by Alie Nolan
I’d made a promise a long time ago, that I would protect him, and that was a promise I never planned to break.
“So, what’s up?” I asked, trying to keep my tone calm and casual.
He looked down at his shoes, toeing the strands of grass around his feet.
Aside from Max, Jake was the person I was closest to in the entire world, and he’d never been apprehensive to tell me anything before, which only made my anxiety skyrocket.
“Please, Jake, I’m starting to freak the fuck out now. Say something,” I pleaded.
“I found Caleb.” His words made my heart skip several beats, and I felt like I was on the verge of being sick.
“Y-you…” I stammered, sure I couldn’t have heard him right.
He’d… we’d given up on finding Caleb several years ago, and I had no idea he’d still been looking for him.
“You what?” I asked, needing him to clarify his words.
“I found him, Matty,” he smiled nervously. “Well, I’m about ninety-nine per cent sure, anyway.”
“How? When? What?”
He giggled and fiddled with the sleeve of his hoodie.
“I know we bailed after all the leads fell through last time, but I couldn’t give up hope completely. He’s my brother,” he ran a hand through his light-brown hair—hair that was an identical shade to how I remembered Caleb’s being. “I needed to know if he was okay or not.”
“Is he…?” This was the information I’d been dreading hearing for the last ten years.
It had been so many years, but if I heard that something terrible had happened to Caleb, I didn’t think I would have been able to survive it, even after all this time.
As much as I’d tried to let go of him, to stop loving him, my heart hadn’t let me.
Caleb, Jake’s older biological brother, my briefly adopted cousin, and the only person I had ever truly loved, had vanished into thin air almost a decade ago.
When I was sixteen, after a wonderful night watching fireworks, and then sneaking off together, he was just gone. All that remained was a note to me—a note I had never shown to, or told anyone else about—explaining that he wasn’t going to risk Jake’s position in the family, and that he needed to disappear.
The note had ended with a declaration of his love for me, and a request for me to always look out for Jake.
I’d spent so many nights in the years after that, imagining the wonderful life he must have made for himself… desperately trying to counteract the despairing thoughts—like that he’d ended up dead in a ditch somewhere—with happier thoughts.
The whole family, mostly my aunts, Ness and Steph, had searched high and low for their missing seventeen-year-old son for several years, and even after the rest of the family had come to terms with the fact that they’d likely never see Caleb again, Jake and I had continued our search. We’d never found any information though, and every time we came up empty, I’d secretly been grateful, because no news was better than the news that he’d ended up in a terrible situation, or worse, dead.
“He’s living in Portridge, and running a bakery,” he smiled.
Caleb was alive… maybe. There was still a possibility that Jake’s search had led him to the wrong person, it wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.
He did seem pretty sure though.
“A bakery?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, Hillam’s Bakery, it’s only a forty-five-minute drive from here. It took us so long, and everything was a dead end, because he changed his name. We were searching for Caleb Bradford or Caleb Logan, but he goes by Caleb Hillam now.”
Hillam?
“I want to go. Do you want to come with me?”
I didn’t necessarily want to go, but I wasn’t going to let Jake go alone. What if he hadn’t found Caleb, but rather a stranger who could end up being some kind of serial killer. “I guess,” I shrugged.
He grabbed my arm and started pulling me back towards the house.
“What? Now?” I shrieked.
“Yes, now,” he rolled his eyes, continuing to pull my arm as I dug my feet into the ground.
I was hoping I’d have more time to prepare before I saw Caleb again. Time to think about what I would say to the man who had stolen my heart, then crushed it, and abandoned me. I also didn’t want to rock up looking like I hadn’t slept in a year. Plus, I would have picked a different outfit for this event, had I known it was coming. My faded jeans and loose-fitting maroon t-shirt were not the clothes I wanted to be wearing when I came face-to-face with Caleb again.
Fuck.
I was going to see Caleb again… maybe.
“Have you told anyone else?” I asked once Jake and I were pulling out of the driveway in my car.
He shook his head. “I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. Plus, Mums would worry, and try to delay me going to see if it’s him.”
“Are you nervous?” I asked him.
“Fucking shitting myself,” he chuckled. “What do I even say to him, if it is him, I mean?”
I gave him a small shrug.
Fucked if I know.
I knew that Jake would have a million and one questions for Caleb when, and if, the time came. Questions I knew the answers to, but had never had the balls to tell him myself.
The most important being why Caleb had left.
I’d never told Jake, or anyone else, about my relationship—if that’s even what it was, we’d been young and never actually defined what our relationship was—with Caleb, and therefore had never told anyone that I was the reason he bailed and took off in the middle of the night.
I never wanted Jake to hate me for being the reason he’d lost his older brother, and the thought still terrified me more than anything.
TWO
Elliott
“Fuck,” Caleb growled as I sucked his cock deeper into my throat. “Fuck, I love your mouth.”
I smiled around his thick erection and continued sucking him, hollowing out my cheeks, and teasing the underside of his length with my tongue.
I was on my knees in front of Caleb where he was standing with his back against the counter, his muscled biceps were flexing as he white-knuckled the edge of it.
Moments like this were the exact reason we’d had to install blinds on all the windows in our bakery several years before—it wasn’t uncommon for us to fool around in there before and after business hours.
It was early in the morning, and we hadn’t opened Hillam’s Bakery yet, so the blinds were still closed and no one walking down the high street could peer into the shop and see me blowing my husband in the middle of our shop.
I hummed around his cock, the vibrations of it sending shivers through him, and I cupped his balls in one of my hands. I gently rolled them in my palm for a few beats, before letting my hand wander back to brush lightly over his hole. I teased the puckered skin of his entrance with one of my fingertips, and he started letting out a string of barely comprehensible curses.
His hand tightened in my hair as his back left the counter, and he bent forward, crowding me and sliding his dick so far into my mouth that my nose was tightly pressed against the dark curls around the base.
He growled as he shot his release down my throat, and I swallowed up every last drop, licking my lips as he pulled back.
“Damn,” he sighed as he leaned his weight back on the side, and I stood. “I love you,” he smiled lazily.
I loved seeing Caleb like that, utterly debauched, t-shirt rumpled, leather jacket hanging off one shoulder, jeans around his thighs, and a pink flush covering his gorgeous face. He looked stunning all the time, but always more so after a good orgasm.
And knowing that I was the cause of that look still made me feel like the luckiest man alive, even after almost a decade together.
“I love you too,” I stood and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “Now, go, you’re going to be late,” I chuckled.
“Shit,” he looked at the clock on the wall, and began straightening his clot
hes so he didn’t arrive at the meeting looking freshly fucked. “I should be back by the lunch rush,” he said, and grabbed his car keys and the boxes of cake samples. “As long as these clients don’t take five hours to pick a wedding cake flavour, like the couple a few months ago.”
I chuckled and shooed him to the door.
I followed him to the front door of the bakery and gave him one more quick kiss before shutting the door behind him and setting about opening the shop.
It had been a couple of hours since Caleb had left for the meeting with the client, and I opened the bakery for business. It was just like every other day, customers coming and going, chatting with regulars, until two men entered the shop and immediately caught my attention.
One looked younger than the other by a few years and had a lighter shade of brown hair than the older. The younger man looked familiar, but I couldn’t place how or why. The older, who I assumed to be in his mid-twenties, was gorgeous—both were attractive, but the older one just had something special about him that I couldn’t take my eyes off.
They approached the counter, and both surveyed the menu that was written on the wall behind me.
“Hi, welcome to Hillam’s Bakery,” I greeted them.
The older man smiled. “Hi.”
The younger man didn’t say anything, just looked at me with an expression I couldn’t decipher. Intrigued? Appraisal? I didn’t know.
“What do you want?” The older man asked the younger one.
“A…” he looked at the menu again. “…chocolate cupcake and a cup of tea. I’ll go get us a table.” The younger man started to walk away.
“Okay,” the older one turned back to me. “Can we get a chocolate cupcake, a triple chocolate chip cookie and two teas?”
“Oh, that sounds good,” the younger man said, and turned back to us. “Matty, can you get me a cookie too?”
Matty.
That single word made my heart jump into my throat.
Hearing it caught me off guard, but I tried my best to school my expression.
It was just a coincidence.
I couldn’t help but glance back at the younger man, and the reason I’d recognised him clicked into place. He looked so much like a younger version of Caleb.
And they were about the right ages to be…
Nope. Get yourself under control. You have customers.
I quickly convinced myself that I was just making it all up. The younger man didn’t actually look like a younger version of my husband, I was just projecting because he was here with a man who shared the name of my Caleb’s first love.
“Are you okay?” Matty asked, and the look of concern on his face made me realise I’d been staring dumbly between the two of them for God knew how long.
I cleared my throat, feeling a little like I was on the verge of choking on nothing, and nodded my head. “Y-yeah, sorry. That’ll be eight pounds ninety-five.”
He handed me a ten-pound note, and neither of us said anything as I handed him his change.
“I’ll get going on your order. Take a seat and it will be with you in a few.”
“Thanks,” Matty smiled and followed the Caleb look-alike to the table by the door.
I plated up their orders, and brewed their teas, all while doing everything in my power not to glance over at their table. I didn’t want to scare off paying customers, after all.
“Here you go,” I said as I placed their food and drinks onto the table between them.
“Thanks,” the younger man said.
“You’re welcome, is there anything else I can do for you?”
“What’s your name?” The younger man asked.
“Oh, um, Elliott.”
He nodded. “Surname?”
It wasn’t uncommon for customers to ask me what my name was, but most people guessed my surname from the name of the bakery. “Hillam.”
“Do you work here alone?”
“Um, no, I run the bakery with my husband,” I said, starting to feel a little like I was in the hot seat.
“Husband?” Matty asked, an odd expression of shock, and maybe even a hint of disappointment on his face.
“What’s your husband’s name?” The younger man asked before I had a chance to respond to Matty.
“Christ, Jake,” Matty hissed. “Stop interrogating the poor man.”
Jake.
“How else am I going to get information from him?” Jake asked Matty.
Jake… Jake and Matty… it couldn’t be. Could it?
“J-Jake?” I stuttered.
The younger man—Jake—nodded.
“And… and, Matty?” I said dumbly, turning to Matty.
Matty nodded.
Holy fuck.
I couldn’t believe it.
Jake and Matty had come looking for Caleb. I always knew it was a possibility, and deep down I’d been expecting it, but I hadn’t prepared myself for what to say when it happened. I’d asked Caleb on multiple occasions how he would react if they did. He’d always said it was so unlikely they’d find him, that it wasn’t worth worrying about.
When I’d asked him several years earlier if he’d ever considered contacting them, he’d told me that they wouldn’t want to hear from him and that had been the end of the conversation.
They obviously did want to hear from him.
Or… were they there by sheer coincidence?
No, that was far too serendipitous, they had to have come here with the intention of finding Caleb.
“Elliott?” Matty asked, his sweet voice washing over me and breaking me from my thoughts.
I was still staring at them, my gaze flitting rapidly between them as my brain tried to process the situation.
I hadn’t spoken, and the silence had gone so far past the point of awkward. I wasn’t typically a shy or awkward person, but I was just so shocked that I couldn’t seem to form words.
“Elliott? Are you okay?” Matty’s previously calm voice now held a note of concern.
“Yeah, you’re not like… stroking out or something, are you?” Jake asked. “You don’t need us to call 999, right?”
“I’m good,” I choked out. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Sorry. No, I’m okay, just shocked. You look so much like Caleb,” I said to Jake. “I thought it might be you, but I wasn’t sure until you both said each other’s names.”
“Caleb?” Jake asked, his eyes now gleaming with excitement.
“You know who we are?” Matty asked.
I nodded, not sure whose question I was agreeing to—both I supposed.
“Yes, I know who you are,” I smiled.
“Is Caleb here?” Jake asked.
“Not right now.” I glanced over my shoulder at the clock on the wall behind the counter. “He should be back soon though.”
“You’re his…” Matty began to ask before trailing off.
“Husband,” I finished for him.
Matty’s kind smile faltered for a fraction of a second before he caught himself and plastered it back in place. I didn’t like that something I’d said, while a fact, had upset him.
“Shit, so you’re like my brother-in-law,” Jake stated gleefully. “Awesome.”
My lips curled up into a smile—he reminded me so much of Caleb that I couldn’t help but smile.
I needed to call Caleb, give him a heads up before he arrived back at the bakery to the shock of a lifetime. I had no idea how he would react to finding out that his long-lost younger brother, and his first love had tracked him down after so many years. Not only tracked him down, but turned up, unannounced, practically on his doorstep.
I didn’t want Caleb to walk into this blindly—as I had. If I was this much of an awkward mess, I dreaded to think of how Caleb would feel and act.
“Sorry,” I apologised. “I’m probably not making the best impression. I’m just really caught off guard.” Matty watched me, as if assessing me, looking for something in my appearance, though I wasn’t sure what. And Jake just sm
iled happily at me, the curve of his lips and the way he pushed his floppy brunet hair out of his face mirroring my husband. “I’m going to call Caleb, is that okay?” I looked between them, checking both of their reactions.
Jake nodded enthusiastically, while Matty sat as still and unresponsive as a status.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and made a move to leave the area of their table before a thought struck me and I turned back to them.
“Have you guys been looking for Caleb all this time?” I didn’t know why I needed to know, I just did.
“Yeah,” Jake answered quickly. “It took me a while, because I guess he’s Caleb Hillam now, and I was searching under his old names.”
I grinned at Jake and dipped my head to him before turning and continuing my retreat from the table.
I pulled Caleb’s name up on my phone and pressed the call button.
It rang and rang before going to voicemail.
“Sweetheart, if you get this message before you leave the tasting, please call me before coming back to the bakery.” I realised that message might worry him, so I added, “It’s nothing to worry about. Love you.”
I ended the call and sent him a text, just for good measure.
Elliott: Call me when you leave the tasting?
I put my phone back in my pocket and looked over to where Matty and Jake were still sitting, now deep in conversation with one another.
I’d always wondered about them, and now I’d met them.
Before me, those two men where Caleb’s everything, and I smiled, knowing Caleb would be happy to know they both seemed to be doing well.
THREE
Caleb
The tasting ran longer than I’d have liked. The clients seemed like nice people, but couldn’t make a decision to save their lives.
They’d tried each sample of cake, pausing between each to discuss them at great length, before eventually circling back around to cake number one and repeating the process over… three more times.
After leaving the tasting, I’d rushed back to my car and driven back to the bakery.
It was now late in the afternoon and I hadn’t eaten lunch, so I was absolutely starving.
