Gravity (Greenford #2) - Romeo Alexander Page 0,24

made a rolling gesture with his fingers. “You were talking about…?”

“Well, you,” Samuel admitted.

Caleb chuckled. “Well, that’s bound to be a loaded conversation.”

“Well, it could be,” Samuel said, thinking to himself that it had been a loaded conversation, just probably not in the way Caleb was thinking. “But it got me to thinking.”

“Which is dangerous in and of itself,” Caleb interjected.

“Oh, funny man,” Samuel said scathingly. “You should try stand up, you’d be a hit.”

“I think I do better as a teacher.”

“You’re not teaching a whole lot in those shorts.”

Caleb looked down at himself with a frown. “What? They’re comfortable for working out in. So long as I wear the right sort of underwear, they’re perfect.”

Samuel could only imagine the type of underwear that was considered the right sort. Which was a bit of a problem since he was trying to focus on the original topic and not Caleb’s shorts.

“Right, so aside from your ridiculously small and distracting shorts,” Samuel ground out between clenched teeth.

Caleb’s brow shot up. “Distracting?”

Samuel sighed. “As if focusing isn’t hard enough for me, you have to keep pulling me off topic. It’s rude is what it is.”

“As if you need the help.”

“Exactly!”

Caleb was starting to look amused, and Samuel wasn’t sure if he should be happy about that or want to strangle him. He was settling on a mixture of both since he was trying to keep his focus and Caleb didn’t seem all that concerned with helping him.

“Anyway,” Samuel said, remembering what he was going to say. “I realized that you could probably use...company while you’re here.”

“Do I need it?” Caleb asked innocently, making Samuel settle on his earlier conundrum and wish he could strangle the man.

“Or not,” Samuel said with a huff. “All I meant was, you haven’t mentioned having...anyone to talk to while you were here or spend time with. And I’m not going to pry or ask a ridiculous amount of questions, but I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone either. But if you want to be an ass about…”

Caleb reached out quickly, taking Samuel’s wrist in his hand. “Hey.”

Samuel tensed. “What?”

“Please,” Caleb said softly. “I was only teasing. I appreciate the gesture. I really do. And I would never say no to spending more time with you.”

Samuel’s annoyance withered in the face of the earnest plea. Almost immediately, he felt like an ass for being so defensive. Why was it that he could take unlimited teasing from other people, but the minute he received it from Caleb, he was immediately willing to start a fight?

It was a question he’d never quite been able to answer.

Samuel sighed. “I know, I’m sorry. I’m being oversensitive again and I should know better.”

Caleb let go of him slowly. “Alright, I’ll try not to poke fun at you.”

Samuel shook his head. “No, that’s not fair. I poke fun at you, and everyone else pokes fun at me. I should be able to take it. The problem isn’t with you.”

“I won’t lie, it sure feels that way sometimes.”

“I know, but it isn’t you.”

Caleb hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”

Samuel looked up in surprise. “Okay?”

Caleb shrugged. “Okay. I have to not doubt everything that comes out of your mouth just because I’m feeling that isn’t the answer.”

And there, in a nutshell, was one of their oldest arguments summed up and seemingly settled all in one fell swoop. Samuel had to resist the urge to ask who this man was and what he’d done with Caleb. Then again, just resisting the urge would have easily prompted the question being thrown back at him as well.

Well, maybe they had grown up a little.

Samuel smiled then. “Okay, cool. I think I can work with that.”

Caleb snorted. “I’m not surprised. You always hated it when I did the opposite.”

“Hmm, and guess what I was just thinking about when you said that?”

“I can barely imagine.”

Samuel laughed, “Smartass.”

“So, when were you thinking?” Caleb asked.

Samuel shrugged. “All the time. Any time. Far too often.”

Caleb rolled his eyes. “And you called me a smartass. I meant, when did you want to keep me company?”

After taking a moment not to read too closely into that statement, Samuel cleared his throat. “Well, if you’re not busy tomorrow.”

“Only busy trying to steadily get through the rest of my things, which I won’t argue with an excuse to get away from it for a few hours,” Caleb admitted.

“Well, why don’t we try going to Nations? I noticed you left when we ran into one another, and really, the drinks