Irish Melody (4 page)

He tried not to fidget under that attention.

Finally Caelum nodded. “Yeah. I guess I do. But I think in a big way I fell in love with her when you both came to rescue me. I’m not sure how much she’s told you about when I come to visit, but we’ve been spending nearly every night together since I came back here. She still needs her sleep and I can’t spend all day in her mind so it’s only a few hours at a time, but I like to think we’re pretty close. Well, as close as we can be while we’re an ocean apart.”

Ippy nodded. He’d been afraid of that. “You can’t be mean to her. And you can’t hurt her.”

Caelum put his arm around Ippy’s shoulders and before Ippy could pull away, Caelum’s hand was in his hair, pulling on his curls. He hadn’t felt that since the car ride to the ocean when they’d dropped Caelum off the last night he’d seen him. Ippy closed his eyes and enjoyed the touch as the sound of the surf rumbled through his mind. This was nice. If only he could stay like this for a while longer. He tilted his head back, enjoying the feel of the sun on his face. Even if it wasn’t real and just a dream, this felt nice.

His eyes shot open as he felt Caelum’s lips on his cheek. He was out of Caelum’s hold a second later as he stared at the other man, his hand pressed against the cheek Caelum had kissed. “What was that for?” Ippy demanded.

Caelum looked startled as well. “You didn’t want me to?”

Ippy didn’t know what he wanted. But if Caelum was with Hannah and Hannah was with him, then Caelum shouldn’t be kissing Ippy’s cheek. “Hannah wouldn’t like it. Don’t do it.”

Caelum’s smile was slow in coming and Ippy didn’t like it as much as his big smiles. “She and I have talked. And I’ll get to that. But can I show you something first?”

Ippy nodded, but hesitated to follow him when Caelum turned and headed into the surf. When Caelum turned back to him and held out his hand, though, Ippy did follow him, going into the sea until his knees were sloshed with frothy water and his jeans were soaked. “What am I looking for?” he asked Caelum as he took the guy’s hand.

Caelum’s black eyes shone and he pointed to where a group of seals were playing in the surf a dozen or so yards away from them. “That’s my cousin and his wives. They’re polygamists.”

“Like lions. One lion and multiple lionesses,” Ippy said, remembering a show he’d watched recently about different forms of family groups that were found in nature.

Caelum nodded and the seals disappeared.

“Where’d they go?” Ippy asked as he put his free hand over his eyes to shield the glare from the sun as he looked for them.

“They were never really here. This is my world that I’ve projected into your dream. I’m awake here while you sleep there. I’ll teach you how to manipulate your dreams, too. Then you can show me your world, too.”

Ippy nodded, instantly thinking of the things he wanted to show Caelum. “But why show them to me?”

Caelum gave him a soft smile. “Because there are all types of families. I like Hannah, but I also like you. And I think, given the chance, we could make that work. If you like me, too.”

Ippy yanked back his hand and clutched it to his stomach. “You’re gay?”

Caelum lifted a single shoulder in a little shrug. “Bi actually.”

“And your family doesn’t mind?” Ippy asked as he stared at Caelum.

He laughed and shook his head. “I think they’d accept whatever I wanted in life at this point. They’re just grateful I’m home. And they want to meet the werewolf and the human that rescued me someday. So I hope you’ll come visit.”

Ippy shook his head. “My parents would never let me.”

Caelum nodded. “So come over when you’re an adult. Hannah said you two were talking about coming and staying over here. The three of us. Like it was that night when we were all kids.”

“We were running for our lives,” Ippy reminded him with a smile.

“Yeah, but remember how much fun it was?” Caelum added with a wide grin that showed off his teeth.

Ippy wasn’t so sure that it had been fun. He remembered being afraid, hiding in a forest, being in a cage and not knowing if he was ever going to get out again. But he also remembered holding hands with his friends and being touched in a way that Hannah hadn’t done to him before or since then. She didn’t play with his hair, not like Caelum did. And he liked it when Caelum touched him like that.

“How’d you know that you were bi?” Ippy asked him.

Caelum took his hand and led him back out of the surf. Ippy thought getting dry would take a while but when he looked down at his legs as soon as he was out of the surf he was dry again. “Dream ocean.”

Caelum smiled. “Yeah. Dream everything here. But this is where I am right now, so it’s the easiest thing for me to share with you.” He sat down and Ippy went with him. “I started to have an idea when I met you, actually.”

Ippy shivered and kept his attention on the ocean in front of them. “Then?”

Caelum leaned forward and Ippy watched him out of the corner of his eye. “Then I figured it out. It wasn’t just that you two rescued me. I went on a date with a guy last year. I was attracted to him. But he wasn’t you. So then I knew.”

Ippy didn’t understand. Not at all. He didn’t know how anyone could want to be with him, despite what Hannah sometimes told him. Because it was what his parents said that was so much louder. They were so loud that sometimes they hurt his ears with what they said. “I think you’re lying. And I don’t like that,” he said as he got to his feet and brushed the imaginary sand off his legs.

Caelum looked up at him. “Why would I do that?”

Good question, and one that Ippy didn’t have an answer for. But it made more sense than Caelum actually wanting to date him. Or being attracted to him. “You can’t want me,” Ippy softly said, his voice barely louder than the waves.

“Why not?” Caelum asked him.

Ippy felt his face pinch. “I’m not normal. I’m autistic.”

“And I turn into a seal,” Caelum reminded him flatly. “Normal is relative.”

“People like normal,” Ippy countered, knowing it was the truth.

Caelum snorted, got to his feet, then tossed a rock into the sea. “Name one person that you know that you’d consider normal.”

He couldn’t, and Caelum had to have known that.

Ippy came awake as his music player ran out of battery. When he took his headphones off his parents were no longer fighting about him, which was more than nice, but he did have a few text messages that he’d missed on his phone. Only one person ever texted him and he didn’t know what to say to her. But he couldn’t just ignore Hannah either so he told her the truth.

We can’t be friends anymore.

There were a lot of messages after that, each sounding more hurt than the last, but he put his phone aside after turning it on silent and let himself cry into his pillow.

He managed to avoid her and her texts for a week. But then on Tuesday afternoon she was waiting in his room when he came home from school.

How’d you get in?
he asked her as he dropped his bag onto the floor by his bed. His parents weren’t home and wouldn’t be home for a few hours either, so they’d be okay. But as much as he didn’t want to obey his parents, he didn’t want her knowing their reasons, either.

She didn’t move from where she was sitting on his bed, his pillows propped up behind her. “Your window was unlocked. I climbed up the drainpipe like I’ve been doing for years. I’m mad at you.”

Yeah, he could tell that easily enough by the hard lines in her face. He nodded and sat down next to her on the bed with his shoulders against a pillow which she moved from behind herself and propped up in a silent hint for him to sit down. They weren’t touching, as much as he wanted to.

But she didn’t know that and wrapped her arms around him anyway. She didn’t ask and for once he didn’t get mad at her. It was just so nice to have her holding him again, to be touched by anyone at all. She was the only one that touched him anymore. No one else really even tried. He pressed his face into her neck and tried not to cry. It didn’t work for too long.

“What the hell happened?” Hannah demanded. Her words were harsh even though her voice was soft. He shook his head, refusing to tell her. When she started to pull away, though he grabbed the back of her shirt, not letting her go so easily. She didn’t try to get away again until he let her go nearly ten minutes later, when he pulled away to wipe at his eyes.

Can’t talk about it,
he told her, answering her earlier question.

She made an angry noise and flopped back on his pillows. “Are you mad at me then? Can you at least tell me that much?”

He shook his head and she sighed loudly.

“You’re being difficult,” she grumbled, narrowing her eyes at him.

Ippy hoped she didn’t see through him. He didn’t want her knowing what was going on at all, and he couldn’t even begin to tell her, either. So he changed the topic to something he’d been wanting to talk to her about all week.
When I talked to Caelum he said he liked us both.
She didn’t say anything, only nodded and took his hand.
But I don’t know what that means.

Hannah smiled at him. “Caelum’s bi, so he likes girls and guys. I was reading some forums online and people were saying that some bi people like girls and guys unequally so they may like girls more or guys more and some keep it pretty even. I think he likes guys more, but I’m not really sure. Caelum’s also pretty open to the idea of all of us being together. Which isn’t how I grew up, or you, but it’s how he did. And Evangeline has her guys, but we haven’t known them for more than a few years. You and I have talked about it at times, but it’s still a bit odd. You’re both my best friends, but I don’t know about having a relationship with you both.”

You mean with me,
Ippy reminded her, remembering that she couldn’t say that she loved him back before.

Hannah turned onto her side to look at him better, but he wasn’t looking back at her. Instead he was looking in the mirror across from his bed, staring at himself and seeing all of his flaws. He’d wondered a lot of the time if his autism was visible. It wasn’t, at least he didn’t think so, but he still saw it when he looked at himself, like it was a hazy thing sitting there on his skin and telling everyone around him that he wasn’t normal at all.

“That’s not what I meant, Ippy,” Hannah told him as she gave his hand a little squeeze.

This time he did look at her.
Then what did you mean?
He wanted to say that she’d pretty much said it. But she hadn’t, and jumping to that would be a lie.

She licked her lips. “Caelum and I, we’ve been together for the past few years. My dads kind of know, but I don’t tell them everything. That would be too weird. They know I have dreams about him sometimes, even that he comes to visit me in them. But not that I see him pretty much every night or what we do when we’re together. They can’t stop me from sleeping or from dreaming, but it feels special to have Caelum like that. Like he’s all mine, and it’s just us in that little world and no one can intrude.”

Ippy nodded—that was how he’d felt when Caelum had come to visit him, too.
I did that with him too.

“I know. He told me. I don’t want to be unfair to you, though, when I’m with him. Or anything like that. I don’t know what it would be like when we’re all together in Ireland. What if we can’t stand it? What if we fight about the stupidest crap? Like what movie to go see?” Hannah shrugged and turned over onto her stomach.

Ippy didn’t know the answer. He hadn’t even thought about that.
Or what side of the bed to sleep on.

She blushed bright red and glanced up at him. “You’ve thought about that, too?”

He didn’t really know why she was blushing.
About who gets to be by the window if there is one? Yes.

Hannah grinned and Ippy smiled back at her. “Yeah. About the windows. Sorry, thought you were talking about something else.”

Now he was confused.
Like what?

“Sex,” she replied without looking away from him. He shut up instantly. “Have you ever thought about it?”

He shrugged.
A little. I guess. You?

Hannah nodded. “About that much too. It’s been you and me for so long, and since we rescued him I’ve always thought it would be you, me, and Caelum. I guess I just never thought about sharing either of you. I’m not that good at sharing, I don’t think.”

You are with me,
he countered, knowing that they shared food all the time and he still had a hoodie hanging up in his closet that he’d borrowed from her. It was old and frayed since it used to be her dad’s, so it was much too big on her, but she liked to wear it sometimes and he’d borrowed it when he was cold and it had been in her trunk.

“Yeah. But could you share me with him? Like for dates and stuff? Like when Aunt Evangeline and Uncle Oliver go out with just the two of them?” Hannah asked him.

Ippy thought about it for several long minutes, picturing Hannah getting ready for a date and doing her hair and then she and Caelum going out to dinner without him.
Bring me leftovers?

She giggled. “Of course. Whatever you’d want.”

I’d get to watch my own movies.
Right now he had to share the player with his parents and so getting to watch his own movies was often a complicated thing. If Hannah and Caelum went out to dinner without him, then he could watch all the movies he wanted while they were gone.
And I could eat ice cream and not have to share it. You like to take my cookies off.

Hannah kissed his cheek. “I’ll fess up to that. What if you and Caelum went on a date without me? Would you like that for you?”

Ippy shrugged—he’d never been on a date, so he had no idea what he would or wouldn’t like while on one.
What’s a date like?

Hannah’s lips pressed together and she took her time answering him. “Well, when Caelum and I date in my dreams, we go for a walk along the beach, we hold hands, and we kiss. We don’t need to eat or drink in the dreams, of course, but I imagine there’s lots of eating on dates. Whenever my dads go out for their date nights they go to dinner or dancing or something. Some guy at the mall once asked me if I wanted to go out to a movie with him sometime, so I’m guessing there’s those, too.”