“He asked if it was a phase,” he says, voice muffled. “An ‘experimental attachment.’ I think my soul left my body for a second.”
Heat flares in my chest.
God, my stepdad can be such a prick sometimes.
“Experimental,” I repeat, my voice going flat. “Like you’re trying a new shampoo.”
“Yeah, with my stepbrother,” he mutters. “Very on-brand.”
I want to put my fist through Ashton’s perfect drywall.
“What did you tell him?” I ask instead.
“I told him it wasn’t,” he says. “That it’s serious. That it’s been serious in my head since I was sixteen and in real life since Halloween.”
My heart stutters.
He’s known that he’s loved me since he was sixteen.
It’s been longer for me.
“Yeah?” I murmur. “You told him that?”
He nods against me.
“And?” I prompt because I know Ashton Burton. He doesn’t stop at one question. The man cross-examines until his intended target is a pile of ash.
Caleb’s fingers twist into my hoodie again, knuckles white. “He asked how long. He asked why I didn’t tell him. Did the whole ‘I rescued you, I paid for therapy’ speech. I told him he makes me feel like everything’s a test.”
My jaw locks. How fucking dare he use that, like him saving his own kid should be some fucking pat on the back.
Fuck him.
It takes everything in me to not set Caleb down and drive over to the house and give him a piece of my mind. “Good,” I say, and I mean it. “About saying it. Not about him making you feel like that. That part’s shit.”
His shoulders do a little tremor that might be a laugh or might be the start of tears.
“I told him…” Caleb swallows. “I told him you’re the reason I’m still here.”
The room tilts for a second. Caleb’s said as much to me before, drunk and half-asleep, fingers tangled in my shirt, but hearing that he said it to his dad, my throat goes hot.
“And?” I manage.
“And he…” Caleb sniffs, scrubbing a hand under his nose. “He didn’t know it got that far. I mean, he knew, but he didn’t know.” His voice cracks. “Said he was sorry. For… making me feel like a project. For loving me like a report card.”
A hot, complicated knot tightens in my chest. I can picture Ashton in his office, tie loosened, the first crack in the mask he’s worn since Caleb came back into his life.
“Good,” I say again, quietly.
“It felt… huge,” Caleb says. “And also like… I don’t know. Like he was sorry in theory, but also still him. Still worried about my ‘future’ and how ‘tangled’ we are.”
The part that hooked his brain and won’t let go.
“He say the word ‘ruin’?” I ask. “Your dad loves that one.”
Caleb huffs a humorless breath. “He got close. Asked if we break up, what happens. Asked if I thought this through. And then he said he’s not gonna forbid it. That he’s… ‘processing.’ He understands that you’ve made me want to stay.”
I blink.
