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Callum says it around a laugh, happy and carefree and not thinking.
“I love you,” he tells Ben, sprawled out on his bed and watching Ben try to fix the TV settings. He’s pressing all the buttons and swearing under his breath and it’s just so Ben - serious and stoic one minute while completely hopeless the next - and it’s true.
Callum loves him.
But then he notices the way Ben’s back tenses. He notices the way Ben’s hands stutter. And he knows just as suddenly that it was the wrong thing to say.
“Sorry, I - ”
“I swear, someone’s changed the buttons around,” Ben interrupts, and oh, Callum thinks, he’s ignoring that. “It ain’t gonna work.”
“Uh.” Callum falters, before eventually managing to scoff. “Sure, blame someone else ‘cause you can’t do it.”
“Fine, genius,” Ben teases, throwing the remote down and leaning in for a quick kiss. “You figure it out. I gotta get to work.”
“I thought we was watching this movie.”
“Can’t. People to see, lives to ruin.”
Callum sits there for a long time, alone, trying to figure out how that went wrong.
*
He used to think he wouldn’t be able to say it. I love you . HIs dad never did and his mum used it as a weapon, so it seemed like a big sort of thing. As if every time you said it you lost a part of yourself.
That never happened to Callum.
With The Carters, and Whit - even with Stuart. He told them, he meant it, it felt good. It felt good to say it, and felt good to hear it, and felt good to be surrounded by that feeling. Love.
So he said it. Felt it. Meant it.
And, yeah, he was still in one piece.
Mostly.
*
Callum tries to bring it up over a drink, or on the sofa, or at the pub when they’re sharing a corner booth and having dinner. It’s not like he plans to use the word again any time soon - but he wants to clear the air at least. Let Ben knows it’s okay if he doesn’t feel the same way yet.
He can wait.
“Look about the other day,” Callum starts, only to have Ben finish, “Oh, with Lola? It’s fine, she’s only angry when I give Lexi sweets. She thinks you’re perfect.”
He also tries, “You know how you were getting angry at the TV and I was laughing at ya, and I told ya - ” but Ben stops him with, “Cal, ya brother’s headed over here and I want to know how much I can pay ya to tell him to do one.”
Before trying to be more direct with, “I know I said something that you didn’t like, and I get it, but can we please - ” and Ben outdoing himself with the avoidance by saying, “Hm? Sorry, zoned out. You want another drink?”
In the end, Callum figures he gets the message loud and clear.
Ben’s not talking to him about it.
Callum knows when to stop pushing.
*
If Callum’s honest, he thought Ben would just laugh and say it back. He thought he’d smile, and it would make him happy, and they’d lie together and watch a movie and maybe - if Callum was lucky - fool around before Ben rushed away.
Because that was them, the moment they started this thing.
They were simple.
They made sense.
Like four letter words.
*
There’s a lot of things he loves about Ben. How he makes Callum laugh, and how he looks at his daughter, and how he’d rather die than let any one know how tender he can be.
He loves Ben’s strength and his take-no-shit attitude and how he takes care of his own.
Callum loves that he bounced back from every unkind word, and every beating, just to make sure Callum came through okay. He loves how he always knew - even at the worst of times - that if he had to knock on Ben’s door, Ben would never close it.
Callum loves so much about him.
“Yeah, yes, please .”
And he loves when they’re together.
It’s only been a few months, but Ben knows so much about Callum’s body. About where to touch and how to grab and what he likes. What he really, really likes. Callum loves that Ben will just lay him down and get to work and make sure that every time is a good time.
Callum loves it.
“Okay?” Ben asks around a gasp, one of Callum’s knees hooked over his shoulder as he fucks into Callum with three fingers. “Ready?”
“Yes, Jesus, I was ready yesterday.”
Ben laughs as he lunges for the condom, saying, “Alright, mate, steady,” despite the fact his hands shake as he rolls it on.
“Don’t call me mate,” Callum manages to bite out, before calling out to the ceiling as the head of Ben’s cock slowly, torturously pushes into him.
Ben crowds in close, both of Callum’s knees up, and sets an easy pace - no sounds other than the slap of skin and their grunting moans. Callum puts a hand on his face and Ben looks him in the eye and Callum thinks, this is love, Ben, this must be love.
Callum kisses him and Ben starts to move faster and he falls back and brings his hips up and lets Ben take him.
They both know where he stands.
Ben can have it all.
*
Callum thinks about it more. How he told Mick he loved him, because he was like the dad he never had. How he promised Whit he loved her because she was good and kind and cared for him like no one else did. How he even let Stuart know that there was love there, too. For protecting him, and persisting, and trying to be better.
When he told Ben I love you, when he thinks it to himself - he knows all of that is different.
It’s the kind of love he never had as a teen because he didn’t know what he wanted. The kind of love he might have had with Chris but couldn’t admit was real.
It’s the kind of love that sparks like a match, sudden and burning. It takes hold and shakes you up and threatens to set you alight without warning.
Love, like he never knew before.
That’s why he’d always thought it was easy.
*
Jay and Lola find a little flat outside of town with two bedrooms and a bathroom that’s very 70’s chic. (According to Ben.) They have a housewarming only weeks later - boxes still piled up in corners and Lexi’s room only half painted because she decided she wanted pink, and then she wanted purple, and then she wanted yellow.
Callum likes it. He might even feel a little jealous.
“You think we might do this one day?” he asks Ben after one too many beers, the two of them huddled in a corner.
“What? Get a place?”
“Yeah. I mean, my place has Stuart and …”
“A lot of history,” Ben agrees, nodding his head and taking a swig from Callum’s bottle.
“Right. So starting fresh could be good, yeah?”
Ben shrugs, pretending to be interested in the crowd around them. Callum knows he isn’t. “I guess. Hadn’t really thought about it.”
“Oh.” Sometimes Ben’s impossible to read. While a part of Callum’s mind might think, of course he cares about you, sometimes he has to wonder, what are we doing here? “I s’pose you’d wanna decide if you love me first, before we move in together.”
Ben looks obviously surprised by that, shoulders going stiff. “Callum.”
“No, no, it’s fine.You don’t want to talk about it,” Callum says, drunk but still aware of how passive-aggressive he sounds. “Just let me know when you figure it out yeah? I’m gonna go get another drink.”
*
I love you, he’d said, which was only the half of it.
I’m in love with you, he’d meant.
I’m in love like I’ve never been. Love, love, love. You.
Callum wonders how badly that would have gone.
*
A week passes, and another, and somehow they survive it. It’s awkward at times, loaded looks and staggered touches - but he’s still Ben’s and Ben’s still his, and Callum’s not giving up. He doesn’t care how long Ben wants to pretend.
It’s nineteen days later when Ben comes around unannounced.
“I thought we were doing breakfast tomorrow?” Callum says once he’s buzzed him up, heading over to the kettle.
“Yeah, we are, I just.” He goes quiet and Callum turns to look at him. “I needed to see ya.”
“Everything okay?”
Ben huffs. “I mean, yeah. And no.”
“Ben - ”
“We can’t keep this up, Cal,” he says almost desperately, taking long strides to be right up close to Callum, gripping his shirt. Callum wraps his hands around Ben’s arms, suddenly worried that this is going the last place he thought it would. “I ain’t being fair on you, you don’t deserve it.”
“What d'you mean?”
“You told me you love me,” Ben says almost hysterically, letting out a little laugh. “And I ignored you. It scared the shit out of me. It still does.”
“I know. I mean, I sorta guessed.”
“Course you did.”
“But Ben, I don’t … it don’t matter, alright? If you can’t … if it’s too soon or …”
“No - ”
“I don’t need to hear it back, alright, I just … I don’t wanna lose ya.”
Ben reels back a little, hands still clenched at Callum’s chest. “You ain’t gonna lose me, what?”
“Well, I thought maybe you couldn’t keep doing this if we weren’t in the same place, you know? If I was being too serious - ”
“Callum, Cal, no, no.” Ben moves his hands to grab at Callum’s face instead, pulling him in for a kiss that’s rushed and open and wet and harried. Callum grabs at Ben’s face too, his throat, his neck, his shoulders - a part of him just wanting to stop talking altogether.
“I’m there,” Ben finally says, breathless, leaning his forehead against Callum’s. “I’m where you are, I’m serious, this ain’t … I ain’t just messing you around. You gotta know that.”
“I do, I mean, I thought.”
“I just didn’t know how hard it’d be to say to someone else. To mean it again. I thought I never would.”
“Okay. It’s okay.”
“It ain’t okay. I ain’t living in the past. I’m with you and I … I love it. I don’t want nothing else.”
Callum closes his eyes and smiles, still pawing at Ben’s shoulders, now feeling ten tonnes lighter. “I know.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ain’t - ”
“It don’t matter,” Callum hushes him, starting to push him toward the bedroom. “It’s okay, c’mon.”
*
“I love you,” Ben tells him later, in a whisper, fingertips featherlight across Callum’s skin. “I love ya and I have thought about moving out with ya, and I have thought about a lot of stuff. Future stuff.”
“I have too.”
“And…” Ben takes a breath. Callum feels it against his chest. “And I loved ya back then too, before then. I’ve been in love with you a long time, Halfway .”
Callum scoffs and pulls Ben up to him. “Not as long as I’ve been in love with you.”
“You wanna bet?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay,” Ben says with a grin, and gets up to straddle Callum, the sheet pooling down around their legs. “But let’s worry about it tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Callum agrees, taking Ben’s hand and tangling their fingers together. “Tomorrow.”
*
love; passion, devotion, an intense feeling of deep affection.