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“I should go, but I can walk back to the dorms.”
Caleb’s eyes went wide. “What? No! That’s like four miles.”
Bodhi laughed. “I walk that far all the time. I can’t drive.”
Caleb’s brow furrowed deeply. “Why not? This city has terrible public transportation.”
He didn’t need Caleb to tell him that. They had about a dozen busses total and only one of them went anywhere near campus, and Bodhi definitely wasn’t making enough on his part time café hours to afford Ubers.
Driving would have been ideal, but his grandparents had been convinced early on that there was no safe way for a deaf person to drive a car, so they were forbidden from taking driver’s ed. Ravi swore he was going to do it on his own one day, but driving school was outrageously expensive and neither one of them had friends willing to teach them.
So they walked a lot, and Ravi had friends who would drive him where he needed to go, and it worked.
“Your grandparents,” Caleb signed, interrupting Bodhi’s thoughts.
He sighed and shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“It’s bullshit,” Caleb fired back. He looked like he might lose his temper again, but instead he took another breath. “Do you want me to teach you?”
Bodhi felt his face flush hot enough to make him dizzy. The idea of driving wasn’t really appealing to him, if he was being honest, but the idea of being alone with Caleb again—of having an excuse that didn’t involve Caleb settling into his condo after an ugly breakup—was. More than he wanted to admit.
“I don’t know,” he offered as a concession. A lie, but it wasn’t going to hurt anyone. “Can I think about it?”
“Yes,” Caleb said, then took a step closer to him and touched his cheek very briefly. The gesture was so tender, Bodhi’s chest actually ached. “You know you can do anything you want, right?”
“Except hear?” Bodhi offered as a joke. Ravi’s Deaf friends said that a lot—‘I can do anything except hear,’ and Bodhi’s hyper-literal brain always composed a list of things that most people couldn’t do. But he also understood what they were really trying to say so he never argued.
But it got under his skin and made him feel itchy anyway.
Caleb just rolled his eyes. “Fine, notanything. But most things. Like driving. Or owning a business. Or telling your grandparents to fuck off with their opinions.”
Bodhi felt sick to his stomach at the thought of doing that. He’d only been defiant once in his life, when he was thirteen and tired and angry, and that had led to him being forbidden from seeing his dad for years.
Swallowing heavily, he decided it wasn’t worth it to say that to Caleb. Knowing how the man’s mind worked, Bodhi was afraid Caleb would do something ridiculous—like start a college fund for him. But he wasn’t looking to make waves or defy his family. He just wanted to get through the final semesters of his education and figure out what the hell he wanted to do after.
“I promise I’m okay.”
Caleb didn’t look convinced, but he let it go. “Let me drive you back to campus. I won’t be able to sleep tonight if I’m sitting here worried that you’ll get hit by a car or something.”
Bodhi wanted to argue just because he hated being an inconvenience to anyone, but he also knew Caleb wouldn’t drop it. “Okay.” Caleb’s face lit up and Bodhi felt a tiny wave of surprise curl through him because he hadn’t expected Caleb to be honestly glad about it. “Thanks for dinner,” he added.
Caleb closed his eyes in a slow blink, huffing a gentle laugh through parted lips, then nodded. “Thank you for letting me fall apart.”
Bodhi hesitated, but he was feeling greedy all of a sudden, so he opened one arm while the other signed, “One last hug?”
Caleb’s mouth twitched, then he eased himself into one more embrace, and it was the warmth and ease of that gesture that wrapped around Bodhi and followed him all the way back to his dorm.
Chapter8
Wiping sweat from his brow,Caleb glanced around his condo and felt some measure of satisfaction. He couldn’t really afford to throw out all his furniture, dishes, and knickknacks, so he did the next best thing. He rearranged each room, then steam-cleaned the shit out of every square inch of the place and bought new sheets and throw pillows. It might still have all the things he and Cameron once shared, but it no longer looked or smelled the same.
It was a concession, but it was a good one. He lit several candles in scents he’d never brought home before, and it felt like the first real step in purging the last of Cameron from his life.
His brother and Luke had closed the café early again after running out of nearly everything, so they decided to bring him dinner and it felt like the best way to end the vicious cycle that had been his life over the last few weeks. Not to mention the best way to not sit around and think about Bodhi, which was all he’d been able to do for forty-eight hours.
He told himself repeatedly that Bodhi had just been kind because he was a kind person. That he was just responding to Caleb’s apology and trying to bridge the gap between them that Caleb had created with his shitty attitude. But every time he remembered the hugs—every time he sank into the echo of Bodhi’s arms around him—his heart started to race. His cheeks flushed and his ears burned, and he felt a quiet want in the center of his chest that had been absent for years.
Maybe even longer.
