No Shame

Twenty

***double update! Happy New Years! Good riddens 2020 and hello 2021!***

CiCi
Come over? I want to
Apologize better. More.
I miss you...

Calum rereads the text about twenty times, chewing on his lower lip. Their last blow up had been a shit show. He'd gone to yell and fight and ended up fucking her. That had not been in his plan.

But just like everything to do with CiCi and him, it hadn't gone according to plan. She'd done that thing with her eyes, the one where they look so honestly pained he scared. That thing where she said all the right words to make him stop and reconsider. That thing that he is more than addicted to, and it had worked in her favor.

The difference this time is she had actively defended him and shot down every rumor about her stupid baby daddy post. And even more shocking, she had not reached out once. Not until today. She'd given him over two weeks to process and think before even attempting, and she asked nicely.

"Fuck it." He mumbles, pushing off the chair and heading back inside to shower off the sweat collected on his skin from sitting in the sun for a while.

***

CiCi sits against her window, upset that Cal left her on read, but also not wanting to push it. He'd said she was his, and honestly part of her hoped it had been true, not just an angry comment in the heat of the moment. But here she sat two weeks later with nothing but a small word on her screen telling her he'd thought of her at all. And his inability to even say no was a little bit soul crushing. She hurt him, but she'd also hoped he'd have seen through her issues and lashing out. To see the person she was inside, the person he alone in the world knew...

Startling from her thoughts as the doorbell chimes, she crawls from the window bench heading for the door down the stairs. With her dad staying in New York with Robin she's found the house to be quiet and even larger than usual. Any company, even for a moment, seems like a bright light to her lonesome quarantine.

"Calum?" Her eyes shoot wide as she pulls the door open, his brown eyes hesitant as they meet hers from under the black bucket hat pulled over his growing curls.

"We keep a whole fucking table between us and this is not going anywhere physical." He seems cold, closed off slightly as he steps past her into the house.

"You— you came?" She swallows softly, turning to see him pulling out a chair at the table before motioning for her to sit there, wandering around to the table to take the one across from it himself. Stunned, she just stands there staring at him.

"You wanted to talk, CiCi, not me, so talk." He adds, looking at his hands and not her as he calls to her across the room.

"Right." She panics slightly, walking over to the kitchen and filling the tea kettle with water. Setting it on the burner to warm before joining him at the table.

"I'm sorry, Calum." She sighs, twisting her fingers around each other as she starts.

"You've said that. I don't exactly trust your apologies anymore, CiCi." She flinches slightly at his tone.

"I know. But I am, Calum, I swear. I have a shitty life. You know that, you know that better than anyone. The things I shared with you, they were real. I lost my mom to her own mental demons, I found her dead body in this house, my dad hasn't been the same since, I haven't been the same since. I don't know how to be vulnerable or open up. But then with you, it's so easy... it just happens. It freaked me the fuck out! I've hid it all, suppressed every single fear and damaged piece of me for years and years. And in walks this kid, happy carefree, and gorgeous. He shoots me down, and normal I would just let it go, I literally have hundreds of guys falling at my feet. But no, this guy with the giant smile and seven hundred dimples catches my attention the second he walks into a room or party. And for three years I worry about how to talk to him, to get him to see me and want me. I obsess over him like a prize I could never attain. And then I got you, and I really and truly believed it was just fun, that you were hot and I'd string you along for a few weeks or a month. I'd have fun making your life hell for a while and then move on..." She pauses a moment as the tea kettle whistles. Getting up she grabs the container of tea options and a couple mugs she busies herself with bringing the tea to the table.