The City Lake

V

When Caleb woke up and exited his room, he fondly looked down at Jeremy sleeping on his couch. He was tempted to ask his friend to move in but Jeremy’s family needed him. Still, it would be nice to have a home together. 

Caleb stuck some frozen waffles in the toaster and carefully measured out a glass of tap water for him and Jeremy. His taps would shut off if he took too much water. Jeremy must’ve been woken up by the noise he was making in the adjoining kitchen and shuffled in to watch.

“Morning,” Caleb said in greeting.

Jeremy squinted at his glasses as he held them up to the light, shook his head, and started cleaning them on his shirt. Then he stuck them on his face haphazardly, looking adorably ruffled from his sleep. “Hey. Waffles?”

Caleb nodded and rested his hands on the counter by his toaster as he waited for them to pop out. Jeremy came up behind him and laid his chin on Caleb’s shoulder. Caleb wrinkled his nose as he smelled Jeremy’s rank morning breath. 

They had always been tactile friends, more so now than ever. Jeremy had never indicated one way or the other whether it was due to a romantic inclination, although for Caleb it definitely was. Remembering the kiss Jeremy had given him, on the forehead or not, brought a scalding flash under Caleb’s skin. When his friend was around, Caleb always felt a gentle warmth towards him that was common enough that he barely noticed it now; it was just another fact of his life. 

If Caleb were bolder he’d give Jeremy a kiss in return, perhaps on the cheek, or maybe on his shoulder where it was easier to reach when they both stood up straight. He settled on grabbing a handful of the shirt Jeremy had been wearing for going on three days now. Jeremy gave him a bright smile that shot right to Caleb’s heart.

This was his favorite time of day. It was just the two of them with no prying eyes, raw from the cleansing effect of sleep and not being fully awake. He should worry about the future and getting a new job, and how could he forget the ghost? But right now it didn’t matter that they were just friends, that they didn’t quite fit into society, that ghosts were apparently a thing. Jeremy beaming at him like he was the sun and allowing him close let Caleb forget all those worries for a while. Like this, even without kissing, Caleb could pretend that they were lovers enjoying their morning before work took up their day, that they were totally in—

The toaster popped, spitting out two small waffles. Caleb jerked out of his fantasy as Jeremy took one and crunched into it with more passion than he had for their one-sided romance. As Caleb stuck two more waffles in the toaster and took his own to nibble at, he pondered his life.

If he were in a book, well, if he was wondering that then he probably was in a book, he thought wryly. The attempt to acknowledge clichés had created yet another cliché. But if he were to write a book, he knew the formula for unrequited love and that by the end of sorting out whatever ghost problem he had looped himself into, Jeremy and he would talk out their feelings and in a not-so-surprising ending, they would learn that they didn’t have to waste all those years wondering if their feelings were requited. 

Caleb wished this were the case. He’d done some reading into philosophy, and if it was possible he was a computer simulation, he figured it wasn’t a stretch to hope he was in one of those sappy romance novels where it worked out fine in the end. He couldn’t bet on that, though. 

The next round of waffles popped up and Jeremy took his waffle to the couch. Caleb followed behind, slower, with both hands carrying a waffle because he'd been too lost in thought to eat much.

“Are we going to get a coffee today?” Jeremy asked when Caleb had sat down on the opposite end. “We can say hi to Noah and Lucas.”

“You can,” Caleb said. He didn't feel like talking to his work friends. They had gotten him into a mess through what he had thought was a ridiculous ghost hunting club. It turned out that the club wasn't ridiculous because it was for a thing that didn't exist, but because he'd argued with the other members that he should go talk to the ghost when they wanted to use a half-baked plan to go kill the thing.

Jeremy shifted to look at him closely. “You don't like them anymore? Friends by convenience?”

“Yesterday may have caused some disagreements. I wish we'd never gone to the lake. It stinks,” Caleb admitted. He had been getting along fine with the people who took shifts with him and had liked expanding his friend horizon despite Jeremy remaining his best friend.

“The situation stinks? The fact you couldn't get along?”

“The lake did. It was like camp slop but a million times worse.”

Jeremy snorted, clearly knowing it was wrong to laugh and wanting to anyway. Caleb smiled at him to let him know he meant to be funny. Having a quick laugh lightened the growing anxiety in his chest.

Caleb sighed and smoothed out the blanket Jeremy had used the last two nights over the back of the couch. Jeremy sat so that his socked feet were flat and his toes were encroaching the edge of the crack between cushions. Caleb mirrored his pose and hoped that they'd accidentally brush toes, as pathetic as that was. He finished his last waffle and glanced over at his coffee table. 

“Sorry,” Jeremy said when he noticed where Caleb was looking. “I wanted to know what you were making and couldn't figure out how to put it back.”

“It's fine, Jer. No harm done.” Caleb picked up the ball of yarn and tossed it to Jeremy, then took his knitting for himself. It had been put down messily but none of his progress had been erased by a careless tug.

The rest of the morning was spent chatting as they savored their water and Caleb continued on the scarf he was making for Jeremy. He wasn't a professional knitter, hence the simple product, and he appreciated the company as he gradually built up some speed in the process of looping yarn around and out of the way, repetitively transferring his creation from one needle to the other.