Page 37 of Poet & Protector

“No, we couldn’t,” I agreed.

Caleb returned with Nev’s Dr. Pepper. “Do you want me to put in your regular order when the kitchen opens?”

“I’ll let you know,” Nev told him.

I watched Caleb walk away. “I thought you said you didn’t come here that often.”

“I said I didn’t come here to do homework.”

“Caleb knows a lot about you,” I said, feeling a twinge I told myself wasn’t jealousy.

Caleb was really good-looking, and he and Nev seemed to spend a lot of time together…A possibility occurred to me that I hadn’t considered. And I really didn’t like it.

“Are you guys a thing?” My stomach clenched as I waited for his answer.

Nev’s eyes widened. “What? No!”

The swoop of relief I felt wasn’t a good sign.

“I don’t…Caleb is a good friend,” he muttered. “He kind of took me under his wing when I first turned up here. He’s with Tom. They’ve been together for over twenty years.”

I looked over at the bar and saw the Burnout’s owner leaning against the counter, talking to Caleb.

“Tom? Caleb is with Tom? Caleb is the Guardian from the story?”

Nev nodded.

I looked once more between Tom, with his hard-lined face and silver-streaked hair, and Caleb, who aged much more slowly, and even now appeared to be at least a decade younger than his lover. I didn’t know how old Caleb was, only that he was an elder Bane. That meant he was likely the same age as Tom, or older. Even so, Caleb would outlive Tom so long as he didn’t die in battle.

Nev followed my gaze. When I looked at him again, he nodded.

“Yeah, that’s the hard part. The human lifespan.”

My chest tightened. What would it be like to love someone, knowing you’d lose them?

I heard Tom’s low rumbling laugh and when I glanced over, Caleb’s hand was resting on top of Tom’s. The way Caleb smiled at him made my heart pinch. I quickly pulled my gaze away.

I glanced at Nev. His eyes were on me, his face a mystery.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he replied quietly, but his gaze lingered.

“When did you first start coming here?”

I’d been wanting to ask that since I’d seen him on my first night visiting the Bunker. Given his mood, he probably wouldn’t answer, but I’d gotten him talking and I hoped he’d continue.

“At the beginning of last summer break,” he replied, surprising me. He didn’t even sound annoyed that I asked. “That’s when I got the invite.”

Interesting. Nev had been coming to the Bunker three months longer than I had.

“When did someone first contact you?” I asked.

“Last September,” he said.

“A little after your sixteenth birthday?”

He shook his head. “On my sixteenth birthday.”