Page 11 of The Intimacy of Finding You

“Not very.” Jack slid into the seat in front of me. “I feel like I see a lot of you, yet I know nothing about you. Most of my regulars at least talk to me.”

Can a man not just come to the bar for shelter, warmth, and alcohol? “Don’t consider me a regular, then. Problem solved. And don’t you have, like, a job to do or something other than bother a paying customer?”

“I own the place. I can do what I want. Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Depends on the question.”

“Do you have a home? Like, are you homeless right now?”

The question made me laugh. “Jesus, dude, who raised you? ‘Cause they did a poor fuckin’ job.”

He groaned, putting his face into his hands. “No, no. I’m sorry. It’s just that you come here every day, stay until close, and bring the same backpack, but you keep it hidden under the table, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you at the subway, but you weren’t getting on a bus.”

So much for blending in and acting like a ghost passing through the city. I never expected to really be noticed. I thought I’d done a good job at that, but if someone like Jack or Callum had noticed me… Maybe I wasn’t doing as good of a job as I thought.

Looking away, I set aside the bottle and my pride. “Caught me. I’m homeless. What, do you want me to leave your bar now?”

“Ew. I know you don’t know me, but it kinda hurts that you’d think I’m that heartless. No, I don’t want you to leave my bar, but I do have some space in the back if you need somewhere to rest at night.”

That didn’t make it any better. “I’m not lookin’ for a handout, and I’m not lookin’ to owe anyone anything.”

Jack slid down in his seat, his eyebrows scrunched together. “You wouldn’t owe me anything except money for the booze you drink. It’s just an offer. Anyone Callum knows is trustworthy in my book.”

Right. He knew Callum somehow, which made everything just that much worse. To someone else in Callum’s life, I was just some guy he knew. How shitty was that? I’d demoted myself from his boyfriend—the love of his life—to just someone he knew, yet it hurt like hell to realize.

It hurt enough to make me take another swig of vodka straight from the bottle. At least it warmed my chest, giving my heart a bit of heat to live off instead of the cold I’d been feeding it.

Shaking my head to try and rid the way my vision was swimming, I pushed the bottle again, doing my best to shun it for long enough to talk about this. To talk about him. “How do you know ‘im?”

“Slow down, bud. You’re already starting to slur your words.” Jack laughed, but it wasn’t all that funny. “We actually met because of our grandparents. Remember when his grandpa had that really bad fall a few years back?”

Fingertips that weren’t mine closed over the edges of the very heart I was trying to light on fire with the vodka running through my veins. Where the lighter was, I wasn’t sure, but I knew I was getting close anyway. Close to combusting. Exploding. Burning to a crisp in one final act of disgrace. “No. Uh, we weren’t talkin’ then. Is his grandpa okay?”

His mouth opened, then closed, a visible effort to find the right words. “Oh. Shit. Well, he recovered just fine from the fall.” He wasn’t telling me the truth. Or maybe he was, but only part of it. I could tell that much. “We met at the hospital. My grandma died, and his grandpa was in pretty bad shape. Their rooms were right in front of each other, and we both went into the hallway to cry. Callum was mortified at first, but I asked why he was there. When he said “grandpa,” I said “grandma,” and we both just…cried together. It was a weird beginning to our friendship, but I think we’re both a bit weird, so it worked out.”

It was taking far too long for me to process damn near any of the words he was saying. Most of it made sense, but some of it just sounded like a bunch of noises that didn’t mean anything in my head. They were getting jumbled up in my mind. Like the English dictionary I was supposed to have ingrained into my brain wasn’t working.

Jack had been there during a time I should’ve been. He’d probably been there for countless times I should’ve been and would never be able to. What a painful way to think about it.

Callum’s grandpa meant the entire world to him. If something happened to him, I didn’t know just how easy it would be for Callum to come back from it. If he ever did.

It should’ve been me. I should’ve been the one comforting him. I’d lost my chance, though. I’d lost a hundred chances, if not thousands. Maybe this was the punishment I was meant to receive for years of not being enough. Maybe Jack was meant to be my replacement.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Fucking maybe.

There were too many maybes and not enough definitelys. I was lost in them all, unsure of which road to take. Which path to go down. There weren’t enough decisions to make choices between because they’d been ripped from me, and it was my fault. Mine.

I pressed my teeth down onto my tongue, physically biting it to keep from saying something utterly stupid and uncalled for. I wanted to be mean. I wanted to deflect. There were so many things I wanted to say, and I didn’t. I didn’t because it wasn’t my place anymore. “Callum is a good guy. I hope y’all stay friends for a long time.”

“How do you know him? I assume you’ve known each other for a long time.”

At that, I grabbed the bottle, no longer strong enough to stave off the need to be numb. When I tipped it back, nothing came out. Not even a single drop. I pulled the bottle away, inspecting it curiously. “Fuck,” I whispered. “Can I get another bottle?”

Jack’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Uh, I don’t know, man. You usually only get the one, and that gets you pretty hammered.”