I rolled my eyes at myself.
“I was there. At the bar. And I saw the announcement.” All true.
“Aw, Huey, were you checking up on Riven because of Theo? He’ll be very touched that you care.” Whitman said this loudly so Theo would hear.
I heard a muffled shout and then Theo’s voice near the phone.
“?’Cuz her brother was giving him eyes.”
“Oh really?” Caleb said. “That true, Huey? Did her brother put the moves on you?”
He was teasing, fully expecting me to dismiss this. I sighed.
“Yup.”
“Wait, really?” Whitman said.
“I just said that!” Theo called.
“Well, I hope you let him down easy, bro. Remember that girl whose heart you broke at the bookstore?”
I said nothing.
“Huey?”
“I…well.”
“Gimme the— Here, put it on— Okay, hi, Huey, you’re on speaker,” Theo chirped. “I told him. Cute bro was all googly-eyes looking at you.”
“Huey.” Whitman again. “Were you mean to him?”
“No! I’m not mean,” I snapped.
“Of course not,” Theo soothed. “You’re just, um, what’s the word? Like, kinda…”
“Brusque,” Caleb said at the same time Theo found, “Blunt.”
“I didn’t let him down easy because I didn’t let him down,” I said to shut them up.
“Wait, what!?”
I immediately regretted my choice.
“So you, um, got with him?” Whitman said reluctantly.
“Oh my God, no one says got with—how old are you?” Theo teased.
I cursed my honesty for the thousandth time.
“I’m…seeing him,” I managed to choke out.
“Seriously? Holy shit, man, tell me everything!” Whitman said.
I grunted.
“Tell us something at least,” Theo amended.
I wanted to hang up the phone.
“Huey?” Whitman’s voice was more even now. “Sorry, bro, I didn’t mean to be all whatever about it. It’s just I’ve never heard you mention dating anyone in all the time I’ve known you. You’ve always been real private about it.”
“I haven’t.”
“Huh, really? I seriously can’t remember you ever mentioning anyone.”
“I haven’t been private. I haven’t.”
“Haven’t—ohhhh, okay, gotcha.”
His voice was gentle and I let out a sigh of relief. I should’ve known Caleb of all people wouldn’t judge me for not being with anyone. He of all people knew the risk. Hell, he’d called me in a panic about falling for Theo a number of times.
“So what’s he like?”
Since it was only Caleb now, I figured he’d sensed my discomfort talking about this and kicked Theo out of the room. Of course he’d tell him everything later, but I appreciated the gesture.
“He’s…” I shook my head. “Young. Too young, probably.”
“What’s too young?”
“Twenty-five.”
He snorted. “I meant that philosophically, not literally.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Huey? What does that mean?”
He’s vivid and new and has his whole life ahead of him and I’m a brittle, used-up structure standing in sheer stubborn persistence.
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“So come on, what’s he like, then?”
“Sweet. So damn sweet. And he feels shit real hard. He’s…genuine.”
“Oh man, that sounds kinda like Theo. My kryptonite.”
I swallowed hard. Caleb knew. He knew how sometimes someone else’s emotions could leak into your own. How that person’s needs and desires could make you do things you might not otherwise choose to do. Which, for an addict, was frighteningly close to things we tried to avoid.
I didn’t talk about this shit with Whit. It had always been the other way around.
“Feel your feelings, Huey.”
I snorted. I’d said it to him a hundred times.
He makes me feel alive. Like I’ve been asleep this whole time. Frozen. Just marking time. He makes me feel like I could have more. But I can’t risk it.
“He’s…I…”
Caleb let me off the hook.
“Listen, man. If you like him, then that’s great. You’re so generous to me, to us. And so damn stingy with yourself. You deserve something that makes you happy.”
I grumbled something indistinct.
“You’ve gotta trust yourself a little bit. Trust yourself the way you’ve told me to trust myself. It’s not good to be afraid forever.”
“?’M not afraid,” I said instinctually.
“Okay,” Whitman soothed. “You’re not afraid. Sure.”
“Shut up,” I grumbled, and he chuckled.
“Nothing wrong with being afraid, man. God knows we’ve all been there. You remember how shit terrified I was that falling in love with Theo meant I’d become addicted to him and shit?”
“Yeah.”
“You told me that only I could know if my relationship with Theo was a good thing or a dangerous thing. And that if it was good, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be scary as fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“And you told me that I had to trust myself, otherwise what was the point of being sober and having another chance.”
“Yeah.”
“You gonna say anything besides ‘yeah’?”
“Yeah.”
He laughed. “Asshole.”
“Yeah.” He stayed on the line with me. “Thanks, kid. I needed that.”
“They’re your words, Huey. You already know these things.”
“Easier to tell your ass to do it than to do it myself, though.”
“Yup. Yeah, I like this side of things. Maybe I should be a sponsor.”
I snorted. “Yeah, right. You don’t have the patience.”
A huge part of being a sponsor was watching people make mistake after mistake and have to start over, from farther down each time, just like I’d watched Caleb do. It was being patient and keeping hopeful that this time would be the time it’d stick. It was a heartbreaker a lot of the time. Caleb would hate to think it about himself, but he wouldn’t be able to stand watching people fail. It would hurt him too much.