by C F White
Shaking his head to rid it of the absurd thought, he squinted to read the instructions on the back of the box andsighed. The words were jumbled again, bouncing across the box as if they were attempting to flee. He slapped it down on the surface and set the oven to his fail-safe two-hundred degrees. That seemed to cook most stuff, right? His search in the fridge found a few bottles of beer shoved at the back among plastic boxes filled with meals. It was obscure, never-heard-of lager, but it was beer nonetheless and Callum could use a drink if he was going to sit Kez down and explain…what exactly, he wasn’t sure. But it’s long overdue.
He’d penned many a letter to the man when he’d been on the inside. He’d never sent them. Mostly because he didn’t have anyone to check over that they had made any sense. So he’d torn them into pieces and had settled on a postcard with the word sorry written on it. He wasn’t sure if it had ever reached Kez. He’d never gotten a reply.
As he cracked open the first bottle, he peered out of the kitchen window and caught sight of Kez fiddling with the gate. He lurched forward to help him before he remembered how much Kez hated that. So he stood and watched through the window as Kez closed the gate and meandered up to the front door. He looked weary. Tense shoulders, trudging strides.
Shit.
Callum strode to the front door to allow the man access to his own home.
“All right?” Callum asked. It was meant to have been a welcome, a greeting, a flippant, nonchalant ‘how’s tricks’. But the question felt loaded.
Kez stepped in. “Yeah.” The word didn’t match his mood, but when Kez laid his gaze on Callum, he shook his head and the tension eased from his shoulders. “Yeah. Eve’s been released. She’s okay. Staying with a friend from the church. Hopefully she’ll get re-homed quick.”
“Yeah. She should.” Callum gulped from the beer, giving him something to do to quash the nerves. “I mean, she’s what, sixty-odd now?”
“Yeah. But there’s a lot of people to be re-homed. Including you.”
“I’ll be so far down on their list, they’ll have run out of paper.” Callum chuckled to lighten the mood. “I’m making that pizza. Go do what you gotta do and I’ll bring it through when ready. Confessions time—I stole a beer. Don’t tell the parole officer.” He smiled, hiding his nerves that were bubbling to the surface. Whether it was for the awkward exchange or for what he knew had to come next, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps both.
“Thought you didn’t have one anymore?”
“I don’t. It was a joke. Poor taste, granted. But you can have it back minus two sips if you want?” He tilted the neck of the bottle Kez-ward.
“Keep it. I’ll have one with the pizza.” Kez slammed his bag on the floor. “I’ll shower and change, then I’m all yours.”
Callum couldn’t prevent the snort, nor the rush of heat that flamed his skin. Even Kez drew in a breath, but he shook it off and clambered past and up the stairs. Not a bad start. Now to not fuck up the food and get the words out he’d been trying to say for five years. Sorry is so much easier to write down than it is to say.
A while later, Kez came back into the living room, dressed down in loose jogging bottoms and a T-shirt. He’d taken his prosthetic off too. Fully shedding his layers and laying himself bare. For me? Callum smiled as he settled the crisp pizza on the coffee table and handed over a chilled bottle of the lager. They clinked before tucking in, sitting beside each other on the three-seater sofa.
Callum was aware of his own chewing, it was so quiet. Now he was here, he didn’t know how to start. Or what to say first. Where should he begin in all the things that needed to get out? He sneaked a peep at Kez and could read the same things written all over his clenched jawline. He didn’t need to worry about the jumbled-up letters on Kez.
“Kez—”
“Cal—”
They both laughed.
“You go,” Kez offered, waggling the beer bottle and settling back after having endured two slices of the burnt pizza.
Callum nodded. He knew he had to. “I’m sorry.”
Kez didn’t say anything, waiting for more, Callum suspected. He deserved it.
“I was a prick. I fucked up. And I should never have done it.”
“Yeah. Understatement.” Kez sipped from the bottle, staring at the mantelpiece.
“If I knew how to make it up to you, I would. So, I’m starting now. You didn’t need to come get me. You should have left me to rot in that building. I should have let myself rot.”
“Cal—” Kez leaned forward, clapping the bottle to the table.
“No, Kez, it’s true. I’m a waste of space. Or, well, I was. That fire, I think it saved me, y’know? Made me think. I’ve been given a second chance. I want to start fresh.”
“Good.” Kez bore his gaze at Callum, drilling a hole through his temple. “So, that life’s over? For good? Nothing for me to be, say, worried about? Prepared for?”
Callum heaved a deep breath. It wouldn’t exactly be lying. Not really. Because that life was over. He’d left it at the Marlyte to hopefully singe into ashes. No traces. “No,” was all his croaked voice managed to get out. He coughed. “Sorry, the doc said I might still have some mucus to get up.” He downed some beer to prove it.
“Okay…” Kez swiped his bare foot against the fluffy fibres of the rug beneath the coffee table. It was as though his mind was mulling over how far he could accept Callum’s words. Could he trust him? Did he want to? Could a friendship that had been separated for five years really be restored with a flippant apology? “I want to help you, Cal. I do. But I can’t be sucked into all that again. It isn’t fair on me. It isn’t fair on Eve. She’s been through enough.”
“I know. I know. You won’t be.”
Kez nodded. “Where’s your mum?”
“Fuck knows, mate. And honestly, I ain’t sure I give a fuck. I know I can’t blame other people for my wrong choices, but we both know it was her who started it. When I got released and went back home, she was still using and owed a ton to some dealer. I told her she should quit, pay up or leave.” Callum downed the rest in his bottle. “Next day, she was gone.”
“Fuck, Cal, I’m sorry.”
“I still worry I’ll find her in some ditch somewhere.” Callum sniffed, slamming back against the seat. “I’m pretty sure it’s meant to be the other way around.”
“We can’t choose our parents, I suppose.”
“No. But we can choose our mates. And I’m sorry I fucked that up for us. You were good to me. Too good. You deserved better.”
Kez stared at him and Callum feared that Kez might have come to his senses. That he was going to agree and say this was all a mistake. That Callum wasn’t worthy of him. That a friendship, a brotherhood, an unconditional love did have conditions after all.
Bashing his knee to Callum’s, Kez smiled. “Glad we agree on something.”
“We’ve always agreed. That’s what made us a perfect combo. Like bacon and eggs.”
“Who’s scrambled?”
“Me, mate. My head’s been scrambled since birth. More so on the inside.”
Kez’s smile faded. “What was it like?”
“Much as you’d expect. Keep yourself to yourself and you can get by. Did the rehabilitation programme. Got myself a trade. Head down and waited it out.”
“I should have come visited you.”
“To be honest, mate, I’m glad you didn’t. For a while I was mad at you. Then I got over it. Realised it was my fault I was there, not yours. I wrote you, though.”
“You did?” Kez shuffled forward.
Callum shrugged. “Maybe the address was wrong. Maybe it got lost in the post.”
“Maybe Eve hid it.”
“It don’t matter now. But I have to say, when I went back to the Marlyte I went to knock on Eve’s door more times than I should admit. Then I thought it was best to avoid her altogether. Lucky I was opposite the lift and stairs, I could see who was coming and going.”
“How did
we—us—ever get to that, eh?”
Callum agreed. Wholeheartedly. Once they’d been thick as thieves. Once they’d been joined at the hip. Once they’d been as tight as arseholes. Funny how each of those sayings held so much meaning for their relationship.
“Anyone come visit you?” Kez broke the silence.
“Stacy once or twice. Fuck knows why.”
“’Cause she fancied you. Big-time. Used to wait on those swings for you to walk by. Mokira told me.” Kez reached for his bottle and downed the lot, exposing that thick neck. Callum tried not to stare, or focus on the movements of muscles as Kez swallowed. “She told me I was getting in the way. That I should stop hanging around you.”
“Bitch.”
Kez snorted. “She was right, though.”
“If I’d wanted to fuck her, I would have done it with you in the room. So, no, she weren’t right.”
Kez slammed his eyes closed. Then shook his head and opened them to laugh at Callum. “So you didn’t start anything up with her then. If she was visiting?”
“Nah. Ain’t exactly top-notch dating fodder, am I? As much as those grey trackies and plain tee can work wonders on some, I reckon she’d want a man who could at least choose his own gear. She stopped coming by after the first few months.” Callum stood. “Want another tin?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Why not indeed. The first bottle had relaxed Callum enough to open up a bit. The second might get him over the hurdle that held him back from admitting everything. He took a deep breath in the kitchen, telling himself to get a grip. This was Kez. This was just Kez. His Kez. So there’d been changes. So there’d been a massive gap in their friendship, but that was nothing compared to the gaping hole that had been in his life without Kez in it. Kez had filled it in one night.
As he handed down the second bottle and Kez held it within his knees, they screwed off the tops in unison, sparking a crack and fizz in the muted air. Callum smiled and his limbs tingled with a hopefulness he hadn’t had in forever. Until Kez’s phone buzzed and Callum had to watch him take it out from his pocket, read the incoming, compose a reply with one thumb and whoosh it off.
Callum had an inkling who the message had been from. He’d endured a whole Tube ride with the bloke that morning when all he’d wanted to do was cut and run.
“So this Rafferty bloke…” Callum needed to know where he stood, even if it was going to stab him in the place where his heart should be.
Throwing the phone to the table, Kez met Callum’s gaze. “What about him?”
“What’s going on there?”
There was a definite sigh and Kez looked away from him. “We were meant to have our first date last night. He seems like a nice bloke. Auntie would love him. But then she liked Drake, so…”
“Who’s Drake?”
“The man whose clothes you’re wearing.”
Callum wriggled in his seat, the denim shirt suddenly too tight and scratchy. He had an urge to rip it off and piss all over it. But that might not go down so well. So he drank beer, curtailing his response to want to punch something. Mainly a stranger named Drake.
“An ex,” Kez confirmed, staring at Callum with amusement. “He stayed here a few times and left those. I was meant to take them to the charity shop but looks like they fit you pretty good, so lucky I didn’t.”
“Right. Yeah. Cheers. Sorry for going through your stuff, but it was this or come meet you in my birthday suit. I figured this would be more appropriate for your place of employment.”
“I don’t know, mate. If anyone’s unfazed by nudity, it’d be in a hospital, right?”
Callum snorted, twisting the bottle around in his hands and cooling his palms. “Why’d you split?”
“Usual shit.” Kez lifted his arm. “Freaked him out. Didn’t say that, but the flinching whenever I touched him with it was a giveaway.”
“Tosser.”
Kez shrugged. “He wasn’t the first. Probably won’t be the last. It was him that made me try out for the prosthetic. He said it might stop people staring at me. And by me, he meant him.”
“Honestly, mate, I don’t think you need it. You seem more relaxed with it off. Like it drags you down. You seemed stiff on one side. Without it, you’re you.”
Smiling, Kez wrapped his lips around the bottle and shook his head before slamming some back. Callum returned the grin and tapped his knee to Kez’s which helped him slide along the dipped sofa cushion closer and he could breathe that familiar scent in. That buttery aroma made from the cream Kez used on his dry skin. That spicy scent from the deodorant he sprayed over himself. And the sweetness from thecoconut oil he used on his hair.
“Anyway, what about you?” Kez dropped the bottle between his spread legs and scraped the label with his thumb. “Any dating? Girlfriends? Fuck buddies?” He closed his eyes on saying the last one, but opened them just as quick to centre in on Callum. “Bet there are a ton of women who love an ex-con, right? That’s gotta work your swipe right.”
Callum breathed out a lungful of air. If he was honest, he’d discovered that to be true. There were some on the estate who’d known him before being banged up and had all but offered themselves on a plate to him. Course, there were those who’d grown out of those circles and gave him a wide berth. But if he wanted to get laid, he knew those who wouldn’t tell him to go fuck himself. And it wasn’t like he wanted anything long term, ’cause what did he offer? No real job, a criminal background, no money and his mum’s council flat that he couldn’t afford to live in.
Still, bold use of wording from Kez.
“Why did you say women?” Callum asked, taking a shot from the beer.
Kez shifted. “Because that’s what you wanted. Wasn’t it? The normal stuff? Everything we did was you experimenting. And you humouring me.”
Callum laughed. At least the ice had been broken. Smashed and now melting into the river of no return. “That what you think, is it?”
“That’s what happened, Cal.”
“Is it.” Callum bit down hard on his bottom lip. He couldn’t think of a single thing he could say to make the man see. To understand. To believe. To trust. Because he’d never given Kez any reason to before. Shit, he’d been a messed-up eighteen-year-old kid with no one to help guide him into being an adult and what that all meant. He could blame everyone and everything else until the fucking cows came home. Truth was, it was all his fault. He’d never shown Kez how he really felt before. He’d had words. Tons of them. He’d brandished those clichés around like they were a blessing from God. ‘Gift of the gab’ was the old Callum.
Not anymore. Now he had nothing but the clothes on his back. And they weren’t his, either.
Actions speak louder than words. Yet another cliché that worked. He leaned forward, focussing on the outline of Kez’s lips. Without thinking, he lunged forward and, sliding his hand around Kez’s neck, kissed him. His chest rippled at the power of it all. At the taste. At having those lips compressed against his own. Kez’s freshly washed scent shot up his nostrils to make his stomach leap and, when he trailed his hand along the back of Kez’s head to hold him in place, his fingertips tingled against the tight waves. Fuck, he’d missed this. Missed kissing. Missed Kez.
Missed kissing Kez.
A sharp slap to his chest shoved him off. Kez leapt up from the sofa and Callum fell against the back, his breathing laboured and his hair falling from the topknot to drape into his eyes. He gaped up at Kez through the locks. “K—”
“Don’t, Cal. Please. Just don’t.”
Words were caught in his clogged throat. Kez marched around the coffee table and Callum watched every move with an ache in his chest that couldn’t be shifted with coughing this time.
“Don’t do that, Cal. We can salvage this car-crash friendship of ours, but anything else…I can’t go there again.”
Callum couldn’t speak. He didn’t have the words. They were jumbled in his mashed-up mind as though they were the letters on a job applic
ation form. So he sat frozen to the spot, unable to reach out for the one thing that made him a better person, and had to witness Kez flee from the room and up the stairs, then flinched at the slam of a bedroom door.
Chapter Ten
Truth or Dare
Kez hadn’t slept much. He’d tossed and turned, thrown the covers off, enveloped himself within them, got up and stood at the top of the stairs for a while—where he’d called himself a dick—gone back to bed and repeated the whole scenario several times. By morning, he was a mess. He stared up at the ceiling, waiting for the alarm to shrill a start to a day where he’d have no choice but to go downstairs and face everything.
And by everything, he meant Callum.
He’d thought he’d got over it all. It had been five years. He and Callum had been eighteen. Well, seventeen when it had all started and eighteen when it had ended with a guilty verdict. But now Callum was back. Kez had brought him back. Willingly. He’d welcomed him into his life without assessing what that would mean, what that could spell and what that would dredge up. For him. For Callum. For all those suppressed feelings that he’d pushed down into his gut and quashed with date after disastrous date.
Kez had been getting on with his life. He’d been happy. As happy as he could be. He’d come out. His aunt had reacted better than he’d expected. He’d had boyfriends. Lovers. One-night stands. He’d moved on and embraced his sexuality. He’d learned to love himself, putting the past firmly behind him. There had been a few bastards in his time, Drake being one. There’d been some others who, as soon as they’d noticed he was without a forearm and left hand, had made their excuses and vamoosed faster than he was able to reply with his name. There’d also been the ones who were curious enough for the short-term, but he’d shrugged their ignorance off and carried on.
