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“You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” and, well, Evan seemed pretty serious. Arms crossed, slight amusement and faux-seriousness on her face. She was clearly trying her best to put her foot down, but maybe the alcohol was messing it up.
“Would I…” Callan began cautiously, reaching out to trace Evan’s lips with his thumb. He locked his eyes and heart in so deeply he nearly forgot he had a sentence to finish.
“Still love me if I was a worm, now answer me.” He smirked a bit at her audacity. Since when does she ask dumb questions like this?
Callan shook his head quickly and furiously, not even trying to contain his goofy smile. Evan let out a mock gasp, abruptly sitting up and looking down at him with shame. With those eyes. God.
“Not even if I were a really cool, nonchalant worm?” The thought of Evan ever being ‘nonchalant’ warranted a fit of giggles between the both of them. Callan had been warned by Corey the week he and Evan started dating that the ‘girl questions’ would start rolling in any day now, and he’s surprised it took four months to get to this conclusion. Surely, he had to be missing something.
“Corey’s making you do this, isn’t he? There’s some hidden camera in here? Shoot, Ev, did you film that? I’m so done fo–” his ramblings are cut short by Evan’s lips on his. Quick and rough, but somehow careful. Callan loved the way she kissed him, it never got old.
Evan shifted her weight onto him, straddling his stomach and grabbing both of his wrists. Callan’s breath hitched, his mind immediately flooding with a million thoughts in a second. He's barely able to contain his awe before she smiles. All teeth. The moment lasted a second too short for his liking, then she was back to her theatrics. But, suddenly, Callan doesn’t mind what Evan asks him, as long as they stay right how they are.
“A…sexy worm?”
“Baby, that might just be the weirdest thing you’ve ever said.”
“Thank you,” he thinks he caught a bit of wistfulness in her voice. He wasn’t sure what he heard anymore, everything else was blurry except for Evan’s eyes. Callan had never appreciated eye contact, whether it be his father yelling at him while he tried to hide tears in his little eyes, or if it was him trying to conceal the redness when a teacher passed by. He was always hiding—under hair, blankets, hands, hoodies, anything. But he didn’t feel like he had to hide around Evan, not around someone who themself held every embarrassing thing high and proud. There was a metaphor (or simile, he can’t keep pretending to know the difference) somewhere in there, but by now, he was so lost in his Evan that he didn’t want to figure anything out anymore. He’d be fine with just meaningless words.
Shoot, how long had he been staring?
“You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah I’m perfect. Just tired.”
“That’s also what you say when you’re blazing it in the back of third period,” Evan’s words were muffled as she dove into the crook of Callan’s neck, fully exposed and waiting. He tilted his head to the side so she had more room.
“Just go back to asking me about worms or something, man,” he groans out. Evan left one more kiss on Callan’s forehead before retreating back to her side of the floor, hitting the floor on her back with a thud. Callan wasn’t sure if he even had any more breath left in his body from just a few simple touches, his heart racing. Focus on the worms.
“If I were some random worm on the sidewalk you saw, would you love me? But, like, you can tell it’s me, you know? I’ve still got that loser, swag aura about me, hard to miss…”
Callan took a deep breath, genuinely considering it. God, what was he becoming? Some softie that talked about worms? He was sure that if Corey even got a whiff of this, he would never let him live it down. Luckily, though, he wasn’t here. It was just them.
Curling into Evan’s shoulder, he finally let his deep breath out. “Yeah,” he admitted quietly. Not unsure or ashamed, but small, like it didn’t matter. Like he didn’t matter.
That seemed to be the right answer, as Evan burst into a gigglefit, turning slightly blue from lack of oxygen.
This was real, and Callan was here. With the most beautiful boy-girl-person he had ever met. And he could make her laugh like it was nothing. He never wanted to leave, never wanted to forget what Evan’s sound or touch was like. Letting herself finally stop and breathe, Evan finally leaned forward. Noses mere inches away, breath intermingling, humid and ringing in silence.
“You make me really happy, Cal.”
“I guess you’re okay, too.”
That was all he could give, all he could spare in the moment, and that was okay with Evan. As long as he stayed, which he did. That was that.