Callum

 

It was like living with a sullen teenager.

For nearly a week now, Gray had been avoiding me. And even though I knew I should be the bigger man and confront him, I avoided him right back. For the first time since I started my touring company two years ago, I actively went out and pounded the slushy pavement for business, snagging startled looking Christmas-tourists and practically bullying them into letting me show them the sights. For three days after the debacle at the Falls, I was out in the elements, freezing my fucking face off on my snowmobile or gimping along on snowshoes, just to avoid the asshole living in my house.

Did I think about kicking him out? Yes. Morbidly. Almost obsessively. As I paced the main drag of town, I played the conversation over and over in my head, and how fucking satisfying was it to imagine getting right in his face and letting him have it.

But what was it...really? Yeah, he'd embarrassed me a bit in front of my tour, but I was actually more pissed with Marie-the-pink-lady, who'd demanded a full refund once we got back to the vehicle, citing her emotional devastation over her husband's manhood being openly mocked. I noted grimly that her husband had nothing to say about the situation, but ended up just saying fuck it.  Rather then try to explain that my best friend was kind of an asshole, I just gave in and let her have the tour for free. It wasn't like I'd done a good job at it anyway.

No, it wasn't that he'd shot his mouth off that had me so furious. That was just Gray being Gray, his usual unfiltered bravado that was alternately amusing and irritating. No, it was something else.

He owed me an apology, there was no getting around that, but for what I couldn't really articulate. I was just pissed at him for...existing, at this point and we probably could use a really good dust-up to clear the air, but he seemed content to stay in his room, with the door shut, only emerging when he heard me open the door to my bedroom. I actually timed it yesterday, shutting the door without going inside. He'd emerged, then stood stock still in his doorway to see me standing there staring at him, and at that moment I thought we were finally going to have it out. But instead he turned and headed right back in again.

But tonight, there was no getting around it. Ma McCabe was in hyper-hostess mode, throwing yet another one of her famous parties that I swore were the only thing that kept this town from dying of boredom in the winter months. Even though the woman was celebrating her anniversary tomorrow, that wasn't enough, and she'd still insisted on having her yearly New Year's Eve celebration, and that meant Gray and I were both coming, no getting around it.

So now we were both getting ready to go to the same party, and that necessitated a lot of jockeying for bathroom space and checking the laundry to make sure that pants had no wrinkles in them. We danced around each other, all twitchy like a couple of scalded cats, until I finally couldn't take it anymore and went to the kitchen to grab a beer.

Only to see the fucking milk carton sitting out on the counter.

"Motherfucker, are you serious?" I exploded, slamming open the fridge door. The whole refrigerator rocked dangerously to the side, sending the glass condiment jars jingling.

Gray appeared in the doorway, wary, his fists clenched, but didn't say a word, which only pissed me off further. "You serious with this shit? Look, watch me, it's not hard. You close the fucking milk carton and then look, look, are you watching? This is the complicated part. You put it back in the motherfucking refrigerator!"

The corner of Gray's mouth twitched up in a snarl for just a moment before it relaxed into a cocky grin I immediately wanted to punch off of his face. "You really are an old woman, you know that?"

"You really are an asshole, you know that?" I shot back.

Gray stared at me like he was shocked by this, and we both kind of stood there for a second.

"What the hell's going on?" I sighed.

Gray shrugged and looked away. "What, you want to talk about your feelings or something? You really are an old woman."

"Fine," I said, slamming the refrigerator door shut. "Fuck you then."

Silence reigned for a second and I started heading back to my bedroom to grab my shirt, half a second away from kicking him bodily out of my house.

Gray was still standing there when I reemerged to find my tie. So apparently the motherfucker did want to talk about feelings like an old woman, which was fucking good because I couldn't stand this silence anymore. "You're in love with Harper, aren't you?" I blurted. It wasn't a fucking question.

Gray looked up, startled, then down at his hands, then back up again, his mouth twisting. He opened it like he was about to say something, then snapped it shut, with tension written all over his face. I felt the breath slowly leaving my body. There it was, out in the open. It was written all over his face. I sagged against my doorframe and was just starting to nod when suddenly Gray burst out, "I'm not going to fuck it up for you," he blurted.

"What?" I asked.

Gray stepped forward, spreading his hands, in an entreaty for peace. "You've been in love with her forever," he said, gesturing toward me.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Yeah, but I don't want you backing off for me." I stood up straighter and narrowed my eyes, suddenly sure of it. "I can get her on my own."

It was the truth. I'd been holding back all this while for his sake, while the dipshit had been holding off for mine. It was like that stupid short story they made us read in sophomore year of high school, where the guy buys combs for his wife's hair with money he gets from selling his pocket watch, only to come home and find out she sold her hair to buy him a chain for his watch and the whole thing could have been fucking avoided if the two of them had just communicated like fucking adults. We'd been pussyfooting around each other, treating each other with kid gloves.

But now the gloves were off.

Gray stopped moving towards me and stood up straight. The cocky bullshit smile returned to his face, but for some reason this time it didn't make me feel like decking him.

It made me grin back.

"Oh, you think you can get her, do you?" Gray asked skeptically.

I nodded. "I know so."

He grinned wider. "With what? Your tiny dick and fussy old lady ways?"

I wrinkled my nose. "No. I plan on charming her with my supernatural ability to close a fucking milk carton."

Gray folded his arms across his chest and stared at me, and I saw something in his eyes that hadn't been there before. A certain fire. "It's up to her then, huh?"

I nodded slowly. "It's up to her then," I said. Then I extended my hand. "May the best man win."

Gray clasped my hand and grinned. "Thank you," he said, pumping it up and down.

"No, thank you," I declared. And as I shook his hand, I felt some of the tension in the house release. It was up to her.

And tonight I was going to make sure the best man won.