“Did I hurt you?” Cal tugged up his jeans and sprawled beside me. I remained belly down on the quilt, a damp patch beneath me. I hadn’t expected to come—not from that—but the fear, the pressure of his penis filling me, and the friction of mine against the quilt had accomplished it. Cal had come a heartbeat later, inside of me.
I pushed sweaty hair from my eyes and gazed tranquilly at his bicep. I had no wish to move for the foreseeable future.
“Michael?” Concern laced his voice.
“I’m fine. I’m good.”
“Did it hurt?” He ran a hand down my spine.
I had to think about the question for a moment. “A little,” I said. “But I liked it. I didn’t really try to relax.”
“I noticed.” He eased me onto my side and spotted my mess. A bewildered look crossed his face, and then he smirked. “Would a steady breeze get you off?”
I laughed fitfully. “It was ... the quilt.”
“Oh, it was the quilt?” He laughed, too, the corners of his eyes creasing. Satisfaction looked good on his face. “Impressive quilt.”
“Seriously, you should get one.” I strained across his chest to retrieve an ashtray, lighter, and joint from the bedside table. I had rolled the joint earlier that morning, with this specific scene in mind.
He raised an eyebrow and folded an arm behind his head. “You got me drunk and seduced me, and now you’re trying to get me high?”
“No pressure.” I wadded a pillow behind my head and lit the joint. “And let’s be real; you didn’t even finish your first drink. I got myself drunk.”
“True.” He took the joint off my hands as soon as it was burning. “You did seduce me, though.” He took two hits before passing it back.
I smoked and let my thoughts wander. They traveled to the party at my house, now Nicole’s house. “Seeing you smoking with Kristin,” I said, “that drove me crazy.”
“I was thinking about that, too. I almost never smoke. You’re a bad influence.”
“Why did you let her kiss you?”
He fanned his fingers through the cloud hanging over us. “I don’t know. It didn’t mean anything. Being around you was difficult, so I went off with her.”
“It was weird, when she was kissing you ... I got mad ... but I think I got kind of turned on.” I passed the joint.
“I was trying not to think about you. When you came out on the deck”—he went silent briefly, holding a hit—“I saw you looking at me, I thought about your mouth on my neck. That was a problem. Yeah.” He chuckled and closed his eyes. “Michael ... when you moved out of your house, I thought about offering my place. Doesn’t work, though. You know, my sister ... she likes to surprise me.”
“Oh, right.” Maybe it was the smoke, but Cal’s confession stunned me. He had considered allowing me to live with him? “Damn.”
“My family, they can never know. They would ... what is it Amish people do? Exile? Shun? Shun me.”
“For real?”
“Yes, really. I was going to get you an apartment near me. That was my next idea. But I knew you wouldn’t accept it.”
“Yeah. No.” I exhaled a big hit. “Wow, though.”
“You fucking lightweight.” Cal laughed helplessly as he slid the joint from my fingers. “If you could hear yourself.”
I had to concentrate to remember what I had been saying: Mostly generic, monosyllabic words. I laughed with him. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s ... don’t apologize. I’m pretty high, too.” He leaned over and kissed my mouth. The joint ended up in the ashtray. I kissed him slowly, my hands in his hair.
“You would live with me? Because I look like Jamie?”
“Jamie is dead.” He spoke across my lips.
“What happened?” I released him and he sank onto his back beside me.
“I got Coral pregnant. We got married. I was writing, publishing.” The telling of the story was staccato, Cal’s voice empty. “Jamie looked me up. I hadn’t heard from him for years. Nine years. He was grown up.”
“He just showed up?”
“No, no. He e-mailed. He was ... in advertising. He had some artistic ambition. I guess life crushed that out of him.” He draped an arm across his eyes. “He wanted to meet up. We did, for lunch. He was happy for me. Even about my marriage, my son.”
“Was he married?”
“No. He was single. We acted like nothing had happened. We didn’t talk about that stuff. It upset me. We weren’t like that before. We talked about everything before. I went home ... got drunk, called him. I was angry. Turns out, so was he. Angry at me for moving on. I hadn’t, though. I loved him.”
Cal re-lit the joint and dragged on it deeply.
“We started up again. It was all right there. He worked in Baltimore ... he would drive down. Hotels.” He gestured. “I hated that. The hotels. So he got an apartment in Virginia. I told Coral everything short of the truth—that he was a Christian, that we’d been best friends. I said he commuted for work, like he worked in Virginia sometimes. We started building a car. It was an excuse to be spending so many weekends together. With Coral, after a while, I couldn’t do things anymore.”
“What do you mean?” I laid my cheek on the pillow and watched his profile. He looked dead. If he had closed his eyes, it would have frightened me.
“I couldn’t perform. With her. I went to the doctor, to make it seem real. It was humiliating.” The joint hissed. “Anyway, she wasn’t stupid. She got suspicious and hired a PI. She confronted me with it ... pictures, really graphic pictures. She wanted a divorce. She threatened to show my family, his family.” He shook a hand through his hair. He had turned slightly yellow, like he was going to be sick.
“Do you need anything?”
“Water, I think.”
I launched out of bed, dressed halfway, and brought him a cold bottle of water. He didn’t thank me or even look at me, but he drank the whole bottle.
We sat on the edge of the bed, not quite side by side.
“Jamie ... our families were the same. And we loved our families. But ... Coral wanted full custody. How could I agree to that?” He gazed at the floor. “Jamie didn’t want us to stop. He said his family couldn’t know. I told him both of those things had to happen, because of my son, to have my son in my life. He went back to Baltimore and hung himself. In his closet. Nobody knew for a while. He lived alone, so.”
I lowered my head. “Cal—”
“No. Don’t say sorry to me. If I had left him alone in the first place, it would never have happened. And if I hadn’t cheated on my wife. When she found out, that was all she needed. She wanted full custody, she wanted me to stop publishing, or she would tell his parents and brothers why he’d killed himself. How it was my fault. My part in it.
“We would have gone to court. She made a good point. She said I had ruined her life, so she ruined mine.” He looked at me. “I hate that he had to be alone. He had to do it alone. Then he was hanging there by himself for so many days.”
I felt sick to my stomach, but it was Cal who excused himself, turned into the bathroom, and vomited.