Page 9 of The Deviation
“I’m a Brisbane boy, too. One hundred percent born and bred.” The only time I’d ever considered leaving was when Ned announced he was moving to Sydney after graduating high school to pursue a career as a musician. I’d considered takinga year off uni to go with him. My parents had been horrified I would think of abandoning them. Ellie also made it clear she was staying put, with or without me. The thought of losing my girlfriend and upsetting my parents freaked me out enough I killed the barely expressed idea before it had a chance to take hold. Ned went to Sydney. I stayed home.
“So, we’re both in Brisbane,” Calum murmurs. “Which means seeing each other again just got simple.” An understated smile works its way onto his face. “If that’s something we decide we’re interested in.”
My answering smile is subdued. Despite my fascination with everything Calum, I’m not here looking for a relationship—least of all with a man. I can imagine the reactionthatwould get at home. Besides, the second I confess to being in a band, Calum is going to kick my lying arse to the kerb. Bloody hell, when did my spontaneous decision to find someone to get my rocks off with become so goddamned complicated?
Pushing the mess of thoughts away, I start walking again. “How do you like Brisbane?”
“It’s good,” he says, falling into step beside me. “Calmer than Sydney, more laid back, but the music scene is still rich, you know?”
I nod. “We like to think of ourselves as a major city, but that big country town vibe is hard to shake.”
He chuckles. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
We walk, and we talk. Somewhere in the middle, we snack on warm donuts and hot chocolate from one of the food trucks. It turns out we only live a couple of suburbs apart, which seems nuts. “Still, we had to come all the way to Byron Bay for you to stalk me,” Calum teases.
I laugh, my face warming as I run my hands over it. “Music does have a way of bringing people together.”
We get to comparing our favourite live music venues and from there we’re off again, chasing each other down conversational tangents. When he mentions visiting the music store where I buy most of my gear, I gasp with delight. “God, I love that place. My wife hated it when I went there, I’d get lost for hours.” I glance up, only to realise I’ve lost my walking partner.
I turn around. Calum has stopped a couple of steps behind me. We’re at the perimeter of the festival grounds now and it’s too dark to make out his expression so I move closer, until I’m standing right in front of him. That mouth I want to get to know is pressed into a thin line. “You’re married?”
“Oh, um, not anymore.” Lifting my left hand, I show him my bare ring finger. “Guess I should have led with the worddivorced.”
His shoulders lower and he releases a breath. “That would have been preferable, yes.” There’s a beat of silence and then he cocks his head to one side. “How dry is the ink on your divorce papers?”
“Dry enough the pen we used to sign them would have been tossed into landfill months ago. But this is the first time I’ve…” I wave a hand between the two of us, hoping that explains everything.
His eyes widen and then he gives a slow nod. “A lot of things about you are suddenly making all kinds of sense.”
I aim a dramatic grimace his way. “Ah, you’re talking about my colossal awkwardness. Thanks so much for pointing that out.”
Laughing out loud now, he steps forwards to nudge his shoulder against mine. “I think it’s sweet,” he says before we slip back into a slow stroll across the uneven ground. “You’re bisexual, then? Or maybe bi-curious?” He gasps, dramatically. “Am I an experiment? Because I could definitely be into that.”
“Yes, I am bisexual,” I assure him, “and no, you’re not an experiment. Although, until now I suppose you could say I’ve been a… non-practicing bisexual.”
He turns his head, eyebrows raised. “How does that work?”
“I met my future ex-wife, Ellie, when we were fifteen. We were together until the day she walked out on our marriage so, I never had the opportunity to…”
“Be a practicing bisexual?” he finishes for me.
“Yes.”
“Wow. That sounds…” He shudders faintly. “Not gonna lie, kind of horrifying.”
I laugh, shaking my head. It’s such a relief to talk about it out loud for once, instead of keeping that whole side of myself neatly under wraps. “It wasn’t so bad. I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything. It’s just… I was taken.” Being with Ellie didn’t stop me from being bisexual, but it did ensure my fidelity.
“When did you realise?” he asks.
“I was seventeen when I fell for a guy I met in my university course. It was only a crush, and it didn’t last long, but it was enough.”
“Did Ellie know?”
“Mate, she’s the one who told me,” I admit, slapping a hand over my chest. “I had no fucking clue what was happening until she pointed out the apparently obvious hots I had for the guy. Then I sat there like a stunned mullet going over every interaction with him, before I finally found the balls to nod and say,You know what? I think you might be right.”
Calum throws his head back and laughs uproariously. “How did she react?”
“She pitched a fit, naturally.” It had all seemed so profoundly serious at the time, but talking about it in retrospect I can’t help but grin. “We argued about it at first. She was hurt. I was confused.” Not to mention we’d just started having actual sexa few months earlier. Together, we were a couple of hormone bombs in the depths of our first existential crisis. “It took months for the dust to settle, but we got past it in the end. The crush faded. My love for Ellie was the real deal.”