The Art of Three

Chapter 5 - Callum makes decisions he probably shouldn’t-3

“DO YOU WANT ANYTHING to drink?” Callum asked as they walked into the flat. He tossed his keys into a bowl on the coffee table and his jacket over the back of the armchair. Jamie unzipped his own coat slowly and laid it somewhat tentatively over Callum’s. “Coffee?”

Jamie squinted at him. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Were you not planning on staying up late?” Callum wasn’t going to stop flirting now.

Jamie gave him a shy smile.

Callum dialed back a notch, going for gentle over eager. “Tea, perhaps, then?” he offered. “Caffeine-free?”

“I’m just saying,” Jamie muttered, as Callum went to put the kettle on. “I wouldn’t need coffee to stay up late with you.”

Callum laughed with pleasure. Even if Jamie was shy, he wasn’t letting it stop him.

They settled next to each other on the sofa. Jamie seemed cautious of him, as if he didn’t quite know where to put his limbs. Finally, Callum set his mug down on the end table. Slowly so Jamie could pull away if he wanted, he wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Far from retreating, Jamie leaned into him even as he looked at Callum sideways.

“Not that I’m not enjoying,” he said. “But this is where you start talking about your wife. Because I’m tired, but I’m not that tired — and you’re good looking, but not that good looking — that I’m going to let it slide.”

Callum chuckled and retracted his arm. He scooted away from Jamie and shifted his body so they could have a proper face-to-face conversation as matters like this deserved. “Open relationship. Has been since pretty much always.”

“Whose idea was that?”

Callum appreciated the savvy question. He’d gone to bed with people in supposedly open relationships only to find out their partner didn’t quite agree, or that one or the other of them had been badgered into it. It was no fun to sleep with someone and find out later they hadn’t wanted him as much as they had wanted to use him as ammunition against someone else.

“It wasn’t really anyone’s,” Callum said. “It just was. She was seeing someone else when we met, I was carrying on appallingly, and our lives eventually consolidated. Then we got married. The relationships we had before we met changed, but they didn’t go away. Not right away, at any rate. They didn’t need to. We’re apart a lot, which we don’t love, but it is what it is. Better to know and to trust than not.”

It wasn’t the full story, of course, but it was still very early. Callum didn’t want to scare Jamie.

“Does she know about me, then?” Jamie asked.

“She knows you exist, of course. She doesn’t know I have you here tonight. I wasn’t sure what this was about when you asked, and I didn’t know if you were interested. I wasn’t even sure I was going to do anything about it if you were.”

“Can I talk to her? I mean, it’s not that I don’t trust you,” Jamie hastened to add. “But I’d feel better. You’re hers first.”

“People don’t belong to people,” Callum said. “But you are a treasure.” He leaned over to kiss him on the forehead, and Jamie grinned sleepily at him. “Do you want us to call her now?” Callum wasn’t going to get laid tonight, when not even the twenty-four year old could stay awake. But he could still put in the groundwork. He was captivated by Jamie’s insistence on doing right by Callum and Nerea’s relationship.

“Yeah. If she’s awake?” Jamie said.

“She should be. She might be painting and ticked off I interrupted her, but she’ll be up.” Callum levered himself up from the couch to fetch his mobile.

By the time he had it open to Nerea’s number, Jamie’s head had tipped sideways on the arm of the couch. His eyes were closed and his mouth slightly open, chest rising and falling gently. He’d certainly earned that sleep.

Callum pocketed his mobile and knelt to gently work Jamie’s shoes off his feet. The boy didn’t even stir. He was utterly exhausted, and Callum felt a pang of guilt that he hadn’t insisted on Jamie going to sleep sooner. When his shoes were off, Callum unfolded a blanket from the back of the sofa and tucked it in around him.

Once he was sure Jamie was settled, he padded past Nerea’s curtain into the bedroom. He undressed as quietly as possible, left his clothes puddled on the floor, and climbed into the sheets that smelled like Nerea’s perfume and their laundry detergent.

Callum smiled at the ceiling. His wife, who he loved and missed very much, was at their home in another country. The boy he was smitten with was asleep on their couch in this one. It wouldn’t look like contentment to most people, but Callum couldn’t have been happier. What would happen tomorrow, he didn’t know. But for now, he lay in the dark, listening to Jamie breathe, enjoying everything he had in this moment.