Home and Away (19 page)

“Come here,” Rupert said quietly, holding his hand out.

Callum hesitated by the door, then again beside the bed when Rupert asked, “Are you going to sleep in your clothes?”

Callum stared down at them for a long moment, then stripped down to his boxer briefs and a t-shirt and tugged on the pajama bottoms he’d purchased as soon as they’d returned from London.

Rupert stopped Callum with a hand on his chest when he climbed in the far side of the bed. “Hold on one second,” he whispered.

Moving carefully, Rupert slid Oliver off his chest and laid him on the side of the bed, then scooted toward the middle of the mattress, tugging Callum closer until he hovered beside Rupert on his hands and knees.

“Come here,” Rupert said again, and pulled at Callum until he took Oliver’s place, his head tucked beneath Rupert’s chin, his face pressed to Rupert’s chest, their legs tangling.

They’d never slept like this. They’d never even touched like this, if he didn’t count this afternoon. Oliver had always been in the middle, but not tonight. Rupert wrapped his arms around Callum’s ribs and held on, resuming his comforting rub, just on a different back.

Callum needed this, the tension bleeding out of him and his arms curling around Rupert, his breath warm and damp on Rupert’s skin as they settled against one another.

“Thanks,” Callum said quietly, well after Rupert was convinced he’d fallen asleep.

Rupert kissed the top of Callum’s head and left it at that.

Callum woke up slowly, still totally relaxed. Something was different, but he was too groggy to piece it together until the warm presence plastered to his back took a deep breath.

Blinking, he noted the bright light fighting to get around the edge of the blackout curtains of their hotel bedroom, and remembered coming to bed the night before. He’d been unsure of the reception he would get. Rupert had surprised him by pulling him into the bed, hours before they would normally go to sleep, and just holding him.

Another first. One Callum hadn’t even known to miss in all the years of being alone. He’d miss it now, though. While he was in Vegas. And back in Denver.

Rupert’s hand, resting on his chest, petted him gently. Callum reached up and pressed it over his heart, their fingers naturally threading together. It probably meant little, if anything, to Rupert. Just something you did with the man you woke up next to, but Callum could close his eyes and picture Mike and Alexei’s hands doing the same, the looks they’d shared. The three years they’d had, so far, together.

That was what he wanted, he thought as he slid his fingers along Rupert’s, over and over.

What he couldn’t have.

Rupert pressed at his shoulder, rolling him over so they lay facing each other on their sides. Callum lifted his head enough to see Oliver sprawled across half the bed, starfished on his back with one foot hooked over Rupert’s hip. Callum grinned, shaking his head with silent laughter. Rupert rolled his eyes.

Callum opened his mouth to say something. What?
Thank you for giving me the best orgasm of my life yesterday? For tolerating my freak out? For cuddling me all night?
But Rupert spared him any of the possible indignities by pressing their mouths together.

The kiss was slow, languid. Callum gave a passing thought to stale morning breath, but it was lost to the taste of Rupert. The arm that had held him while he was sleeping hooked around his back, towing him closer.

It didn’t erase the worry of Las Vegas, and only made it even more obvious what Callum was going to miss most when the end of the summer rolled around, but it was still good. Worth it.

Rupert pulled back, a gentle smile on his face, a moment before Oliver popped up on his knees behind Rupert’s back, throwing the covers to the foot of the bed.

“Good morning!” he chirped brightly as he dove between them.

Callum closed his eyes and thanked Christ he and Rupert hadn’t taken it any further when Oliver’s ridiculously pointy elbow nailed his lower belly.

“Oof.”

Rupert chuckled at the near miss and dragged his squirming brother off Callum, tickling him until he screamed with joy. Callum was trying to laugh while still attempting to get the muscles in his stomach and groin to unclench. The results were breathless and hoarse, and only made Rupert laugh harder until Callum dove on him, encouraging Oliver to tickle Rupert until he was thrashing around and screaming almost as loudly as Oliver had.

The three of them landed in a heap on the floor, Callum barely twisting in time to ensure he fell beside Rupert and Oliver landed on top of them both.

Unfortunately, Oliver’s left heel didn’t miss this time, glancing right off Callum’s nuts.

Callum rolled on this side and gurgled, while Rupert cackled maniacally, which Callum thought was awfully cruel. Rupert finally took mercy and pulled himself and Oliver off Callum and to their feet.

“That’s what you get,” Rupert, the vengeful bastard, said with a smirk before nudging Oliver in the direction of the bathroom. As soon as the boy was out of sight, Rupert knelt and pressed his lips to Callum’s.

“Are you okay?”

When Callum nodded, Rupert kissed him once more, smiling softly, and left him to suffer in peace.

Callum thought about waking up next to Rupert and their good morning kiss for the rest of the day. He almost broke his leg, he was so distracted on the treadmill. After the third time he’d tripped over his own feet, he left Oliver with Mike and Alexei in the gym and snuck into Rupert’s office. Rupert looked up from his desk, the phone pressed to his ear, and arched a brow as Callum shut the door behind him.

Callum skirted the edge of the desk, coming to hover in Rupert’s space while someone rambled on the other end of the line. Callum didn’t care. He cupped his hands around Rupert’s jaw, tilted up his chin, and kissed him, tracing the seam of Rupert’s lips immediately, demanding entrance. Rupert leaned into him, kissing him back, until Callum could hear a tinny voice calling Rupert’s name.

Callum stepped away, grinned, and left Rupert scrambling to explain himself to whoever was on the phone.

It became a game, Callum always on the lookout for a time and place he could sneak a kiss with Rupert. It wasn’t as often as he would have liked, since between their work, his training schedule, and Oliver, they were almost never alone. Mike and Alexei unwittingly aided him more often than not, but even then, usually all Callum could manage was one quick peck.

Any kind of kiss was great, but even better was the often amused, sometimes wary expression on Rupert’s face whenever they were alone together. Callum could tell Rupert was now as constantly aware of their surroundings, and their audience, as Callum had become.

The less-great aspect, though, was that after a lifetime of limited sexual contact and years of celibacy, Callum was suddenly obsessed. Seriously, he was horny
all the time
. And he didn’t think he was alone. Yesterday he’d come into Rupert’s office and closed the door, a now-favorite part of his afternoon, and by the time he’d turned around, Rupert was on him, slamming his back to the wall, his cock rock hard and pressed to Callum’s hip.

Callum had been prepared to do something wildly inappropriate, right then and there. His knees had shaken as Rupert sucked on his lower lip, grinding their hips together, their hands grappling at each other.

Then a sharp rap at the door had sent them reeling apart, barely managing to look sane, let alone decent, by the time Sheila swung the door open to tell Rupert his two o’clock meeting was waiting for him.

“Jesus,” Rupert had whispered after Sheila departed, “I have
got
to put a lock on that bloody door.”

Now, only one day later and less than a week into his campaign, Callum was filled with woe and regret. And hormones. He stood by Jack’s side, listening to a subcontractor reel off all the reasons something was behind schedule, and had to force himself not to think about how fast he’d gone off in the shower that morning. It hadn’t even taken the edge off. He
needed
more than five consecutive minutes alone with Rupert.

“Callum?”

Callum blinked. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I asked if you had any other questions. I’m going to guess no,” he said dryly, nodding at the subcontractor who promptly went scurrying back to his work.

“Sorry,” Callum said with a half laugh, half sigh. “I’ve been distracted this morning. I apologize if I’m making your work harder.”

“Not at all,” Jack assured him with a warm smile. “You’ve been a flake for days, so it’s not like I’m not used to it.”

“Hey!” Callum said, trying for indignant and failing miserably, because it was true, and because Jack was grinning at him.

There wasn’t a straight woman or gay man alive that could work up a temper in the face of that…
face.
Goddamn, Jack was gorgeous.

They walked around the concourse, stopping here and there to check on progress, speaking with workers and foremen about their schedules, missing supplies, extra crew, and anything else that came up. Normally, this was one of Callum’s favorite parts of the project. He and Oliver had taken to meeting Jack in the conference room in the mornings so they could wait for Rupert to get there from the gym or rink and take Oliver with him into his office. Then Callum and Jack would spend an hour or two on the project. Today, though, he had the attention span of a gnat.

Jack sighed. “Earth to Callum?”

“What? Sorry,” Callum groaned, rubbing a hand over his face after realizing he’d been staring at a hot dog vendor sign for god only knew how long.

“Dude, what is
up
with you?”

Before Callum could come up with some bullshit answer, because he was pretty sure Jack didn’t want to hear that he’d been walking around with a hard-on all day, he heard Rupert call his name.

The last time Rupert had been on the construction site, all hell had broken loose. Callum spun in the direction of Rupert’s shout and saw him hurrying along the fresh tile floor in his wingtips. Callum’s heart nearly stopped when Rupert skidded for a moment, his arms flailing, before he regained his footing and plowed on.

Callum ran to meet him. “What? What is it? Is Oliver okay?”

That brought Rupert up short. “Oh, yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

Callum slumped. “It’s okay.” God knew he was a little high strung today.

Jack smiled at Rupert. “What’s up? What brings you up here?”

Rupert glanced around them, as if only just remembering his reception last time, but the smile that had been hovering broke through again when he met Callum’s eyes. “I’ve just received a text from Christian. You remember the boy from the skating clinic?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, he’s asked if I can meet him at the rink after school. He’d like to introduce me to his coach, who has expressed an interest in having me join them for some training.”

“You coach hockey?” Jack asked, commendably keeping almost all incredulity from his voice.

“God, no,” Rupert said with a laugh. “I’m a figure skater.”

Jack’s “oohh” sounded a lot like “of course”.

“Anyway,” Rupert said with a bright smile that made Callum’s heart beat a little harder, “I know it wasn’t in the plans for today, and that you still have a lot you need to do, and that meeting with the contractor and Oliver—”

“You can go!” Callum said with a laugh.

“Thank you so much,” Rupert said, flinging himself against Callum’s chest.

Callum caught him, laughing until he realized the site had gone silent around them.

His arms dropped to his side. “Uh…”

Rupert stepped back, confusion on his face, his smile fading as Callum darted his eyes pointedly at the men staring at them. It broke something inside Callum to see the light leave Rupert’s eyes. Worse, Callum suspected it may have broken something between them.

Rupert tidied his already perfectly tidy suit and offered an awkward goodbye, not looking at anyone before walking away in the direction he’d come. Callum wanted to chase after him. To hug him close and apologize. Most of all, he wanted to be someone who could do that and not give a shit who saw and what they thought.

Instead he was left standing alone as the sounds around them returned to normal. He studiously ignored the expression on Jack’s face, unable to decipher if it was surprise or disappointment.

He and Jack finished their walkthrough quietly, only discussing things as they came up, their easygoing banter from earlier gone. When Callum spaced out again, Jack snapped at him and Callum made a point to pay close attention from then on.

He felt like he should apologize to Jack, but he didn’t know why. More importantly, there was someone else he needed to apologize to first.

“I need to go,” he blurted when Jack was pulling out his binder to review a few more things.

Jack stared at him for a long moment while Callum shifted on his feet, itching to go. Jack’s lips twitched, the first sign of humor Callum had seen since Rupert had come to find them. “Okay.”

Callum spun to leave, but Jack’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“He really likes you, Callum,” Jack said gently.

It took everything Callum had not to blurt out that he liked Rupert, too. He wanted so much to tell Jack the truth, his mouth opening as if he might be able to actually do it, but he didn’t know how to start.

He swallowed hard. “I know. I didn’t mean to…” He didn’t know how to finish that either.

Jack nodded, as if maybe he understood. “There’s nothing wrong with hugging him. He’s your friend. No one is going to think you’re gay, even if they know he is. Which, really, they probably don’t, and it’s none of their fucking business anyway.”

Callum died a little, knowing he deserved this lecture. Knowing that he was an even worse person than Jack thought. “I know,” he said again, his voice little more than a whisper. “I know that. I do.”

“You embarrassed him,” Jack said quietly.

Callum couldn’t hold in the hurt noise that escaped.

Jack searched his face, then nodded, as if he’d found whatever it was he was looking for. Callum turned and bolted down the concourse.

Rupert plowed through the paperwork on his desk, determined to clear off everything he could before taking the afternoon off. He’d felt guilty about being so excited to, essentially, goof off—right up until that debacle with Callum. Now he would do anything he could to get the fuck out of this building for a while.

He seriously considered taking Oliver with him, just so he wouldn’t have to face Callum again, but he didn’t know what to expect at the rink. He didn’t want his brother there if he had another run-in with John Shaw.

Callum would take good care of Oliver. Which was more than Rupert could say about how Callum took care with him, sadly.

He didn’t bother to glance up when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, assuming it was someone coming to drop yet more work on his desk. Then the door shut and he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to calm his suddenly racing heart.

If Callum tried to kiss him, he swore to god he would punch him in the nose.

He finally lifted his head when strange noises got the better of his curiosity, and watched Callum jam one of Rupert’s guest chairs beneath the doorknob.

“Need a fucking lock on this door,” Callum muttered.

Rupert could hardly argue, though he didn’t appreciate Callum sealing them in without his permission. He didn’t really feel any appreciation for Callum at all, at this point.

Callum spun and charged around the desk like a man on a mission. Rupert acted without thought, leaping from his chair and taking a hasty step back. It wasn’t until his back slammed into the file cabinet that he realized he’d unwittingly reenacted the day they had met.