Cal looked away. “Fuck,” he mumbled, wiping at his eyes. “Back then, I felt so stupid. I started falling for you so fast, and I always figured I was just this… piece to your puzzle. That you were trying to figure out who you were, and fucking around with me was a part of it. I used to psych myself out so much when things would start to feel like more, because I wanted them to be more, but I didn’t think you ever would.”
The confession hit me like a truck as I recalled my own feelings from almost a decade ago. I always made myself believe that Cal didn’t want me the way I wanted him. I thought he’d eventually get sick of me, or decide a woman was what he wanted. I never allowed myself to just be with him, because the fear of it all being ripped away terrified me, even though I ran away from it all in the end.
“I didn’t think I deserved you. Hell, I still don’t believe I do. Except now, I don’t have major paranoia that you’ll leave me for a woman,” I said with a small giggle.
Cal rolled his eyes at me. “Oh, fuck off with that,” he said as he swapped the key card with a coffee sleeve from Seattle that had the logo of the shop we stopped at. “I never thought about that, even when we weren’t speaking. I couldn’t think ahead like that. They weren’t you. Nobody could have ever taken that place.”
My heart swelled at the statement as I watched Cal inspect the coffee sleeve.
“Why was Seattle important to you? I mean, that’s when I realized I was falling in love with you, but what was important about it for you?” he asked.
A devious grin crept across my lips as I leaned in and kissed the side of his neck. “Well, that was the first time you let me fuck you,” I mumbled into his neck as I kissed the skin again.
Cal shoved me away. “Wow, so I was just a piece of ass to you?” He laughed.
I shook my head. “I mean…”
He nearly shoved me off the bed for that one, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“That was the first time you were vulnerable with me. That was when your dad called you, and you told me that same day that the only place you felt safe was with me. I never took that statement lightly,” I told him.
“You’ve always been my safe zone,” he said as he rummaged through the box again, this time pulling out the small stack of Polaroids.
He started going through the stack slowly, looking at each image with a smile. There were easily seventy-five photos in the stack, all from different places, different cities, different hotels and different rental cars. Different moments in time where I felt myself falling more and more in love with Cal, but was too scared to admit back then.
I caught him staring at a few different ones: the one of Evan in Kentucky the day I bought the camera, one of him glaring at me in a car, and the one I took of him in Scotland in our hotel.
“That was when I knew I was falling for you, too,” I said as I scooted towards him, staring at the photo in his hand. To this day, it was still one of my favorites of Cal, because the look on his face was one that was only meant for me. Even back then, I knew that.
“Promise me something?” Cal said with hesitation.
I nodded. “Anything, babe,” I said as I planted a small kiss to his shoulder.
“We’ll take more pictures together. Not just with the Polaroid, but on our phones too. I don’t care if anyone ever sees them, I want them for us,” he said as he looked into my eyes, like he was hoping to drive the point home as deeply as he possibly could.
I smiled at him and leaned forward, cupping his face with my hand and kissing him. “You can have all the pictures you want of us,” I assured him.
Without a second thought, Cal reached over to the nightstand, yanking his phone free from the charger and opening the camera app. Then, with absolutely no warning, he was on top of me, pushing me back into the mattress, and kissing me to the sound of rapid-fire photos on his phone. I smiled into the kiss, I couldn’t even help it. The way he was so eager to have more photos of us together warmed me in a way I couldn’t really describe. He rolled off me with a giggle, and I rolled into him, my face in the side of his neck, kissing the skin to the tune of more camera clicks.
I rolled back over so I could see the phone screen, and smiled happily. There were easily a hundred pictures of us flooding his camera roll. The ones of him on top of me, now these of me kissing his neck, and the biggest smile possible on Cal’s face.
“That’s going on my lock screen,” he said as he set the image as his screensaver.
I smiled at the image now adorned with the time and date. It seemed so juvenile to feel so touched and excited over something as simple as his background being a photo of us, but for me, that felt like everything. And I knew for him, it did too. We’d spent so much time and energy on hiding this, who we were to one another. It had been almost ten fucking years of that. To see that now, we didn’t feel the need to be so… hidden. It was a sense of relief that I never thought we’d get the chance to experience. But here we were. In the house we always dreamt of. In my, no,our,bed. Happy. Existing. In love.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand obnoxiously, and I inched away from Cal just enough to grab ahold of it.
There was a text from Maverick on the screen.
Making a late breakfast at my place if you two want to join.
I smiled at the gesture and looked to Cal. “Mav wants to know if we want to come eat breakfast at his house.”
“Duh, tell him yes. I’m in boyfriend territory now, it’s expected, and I still need to solidify the good impression because I’m not sure I passed my vetting last night,” Cal said with a laugh.
I rolled my eyes as I responded to my dad. And for once, responding to him didn’t amount to a sickening level of dread.
Sure thing, we’ll be down there in 15?
