“Hey,” I said back, my shoulders finally dropping.
We tossed my bags into the trunk and slid into the front seats. The interior smelled like leather, sandalwood and expensive cologne.
Cal’s hand immediately went to my thigh, heavy and grounding.
“You’re coming with me to my parents’, by the way,” Cal said as he turned the car back onto the road.
“What?” I said, eyes going wide. “I don’t want to intrude. There’s a hotel like fifteen minutes from here I was gonna—”
“Si, you’re not staying in my city in a hotel,especiallyon a holiday. My folks are great, my sisters will be happy to see I brought someone with me. It’ll be fine, I promise,” he assured me, his thumb rubbing circles into my denim.
“And besides,” he said, his voice dropping an octave as he slid his hand higher up my leg, pressing his palm firmly against my cock through my jeans. “We can head back to my apartment anytime.”
My body shuddered at the feeling, and my cock instantly twitched at the sensation of him touching me through my clothes. Fuck. Even if Iwantedto argue, I couldn’t. Not when he touched me like that.
“My parents live like thirty minutes out,” Cal said, removing his hand to shift gears, leaving me aching for the contact.
I nodded, my body having seemingly relaxed to the point of wanting to sleep, the exhaustion finally kicking in.
In thirty minutes, we were pulling up to Cal’s parents’ home. It was a decent sized two-story house in an upper middle-class neighborhood. It felt real. Lived in. It wasn’t in the woods; there were neighbors on either side, a fence in the front yard. It was what I always envisioned real childhood homes looked like.
Anxiety shot through me for a moment. “Who did you tell your family you were bringing?” I asked before he opened his door.
Cal raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing on his lips. “You?”
“Do they…does your family know?” I mumbled, feeling small.
Cal shook his head. “No. I mean, they know I’m not straight, but not about you.” He paused, his tone softening. He sensed the nerves. “It’s okay, Si. Come on.”
I nodded, took a breath, and popped my door open.
There were several nicer, newer cars in the yard. Clearly plenty of people were here, and that only made me more nervous.
Cal walked right up the stairs and flung the door open. “I’m here!” he shouted.
Instantly, the house erupted. His sisters came running, giving hugs, saying hello. His mom followed soon after, then another two women whom I gathered were aunts.
“Silas! It’s so good to see you again!” Cindy said as she hurried over to me, hugging my neck tightly. She smelled like sage and perfume. “I’m sorry you got stuck at the airport. You should have called Callum sooner!”
“I told him that, Ma,” Cal said with a grin, kicking his shoes off.
We were dragged off instantly by Cindy and the oldest of the sisters to the kitchen. Cal’s dad was there, along with many other relatives who went the rounds introducing themselves to me. Somehow, this felt normal. Natural. This was a normal family, at least, it felt like it to me.
Cal looked so free here. He wasn’t guarded. He was smiling, laughing, joking. He did that with me, yeah, but seeing it here felt different. This was his foundation. This was home.
Cal’s eyes always lingered on me. Even if we weren’t sitting together or talking, his gaze was a constant weight. Not watching, admiring. I felt it. I loved it.
The afternoon blurred into a montage of domesticity I’d only ever seen in movies. We ate a massive dinner where I was stuffed full of turkey and stuffing. We went out into the snow dusted yard to play touch football with his cousins. I watched Cal run routes, his breath pluming in the cold air, his laughter ringing out as he tackled his sister into a snowbank.
He welcomed me into this space so effortlessly. And for the first time in years, I didn’t feel like the lone wolf.
By evening, the energy settled down. Everyone decided to gather in the living room to watch the late game.
Calwalked in, his eyes scanning the room until they landed on me. When he saw me perched on the arm of the sofa, trying not to take up space, his face lit up.
He walked over and dropped down onto the empty cushion right beside me. Without a second of hesitation, he grabbed my hips and pulled me down off the armrest, tugging me backward until I was sitting directly between his legs. I sank into the cushions, my back resting flush against his chest as he wrapped his arms around my waist, locking me in.
I leaned back into him, letting the solid thump of his heart steady me. Cal nuzzled his face into my neck, pressing a soft kiss to the sensitive skin just below my ear. And just like that, we sat there, laughing and talking with his family, existing perfectly in our own little bubble of warmth.
