Are we bombs now? she asked, and he said very seriously, Yes, I think so. Maybe that’s the price for getting to have something this powerful.
Several long, terrible minutes go by, and then Zac says, choked, “It’s like this fucking hole inside me.” He pounds a fist against his chest, and her own chest aches in echo. She knows that feeling. The hole in her heart is smaller than his, lacking the history that Zac has with Cal, but it’s there all the same. “It hurts. I can’t stop thinking about it. It was enough, before, what I had, but now I don’t have anything, and I can’t stop thinking about...” He trails off, and then he jerks his head up at the sound of a footstep.
“Thinking about what?” Cal asks, from where he’s hovering in the doorway, expression tense, his big body vibrating like a deer on the verge of bolting out of a clearing. His hand is fiddling with his keys, and he gives the room a tentative smile, not really looking at either of them. “I—uh. Sorry. Zac told me I was being stupid not using my key, so... Everything okay?”
For a heartbeat, Anya and Zac only stare at him.
“Fine,” Anya says eventually, and the deep well of relief at the sight of him lasts for about ten seconds before it transforms into anger that he pulled this vanishing act in the first place. But she doesn’t know how to be mad at Cal without making him leave again, and that pisses her off perhaps more than anything else. “We’re fine. He’s being an idiot.”
“Look who’s talking,” Zac mutters.
Cal wavers in the doorway for another few seconds, then takes a deep breath and steps into the kitchen. He puts his keys on the counter and clears his throat. “This smells good. Sorry I’m so late—I was in Anaheim to look at an amp and the traffic coming back was terrible. Thanks, Anya. For inviting me for dinner.”
She didn’t. Zac must’ve, at some point over the last two weeks, and forgotten to mention it. One more thing Zac can’t be bothered to be considerate about. Not that Cal’s being any more considerate. They usually eat at six and it’s after nine. Why has Cal even shown up instead of calling to beg off when he knew he’d be this late? What was he expecting to get besides leftovers and five minutes of conversation before going home?
Unless that’s the whole point. He isn’t intending to stay.
“You’re welcome,” she mumbles. She turns back to the stove and tries to get control of her temper. She really wants to yell, but there are two different fights to be had here, one with Cal for being terrible at communication and one with Zac for being a moody, pouty ass, and Zac’s impromptu confession has vanished into the wind, maybe never to return, and she’s not sure what else to do. The tension is making her teeth clench, and she doesn’t know what to say.
Zac’s staring at the tile beneath his bare feet, so maybe he feels the same.
Cal glances between the two of them. Then he quietly asks, “Should I go?”
“No,” they say in unison, and Cal nods.
There’s another interminable silence. Zac’s shooting these careful, darting glances at Cal, who’s alternating between staring blankly at the floor and staring blankly at the wall, and Anya is dying, she’s maybe actually dying, and so she says, “Look, we’re sorry we tried to fuck you, Cal. You don’t have to avoid us, you really shouldn’t avoid us, because it’s cheap and petty and all you had to do was say no. We’ll never bring it up again. Zac’s been going nuts thinking you’re mad at him, he’s making me insane, and he doesn’t want your dick enough to put either one of you through this, he just wants to play your music and sing your lyrics and feed you my terrible pasta because he loves you enough to make you a best friend necklace—”
“Jesus Christ, woman!” Zac yells, and she finally manages to shut up.
“Cheap and petty,” Cal repeats, his tone hurt.
Zac gives her a dirty look. “Great. Look what you did. You made him sound all—like that.”
“What is he, eight? All we needed was one adult conversation about this, the three of us, the day after your birthday, but instead Cal ran and now it’s all drama and hurt feelings and this—this exact uncommunicative bullshit—is what leads to relationships ending.” Anya waves a hand at both of them. “Unless you want to act like you’re not both freaking out.”
“I’m not freaking out,” Zac mutters.
“The hell you’re not.” Anya turns off the burner with an angry flick of her wrist before she loses track of the sauce and burns the house down. “You’ve been cranky and pouting and—”
“Better that than thinking I know everything.”
“I don’t know everything. I just know more than you.”
“I told you I needed time,” Cal says. “That’s not petty. I can’t have an adult conversation when I don’t know what to say.”
“You said you needed time after a week of ignoring me.” Zac rounds on him. “That’s cheap and petty. You knew I was freaking out. You were punishing me.”
“Us,” Anya adds.
“I was thinking.” Cal hunches his shoulders.
“Bullshit,” Anya and Zac say in unison.
“I was! I was upset. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Upset?” Zac scoffs. “I know what you do when you’re upset. You get clingy and needy and you want to watch cheesy horror movies! You don’t do this—this vanishing thing. That’s your mad bullshit. You were mad, say it!”
“Fine, all right, I was mad. You’re both so damn casual about making a mess. You have a whim, and then you’re rucking everything up, and I can’t—What the hell was I supposed to do? I was finally getting better, and then—”
“Better at what?” Zac and Anya interrupt, again in unison.
“I just—I thought—” Cal sinks into one of the chairs. His breath shudders out. The silence grows and grows, seemingly endless, and Anya is dying all over again, waiting. Finally Cal shakes his head a few times, and lifts his head. He says to Zac, “I thought you weren’t the serious kind. I thought you’d never want—it was okay, you know? I wasn’t pining or anything. I wasn’t. I thought we were too different, that’s all. I can only do serious, and you couldn’t do serious at all, and that was okay, but then you were married. You were married and I thought—” Cal’s hands clench into fists, then spasm open. “I thought—it wasn’t that you didn’t want something serious, it was that you didn’t want me, and that was fine, that was—”
“Jesus,” Zac whispers.
Cal sucks in a shaky breath and looks at Anya. “I wanted to hate you.” He makes a face that is at once miserable and apologetic. “I tried to. I’m sorry.”