With his taid.
With his mam.
With her.
45
CALLUM
Burnout - Pinguini Tattici Nucleari
He didn’t thinkit was possible, but Leif looked even paler than usual as they walked toward the pub around the corner where Alejandra and Asma had stopped to eat. Under the dim London streetlights, his skin almost blended with the grey of the evening, jaw tight, shoulders slightly hunched like he was bracing for impact.
Callum had managed to whip up some food from the fridge while they waited—a couple of sandwiches that were, admittedly, pretty fucking good. Not that Leif had seemed to taste any of it.
“Are you nervous?” Callum asked, glancing sideways at him.
“No,” Leif blurted out immediately, too quickly, as he took a drag of his cigarette.
Callum slowed his pace just slightly, watching him. That was new. “Since when do you smoke?”
Leif exhaled, the smoke curling into the air between them. “I—Sometimes I do it when…”
Callum cocked an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Let me guess… when you’re nervous?”
Leif groaned, dragging a hand through his hair, not even attempting to deny it.
Yeah. Thought so.
Beside what he had already told him, Leif had avoided the topic entirely in the two hours the girls had been gone. They’d eaten, playedCall of Duty, and for a while, shooting pixels on a massive TV had seemed to bleed some of the tension out of him.
But clearly, not enough.
“Everything will be fine,” Callum said, clapping his shoulder as they pushed open the pub door.
Warm air hit them instantly, along with the noise—voices overlapping, glasses clinking, and the unmistakable commentary of an Arsenal match blasting from the TV mounted above the bar.
Callum instinctively glanced up at the score before scanning the room. It didn’t take him long to find them.
Alejandra and Asma were tucked into a corner booth, bent over in laughter, shoulders shaking, completely absorbed in whatever they were talking about.
A smirk spread across his face.
That laugh, it was fucking contagious. She laughed with her entire body, head tipped back, eyes squeezed shut, one hand gripping the table like she needed something to hold onto. And seeing her like that—especially after the therapist session earlier that day—hit him harder than expected.
She’s stronger than she thinks.
She had gone out of her way to help someone she barely knew. And somehow, she’d managed to turn Demon Asma into… this.
Laughing. Relaxed.
As he raised a hand to wave, Asma noticed them first.
Her eyes widened instantly, snapping straight to Leif, who suddenly shoved his hands deeper into his pockets like he didn’t know what to do with them.
The tension that followed was immediate. Callum felt it settle over them like a storm cloud and, for once, he had absolutely no idea what to do with it.
More than ten years of friendship—and this? Uncharted territory. He didn’t know how to navigate it.
