Page 190 of Disarm
He snorts weakly. “You sound like a therapist.”
“Think I can make a career of it,” I say. “Might come in handy.”
We watch the streetlights pass in silence for a minute.
“You okay?” I ask.
I stare down at him as he considers the question. “Scared,” he says. “But… not drowning.” A pause. “Less alone.”
I kiss his hair. “Then I’m okay, too.”
Back at the condo,in our mess. Our safe house. The one place we know that we can be together and not have to worry about being held to someone’s stupid standards. Caleb takes his shoes off and drops onto the couch like the strings holding him up just got cut. I sit beside him and tug him into my lap, and he comes without resistance, curling into me like he lives there.
“It was too soon,” he mumbles into my chest.
“For?”
“All of it,” he says. “Dinner. Colleagues. Trying to be normal for people who only know the PG-13 version of me.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It was.”
I’m not going to tell him it’ll get easier next time because I don’t know that.
What I do know is that next time,if there is a next time, we go in with rules we actually enforce. We leave earlier. Or we don’t go at all.
“We can just… stay here the rest of break,” I suggest. “Day trips. Boardwalk. Trash TV. I can take you to the city and romance you there.”
He snorts. “Romance me, huh?”
“Oh,hermoso,” I kiss his nose, “I’ll romance the shit outta you.”
He laughs for real this time and the sound does something good to my ribcage.
“Is it… shitty,” he asks after a while, “that part of me is relieved we’re not staying there?”
“No,” I say. “It’s human. You’re allowed to have limits with the people you love.”
Caleb tilts his head back to look at me. Eyes still a little red at the edges, but clearer now. “You love him too,” he says. “Even when you’re telling him he’s being an ass.”
“Unfortunately,” I say. “Yeah. I do.”
He searches my face. “You okay?” he asks, turning the question back on me. “You caught a lot of shrapnel back there.”
I think of Dad’s face. Of the way his eyes flicked to where our hands were. Of the part of me that still, even now, wants his approval even as I’m rejecting his terms.
“It sucked,” I say honestly. “Seeing him flinch at us. It always will. But… I’m not a teenager anymore. I don’t need him to give me permission to love you.”
Caleb’s mouth trembles. “Say that again,” he whispers.
“I don’t need his permission,” I repeat, slowly, leaning in to press a kiss to his forehead. “To love you. To hold your hand. To build a life with you, if that’s what we decide. He can catch up or he can stay behind. I’m not leaving you halfway, so he feels better about his worldview.”
Caleb closes his eyes, like he’s trying to tattoo the words onto the inside of his skull.
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay?”
“Okay,” he repeats. “We go at our pace. Not his.”
