20. Travis

TWENTY

THIS WAS STARTING to feel like déjà vu.

I'd seen Caleb in class on Friday, but then he'd disappeared all weekend. Did he seriously run off again? It sure felt that way. He'd finally responded to my texts and missed calls Saturday with At a job, and that was it. Not a word since then, and he hadn't come home.

Not that I'd been watching and waiting. I had a life too. I just figured my amazing show-and-tell would've enticed him to stick around.

I kept getting it all wrong with him. It was starting to piss me off.

I might've taken out my frustration on a few too many orange sesame tempura shrimp at the downtown foodie festival I'd gone to with Preston, JT, and West. They were greasy and delicious and forced me to walk around for a couple hours for them to go down instead of coming back up. That would've been tragic. Almost as tragic as checking my phone every five minutes to see if I'd heard from Caleb.

This was bullshit. I'd thought he would've grown up since last time, for fuck's sake. That he would know it wasn't a bad thing if it felt good.

Even if it was years ago, I'd never forget the way his expression had changed from such a blissed-out high to panic and dread the next. The way he'd scrambled to get away from me so fast and disappeared without a word. All the hope had drained out of my body when I realized he didn't feel the same. That he wasn't coming back out to say, Never mind, that was amazing, no regrets.

His reaction was nothing but regret, and the tears that stung my eyes had made it hard to put my clothes back on. I'd held it all in, the agony of rejection, of being ashamed of who I was for the first time in my life, until I escaped out of the building. That was when I couldn't stop the stupid tears from falling. My chest physically hurt, like Caleb had ripped my heart out, shredded it to pieces, then stuffed it back inside and told me to get the fuck out.

I'd been such an idiot. I'd wanted to go back and erase the last half-hour before things turned to shit. I hadn't known how to fix it, and deep in my gut, I'd known it would be impossible. It felt like a death. It felt like a betrayal. A rejection of me and who I was from the person I'd trusted the most.

I'd walked for blocks before I even realized where I was heading, and East had let me stay, no questions asked. Well, there'd been questions—I just hadn't given any answers. I spent those hours building a wall back up, brick by brick, so that no one ever made me feel as shitty as I did that night.

Caleb had hurt me. And so I'd hurt him back, the only way I knew how.

Was it the most mature thing to do, looking back? No. But teenagers did stupid shit all the time, and I wasn't the most emotionally secure person then.

This time around, I wasn't letting us go down that path. We were gonna talk, whether he liked it or not.

It was dark by the time I got home Sunday night, but to my surprise, all the lights in the condo were on. I guess I'd expected Caleb to have moved out or found another place to stay, so hearing his shower shut off as I walked inside had relief flooding my veins.

It also had me gearing up for the argument threatening to burst out of me.

I made myself a drink and hopped up onto the island, legs swinging as I waited for the runaway to emerge, just dying to see what he had to say for himself, since I'd never called him out the first time. Like I should've.

Footsteps came down the hall, and Caleb walked out in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. He ran his hand through his wet hair, causing water to trickle down his neck and over his chest, and fuck, all the shit I wanted to throw at him disappeared in an instant as desire took over. All I wanted was to rip the towel off and lick every drop of water that fell down his impressive body.

Caleb looked up and stopped short. "Hey."

Hey? Was that all he had to say for himself? Hey?

"You and I need to have a little chat." I took a sip of my drink and set it aside, no longer needing any liquid courage. "What you're doing is bullshit."

Caleb's brows pulled together. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. This running-away bullshit didn't end so well the first time, so why'd you want to repeat it?"

"What are you talking about? I didn't run away."

"Not coming home all weekend sure feels like you did."

"I had a job." He tightened the towel at his waist, and I tried not to let myself get distracted by all that delicious skin on display.

"A job. Right. That happened to take you away for days after you watched me fuck myself."

A choked sound came out of Caleb. "Jesus, Travis."

"What? Was that too much for you?"

"No, I—" He shook his head and had to brush away the drops of water that fell from his hair onto his forehead. "I photographed a wedding weekend for one of Dad's friends in Amagansett. It was easier to stay than commute back and forth."

"I guess there's no cell service in the Hamptons, huh?"

He opened his mouth to respond, then licked his lips. "I was busy."

"Yeah, busy running."

"Hey, let's get one thing straight," he said, taking a couple steps toward me. "I wasn't the one who ran off the first time. That was you."

"I didn't run."

"Really?" Caleb shook his head. "You're so full of shit. You're telling me you didn't bolt the night of our parents' wedding?"

I opened my mouth to tell him I hadn't run anywhere that night, and he took another step closer.

"Because the way I remember it, I came out of the bathroom and couldn't find you anywhere."

"Maybe if you hadn't run in there in the first place, you would've known I walked out of the penthouse that night." Cursing your name the whole way.

"Well, excuse me for needing a moment to wrap my head around coming all over my brother."

My eyes widened at his outburst. "Stepbrother."

Caleb glowered at me, and I could practically see the blood boiling just beneath the surface. He never usually lost his shit first. But apparently he had a few things he wanted to get off his chest tonight too.

His very naked, wet chest.

"You never gave me a chance to explain," Caleb said, and let out a breath. "Just like you're doing right now, assuming, so maybe I should call bullshit on you. Because that is exactly why we are the way we are today."

"So this is my fault?" I slipped down off the counter. "Is that what you're saying?"

"All I'm saying is that you're really good at jumping to conclusions."

"And you're really good at making someone feel like a piece of shit."

Caleb reared back as though I'd sucker-punched him, and in a way I guess I kind of had. Sure, we'd danced our way around this argument a hundred and one times, but we'd never gotten into the thick of it. Never waded through the murky waters of the whos and whys. But apparently it was time to pay the fucking piper.

"Oh, so we're gonna do this now?" I didn't know why I bothered asking—I could see in his eyes he did. He was fuming mad, and so was I.

"You're the one who brought it up."

"Fine."

"Fine. The night of the wedding, where did you go?"

"East's."

Caleb rolled his eyes. "Of course you fucking did."

"You asked."

"And did you tell him about us?"

"No."

"Don't lie to me."

"I didn't fucking tell him," I snapped. "Why would I? So he could laugh at how you almost broke a leg trying to get away from me?"

"I didn't?—"

"What?" I scoffed. "Realize what you'd done and regret it instantly? Because that's sure as fuck what your face said."

"I was in shock. You had to know that."

"How would I know that? I was seventeen. We were best friends. You came as hard as I did. How was I supposed to know you'd be horrified when the blood made its way back to your brain?"

"Oh my God." Caleb shook his head, his eyes full of disbelief. "That's what you thought, all this time?"

"No, it's what I knew. I saw it all over your face, Caleb."

"You saw confusion, shock, and a whole lot of panic. But not because I was horrified." He brought a hand up to rub it over his face. "I was reeling that night, Travis, my mind in complete chaos, but instead of giving me five fucking minutes to work through it, you decided how I felt for me. Unbelievable."He turned his back on me and walked across the living room

Wait. Did I get this all wrong?

"Can you even begin to imagine how I felt when you finally decided to come back?" he continued. "Days later, no calls, no messages, and all of a sudden you hated my guts, didn't want anything to do with me. Iced me out completely like I'd done something wrong, and fuck, I thought I did." He gripped the back of his neck and wheeled back around to face me. "I felt humiliated. I thought you and all your friends were laughing at getting the straight guy to give in. Like I was some prank. Kinda like?—"

"JT," I finished, oddly unsettled at the similarity. "You were never a prank, I swear. I would never do that to you."

"Well, I thought you did. And all of that I could handle, but…why did you cut me off like that?"

"Because it was easier to ignore you than it was to look at you every day." I sighed and pushed away from the island. "I'd wanted you for so fucking long. I could barely look at you without wondering what it'd be like to kiss you. Touch you. And then it happened and…" My voice cracked. "I'll never forget the way you looked at me. Like I was the biggest mistake you ever made."

"No. That's not what I was thinking at all."

"That's what I saw. So yeah, I ignored you. I put a wall up. You rejected me, and the only way I knew how to deal with that was by rejecting you right back."

Caleb stared at me for a long time before shaking his head slowly. "I wouldn't have rejected you, Travis. I thought you knew me better than that."

I thought I had too. But the agony I felt over his quick dismissal had been more than I was able to handle. All I could think was that I'd fucked up and ruined everything because I wanted to kiss him more than I wanted to keep the status quo. Self-preservation kicked in. I couldn't let him hurt me any more than I already was.

Maybe if he hadn't disappeared so fast… Maybe if I hadn't freaked the fuck out too…

All the maybes in the world, but that didn't go back in time and fix anything.

A stab of regret through my chest had me rubbing my hand over it. "So what you're saying is we were a pair of idiot teenagers?"

He arched a brow. "Were? Because you seem ready to throw down with me right now."

My gaze dropped to the towel at his waist that had steadily gotten a little looser. "You have no idea how much I'd like to throw you down. On the couch. On your bed. On a rug…"

Caleb gnawed on his lower lip. "So, um, where does that leave us?"

I slowly walked across the living room. "Where do you want it to leave us?"

"I… I don't have an answer for that right now."

That was fair. A lot had just been said, and I didn't have too many answers myself.

"I still want you. Just so we're clear."

Caleb's lips crooked as I came to a stop in front of him. "I think you made that obvious the other night."

"Did I?"

"Yep. Right around the moment you said you wanted to fuck my mouth."

It wasn't often someone could shock me, but Caleb cut me to the core with that one.

"Sorry, was I too obvious? Because if I wasn't, you should also know"—I leaned forward to whisper in his ear—"I want you to fuck mine too."

Caleb leaned back to look me in the eye. "Right now?"

"Can you think of a better way for me to ask for your forgiveness?" Caleb's eyes fell to my mouth, and I added, "Please?"

He hesitated for a moment, and then, with a flick of his wrist, he dropped his towel.