Page 99 of Worth the Wait

“I called in,” Jack answered, closing the passenger door and jogging around to the driver’s side.

“You aren’t allowed to call in on your first day,” he reminded Jack.

“If they have a problem with it, they can fire me, kitten. Don’t worry about it.” Jack drove them home in another comfortable and less painful silence.

“I like this,” Callum said as Jack pulled into the driveway.

“Like what, kitten?”

“That I can justbewith you.”

Jack put the car in park and unclipped his seatbelt, leaning over the console and kissing Callum. “Let’s get you inside.”

Jack helped him out of the car and got him settled on the couch, plugging his cell phone in and handing off the remote.

“I’m glad we bought all this stuff before,” Callum noted, flicking through the endless channels of nothing to watch.

His phone buzzed as the battery came back to life, a slew of incoming messages and missed calls.

“Fuck,” he breathed out, thumbing through the alerts.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, sitting beside him and placing two glasses of water on the table in front of them.

Callum changed the channel to the local news and angled his entire body in Jack’s direction so he could shoot him a disdainful stare.

“I made the news,” he groused, just as a picture of Rapture lit up the corner of the television.

The assault had made the news, thankfully leaving him and Keith nameless, but identifying the club and labeling the attack as a hate crime.

His phone buzzed again and he answered the call, “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“Was it you?” Samantha’s voice was watery on the other end of the line, then muffled, “He answered, Mark!”

“I’m fine, guys,” he repeated.

“Was it you, Callum?” Samantha pressed.

Callum closed his eyes and sighed. “It was.”

Samantha cried and Mark’s voice filled his ear. “Are you okay? Was it you and your guy?”

“I’mfine,” he stressed. “It was me and a friend.”

“The news said they caught them. Have the cops called you about it? Do you need to, like, go give a statement or whatever?” Mark asked excitedly.

“I talked to someone when I first got to the hospital. I need to go down within the next couple days to give a formal statement,” Callum told him. Jack tensed next to him and rested his hand on Callum’s thigh, drawing a slow circle just above his knee.

That wasn’t something they’d discussed because, to be honest, Callum didn’t want to think about the fact he’d been attacked outside of his workplace. He didn’t want to admit that he didn’t feel safe alone or that the lights of the hospital had become reassuring with their sharp glare.

His hand trembled and Jack took it quickly, the warmth of his grip working to mitigate Callum’s pending anxiety, but not eliminating it. Callum didn’t want to think about that either.

“Can we come by? Can we bring you anything?” Mark asked.

Callum suddenly felt exhausted, his skin and muscles tight and wrong, and too heavy for his bones to carry. His brain, also, too active to sustain him for much longer.

“Yeah, sure, but can you sort it out with Jack?” Callum asked absently, passing the phone to Jack and pushing up from the couch with a groan.

“Hi. Hold on a sec,” Jack said into the phone before dropping it on the couch and coming after Callum who was already halfway out of the room.