Page 28 of The Art of Drowning

It started out as a chaste dance our lips were doing, and then Damien got closer and his cock brushed against mine and one of us groaned. Or maybe both of us did. He rocked against me, deepening the kiss.

It was dizzying to be kissed by Damien. It made me feel like I was flying. Like I finally understood what all the fuss was about. It seemed too good to be true that he was here, in my room, kissing me. That somehow we’d gone from people coexisting in the same house, to people occupying the same space, trying to climb inside one another.

Damien pulled away and looked at me. His pupils were huge and black and his mouth was open slightly. I could hear him breathing and I wondered if he could hear the way my heart crashed against my ribs.

Before I could move, or speak, or ask what the fuck, the front door slammed shut. At the sound of Sam’s voice, Damien grimaced and took a step away from me. Then another. And suddenly he was gone and I was left with more questions than ever.

What was that? Why did he do it? Why did I let him? Why was he hard? And most importantly…

When could we do it again?

FOURTEEN

damien

NOW

Kissing Callum was fucking stupid.

Inevitable as breathing, but stupid all the same because now I was trapped in a tiny waiting room of a tiny law office with Callum sitting next to me. The only other chairs were occupied by Cal’s parents. They looked… well, they looked like they’d seen better days, that was for sure. They were pale and gaunt. Time had aged them, of course, but I had a feeling the events of the last week had more to do with their appearance than time itself.

Sitting in that small office that smelled vaguely of cheap air freshener was some kind of torture. The long walk back to my hotel hadn’t alleviated any of the topsy turvy feelings that churned in my stomach since that kiss last night.

That fucking kiss.

It was like coming home. Like breathing. Like opening a window after a long winter and letting the fresh air pour inside. It illuminated me and highlighted the fact that I’d never gotten over him.

Not even close.

Fucking Sam.

Discovering that he’d pretended to still know me. That he’d told lies and half truths about me, knowing they wouldn’t check, fucking hurt. What really stung was that Callum hadn’t known they were lies. Sam had lied about where I lived. That was not only a massive falsehood but easy to disprove, considering Sam had told him about my business. Had Callum bothered to check, Sams’s deceit would have unraveled.

The door to the lawyer’s office swung open. Blake Sheridan’s family had been around this town as long as it had been on the map, and Blake looked nearly old enough to be one of the founding fathers. I wondered if his bones were as brittle as he looked.

“Step inside,” he said, stepping aside so we could file into his office. At least it had a little more space than the waiting room but not by much. We let the parents take the chairs that sat across from the desk. Callum stood behind them, one hand on each of their shoulders. A pillar of support.

I stood off to the side. An outsider as always, only invited to be here because of Sam.

I never knew he was sick. That he’d beaten it, which made his sudden death seem especially cruel now.

“First of all,” Blake said, sliding in behind his desk. He carefully lowered himself into his chair. “I want to offer you my condolences for your loss. It’s never easy to lose a loved one.”

“Thank you,” Sams’s mom said, her voice quiet and shaky.

I wanted them to skip the small talk, the thin veneer of my patience cracking. Callum was in the same room as me, ignoring me again. I fucking hated it. Hated being ignored. I’d been ignored as a kid, as a teen, and not so much as an adult because I drew boundaries about that shit. I’d rather be punched in the face by Callum than be given the cold shoulder.

I had to force myself to listen to Blake as he rattled off a bunch of legalese about Sam’s affairs and how these protocols had been set up when his cancer looked like it might win.

“Sam didn’t leave behind a bunch of money.” Blake shuffled through a stack of papers on his desk and pulled a sheet of paper out of a folder. “The amount shown here is the balance of his accounts which, after everything goes through probate, will be approximately sixteen thousand dollars. Sam would like his parents to have that. He also had instructed that his car be sold and his parents get the proceeds from the sale.”

There was no car, though. The car had been a total write-off from the accident. I listened while Blake prattled on about that for a few minutes.

Blake rifled through more papers, then pulled a series of envelopes out of the folder. “Upon his passing, he instructed me to deliver these letters to each of you. Mister and Missus Weeks, these are for you.” He handed over two unremarkable-looking envelopes. Crisp white rectangles that trembled in their hands as they took them. Sam’s mom put hers on her lap and traced the edges of the envelope with her fingers like if she tried hard enough, she’d be able to feel Sam there.

“There’s also one for Callum Weeks. And one for Damien Flynn.”

“Do we have to open them now?” I asked, my voice strangely empty. Cold.