Caleb didn't add that yes, he'd somehow ended up in their old yard, but that it had felt more inevitable than anything else, like he'd just been marking time, pretending that the beach helped, when there was somewhere else he desperately wanted to be.
“How is it, being back in LA?” Leo asked changing the subject. Ignoring the part where Caleb acknowledged—even vaguely—that this had been their home, together.
Smart, he thought ruefully, he's always been smarter than me.
“Not easy,” Caleb admitted. He could at least be honest about that. “I knew it would be hard. I expected it to be hard. Even wanted it a little, I guess.”
“What's hard about it?” Leo wondered.
“Everything.” Caleb chuckled. “Literally everything.” You, you're the hardest thing. You're close enough that I can just reach out and touch you, but I'll never really touch you again. Not the way I'm craving.
“I bet. What's the worst?”
Caleb wanted to laugh; he also sort of wanted to cry. Why couldn't Leo just leave it alone? Did he want Caleb to admit that missing him, that being this close but not quite close enough, was an exercise in torture? Because it was.
But there were other things that sucked too, and it was easy enough to pick one of those. “Honestly,” he said, “everyone wants to go out, and when people go out here, they drink. And really, I can resist.” It might be the greatest struggle of his life, but he could do it, now. “It's not that hard anymore.” Lie. “Most of the time I'm not even tempted.” That much felt . . . mostly accurate. “But I don't like being around alcohol anymore. The problem is I don't feel like when people ask me to go out with them, I can say no. Not after what I did.” How can I? When I burned all these bridges? Destroyed all these friendships? Even casual ones?
“You should say no,” Leo said firmly. “You don't always have to be so fucking nice all the time.”
That was something Leo had used to say all the time, and Caleb supposed it was still true. “You know how bad I am at saying no,” Caleb said wryly.
“Right,” Leo said, staring at him. And everything Caleb had tamped down, willed into oblivion, was back in spades. Maybe if their first kiss hadn't been such a fucking disaster, he wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge to slide over to Leo and press one on him now, right on his lips.
He should resist. He should be the better person, the stronger person, and just stop. But something drove him further. “I mean,” he said, “you were always the one who said no. Maybe I just need to carry you around in my pocket.”
“Are you saying I'd fit in your pocket?” Leo asked archly. He'd always hated his size, but he'd sure loved being teased about it. Nothing had riled him up more than Caleb calling him small or short.
Caleb couldn't help himself, even though he remembered very well how most of these types of conversations ended. In bed. “Yes.”
“Rude,” Leo said with an inelegant snort, but he was smiling, nearly lighting up the whole fucking backyard. Even if it was a mistake. He moved closer still. Close enough that he could reach out and touch. He wouldn't, because that had been the final straw during that doomed evening when they'd kissed, but it felt good to even be this close and not have Leo move away.
“Mel tells me I should say no, too. She gets mad when I don't.” It seemed prudent to change the subject, away from the dangerous flirtation. Referring to his sister felt like a good move.
“She's right,” Leo said. “How is it living with her?”
He had plenty of money. He could have gotten an apartment or even rented one of those big gigantic, empty houses scattered around LA. But he'd been gone so long, and Mel had been so happy to see him again, he'd agreed to stay with her. At least for the time being. “Good, but hard, too. She hates all the paparazzi around the place. You know how protective she always was.” Nearly as protective as you, he thought.
“Can't blame her for that. Bloodsuckers,” Leo muttered. “So we have that in common. I can't believe I haven't talked to her in forever.”
It had made sense, when Mel had told him she'd lost touch with Leo. “He never leaves his house, anymore,” was something Mel had said when Caleb had first returned to LA. “He's practically a ghost.” Caleb hadn't been too surprised—he'd worried about that. He'd also done his research. But he'd been surprised when Mel had told him she hadn't talked to him in years. “When everyone figured out you were gone for good,” she'd said. “He just pulled away from everyone and shut himself into that house. Like it was a fucking coffin.”
Suffice it to say, Mel hadn't really respected Leo's grieving process. “It's not a grieving process,” she'd claimed, only a few weeks back, “it's a death sentence.”
Caleb had argued that she was being too hard on him, and her response had been only that Leo was being too hard on Caleb.
“Yeah, she's not your biggest fan these days,” Caleb mumbled, knowing he shouldn't say anything but not knowing what else to say.
“What?” Leo demanded archly.
“Yeah, well, she sees me . . . it's hard to pretend all the time, you know. So she sees me . . . sometimes. She knows it's not your fault.” Mostly. “I don't blame you for being upset. For not wanting to forgive me.” Even if Mel can't see it. “But she sees and I think it makes it hard for her.”
Leo stared at him. Eyes wide. Shocked. “Sees you what?”
He'd tried to avoid it, but some things, like coming to his old backyard in the middle of the night, were inevitable. “Sees me sad. And angry. Really angry.” It was easier, sometimes, when the anger superseded the sadness.
“What are you angry about?”
What wasn't Caleb angry about? That was a better question. “Mostly myself. For being so goddamn broken that I almost ruined my whole life. Pushed you away, the person I love the most. Pushed away my family and my friends. Abandoned everything.”
For a long moment, Leo didn't say anything. Stared ahead. At anywhere that wasn't Caleb. He wondered if he'd shared too much—but then Leo had asked.
“Well, I learned I'm shit without you,” Leo said. “Ask anybody and they'll tell you.”
It sounded so much like Mel's pronouncement that Leo was trying to bury himself in the mausoleum of their life together that Caleb's heart broke. Again. It was ridiculous just how many times that could actually happen.
“I find that hard to believe,” Caleb said, even though he worried—then and now—that both Mel and Leo were right. He'd been a mess without Caleb. “You were so mature when we met.”
It was a blatant fucking lie, but Leo laughed, which made it worth it. “I think you've forgotten what I was like when we met,” Leo said wryly.
“I could never forget. Never.” Caleb knew he was blushing. Knew he'd turned bright red—matching his hair—even in the darkness of the garden, but it was true. Leo was it for him, even if Leo was able to move on. Caleb had already come to terms with the fact that from that long-ago day, ten or so years ago, he'd been Leo's from the moment he'd opened the door. There was never ever going to be someone else for him.