Accidentally in Love (19 page)
Read Accidentally in Love Online
Authors: Jane Davitt,Alexa Snow
Tags: #Romance, #M/M Contemporary, #Contemporary, #Gay, #Source: Amazon
“Is it?” Tom looked up at him uncertainly, and Cal realized it was time to lay it all on the line. Tom deserved to feel as secure as Cal could make him.
“If you want it to be, it is. I don’t want anyone other than you, okay? I’m not going to turn around tomorrow and bring some other guy home and go to bed with him. I’m serious about this. About you.”
Tom blinked. “You just went from talking about a meal to talking about our relationship. That’s a big leap.”
“Well…”
“In fact, this whole steady-boyfriend situation is almost as big a deal for you as it is for me,” Tom continued, a frown creasing his forehead. “It’s new for both of us, right? That’s what you keep saying?”
“Well,” Cal said again and this time got to add, “I guess it is. So?”
Tom smiled at him. “I think it’s sinking in that I’m not the only one who needs reassuring. Let me know when you need to hug it out or something once it hits you that you’re stuck with me.”
“Not stuck,” Cal said firmly.
Tom sighed. “I’ve got to stop saying things that make you feel like you have to build me up or whatever. It’s going to get old real quick.” He stood and walked over to the cupboard next to the sink. He rummaged inside it for a moment and then set a jar on the counter. “This gets a quarter every time you say something about how you’re not going anywhere, and if I fill it, you’ve got my permission to—”
“You won’t come close to filling it,” Cal said. “I’m done talking.” He got up from the table and went to Tom, stealing a kiss as soon as he was close enough. “Showing you is much more fun.”
He felt an amazing wave of emotions when Tom leaned in and returned the kiss before turning it into another, longer one. Relief, gratitude, awe, and something else that he had to assume was love swept through him. Had to assume, because he’d never been in love before.
Cal remembered his mother, of course. Not specific memories so much as a general sense of protection and well-being, the knowledge that he had been loved and taken care of. He remembered the scent of her hair when she knelt to tie his shoe and the slightly waxy feel her lipstick left behind on his cheek.
He didn’t remember what losing her had been like. It was as if all that had been blocked out, and he wasn’t convinced that was a bad thing. He suspected he’d never let himself love anyone else since, maybe for fear of losing them too. Or maybe that was just an idea he’d pieced together after having seen too many episodes of Dr. Phil.
It was fucked up, Cal thought, kissing Tom again, that love and sex were so tangled up together. Less than half an hour since a powerful orgasm, getting hard and coming weren’t really on his mind. He just wanted to kiss Tom, as if there were some way that kissing him could convince him of Cal’s overwhelming feelings for him.
“I love you,” he said between kisses, and Tom put both hands on his hips. “I mean it.”
“I almost didn’t ask you to come live here.” It sounded unrelated, but Cal could see where Tom was going with it. “God, I nearly missed out on getting to know you, on all of this.” He brushed his lips over Cal’s forehead and then his temple, gentle touches, but with an intensity of feeling behind them that made Cal’s skin flush with warmth. “I’m so lucky. When did that happen?”
“We should go out and buy lottery tickets or something.” Cal knew they’d gotten ridiculously sappy. He refused to care. It felt like he had a decade of romance to catch up on. “Or fly to Vegas and hit the jackpot.”
“Already feels like I did.” Tom’s hands stroked Cal’s hips. He looked like a kid who’d just realized that every present under the tree was what he’d asked Santa for.
“
We
did,” Cal corrected him. He wasn’t going to let Tom get away with thinking he was the only one who’d gotten lucky—in every sense of the word.
Tom grimaced, wrinkling his nose and making it look cute, though Cal was willing to admit he was besotted and therefore biased. “Did that just cost me a quarter?”
“Yeah,” Cal said. Tough love. He could do that too.
From upstairs came the sound of Tom’s phone ringing.
“Your parents?” Cal asked, trying not to let his inward wince show on his face. He really didn’t want to deal with more rudeness from those two that left Tom hurt. Tom shook his head.
“They get their own ring,” he said. “Unless they’re calling from a different phone. I’m surprised I haven’t heard from them yet, actually. They must be more pissed off than I thought.” He patted Cal’s hip and started for the staircase. “We should do something. A movie?”
“Sure, if you want.” Cal felt easygoing and mellow and probably would have agreed to another cramp-inducing run if Tom had proposed one. He decided he might as well do some dishes first and was rinsing off their plates when Tom came back downstairs, still talking on the phone.
“Yeah, of course. Where are you going?” Tom looked worried. “Okay. Don’t worry about it. Just concentrate on Marianne.” To Cal, he said, “Put your shoes on. Yeah, Derek. Go. We’ll see you in a little while.”
“What’s going on?” Cal asked, even as he moved to do as he’d been told.
Tom flipped his phone shut and put it into his pocket. “Marianne’s blood pressure is up. She’s at Saint Vincent’s, and Derek ran out of the house so fast he thinks he left the stove on. We’re going over to check.”
“Oh God.” Cal was clueless about the possible implications, but for Derek—calm, unflappable Derek—to be freaking out like this, it had to be serious. Or maybe babies just did that to people. “Is she going to be okay?”
Tom lifted his hands, palms up. “I don’t have a clue,” he said helplessly. “I guess it’s one of those things that being pregnant makes worse because they can’t treat it, or maybe it affects the baby, or maybe it’s nothing and they’ll just check her out and send her home. I just don’t know.”
Company in his ignorance helped. Cal still felt as if he were floundering, though, a sensation he wasn’t used to. Pushing his unease aside, he fastened his shoes and grabbed his jacket. “Let’s go.”
The drive over didn’t take long, with Tom clearly concerned but not panicking the way that Derek obviously had. Cal couldn’t help wondering what would happen when the baby actually arrived. He didn’t know much about raising kids, but he could guess that the stress levels didn’t go down much no matter how old they were.
It was early evening now, the summer night warm around them as they got out of the car. Tom walked up to the front door and pressed down on the latch. “Shit, it’s locked,” he said blankly.
“He took the time to
lock
it?”
“I guess he was on automatic pilot.” Tom rattled the latch one more time before giving up. “Or it was already locked and they went out through the garage.”
“I’m guessing you don’t have a key?” Cal said, already knowing the answer.
“Why would I have a key?” Tom’s voice rose. “I don’t even know them that well! Why did he call us? Why not someone who
does
have a key?”
“Calm down,” Cal said absently, studying the windows. Closed. They’d probably left the air-conditioning on and the whole house shut up tightly. “He most likely just called the first person he thought of who lived nearby. We can try around the back. Maybe even if we can’t get in, we can look at the stove through a window and see if there’s a light on or something?”
“I
am
calm,” Tom said. “It’s just that I told him I’d help, and now I can’t. I hate that.”
“If we have to, I’ll break a window,” Cal said with a soothing pat on Tom’s shoulder. “I don’t want them to come back and find the house has burned down or the oven is ruined.”
Tom set off around the back of the house at a quick walk, and Cal followed him, moving more slowly, breathing in the mingled scent of the flowers and still feeling a few twinges in his legs. The garden was looking a little neglected, running riot more than it was supposed to, but the colors were glorious.
The side door and the patio doors leading out into the garden were also locked. Cal wasn’t surprised. The area was a good one, but in some ways that meant that it was a tempting target for opportunistic thieves. It didn’t take long to steal a high-end bike left out on a driveway or slip inside an open door and grab a purse left out on a counter. Derek would have been as aware of the risks as anyone was.
“Shit.” Tom kicked one of Marianne’s urns overflowing with a profusion of white, blue, and purple flowers that Cal couldn’t have named if he tried. It wobbled and settled back down onto the patio with a
thunk
. “Okay, that hurt.”
“Don’t break your toes,” Cal told him. He stood, hands on hips, and looked at the patio door. “Maybe if I jiggle it I can get the lock to give.”
“It wouldn’t be much of a lock if you could do that,” Tom pointed out as Cal grabbed hold of the handle and jiggled.
An ear-piercingly loud alarm started to split the air. Cal stepped back away from the house as a reflex, bumped into Tom, then clapped his hands over his ears. “Shit!”
“You think?” Tom gave him an exasperated look. “We’re screwed. How long do you think it will take for the police to get here?”
“Why, do you think we should make a run for it?” Cal asked sarcastically; that was the last thing they should do, unless they wanted to chance being arrested. Cal preferred to avoid it.
“No,” Tom said. “I’ve seen how fast you can run. We’d never make it.”
“You—” Exasperated and amused at the same time, Cal punched Tom’s arm. “I’m going to train in secret and challenge you to a race, Mr. Hare.”
“Bring it on.” Tom took out his phone. “How about I call Derek and let him know he’s going to need to vouch for us? It might take his mind off what’s going on.”
“It might get us both fired,” Cal said with less optimism, “but sure. I think I hear sirens. Or is it the clang of the cell door?”
“We won’t get arrested,” Tom said confidently. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Those two sentences aren’t mutually…” Cal flapped his hand in the air, searching for the right words. “They’re not necessarily both true. I mean, they don’t follow.”
“I get you,” Tom said. “Honestly, I’m not worried.”
The sirens were wailing now. Cal was impressed by the response time, but he couldn’t help hoping that the police got lost or were heading to somewhere else. He’d never been arrested, never even gotten a ticket. Somehow, that wasn’t much comfort with the sirens getting closer.
Tom walked over to a bench set under some lilac bushes, all green now, their flowers long since faded. Cal listened to his conversation with Derek with one ear and tracked the approaching police car with the other.
It probably happened all the time that people set off their own alarms, he reasoned. Not that he’d chance pretending he was Derek, since they’d probably want to see ID, and the potential culprits were just standing around waiting for their arrival. In fact, the best thing to do might be to go out front. He wouldn’t want Tom to think he was scared of how this was going to go down.
Cal walked to the end of the driveway and stood near the street, hands at his sides, as the police car pulled up and two officers got out. One was a guy, the other a woman.
“Hi,” Cal said before either of them could say anything. “We’re really sorry about this.”
“What’s going on?” the woman asked. Her partner was talking into a phone, telling the security company to override the alarm.
“My friend Derek Becker lives here. He had to take his wife—she’s pregnant—to the hospital, and they ran out of here so fast that he was worried he left the oven on, so he asked me and my—um, boyfriend, to come over and check. And I guess I jiggled the door handle a little too hard.” He shrugged, trying to look small and unthreatening and honest.
“And where is he? Your boyfriend?”
Cal looked just as Tom came around the corner, cell phone still in hand. At the sight of the cops, Tom faltered, slowed, and held up his hand with the phone in it. “It’s a cell phone,” he said clearly. “Not a gun or anything.”
“Just come over here, sir,” said the male cop, and the alarm chose that moment to go suddenly silent, thank God. The quiet was almost painfully loud in comparison.
Tom walked over to the cops, pausing a reasonable distance away. “I’ve got Derek on the phone,” he said. “He’s kind of stressed out about his wife, just to warn you.”
The female cop took the phone from him with a roll of her eyes. “This is Officer Denton. Who am I speaking to?”
Cal didn’t pay much attention to the conversation once the officer relaxed, a look of impatience, not suspicion, in her eyes. “Sir, is there anyone who has a key to the house? A family member, a neighbor…? It’s
where
?”
The other officer sighed. “Let me guess. Under a fake stone.”
It turned out to be buried in the planter that Tom had kicked, something that did at least prove once and for all that Derek was who he said he was. Tom dug his hands into the potting soil, saving Cal from volunteering, and found it quickly, dirty and stained but usable. He passed it over to Officer Denton, who led the way back around to the front of the house. Cal was keenly aware of twitching curtains and curious eyes as Derek and Marianne’s neighbors enjoyed the excitement. He felt a blush crawl up over his face. Shit, this day was going from good
to
bad to good and then to totally screwed. He couldn’t keep up.
The front door swung open, and Cal sniffed at the air. No smoke, no smoke alarm, no problem. It wasn’t as if he’d wanted the stove to be full of charred chicken or whatever Derek had been cooking, but it would at least have made all this worthwhile.
Officer Denton strode into the kitchen and pulled down the oven door. “There’s a lasagna in here,” she reported, “but it’s barely warm. Guess he did turn it off.”
“Of course he did,” Cal said with a groan. “We’re so sorry about all this.”
“We understand,” the woman said. “Just don’t let it happen again, okay?” The police officers waited in their car out front until Cal and Tom had relocked the front door before they left, and it wasn’t until they had that Cal was able to relax.
“Okay, I think Derek and Marianne owe us big time for this one.” He leaned on the roof of Tom’s car and sighed.
Tom was already getting behind the wheel, so Cal got into the car too. “Tell me about it,” Tom said.
“So where to?” Cal asked, hoping Tom would point the car in the direction of home.
“The hospital,” Tom said. “I want to make sure Derek doesn’t need anything, and I’m sure it would be good for them to see a friendly face.”
Tom, Cal decided, was a much nicer person than he was. Without Tom, he might have been tempted to wallow in annoyance for the brief circus he’d just been treated to through no fault of his own. “You’re so nice,” he said out loud. “How is it even possible?”
Giving him a funny look, Tom said, “I’m not that nice. You’re just seeing what you want to see because of…lust, or whatever.”
“Right, because when I’m lusting after someone, that’s exactly what I’m thinking about, where he’d fall on the niceness scale.” Cal rolled his eyes.
“What
do
you think about?” Tom asked, his curiosity evident.
No one but Tom would’ve asked that, or no one Cal knew would’ve, because the answer was depressingly obvious.
“How good they’ll be in bed,” Cal said with a sigh at his shallowness. “What I can get them to
do
for me in bed. If they’ll look as good naked as they do when they’re dressed, and if their dick’s going to be bigger than mine, and if I’ll mind if it is or just enjoy it. It’s lust, Tom. It’s not that deep.”
Tom started the car and waited until he’d pulled out of the drive to say, “You thought all that about me?”
“Not really. We kind of skipped over that.” His conscience was clear there, at least. Sort of. “I liked you first, and I knew you. It made all the difference.”
“I thought about you naked,” Tom said with his customary frankness. “You’re easily the hottest man I’ve ever met, and even when I was pissed at you for bringing that guy back, I still couldn’t stop thinking about you. If you’re shallow, I’m a puddle.”
“I’m kind of hoping I’m getting past shallow,” Cal said. “I think it’s time.”
“Wait, what?” Tom gave him a concerned look. “Please tell me that’s not what all this is about. You think it’s time for you to, what, settle down, become half of a couple, and I just happened to be around when you came to this epiphany?”
Oh, jeez
. “No,” Cal said quickly, putting a hand on Tom’s thigh for emphasis. “No, it’s not like that at all. It’s the other way around, in fact. I met you, and I started having all these…feelings, like I wanted something other than a fast fuck and a half-decent orgasm. I was thinking with something other than my dick for once.” His brain, running in confused circles, came back to a different point. “I can’t possibly be the hottest man you’ve ever met.”
“You are.”
“I can’t be.” This wasn’t protesting to be polite. Cal was serious. “I mean, sure, I’m slightly more than okay looking, but I don’t have a six-pack or big biceps. I don’t have a huge dick, and I’m not just being modest when I say no one has ever asked if I’d thought about modeling.”
Tom glanced over at him. “It doesn’t have anything to do with any of that. It’s about, I don’t know, something
undefinable
. Indefinable? One of those. It’s just that you’re…well, confident. Or something.”
“And being confident makes me attractive?” At this point, Cal could see where Tom was taking this, and he understood, but he sort of wanted to hear Tom say it out loud again.
“It does to me. I knew guys like you at school, and it was like they had this magic about them. Sure, most of them had good looks, but it was more than that. It was something inside them that made them attractive, and yeah, some of them abused it and they were assholes, but not all of them. Some were just…golden. You’re like that. When we met at that party, I still don’t know how I got the nerve up to talk to you, and when you just walked away to pick up your date, it was high school all over again.”
“I’m sorry.” Cal winced at the memory. “I didn’t know you then.”
“I haven’t changed,” Tom said. “You cut my hair and got me some new clothes, but I’m just the same now as I was at that party, and you didn’t see me then and now you do. The change is in you, not me.”
Cal wished he was the one driving so that he would have had an excuse for being quiet for a minute or two. As it was, there was no explanation for his silence as he struggled to find words. “You’re right,” he said finally. “I feel like you think that’s a bad thing.”
“That you’ve changed? Or that I haven’t?” Tom shrugged. “It’s not that I think either is a bad thing. I just think it’s good to make sure it’s out in the open. That we both recognize it as the truth.”
“You think I’m fooling myself?” Cal didn’t like the idea of Tom believing none of this was really real.
“No, it’s not that either. I just want to make sure neither of us is…harboring any delusions.”
Cal laughed. “Harboring any delusions? Seriously?”
Tom gave him a look that might have been a little bit desperate. “Don’t, okay? I don’t want to argue about it.”