Accidentally in Love (3 page)

Cal frowned as he walked through his rented house making sure that he wasn’t leaving anything behind. The truck he’d borrowed from a friend of Jason’s was out front, packed with a tower of furniture held together by a few moving straps and an awful lot of good intentions. He’d be lucky if they could drive the five miles to Tom’s without losing any of it, but he figured they’d take their time.

“Just don’t follow me, whatever you do,” Jason said as Cal joined him in the driveway. “The last thing you need is to have a bookcase land on your windshield.”

“We need one of those signs.” Cal shrugged when Jason gave him a questioning look. “You know, ‘Don’t follow closely’ or whatever.”

“Right. Dude, I don’t think you’ve been getting enough sleep.” Clapping Cal on the shoulder, Jason gestured toward the house. “We good?”

“Yeah, we’re good. Let’s get out of here.”

Cal had mixed feelings about moving in with Tom, and not just because he had doubts about Tom’s expectations of him as a roommate. He hadn’t been
anyone’s
roommate for years and would have willingly admitted that he enjoyed living alone. Well, to anyone apart from Tom, because he would have worried about hurting the guy’s feelings. Tom seemed like such a nice person. Cal was troubled by the nagging feeling that this arrangement might end up screwing at least one if not both of them over.

As he drove his own car, following Jason in the borrowed truck—not
too
closely—he reminded himself that if this thing didn’t work out, he and Tom could go their separate ways. The lease he’d signed, which Tom had printed off a site on the Internet, referred to their agreement as a month-to-month tenancy. It wasn’t like he was stuck with the guy for a year or anything. It would be fine.

That feeling didn’t go away when he arrived at his new home. Tom was there to greet them, smiling a little nervously but making a better impression on Jason than Cal had expected. Not that it mattered what Jason thought; it wasn’t as if Tom were Cal’s boyfriend, after all. Even so, it made Cal look at Tom a little differently, a hint of speculation in his gaze.

Tom definitely had the height thing going on, and unlike some tall men, he didn’t
stoop
, rounding those broad shoulders. He didn’t dress in a way that showed them off either. Today he was wearing baggy jeans—hole-free, at least—and a shapeless sweater in a shade of oatmeal that was frankly appalling. He was too pale to carry the color off, and the garment covered his ass.

Cal realized he’d been staring too long when Tom raised his hand uncertainly to his face and rubbed it across his mouth as if checking for a blob of ketchup or syrup. With an unaccustomed sensation of gaucheness, Cal turned away and went to the truck. He returned with a heavy suitcase in each hand, the handles cutting into his palms.

“Ah, we should get the big items in first?” Tom said diffidently before Cal could start up the stairs. “That way we won’t be tripping over the small things.”

“A man with a plan,” Jason said. “And one who can see that after three trips up and down the stairs, I’ll need a cold beer.”

“Beer?” Tom flushed. “I don’t actually have any—”

“We do.” Jason produced a six-pack from the cooler he was carrying. “There’s more in the truck, but this should keep the dust down.”

“I’ll put these suitcases in the closet. We can put some of the smaller stuff on the grass until the furniture is in. Don’t touch the stuff in my car. I’ll get that myself.” It included his computer and his very expensive digital cameras, and he wasn’t going to take a chance on someone breaking them.

“You know, Tom,” Jason gasped half an hour later as the three of them tried to wrestle one of the only pieces of furniture Cal was actually attached to—an enormous thing with drawers and a closet/shelf section—up the front staircase. “You should really think about giving roommates the
downstairs
rooms. Unless you’re some kind of secret sadist.”

“In which case”—Tom gasped, knocking his shoulder into the wall and wincing—“it’s a pretty crappy secret.”

Calvin would have laughed, but he was too busy hissing as his knuckles scraped against the door frame, leaving what felt like a couple of inches of skin behind. “Almost there. Right…just a little…okay,
down
.”

He straightened up painfully, one hand on his lower back, which was protesting the activity.

“You’re buying us dinner, right?” Jason asked.

“I’ll buy you three dinners,” Cal told him gratefully. “I never could have done this without help. This was the worst of it, though. The desk unscrews into about six pieces, and I already put them in the office while you guys were bringing in the chair.”

The chair was in the corner of the bedroom, a large, upholstered chair with a strange pattern, as if paisley and abstract art had had a love child. Several people had commented on how ugly it was over the years. Cal ignored them. He liked it. It was comfortable, and he didn’t care what it looked like when he was sitting in it. Plus he had a tendency to toss clothes over it, which hid the ugliness.

“Want me to put the desk together?” Tom offered.

“Are you saying you’re good at screwing?” Jason asked, lifting an eyebrow. Cal was glad to see that Jason’s almost-marriage to George hadn’t dimmed his personality.

To his surprise, Tom didn’t throw back a lighthearted remark, the way he had been all afternoon once he’d loosened up. Jason was clearly waiting for one, an expectant grin on his face. Tom just flushed pink and stood there, a troubled frown appearing as he visibly searched for words.

“I-I mean, well—”

The wait for Tom to finish his sentence grew awkward, and Cal, moved by a protective impulse he didn’t examine too closely, slid his arm around Tom’s wide shoulders and guided him away and over to the office. “Stop flirting with Tom,” he threw back over his shoulder. “He’s got work to do.”

“I’m okay,” Tom said once they were in the office, his voice low. He shrugged away from Cal’s arm. “I’m just not good at that. Being all…”

“Friendly.” Cal felt bemused. “That’s all. Having fun isn’t something you have to work at.”

“Not for you, maybe,” Tom said with finality. He nodded at the disassembled desk. “What wall do you want it against?”

Cal decided they could come back to this conversation at a future time. “Hm. I guess here, unless it’s too tall to fit under the window? Otherwise I’ll get glare on the monitor when the sun’s coming in.”

Already bending to lift one of the side supports, Tom nodded. “I think it’ll fit okay. There’s only the one outlet on this wall, though, so you’ll probably need a power strip.”

“I’ve got one,” Cal said. “Somewhere.”

“Let me guess.” Tom straightened up and grinned. “In a box?”

“You’re a genius!” Cal sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “You know, I really hope this works out, because I am sick of moving.”

Tom gave him a thoughtful look. “Yeah, I can imagine.”

“What about you?”

“What about me, what?” Tom asked, frowning.

“Do you think this will work out? Us living together?” Cal wasn’t sure why he wanted the confirmation.

“I don’t know. I hope so. Not like I’m a big fan of painting.”

From the stairs, Jason called, “Come on, Cal. Get a move on! If you think I’m bringing the rest of these boxes up on my own, you’re crazy!”

Cal smiled ruefully at Tom. “I guess I’m not going to get away with claiming I’m crazy, huh?”

“Probably not,” Tom told him.

“Coming!” he called to Jason and headed for the stairs.

Three hours later, in desperate need of a shower, Cal lifted a hand to Jason, who was driving away in his friend’s truck. He turned and trudged back inside to the kitchen, where Tom was trying to fit a pizza box into the refrigerator. Tom was kneeling on the kitchen floor with a collection of white Chinese food containers beside him, and looked up at Cal as he came into the room.

“I can’t remember if these are the ones from the other day or the ones from last week,” Tom explained, gesturing at the cartons.

“Smell test,” Cal suggested.

Tom shook his head. “I’m too scared. Once I inhaled mold, and I didn’t stop coughing for two weeks.”

“I’ll do it.” Cal picked up one of the cartons, opened it, and looked inside. “Noodle something?” He sniffed cautiously.

“I always get noodle something,” Tom said. “I take it it’s not green.”

“Nope. Smells okay.” Cal set the carton aside and tried the others, sorting them into edible and less so. “I think these are all for the trash. You should be good with the others.”

“Thanks.” Tom began to scrape the discarded food into a recycling bucket that he kept under the sink. Cal was all for recycling, but Tom seemed to take it really seriously, unless it was a system set up by Sally. There were boxes for glass, plastic, cardboard, and plastic in the mudroom off the kitchen, and any food scraps got added to a composter on the side of the house. “Makes more room in there, anyway. Do you—would you like some?”

“I don’t know how you want to handle the food situation,” Cal said. “I’m happy to help you eat the leftovers and make some more room in there. I don’t want to sponge off you, though.”

“It’s two-day-old noodles,” Tom said. “I think you’re excused from sponging.”

“Even so.” Cal shrugged. “Well, let’s see how it goes. Maybe when I know I’m going to be around for the week, we can go shopping and split the cost. We can take turns paying if we’re feeling lazy and want pizza.”

“Sure,” Tom said without hesitation.

“You’d tell me if I was doing something that bugged you, right?” Cal asked. Tom seemed so diffident at times, and Cal could imagine him being taken advantage of. He knew he could be a little overwhelming at times, and he didn’t want Tom to feel pressured into agreement on anything, no matter how trivial.

Tom smiled as if he could tell what Cal was thinking. “I’d tell you. I’d probably be way too blunt about it, just to warn you. But I’d tell you.”

“Good to know.” Cal privately thought that Tom’s confidence wasn’t high enough for him to be truly blunt. “Though you’re showing a lot of restraint in not telling me that I need a shower.”

“That comes under the heading of ‘personal,’” Tom said. “I don’t go there. Your business. If I don’t like the way you smell, I’ll leave the room.” He gave Cal a sidelong glance. “I’d appreciate it if you did the same for me. Stay out of my personal life, I mean. I don’t need advice, and I’m not a charity case.”

Cal let that sink in. “Okay, right. Is that… Do you get a lot of that?”

“People trying to set me up? Sometimes. You saw what it was like at Marianne and Derek’s.” Tom seemed to reconsider and added, “Sorry, yeah, you did, because she was trying to set you up with someone too. Although, since you left with him, I guess she was more successful in your case.”

“Only because neither of us wanted anything from it,” Cal said slowly. He leaned against the countertop and tried to put it into words. “Which I don’t think was on Marianne’s mind. She assumes everyone wants to end up like her. Married, kids, house with the white picket fence, you know? Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting those things.”

“Plenty of people seem to,” Tom agreed. He dumped the contents of one carton into a bowl, then placed the bowl in the microwave to reheat.

“So she looks at me, single, and she looks at Alexander, single, and thinks that all she has to do is introduce us to each other, and bingo, we’ll be a happy couple too. It never occurs to her that we might not want anything more than some good sex and company in our bed.”

“And that’s really all you want?” Tom made a flicking gesture with his hand, and Cal took a step to the right, leaving the space the utensil drawer had to open into clear so that Tom could get a fork. “You don’t want a boyfriend, partner, whichever word you prefer?”

“It’s not that I don’t want one, and yeah, either word is fine. It’s more that I don’t expect every guy I meet to possibly fill that role. I assume eventually I’ll hook up with someone who’ll, whatever…
fit
, I guess, and we’ll end up together for a long time. I’m not analyzing every guy who crosses my path, though. Does that make sense?” Cal had the sudden feeling he’d been going on too long, rambling.

“Yeah, it does.” The microwave beeped, and Tom retrieved his bowl of noodles. “And I think Marianne is looking at the world through relationship-colored glasses.”

Cal stared at Tom, amazed he’d been able to put it into words that were so accurate. “Exactly! What about you?”

Tom stuck his fork into his noodles. “You need to take that shower.” The words were spoken so casually that it wasn’t until he added, “You smell sweaty,” that Cal got it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I crossed the line, huh?”

Tom hunched up his shoulder. He didn’t seem too perturbed, but there was a distance present that hadn’t been there before.

Cal sighed. “Save me some noodles. I won’t be long.”