Page 24 of Should Our Hearts Catch Fire

Cal contemplates it for a second. “All good.”

“I’m happy to hear that.” His lips pull into a small smile, but it leaves quickly. “What do you need from me? Came to rip me a new one?”

Cal shakes his head. “I need to talk to someone who knew me before. To…understand why I did what I did. What kind of person I was.”

Ellis really, really doesn’t like that idea. But the way Cal is looking at him is trusting. Hopeful. He can’t really blow him off now, he owes him that much.

“My lunch break isn’t long enough for that but…sure. I can do that.” He gives Cal a stern look. “If you promise me not to beat yourself up about what you learn.”

Cal’s features twist into something pained. He must have already guessed that whatever Ellis is about to tell him won’t be pleasant. “I’ll do my best. I promised Dawson.”

“Good.” Heat crawling up his neck, Ellis nods towards Cal's phone. “I’ll probably regret asking this, but what’s with the porn?”

Cal heaves a sigh. “Yesterday was amazing. I’m just not sure I did it right.”

Ellis holds back a snort. “It’s pretty easy to tell if you did it right or not.”

Cal’s lips purse in thought. He blinks up at Ellis, his expression lighting up with hope. “Could you teach me?”

Ellis frowns. “Teach you what?”

“How to have sex.”

Ellis staggers back. Surely, he must have misheard. He takes in Cal’s earnest expression, the absolute cluelessness of it. He closes his eyes, pulling a deep breath in. “There’s so much wrong with that sentence, especially when spoken to your brother.”

“But—”

“Let me make it clear that we each play for a different team,” he cuts in. “I sleep with women.” Something inside him reacts to that claim, like a nudge in his mind, trying to alert him to something. He brushes it off, too busy to investigate every single weird feeling that rises inside him. “Dawson very much isn’t a woman.”

Unfortunately, Cal keeps talking. “But the principle is the same. You still need to—”

“No.Hellno!” Ellis steps back until he’s pressed against the door. “I’m not talking to you about gay sex.” No hate, he just doesn’t want to think of sex and his brother at the same time.

“But—”

Out of desperation, Ellis covers his ears, screaming. “Lalala, I can’t hear you!” God, he hopes no one is currently in the hallway to hear this shit. He’d never live it down. He’d have to resign.

Cal isn’t impressed. He looks at Ellis in disappointment, honest to god pouting.

Slowly, Ellis drops his hands to his sides, ready to clamp them over his ears again if Cal so much as hints at anything remotely sexual.

He clears his throat. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll take my car and go get lunch, and I’ll tell you what you want to know. About you and our family,” he adds, in case Cal gets any stupid ideas. “And we never, ever talk about what just happened here. Understood?”

Cal has the audacity to roll his eyes, as if Ellis is being unreasonable. “Fine. Where are we going?”

Ellis regards him suspiciously, then says, “I’m craving Indian. You okay with that?”

Cal shrugs. “Sure.”

The ride to the restaurant is tense and awkward, and it continues even when they sit at a table and order their food. Figuring it’s better to get it over with, Ellis bites. “Okay. What do you want to know?”

Cal’s face darkens, his fingers curling into his palms. “Did I… Was I always like that?”

Ellis doesn’t need him to clarify.Was I always an abusive drunk?

“I don’t know how to answer that, Cal,” he says apologetically. “I had no idea about the drinking or about…Dawson. Not untilI came here and he told me.” He drums his fingers on the table, wondering what to say. “I can’t tell you when it all started because I wasn’t there. You and I, we aren’t close.”

Cal’s expression turns into something resembling regret. “Because of me?”