Page 113 of Should the Sky Fall

A thought-annihilating high-pitched noise jerks Dawson awake, his heart pounding. He lifts his eyes to the ceiling, seeing the smoke alarm flashing red. What on earth? They test the alarm the first Thursday of each month. Today is Wednesday, and—Dawson checks his phone—it’s way too early anyway. Which means…

The smell of burned toast reaches his nose, and he kicks the duvet off. “Shit!” He flings the door open, the burned scent intensifying. “Cal? Cal!”

He finds Cal—unsurprisingly—in the kitchen, standing on a chair and ruthlessly waving a chopping board in front of the smoke detector.

He looks at Dawson, panic flashing across his face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

Dawson relaxes when there’s no actual fire in sight. The beeping of the alarm becomes irregular, signaling it will turn off soon.

“It’s fine. See? It’s already stopping.” He goes to open the windows while Cal continues waving the chopping board. They always keep the windows open a crack to let fresh air in, but the burned smell makes Dawson’s eyes sting. Talk about a brutal wake-up call.

The alarm finally stops, and Cal steps off the chair with a relieved sigh and a guilty expression.

“Are you cooking?” Dawson asks with amusement.

Cal’s shoulders slump. “I wanted to surprise you. I watched you make pancakes last time and thought I could replicate the recipe. But they were cooking too quickly, and I couldn’t get them off, and then the smoke started coming from them—”

“Hey, hey. It’s fine, Cal, really,” Dawson reassures him before Cal starts hyperventilating. “No harm done. You have no idea how many things I’ve burned over the years. It’s a learning curve.” His mind is still stuck on‘I wanted to surprise you’.Harsh wake-up call or not, that’s unfairly sweet.

“I just wanted to do something nice for you,” Cal murmurs, dejected. “You do everything and I…I wanted to be useful. But I screwed up like I did with the laundry.”

Dawson’s insides go all gooey.

He’s not used to this, to people giving a shit, let alone doing something for him. He’s always done everything by himself. Losing his parents meant he had to pull his weight. Olivia was working herself into an early grave juggling multiple jobs and her studies. And Dawson was old enough to take care of himself. There was no room for being coddled.

He was already stunned when Ellis didn’t miss a beat and offered to take care of the legal stuff—but Dawson could at least contribute that to the fact that Ellis is Cal’s brother and Cal getting in trouble could lead to the company being in trouble.

But Cal making breakfast for Dawson justbecause… Yeah, he has no idea how to process that.

Cal’s expression is crestfallen, and fuck, Dawson hates seeing him like this. He notices Cal managed to get some of the batter on his face—and his t-shirt. He looks so…normal, so human. His hair is still bed-tousled, and he’s wearing the flannel pants he slept in and—

“What?” Cal asks. It occurs to Dawson he must be staring.

He clears his throat. “You have a smudge on your cheek.”

“Oh.” Cal runs the back of his hand over the wrong cheek. “Did I get it?”

Dawson chuckles. “Let me…” The batter has already started to dry, so he wets the corner of a tea towel under the tap, steps into Cal’s space, and runs the fabric over his cheek.

Cal holds still like a statue—and not just with his body. He seems to be suspending his breath, his gaze fixed on Dawson’s face. They’re close enough that Dawson can smell his breath, fresh and minty, and feel the heat radiating from his skin.

Later, Dawson will blame this on his brain not being properly awake and on Cal being unreasonably sweet and endearing, but somehow, he ends up pressed up against him, chest to chest, and their lips connected.

It’s a simple kiss, almost innocent, close-mouthed and so light it might as well not be there at all. But it’s there. Dawson knows because he feels it all the way to the tips of his fingers.

Then Cal makes the softest sound, like a whimper but not quite, and it’s enough to snap Dawson back to reality.

He falls back on his feet from where he’s been rising on his tiptoes, his eyes as wide as Cal’s, expression just as surprised. God, what’s gotten into him?

“Thank you,” he croaks out when the silence becomes too long, too heavy. “For wanting to make me breakfast.”

Cal’s tongue darts out, almost as if he’s trying to taste Dawson on his lips. He lets out a breath. “But I screwed up.”

“Let’s see if it’s salvageable.”

Hesitant, Cal pushes the mixing bowl with the batter towards him.

Dawson scoops some with a ladle and lets it pour back into the bowl. “Well, it’s a tad runnier than it should be, that’s why you couldn’t get it off the pan. The consistency should be like… Pass me the flour?”