Jericho didn’t argue, just grabbed his phone. “It’s locked.”
“1-9-8-2.”
“You really need to be more careful with who you just give information to,” Jericho teased, unlocking his phone and loading his contact information.
“Do you really think we do anything incriminating on an unsecured line?” Atticus asked.
“I suppose not.”
“I’m going to have my people look into your sister…Mercy. I’ll do it immediately and let you know what they find.”
A shadow swept across Jericho’s features, the tightness from before returning. Grief. Atticus recognized it, even if he couldn’t quite understand it. He gave a stilted nod.
Once Atticus was dressed and his Uber en route, Jericho stood, shoving his legs into a pair of joggers that were lying on the floor, not bothering with a shirt. He insisted on walking him out. Down in the shop, the light was on and the sound of boys laughing and shouting could be heard, though not the words they spoke.
On the stoop, Jericho wrapped his arms over his chest as if to protect himself from the crisp fall wind. It had been so hot just the other day, but the temperature had plummeted, right on time. The leaves were already changing.
“I’ll be in touch,” Atticus said.
He turned away only to find himself spun back around and pushed against the brick wall, Jericho’s lips millimeters from his. “That’s not how you say goodbye to me.”
He gave Atticus a kiss that curled his toes and then he was gone, the door slamming behind him, leaving Atticus just standing there, the icy wind beating against his face.
* * *
Atticus made sure he was in and out of the meeting with his father but also did his best not to raise any questions. He couldn’t handle a Thomas interrogation today. He needed to get to work but found he was in no real hurry to do so. He was exhausted and distracted. Each time he closed his eyes for even a minute, thoughts of last night flooded in. He ached in the best possible way, but each twinge sent him right back into his dirty memories. He needed to talk to somebody. Somebody who wasn’t related to him in some way.
He called the only person he’d ever thought of as a friend.
It rang only once. “Morning, Sunshine.”
“Hey, Calliope,” Atticus said, trying not to sound as mopey as he felt.
“What’s wrong? Why do you sound like Eeyore? Did you have a fight with your father? Your brothers? Did you not get the Padget grant?”
“No, nothing like that. I’m just having a bad day,” he said, his tone implying it was very much something.
“Don’t lie to me,” she scolded. “Come on, tell Mama all about it. I need a distraction anyway. I’m going blind trying to run down the bugs in this code.”
Atticus pushed the button on the side of his leather seat, slowly reclining it until he was out of sight of the general public, sulking as he stared up at the Volvo’s pearl gray interior. “It’s just…there’s this person…this guy…” He trailed off, not knowing how to explain what was happening to him.
There was the sound of a chair squeaking. “Is this abouthim? Your cabin feverBrokeback Mountainhookup?”
Atticus gave a heavy sigh. He knew he shouldn’t have told her that. But he’d needed somebody to talk to on his way home that night and Calliope was his only constant that didn’t share a last name with him. She always answered when he called and she kept their conversations to herself.
He hadn’t lied to Jericho about not having any friends. Calliope wasn’t a friend, exactly. She was family. Sometimes, she was more like a therapist or a priest. He told her things he’d never tell the others. Maybe it was because he’d never seen her face. The anonymity made it easier for him to confess all his sins and vent his frustrations. She never judged him or questioned his feelings like the rest of the family did.
There was this notion that all psychopaths were these automatons just going through life pretending they were humans, but that just wasn’t true. Psychopathy was a spectrum. Maybe he couldn’t feel guilt or remorse or love the way a neurotypical person did, but he had a lot of feelings about everything else and six brothers who had no empathy and no way to process his moodiness. Atticus had empathy but only for himself.
Luckily, Calliope had enough empathy for a hundred people—it was just wrapped in a hard shell of nosiness and sarcasm. But he needed to talk to somebody about Jericho, about what had happened between them. It wasn’t like he could tell his father. He would wind up in a case study with Thomas watching his relationship from the other side of the glass. He shook his head. Not a relationship. Friendship. Hookup… Whatever. His father wouldn’t understand.
Atticus didn’t have any animosity towards his father. He understood why Thomas did what he did. He knew he felt called to do this. But, sometimes, it was hard knowing he’d been adopted strictly for the betterment of science.
So, he had Calliope. She kept his secrets and talked him off ledges and didn’t say he was whining or petty or…disagreeable. Even though he was. He knew he was. He didn’t want to be the little black storm cloud of doom and gloom everybody thought he was, but that was just who he was as a person.
Calliope didn’t judge him and she didn’t make fun of him like they would. “Not just the cabin. We hooked up in my office and then again at his place last night.”
“Hooked up?” she prodded. “Like, heavy petting or did you guys do the horizontal tango?”
