the same panic he’d been so successfully shoving down and hiding for weeks now. Being the strong one was difficult. It felt like he’d been on edge, waiting to be there in case Caleb needed to break down.

  “Hey,” Katie said. “You’ll be fine. They’re not the first ones to get this. It’s version two. They’ve already made improvements from where they were a year ago.”

  “I know,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I can’t worry, though.”

  She huffed a laugh and rubbed at her face, then stood and slipped her feet back into her shoes.

  “Do you want to go get coffee? It’ll be hours before we know anything.”

  Torn between waiting and worrying and going for a drink with his new friend… Luc decided to be brave. Caleb had always been stronger than people gave him credit for. Luc had been saying this for ages. It was time to let go, just a little bit.

  “Yeah,” he said, unfolding himself from the chair. “Is, um… is my face okay?”

  She looked at him carefully, clearly amused. “You’re fine.”

  “Thanks.”

  The operation took almost four hours, during which Katie caught Luc up on what had happened between meeting her future husband online and actually marrying the guy, and Luc filled her in on what it was like being a gay teenager in 2018.

  He found out she was pregnant, but barely so. Even when she pressed her shirt flat against her stomach there wasn’t much of a bump. She said that trying for a family had been what gave Jeff the final push to put himself forward for the trial.

  It was refreshing to meet someone who didn’t flinch when asking about his hair and clothes and makeup. She asked if he knew CrashDiet, and he tried not to be overenthusiastic with his Oh, hell yeah. There was something about Katie’s plain, no-nonsense attitude that he liked. She talked about disability and education and the government and private healthcare with startling frankness. In Luc’s experience, people who were older than him didn’t generally care to listen to his opinions.

  In a weird way, she reminded him of his sister, although Ilse wasn’t nearly as open with her opinions. Luc guessed that was her polite society training.

  Katie got called out of the family room first. Her husband had gone into surgery before Caleb, so it made sense that she got to visit him in recovery while Luc was still waiting. She gave him a brief hug before she left and promised Luc that Caleb would be okay. They’d be in the same hotel for the initial phase of the trial too, so Luc wasn’t too worried about missing the chance to get her number.

  Emotionally exhausted, Luc curled up in an uncomfortable leather chair and tried to nap the time away. He ended up with horrible, twisted dreams that were worse than being awake and worrying.

  He was finally interrupted by a nurse in pale pink scrubs, who woke him with a gentle shake and told him in a soft voice that Caleb was in recovery, that the operation had gone well, and that Luc would be able to see him soon.

  Luc nodded and stretched, feeling his spine pop back into place after being cramped for too long. Shouldering his backpack, he headed for a bathroom to fix his hair and wash his face properly clean, relieve his bladder, and psych himself up for seeing Caleb hooked up to all sorts of monitors and stuff, in pain, in a hospital bed. For something that Luc had encouraged him to do.

  He was going to need a fucking big pair of balls to deal with it.

  After layering on his emotional armor he slung the bag back over his shoulder and went to sit in the hallway to wait for more news.

  It felt like hours that he sat there, hovering, in limbo. He sent a message to Carrie-Anne to let her know the surgery had gone well, but didn’t call her. She’d said before they left Boston that she had picked up some extra shifts over the weekend to keep her busy, her mind focused elsewhere. He didn’t expect a response for a while.

  When the nurse finally called him he jumped in shock and dropped his phone.

  “Sorry, sweetie,” she said, coming through to help him pick it up.

  “No, it’s fine,” he said. “I’m just jumpy, I guess.”

  “He’s doing really well,” the nurse said, laying a comforting hand on his arm. “He’s going to look a bit spaced out. The anesthetic hasn’t worn off completely yet, and we’re still giving him some drugs for the pain.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t expect too much. He’ll probably go back to sleep soon.”

  “Okay.”

  Then she left him.

  Luc raised his hand to knock on the door, then lowered it, berating himself, and pushed the door open.

  The CI device wouldn’t be activated for a while yet, so Caleb’s hearing was about the same as it always was. Or worse, if you took into account the thick white bandages that had been wrapped around his head.

  He looked to be sleeping, so Luc went to sit in the chair next to the bed, prepared to wait until Caleb moved. Then Caleb’s eyes blinked open and his dry lips stretched into a smile.

  “Hi,” Luc signed.

  “Hi,” Caleb said, the movement of his hands slower from the anesthetic. “Kiss.”

  Luc leaned over the bed, careful of the IV that was stuck in the back of Caleb’s hand. He cupped Caleb’s cheek in his palm and brushed his lips over Caleb’s dry ones once, then again, then caught his bottom lip and flicked the tip of his tongue over it.

  When he pulled away, Caleb’s eyes were glassy.

  Luc went home that night, opting to get some quality sleep in his own bed rather than in the unfamiliar hotel room. Caleb wouldn’t be sent home until the next day—
the doctors would keep him overnight for observation—and Luc felt better being close to his sister. Not that he’d ever feel confident enough to tell Ilse that.

  The following morning he woke up uncharacteristically early and made his way back to the hospital in time to sit with Caleb while he attempted to eat breakfast. The wait for a doctor to sign the discharge papers seemed to take forever. Then they were finally sent back to the hotel with a pile of painkillers and a phone number to call in case of emergency. Caleb had sailed through the operation and was coping well with the aftereffects.

  All of the reasons he’d been an excellent candidate for surgery had proved to be absolutely correct. Luc hoped and prayed that all the reasons he’d come up with to change their minds were going to hold up just as well.

  He put Caleb straight to bed with a glass of water and a pair of his magic painkillers and told him to sleep. Caleb refused, because he could be a stubborn ass, and said he’d only go to bed if Luc came with him.

  It was easy to agree.

  They’d told him to bring a button-down shirt to change into after the surgery, since it would be difficult to get a T-shirt over the bandages around his head. He’d brought a zipped sweater instead, and that came right off with his jeans, meaning he could crawl straight into bed. Luc pulled the socks off; he was convinced wearing socks in bed was sacrilege.

  There was no denying how exhausted Caleb was, still suffering from the aftereffects of a surgery that had meant his doctors drilling a hole in his skull. Luc was sure that, if nothing else, would give anyone a headache.

  He stripped his clothes off too, making a puddle of black material on the floor, topped off with a pair of red basketball sneakers. With the TV on but turned down low, Luc set his head on Caleb’s soft belly and felt like he was about to fall apart when Caleb started to run his fingers through his hair.

  The balance seemed always to be tipping between them. One moment it was Luc’s chance to hold Caleb up; then seconds later it all changed and Caleb was the one offering the comfort. Right now Luc was supposed to be the strong one.

  Instead he found comfort of his own in Caleb’s arms once more.

  Neither of them really slept for the next hour. They watched some TV and drifted, not talking but touching constantly. Caleb was trying to teach Luc how to “feel” sign language, and he made letters with his fingers against Luc’s gently curled palm.

  I… space… L-O-V-E… space… Y-O-U.

  Of course he did. Luc wasn’t sure of many things in this world except that.

  When Caleb shifted and groaned, Luc turned his head to look up, worried that Caleb was in pain.

  “Okay?” he signed quickly.

  Caleb nodded, but Luc wasn’t convinced. He found the meds from the hospital, and Caleb took a few, and within minutes he was snoring softly.

  A little while later Luc got up, careful not to disturb his sleeping beauty, and sat on the edge of the sofa in the room to eat a bag of chips. He was hungry all of a sudden, a feeling that wasn’t related to the gnawing worry that had set up in his stomach the previous day.

  He finished the whole bag, only a little satisfied by the snack, and went to wash his hands in the elegant bathroom. Staring at the tub—something Ilse didn’t have in her house, so he was used to taking showers all the time—he was struck with inspiration.

  Luc turned both taps on and let the water billow into the tub. It wasn’t particularly big, but not tiny like other hotel baths. There was enough room for Caleb to stretch out in it, which was the most important thing. The hotel had provided a tiny bottle of bath bubbles, and Luc tipped the whole thing under the running tap, causing fragrant steam to rise from the water.

  He thought Caleb was still sleeping, but the creak of the bed and the familiar sound of padding footsteps told him otherwise. Caleb appeared in the doorway, looking disheveled and adorable, his eyes still heavy with sleep.

  “I thought you might want to wash the smell of hospital off,” Luc said, rising from where he’d been sitting on the edge of the bath.

  Caleb nodded and smiled. “Thank you,” he signed. Then, “Kiss.”

  Chuckling, Luc took a few steps to close the distance and rose up onto his toes to slide their lips together. He was pretty sure Caleb wasn’t fully recovered from the anesthetic yet, or the pain and discomfort of the operation. It was a little distressing to watch, but Luc was determined to be whatever Caleb needed him to be while he recovered.

  They kissed slowly, lazily, with Caleb’s hands drifting on Luc’s waist as they rocked together. Luc basked in the sweet slide of their tongues, the sharp edges of the tiny bites at the corner of his mouth, and the delicate gasps that he was confident Caleb didn’t know he was making.

  “Shit,” Luc said under his breath as he pulled away from Caleb’s lips. The bath wasn’t overflowing… yet. He rushed over to turn the water off, then gave Caleb a sheepish smile. “Oops.”

  He watched Caleb trailed his fingers in the water for a moment, then he apparently decided it was nicely warm, and stripped off his boxers before climbing in.

  “Here,” Luc said, spotting a plastic shower cap on the counter and handing it to Caleb.

  Caleb gave him a very pointed oh hell, no look in response, which made Luc giggle.

  “You can’t get those bandages wet,” he said. “We need to be careful.”

  Caleb sighed, rolled his eyes, then sat up to tug the plastic cap over his bandaged head.

  Because of the heavy bandages he couldn’t really lay back in the water or submerge himself, so Luc folded up some towels to stick behind Caleb’s shoulders, then piled a few more on the floor so he could sit there and stare at his boyfriend while he relaxed.

  Caleb didn’t seem to mind that Luc was watching him bathe. Luc’s fingertips trailed through the water while he propped his chin on the back of his other hand.

  They had been warned that full recovery from the operation would take a few days, but it was still a shock to Caleb’s system when his body didn’t snap right back into action. Even when he’d injured himself in the past, getting back to normal didn’t seem to take all that long. This was a different kind of ache, though. His brain felt fuzzy, and his head hurt, both in the traditional headachy kind of way and another, sharper pain behind his ear where the doctors had fitted the implant.

  He was tired, bone tired, even after the nap. The water was a nice change, though, a chance to relax in a different way.

  Luc’s fingertips wandered from the water to Caleb’s chest, stroking over his abs first, then up to circle each nipple in turn. Eyes closed, not watching, Caleb smiled and let Luc do whatever he wanted. It was strange, how much he trusted Luc with… everything, really.

  The discomfort and aching didn’t translate into physical arousal, and even though sometimes it could take a lot less than Luc’s hands on his naked body to get Caleb hard, in this instance it wasn’t going to happen. Luc seemed to know that and continued his exploration of Caleb’s body anyway, seemingly content to just touch with no pressure to do anything more sexual.

  That night they ordered room service—it was on AIL, so Caleb didn’t feel guilty at the expense—and ate in bed while watching TV. Even though he’d only been awake for a few hours since his nap, Caleb was soon tired again and snuggled down beneath the comforter while Luc finished watching his show.

  Sometime later—Caleb didn’t know how long—he felt Luc curl around his back, one arm thrown over Caleb’s waist and his knees tucked in tight. Being held like this helped, and he slipped back into a dreamless sleep.

  20. Hi.

  Since he knew New York and Caleb didn’t, it made sense for Luc to do the lion’s share of apartment hunting. The only problem was, as he’d found out, apartment hunting sucked.

  He’d called someone at the college who had passed on a list of landlords who were willing to take students, and he’d spent the better part of an afternoon going through one website after another, trying to find somewhere that didn’t have rat
s or roaches or Republicans sharing the building.

  He also wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be looking for a one-bedroom apartment or somewhere where they could both have their own room, and Caleb was in another post-operation therapy session for the afternoon, one Luc was not invited to. Anywhere that looked nice was ridiculously expensive, and everywhere that looked affordable was still out of their price range.

  “What’s up?” Ilse asked, walking into the room with two mugs of coffee. She’d come to keep him company for a few hours, and then they were all going out for dinner. Ilse set one mug next to Luc and took the couch, since he was curled up in his favorite armchair.

  “I’m apartment hunting,” he said. “And thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve been there. Trust me when I say I know your pain.”

  Luc snorted with amusement. “It’s just… so expensive!”

  “Welcome to New York,” she said drily. “What are you looking at, one- or two-bedrooms?”

  “That’s just it, I don’t know,” he said, already frustrated and feeling like telling his sister to butt out, she was only making it worse. But she was trying to help, so he bit his tongue.

  “Well, worst case scenario, you could always stay with me,” she said with a light shrug. “Believe it or not, I like having you around. Or look at dorms.”

  “We didn’t want a dorm, though,” Luc said with a sigh, closing his laptop and leaning back in the chair with his coffee. “I wanted a nice, small, possibly a bit hipster bohemian apartment, with a good kitchen and clean—clean—bathroom, for a reasonable amount per month.”

  “You and half of New York, sweetie,” Ilse said.

  “I give up.”

  “No, you don’t,” she said firmly. “Have you thought about using some of Caleb’s trust?”

  He turned to her slowly. “What trust?”

  “The money that was put aside for his CI. It’s still there, since he didn’t have to pay for it.”