“Now please tell me what’s wrong.”
“It’s just me, I’m sorry,” Callum rasped, looking at their folded legs.
“Please never apologize for being you,”
“You make me want things I didn’t think I could ever have and I’m scared that when I decide it’s okay to want them, you’ll take them away.”
Jack’s heart ached, and he cupped Callum’s face with his hands and held it up. Callum’s hand dropped off his chest and into their laps.
“Anything I give is yours to keep, kitten.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Callum countered, an edge of defiance in his voice. He must have heard it himself because he quickly closed his mouth and pulled his lips between his teeth.
“Who hurt you, kitten?” Jack asked, the picture in his head coming together finally. Of all the things they’d ever talked about, past partners hadn’t been one and he was beginning to suspect Callum carried some substantial baggage.
“Samantha said he abused me, but I don’t think he did.”
Jack’s blood turned to ice and his first thought wasn’t of comforting Callum, but of who he had to go kill. He schooled his rage into something more appropriate and waited to reply until he was certain his voice wouldn’t betray him.
“Who, kitten?”
“Ian. He’s my ex.”
It was always an ex, wasn’t it?
“What happened? What brought all this up today?”
Callum shook his head and snorted a derisive laugh. “Even thinking about saying it out loud makes me realize how dumb it is.”
“Then just get it out and let’s be done with it, okay?”
“We lived together after high school, but he didn’t like it. He liked me, loved me, he said, but he didn’t like living with me. Everything I did was wrong.”
The words were tumbling out of Callum’s mouth rapid-fire and Jack tried to keep up even as he catalogued all the stupid shit this Ian kid had done.
“He especially didn’t like Samantha because she didn’t like him and he said he didn’t want me to spend as much time with her. He said she was a bad influence on me and he was right, like, I was spending time with her instead of cleaning the house or whatever. I wouldn’t have wanted to live with me either.”
Jack reached up and pressed a finger against Callum’s mouth to silence him. He was pretty sure Callum hadn’t scratched the surface, but it was already too much. Too much for Jack and far too much for Callum.
“That’s manipulative,” Jack told him, “and Samantha is right. That sounds like emotional abuse.”
Callum shook his head and pulled Jack’s hand away.
“He said it would be better if we were married, so we were supposed to do that, but he never showed up.”
“What do you mean he didn’t show up?”
“To the courthouse. I waited and he never came, and when I got back to the apartment, all his shit was gone.”
This was awful, this was excruciating, but everything about Callum made infinitely more sense now. From his petulant outbursts when he felt like he wasn’t getting enough attention, even back to the way he was seeking out something online instead of in person. His poor, wounded kitten.
“That’s his loss. My gain.”
Callum scoffed and Jack grabbed him by the chin and held his face steady.
“Everything about you is my gain, kitten.”
Callum swallowed.
