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Some nights Calum misses the stars. The way he used to lay on the trampoline on summer nights with his sister, making up stories for constellations they invented all on their own until their mom told them it was time to come inside. Sometimes he misses the nights they would beg and pout until she let them drag blankets and pillows out to the trampoline for a backyard sleepover. When they would stay up way too late competing to see who could count the most stars on their half of the sky. He usually texts his sister on those nights. He’ll ask if she can see any stars over London. She usually calls him on those nights to make sure he’s feeling okay.
Tonight he doesn’t miss the stars. From his spot on the fire escape, the light pollution washes them all away but he can see lights in windows blinking on and off all across the city as people finally leave the office or finally arrive home. And that feels close enough. The late summer breeze brushing against his skin brings with it a whisper of cozier months to come. And finally, he thinks as he breathes out a long breath, the thought of being cooped up in this city doesn’t terrify him.
It had been hard in the beginning for Calum to find solace and comfort in the city. He didn’t like feeling so far from the people he loved, didn’t like how no space in his new apartment gave even an ounce of the feeling he got sitting at the counter back home watching his mom make dinner. In the middle of summer he would still feel a chill walking down the city streets, resigned to the fact that no relief would settle over him when he turned the key and stepped back into his tiny one bedroom on the eighth floor.
He had tried to build in smaller comforts at the suggestion of his family. He bought the same candles his mom burned in the living room in the winter. His sister sent him one of the paintings she had always kept on her bedroom wall as a teenager. Nothing would click. Not even teaching himself to make his favorite dinners did the trick for longer than the evening when he made them.
He was pretty resigned to possibly just always feeling this way. Maybe that was a secret about adulthood that no one ever shared, the feeling this way all the time. Perhaps this was just the norm and no one had bothered to warn him. It seemed like a pretty bleak way to go about life, never feeling at home in the place he now had to call as such. But he didn’t want to worry anyone and frankly, it was exhausting trying to force his new life to try and mimic the way his previous one had felt. So after a while he found himself getting used to it.
But then one night, during a spring storm, the wind blew a tall blonde into the coffee shop Calum had been hiding from the storm in while he worked on a paper. And somehow, Luke changed everything.
Calum’s table had been the only one with an empty seat still in the whole shop. So really it was silly that Calum was at all surprised when the tall boy was standing in front of him a few minutes after walking in, a mug with a puppy on the side of it nearly overflowing with coffee and milk and sugar, and asking if he could borrow the other side of the table. Calum could hardly form words for some reason so he just gestured with a smile to the other side of the wobbly wooden table. Luke had introduced himself with his name and major (they were still young enough then that it was a custom to add their field of study to the end of any introduction). His name (and anthropology, probably archaeology actually ) felt warmer than the tea Calum bought upon arriving a couple hours earlier and he wasn’t not sure what that meant.
A few hours later they both left with unfinished essays and new contacts added to their phones.
Calum came to find that the city didn’t feel as big or tall or cold when Luke held his hand and told him about whatever new thing he learned about in his courses that day. He felt safe sitting at Luke’s kitchen counter working through a set of flashcards for his biochemistry exam while some sauce bubbles on the stove. It didn’t feel like they were rushing when their families met some random weekend in June, it just felt right.
He realized he had blinders on, that he wasn’t letting himself feel at home in the city because he didn’t want to be alone. He supposed Luke helped remedy that. Home is with other people, he thought (though that sounds just corny enough that he figures it’s something he read on a decorative pillow in a craft store or on a post his mom shared on Facebook).
One night the following spring, when there was a gentle breeze coming in through the open window making the curtains look like ghosts, Calum was moments away from sleep. Luke’s breath puffed steadily and gently enough against the tattoos on his collarbone that Calum figured he was fast asleep. Calum started to let sleep wash over him when a tiny voice and lips brushing against his chest pulled him further from slumber.
“We should move in together.”
Luke was asleep moments later and for some reason, any questions or worries that Calum could have had regarding that statement washed away.
The simplicity of Luke’s suggesting that in his final moments before falling asleep made sense. His final bits of consciousness needed to let Calum know what had been on his mind. Calum wasn’t surprised when he woke up the next day to Luke sitting up beside him, cup of coffee in hand and bed head like a tumbleweed, his painted fingers scrolling through pages of vacant units in the area of the city close to campus but not too close ( I don’t want to deal with freshmen, Cal. We’re too old to deal with that .).
Luke wanted a kitchen with a ton of counter space. Calum wanted big windows. They found both in the form of a two bedroom on the fourth floor of a building about ten blocks from campus. Michael and Ashton were delighted to hear about a second bedroom since apparently the eight block walk back to their apartment was far too long of a walk after Wednesday night “family” dinners. (The first time Calum heard Michael call the regular group meals by that name, he started tearing up.)
Another breeze flows by, and the gentle, random melody of the windchime (a house warming gift from Ashton) pulls Calum from his nostalgia. Behind him, a sweet smell floats through the open window. Luke always insists on keeping the windows open when he’s baking, the one downside to their place being the lack of A/C that’s really only a problem when the oven is on. With midterms of their final fall semester just around the corner, it’s no surprise that Luke is baking at 10PM.
The last lights in the office buildings are finally blinking away when the sound of the window being lifted further open pulls Calum’s gaze away from downtown. Luke takes the spot beside Calum and sets a plate of dessert in his lap. It’s dark enough that Calum can’t quite see what’s on the plate but the smell tells him something with apple. The cool breeze and apple both serve as reminders that fall is really upon them. Luke presses his lips to Calum’s shoulder before dropping his head to rest against the soft material of Calum’s t-shirt.
And as Calum lifts a fork to his mouth, the light from the kitchen just barely illuminating where they sit, he doesn’t feel worried about missing the stars or the trampoline or his mom calling out from the back porch. With sugar on his tongue and blonde curls tickling his neck, he knows he’s home.