He kisses me, telling me first, and it tastes like popcorn and salted butter, and when he pulls back, he keeps his forehead against mine.
“Say it again.”
“You're greedy.”
“I’ve always been greedy. Now say it again.”
“I love you. Caleb. I love you.” It's easier the second time. Nobody tells you that.
He makes a sound I've never heard out of him, and pulls me into his chest, and his heart's going fast, just like mine.
“That's the thing I was scared to want,” he says into my hair.
“You. Scared?”
“Love has meant a lot of complicated things for me.” His arms tighten.
“Okay.”
We don't talk for a while. In fact, we do one of my favorite things that requires very little talking.
“You sure you want to do this?” he asks with low eyelids as I drop to my knees in front of him.
“Practice makes perfect.”
“You’re a good fucking student, Dixon.” His head falls back.
“That’s because I want an A.”
Later, I lay in his arms, we’re both satiated, but everything between us still lingers.
“Carolina's eight states away,” I say to him, because even after great sex, I can’t turn off my brain.
“Forty-one hours by car. I checked.”
“You checked?”
“I check everything when it comes to you now.” He tucks my hair back. “We'll figure it out, Dixon. I make camp, you finish out the season and hand your dad his shiny program, and the day there's nothing left to hide, I will tell him myself, man to man. It might not be pretty, but I’ll take whatever he throws.” He says it like he’s determined to make us work, and more than anything, I want to believe him.
But like a badly scripted episode of my show, my phone lights up on the arm of the couch, face up, one word.
DAD.
Caleb goes still under me. We both look at it. It's nine-forty on a Tuesday night. My father does not call at nine-forty for nothing.
I answer in the voice, the regulated one, sitting up off his chest like distance over a phone line is a thing that works. “Hi. No, I'm up.” I listen. Caleb watches my face the way he watches everything. “Tomorrow. Seven. Is it about a player?” A pause that runs a beat too long. “Okay, I’ll be there.”
I hang up.
“What?” Caleb says.
“He wants me in his office tomorrow morning. He wouldn't say why.” I set the phone face down, like that helps. “He said, we need to talk about how this season ends.”
Neither of us says anything for a second. The show keeps playing, strangers handing each other roses.
“It's probably nothing,” Caleb says, which is the thing you say when you both know it might be everything.
“Right,” I say.
