Gravity (Greenford #2) - Romeo Alexander Page 0,19

and sending her into a fit of laughter.

“You watched people through their windows?” Sam asked curiously.

At that moment, Caleb could have happily wrapped the man up and held onto him. The question could have been asked with such judgment, but instead, Sam had asked because he wondered, because he wanted to know what was so special about it to Caleb.

“They always felt like portals into people’s lives,” Caleb explained as they continued walking. “While I was out, by myself, I could catch a glimpse of someone’s life. It was strangely magical.”

“Snapshots,” Sam murmured thoughtfully.

“Sometimes it was just people sitting around the TV or eating dinner. Or it was kids playing, families doing board games, just little stuff. It always made me happy, seeing people live their lives in the warmth of their homes, and I was able to catch a glimpse of it.”

Sam’s fingers squeezed gently against his. “I like that. I like it a lot.”

And they continued walking in mutual silence, hand in hand, under the occasional light of another person or family’s light bathing down upon them from an open window.

Sam had stopped ahead of him, tilting his head as he watched Caleb. “Where’d you go just then?”

There was no way he was going to admit it, so Caleb shook his head. “Just have a lot on my brain. Big move, new job, stuff like that.”

Sam hummed, the tone inferring that he knew something, but he didn’t elaborate. Caleb shook his head as he followed the other man through the glass doors leading into the cafeteria. Caleb’s steps slowed for a moment as he looked around the large room.

There was certainly none of that strange layering of the past over the present like he’d experienced when first coming back to Greenford. Apparently, the university hadn’t been doing badly when it came to funding. The dim and slightly worn-down cafeteria that he remembered was completely gone. In its place was a small atrium, equipped with a glass ceiling and glass-lined walls that allowed the bright sunlight to stream in.

The long tables were gone, and instead, there were little cafe tables scattered around, as well as larger circular tables for groups. Planters littered the gleaming tiled floor, filling the room with not only light but life as well.

Sam glanced back at him. “Oh, right. Yeah, they did an overhaul in here a few years ago. They were still finishing up the construction when I started. Pretty nice, huh?”

Caleb followed Sam through an arch, where long counters of clean stainless steel waited. The trays on the counters had probably possessed a lot more food earlier in the day, but the morning rush had dwindled the supply. The coffee machine was easy enough to find, and Sam busied himself, grabbing a small sandwich from a machine in the corner and one of the bananas out of a basket.

“Let’s get a table real quick. No point in walking and eating at the same time. Especially when I’m guessing we have all day for this,” Sam said.

Caleb felt a little strange just sitting around when they should have been going on the tour. He bit back the comment, however, suspecting it would probably serve to only irritate Sam. The other man had always accused him of being a little too dedicated when it came to work and that when life presented you an opportunity to just relax, you should take it.

“Don’t get twitchy,” Sam said as he took a seat at one of the small tables. “We won’t stay here for long.”

“I wasn’t going…” Caleb began to lie, and then shook his head. “Okay, maybe I was going to get a little tense.”

Sam smirked as he unwrapped his sandwich. “Like I said, some things don’t change.”

“And some do,” Caleb tossed back at him softly.

Sam bit into the sandwich, nodding. “That’s true. Could be that once upon a time, we weren’t awkward as fuck around one another.”

Caleb glanced around, wondering if anyone heard Sam’s language. “That’s also true. But I suppose that would have a lot to do with history.”

Sam grunted. “And plenty of it. And it’s not like we really settled it at the time either, did we?”

“No, I suppose we didn’t.”

Caleb wasn’t all that surprised to find that Sam was far more social and friendly compared to Saturday evening. Not only was the man less taken off guard, but for all his occasional prickliness, Sam wasn’t one to hold onto any single negative emotion for very long. Caleb, who was prone to thinking