My self-loathing was neither here nor there; it was everywhere because that’s where he was, though I tried like hell to escape him. It had been almost four months since I had seen Cal in the flesh, yet his flesh was all I could think about. Memories of the minutes spent against his lips crashed over me like waves, inundating my mind despite the passage of time, and I hated myself for my inability to move past the moment. He lived behind my eyelids when I went to sleep and on my palm when I woke up thinking of him.

I did everything I could to banish him from my brain, including having Maksim take Abe’s alcohol orders. If I had to face him, I would be unable to forsake him, and just like that I’d be another sad sack sweet on the precocious Peach. I wondered if he thought of me, or if I was only a fading flame, a series of seconds strung together, left smothered by my feelings while he burned the acres between us, or perhaps I was the one scorching the space.

I should have been able to go back to The Gallery, to be in his presence, to act like a man, but I hid instead, a fearful faggot, everything I didn’t want to be. Kissing him was a mistake, one I was desperate to make again and again, unremittingly. Without thought, I’d run my thumb over my lower lip, recalling the feeling of his tongue sliding past it and tangling with mine like taffy, all sugar and spice, and four times as nice as any kiss I’d had before. I wondered if it was possible to get addicted to a memory, crave the consciousness you’d committed to your brain, fiend for the flashbacks you played over and over, the ones that settled and stirred you. Was it possible to move on from something that sought to freeze you in time and hold you there, on a blustery beach at midnight? Did I want to know?

The most bizarre aspect of my outrageous obsession was the fact that it wasn’t only his lips I missed, it was the way he spoke, what he spoke about, the way he looked at me like I was more than a spoke in the wheel, like he saw me, even if he was spoken for. What the fuck was going on with him and Abraham? Cal had told me nobody owned him, but did Cal own Abe like they both owned me?