Page 44 of The Deviation
Lowering the glass with a hum of pleasure, he meets my gaze. His tongue sneaks out to lick the tea from his lips, his teeth bite down on his bottom lip before it springs free. He’s still staring at me when he takes a deep breath and another, quieter, hum slips out of him.
“Huh.” The soft noise from the other side of the table snaps me back to the present, where Toni is still in the room with us.
I sit up straighter, sneaking a glance at Toni, whose gaze darts back and forth between me and the man at my side. “I didn’t realise how much you like tea, Johnny,” he says in a deceptively innocent tone. “I thought you more of a coffee man.”
With a shrug, Johnny steps away from me. “Coffee is my go-to, but tea is good.” He tips the glass back and finishes the last swallow. “Damn, I was thirsty.”
“Apparently so,” Toni says, before turning those blue eyes on me. “You should have some too, Calum. You’re looking rather thirsty yourself.”
My mouth opens, but I have no idea what to say.
“I should get back,” Johnny mutters, placing the glass on the table before rushing out the same way he came in.
Barely breathing, I turn back to Toni, whose wide gaze is still locked on me.
I stare back. Struck dumb by the raging hard-on I’m sporting beneath the table.
Toni bats his long lashes. “I saw nothing. I know nothing. I will say nothing.”
My eyes narrow. “There is nothing to know.”
“Exactly.” He gives me a slow nod, even as his lips roll inward, as if the secret he’s stumbled upon is already trying to squirm its way out.
Charmaine chooses that moment to return, holding a thick black folder in her hand. “Where’s Johnny?” she asks, looking around.
“I think he’s going to grab the folder later,” Toni tells her, before lifting his glass. “I’ll have more tea if you don’t mind.” The corners of his mouth tick up in a secretive smile. “I’m suddenly feeling a little parched.”
* * *
JOHNNY
This is not the way things were supposed to go. It’s been five months, and I’msupposedto be over this bullshit. Calum and I weren’t even together that long, or that much. I counted once. In the middle of a restless night, desperate to convince myself this obsession with him is crazy, I counted up every hour we spent in each other’s company, including the time we spent asleep in my bed. It was less than 24 hours. Not nearly long enough to justify this gnawing ache I have toget closer.
Life has become a never-ending tug of war. My body pulls towards him… endlessly. My brain recites the reasons why I have to hold back. I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want him to regret the night we met. When he kissed me under the midnight sky.
All this longing inside me… it has to go somewhere. I tried to tamp it down, ignore it, deny it. Nothing worked. Until I allowed it to bleed into my music. The relief was raw, but immediate. It’s a way for me to reach out to him without hurting anyone. Give ofmyself without indulging my selfish ways. It’s led me to depths of creativity I didn’t know I possessed.
My normie hours are still spent at the pharmacy, of course. I still have lunch with my parents every second Sunday. But the remainder of my time is devoted to the music.
Ned meets me in that creative space, every time. Whatever he and Toni have going, it’s given my friend his confidence back. The rock star in the making I knew in high school is finally off his leash, and he’s blossoming into a man who is so fundamentally…himself. I’d be envious if I weren’t so damned happy for him.
The joy in his wildness clashes with my frustrated hunger every time we write together. It’s demanding work, somehow exhausting and effortless at the same time. Some of our sessions are disjointed and messy, dismissed as worthy of a dumpster fire. Other times, a turn of phrase clicks with some twist in a melody, and suddenly we’re erupting in goosebumps, or fighting tears, or just grinning at each other like a couple of lunatics. This is what I’ve always dreamed of. The freedom to spend hour after hour chasing that madness, finding its echo in my strings, and playing it back to the world.
Calum has given this to me. He’s made the dream real in a way I struggled to do for years. We’re playing more shows than ever, gaining traction, and our new single launched like a rocket, both on the streaming services and off. After all these years of slog, we’re finally being played on goddamned national radio.
Which is why I can’t screw this up. I have to keep us safe from all the ways I would ruin it for the both of us. The occasional stolen moments we now take—in backstage shadows, and car parks—have to be enough. A minute here, a minute there. Never touching. Sometimes barely talking. They’re all I can have.
I know I should look for someone else, another body to pour my frustrations into. Plenty of offers have come my way, from women and the occasional man. I’ve turned down every one. Thethought of touching anyone who isn’t Cal, allowing them to put their hands on me in return… it leaves me cold.
What does it say about me, that I’d rather go to bed alone every night and ache for the one man I can’t have, then experience something real with anyone else?
* * *
CALUM
I shouldn’t be watching him like this.
I mean, I have tobe here. As Fifth Circle’s manager, showing up at the studio on the first day of recording for their full-length album is part of the job. But the staring—let’s call it what it is, I’m ogling him—is unfair.