One Door Closes (11 page)

She tilted her head in question.

“I was going through some major stuff. Unrelated.”

“Oh.”

“And since then, I just haven’t found someone I felt sure enough about.” He was treading choppy ground here. He hadn’t found the
self
he was sure about, more like.

“Does it scare you, too?”

He thought about that. “No, it’s not really fear anymore.” Not about the sex itself, at any rate. “Just, a step I don’t want to take lightly. I don’t think it should be taken lightly.”

“At least you know it’s going to be with a guy. I don’t even know what I’m going to end up with.”

“I didn’t always know.” Calvin glanced her way. “And I didn’t always know what to do either. A lot of things, I still don’t know.”

Her gaze dropped to the road in front of them. “I feel like I should know what to do. I need to be ready, for whatever.”

“I don’t know if you ever will be, until it happens. But it isn’t going to automatically be bad. Or scary. I really do believe that.” He’d familiarized himself with his own body enough to believe it, to know what got him off and what he preferred, as far as he could take things on his own. An almost clinical experimentation at times. He’d read about it. But he wasn’t about to tell her any of that. That was definitely stepping over a boundary. “But do you really believe that all of your classmates—the kids in group—that they’re all so experienced?”

She frowned, defensive, then huffed a laugh. “Not really. Some of them I know aren’t getting around like that.”

“Such as?”

“Well, none of them
told
me. Jeez. But I just think, well, Annie. Probably. And Tag, definitely Tag.”

“I don’t know Tag very well. He never says much.”

The way she looked at him then, the snort, was a little condescending.

“What?”

“Dude.” Her scoff took them back to their usual ease. “Tag
likes
you. He has the biggest thing for you, how have you not noticed?”

As if his life weren’t complicated enough by people his own age. “I honestly don’t know what to do with that.”

She peered at him from under the edge of her hat. “There someone you’re interested in?”

Hell, what was it with kids and that eruption of awareness out of time? Calvin cleared his throat. “It wouldn’t matter anyway. Not sure he’d be interested in me right now.”

And there was the real fear, that Will would figure out Calvin’s lack of experience and hit his open, understanding limit. Calvin was pretty sure that whatever had gone down between the two of them, Will hadn’t held himself back in college, not when he had always been naturally friendly. Inquisitive and attractive and approachable.

Was that appropriate to talk about with her? Likely not, but he was so out of his comfort zone already, he was having trouble discerning all but its most blatant edges.

“Well, then, he’s not good enough,” she grumbled.

Calvin smiled, not feeling an ounce of humor or happiness in it. “No. He is.” He always had been, and Calvin’d had no idea, being a naïve kid. The timing hadn’t been right, though, and neither had their attitudes. The panic he hadn’t been able to see past. Most of all, the patience. That loss, that failure to find their way together, saddened him to his core and would never, he suspected, fully relent.

Something to carry through the years. Now that the actual fear was gone, something to learn from. He was desperate to make that last part the truth, because if it didn’t serve some purpose, the devastation was twofold.

But Glenna was shaking her head. “No. He’s stupid if he doesn’t like you.”

So tempting to argue against that curious sense of black and white. He could remember the taste of it like fresh ginger burning over his lips, a world
needing
to know his opinion no matter what anyone else thought. But these days that drive was almost foreign, behind glass where he couldn’t touch it. He found himself smiling at her and was glad she didn’t see it.

“Look,” he said instead, “you don’t have to decide now. Not what you want to be, and not who you want to be with either. Don’t force any of it. There’s no box to check off. I know it feels like there’s this push to have everything worked out, but I think that just causes more problems. Trying to be what you think other people expect.”

She looked at him sharply. “What they
do
expect.”

“You sure about that?”

She opened her mouth, then shut it. Stared ahead with a furrow in her brow. “They say they expect it.”

“They say what they’re expected to say, too.”

Her frown grew deeper. He’d think the expression even more troubled, except something about the scrunch of her lips belayed that.

But. It was easy to say these things. It was even easy to believe them, when helping others. Much harder to apply them to one’s own situation. Calvin still had work of his own to do.

“Yeah, well, they make it so hard.” Glenna’s old fire was coming back, and he sensed the entry onto more familiar ground. “It’s all this extra crap, and they’re all throwing it on me, and they should just shut up.”

“What other stuff is going on?”

“School sucks. I flunked a quiz in math.”

“Is it a lot of your grade?”

“No, but I don’t really get it and finals are going to blow, and I don’t have time for this.”

He grinned outright, but it faded fast. As they neared the house and all its lights in the gloom, the pit in his belly reopened, as shadowed as the oncoming night. “Trust me, I get that, too.”

He was about to say more when the roar of a motor cut through his words. He pulled Glenna closer to the fence, into the light beyond the last of the trees, but the bike was coming down the drive away from the house rather than up the street behind them. Devon rolled to a stop just outside the gate. He pulled off his helmet and cradled it under one arm.

Leaving, again.

“Everything all right?” Devon’s question shouldn’t have been audible over the bike, but somehow it carried.

Glenna didn’t say anything, and Calvin grasped after the simplicity that had fled. “We’re good?”

Her eyes strayed to Devon. “We’re good.”

Calvin turned back to his brother. “Just needed to talk. I’m going to call her parents to pick her up.”

Devon put on the helmet again, but left the face shield up. “I’ll be back pretty late tonight.”

“Again?”

Devon paused. “I’ll try not to wake anyone.”

Calvin didn’t answer. Devon studied him, opened his mouth, then glanced at Glenna again. He pulled the face shield down and eased around them until he was in the street. The motor revved and he headed off into the darkness.

* * *

It was definitely late when Devon got back. Calvin sat in the dining room, listening to the kitchen clock tick. Danny was upstairs, but he’d turned off his music some time ago. Calvin wasn’t sure if he was awake or not.

He heard the rumble whole blocks away, growing louder. When it turned down their street, Calvin stood up. His fingers hurt from how hard he squeezed the handle of his mug, so he took it to the sink. Probably better if he wasn’t holding anything when Devon walked in. He might actually throw it.

The front door opened with its attendant squeal, and still Calvin stood there. The sense of power was addictive, knowing that Devon was there, and that Devon was unaware of his presence. Like seeing the future.

“Why do you even bother?” he called.

Devon’s tread silenced just outside the doorway, then backtracked. Facing away from the door, Calvin picked out the instant that Devon crossed the threshold by the deepening creak. Older wood underfoot.

The stillness resonated.

“I’m sorry?” Devon’s voice came low, very calm.

Calvin waved at the windows, the yard and everything beyond it. When he finally faced Devon, it felt fantastic to be on the higher ground, with the other man lacking explanation. “I want to know why you bother coming back.”

He could
see
Devon fighting the knowledge of what Calvin was talking about. Such a strange thing, and fascinating. Devon was actively choosing not to understand, perhaps hoping Calvin meant something else. Sure enough—

“I live here.”

“Do you?”

And then it was just as fascinating to watch Devon drop all the layers and grab onto the real problem. The way his frame stiffened made him look even taller, but Calvin didn’t suffer the unease he’d expected. He felt outside the argument, watching something inevitable occur after years of anticipation. There wasn’t anything Devon could say that would derail this, not tonight.

“Maybe you should explain this issue you have with me,” Devon ground out. “Save us both some time.”

“I don’t want you here,” Calvin said, and watched as Devon blinked.

And recovered. “Well, that’s not really your choice.”

“No, it was hers, and I can’t believe she made it. Maybe she was suffering from dementia, too, though—” it hurt, even as he uttered those words, but they were out, gone, “—and didn’t know what the hell she was doing.”

Devon stared as though he didn’t recognize him. Good. Calvin felt unrecognizable tonight. “Wait just a damn minute.”

“Oh.” Calvin spread his arms. “It’s not okay for me to insult her, but you can? All right. Good to know the rules.”

Devon gaped. “I never insulted her.”

“You insulted her every day.” He knew he was getting louder, but it felt amazing to actually voice the words he’d muttered to himself for years, to cleanse this one wound at least. The memory of arguing with Will too, of yanking even further apart over Devon, just made everything rawer and more awful. “Every fucking day, you hurt her. She should never have given you a share in this place. What was the point when you obviously don’t want to have anything to do with it?”

Devon crossed the room with quick strides, bringing him right up to the edge of the table. “I have pulled my weight since the second I got here. You asked for money? I gave it to you on time. You had ideas about fixing the place up? I stayed out of your way. I cosigned for a loan, I’m still trying to talk to the council members, I offered to pay the bills directly, just like you asked, and you turned me down. What the hell else do you think I’m not doing?”

“Committing!” Calvin snapped. “You have no idea how to commit to this place, and no intention of doing it. You never did.”

A creak in the hall turned both their heads. Danny stood in the doorway, looking utterly awake in spite of his boxers and loose T-shirt. His eyes tracked the scene, narrowed and irritable. Tension hung on his frame, wires ready to snap him into motion.

Devon’s face flushed, but he wheeled back on Calvin, clearly not one to be put down. “You need to be clearer about what you want, then, because I can’t read your fucking mind. Maybe if you told me what you need from me for once—”

“You have to wait for everyone to tell you what they need from you? Well, that makes perfect sense. More of the same, Devon. You’re so locked into your own groove that you don’t even notice when other people need you. It doesn’t even occur to you that you have an effect on other lives, does it?”

“You are asking for a damn miracle if you think I will just magically know what you want and respond to it. Is this how
you
relate to people? Because I’ve seen some signs, but I didn’t honestly think you were that blinkered.”

Calvin colored, stung. He looked around the dining room, unable to ward off the damage of that truth. He could easily start to hate this room. All their fights happened here, all the negative energy collected between these four walls. “Yeah, I’m making an effort to change. Which is more than I can say for you. You’re exactly the same as you were.”

Devon’s eyes pinched at the corners. He looked to Danny, but to Calvin’s surprise, Danny just lifted his shoulders, eyebrows high. Calvin caught his eye and saw something he definitely recognized there: a kid perceptive enough to watch their foster mother mourn.

“You think this, too?” Devon asked, and Danny frowned outright.

“A little bit, yeah.”

Devon’s expression went almost hostile. He opened his mouth, but Calvin was done with walls that should have come down a long time ago. Maybe he could have saved Audrey some pain. “Don’t.”

Devon looked his way again, eyebrows raised, and Calvin stared right back.

“Don’t promise us shit you still won’t follow through on.”

“Excuse me?”

“Do not,” Calvin enunciated, “promise us shit that you won’t follow through on. Just save it.”

The way Devon reeled himself in was admirable. “What exactly do you think I was going to promise you?”

“I don’t know that you were going to promise anything, because you don’t make promises. It’s always been everyone else’s mistake, reading it that way.”

“Where do you get off, thinking you know me well enough to say anything like that?”

“Would it really matter if I knew you? Audrey knew you. And it didn’t do her any good.”

Devon turned away with a shake of his head. “She wasn’t—”

“Audrey.” That was Danny. “Audrey wasn’t.”

Calvin shot him a look, but so did Devon, and that...wasn’t anger. That was pain in Devon’s face, old and curdled. Danny’s eyes narrowed.

“
Audrey
did not hold on to anger,” Devon seethed. “If you think she was the kind of person who would carry a grudge for decades, you don’t know her at all.”

Danny folded back, but Calvin wasn’t ready to let a truth like that waylay him. “I know she loved people too much for that. She’s better than I am, because from where I sit? You don’t make it easy to forgive you.”

“For what?”

“You could have sent money,” Calvin fired back. “You could have come back yourself and helped after you left. And you didn’t, you were too deep in your own damn world to bother with the person who cared about you enough to make that world possible.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Devon cried, breaking through his tirade with more emotion than Calvin had ever seen him display. Devon’s eyes flared as they never had, not as a kid, and his face flushed like fire up his jaw from his neck. “I know how I fucked up, thank you very much! I don’t need you to outline how much I owed Audrey and didn’t repay.”