“Come in, Bernie,” he tells me, turning around and heading across the grass in his boots, shorts, and hoodie. When he pounds up the weathered front steps, I find myself drawn after him. My cigarette’s gone out, but I tuck the rest of it back in the pack for later. Can’t waste it, even if it tastes like shit the second time around.

I find Cal waiting at the top of the steps, the front door open in front of him. He gestures for me to go in, so I do, pausing in a small entryway and looking around at a house that seems frozen in time. There are pictures of Cal as a kid on every wall, but none from the last ten years or so. The place smells clean, but there’s this musty undertone that makes me think of dust and quiet places.

“Grandma!” he calls out, pausing at the bottom of the stairs, hands folded on the newel post. He waits for a moment and then calls again. Still, no answer comes. “I’ll be right back,” Cal throws over his shoulder, smiling at me as he heads up the stairs and leaves me alone in his grandmother’s house.

Holy shit, I think, stepping forward to examine one of the pictures. They seem to start around his first birthday and end sometime after his seventh. There’s a picture of that particular party, one where he’s got on a pair of black ballet slippers; I recognize it by the number seven candle stuck to the cake.

When I stand back up, I find myself noticing little things, like the extra pair of boots by the front door, the baseball bat leaning against the wall, and the faint smell of a woman’s perfume. I can’t resist the urge to wander, so I start in the living room and find myself pushing open a door at the far end.

“What do you think?” a dark voice whispers from behind me. I don’t know how the fuck Cal got down the stairs without my hearing him, but I find his looming presence comforting, like a second shadow.

I’m looking at his room, this beautiful blue box with shiplap walls and a huge, wooden bed that looks about a million years old. It’s immediately obvious that Cal isn’t the one that decorated it. This was a room that was painted and dressed up for him by somebody else, and it probably hasn’t changed in years. There are ballet slippers in a heap by the door, weights arranged in the corner, and a TV mounted to the wall.

“You can go in,” he tells me as my hands fumble for a light switch. I step into the dark room, the only bit of light gray and diffused, leaking between the closed curtains and peeking in around us as we stand in the doorway. Callum follows me in and closes the door behind us, cutting off the rest of the light.

“Was your grandma okay?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder at just the moment the light comes on. Cal is holding the chain on an old lamp. He lets go and tucks his fingers into his pocket again.

“She’s alright,” he tells me, looking tense and too big for the small space. “I’d ask you to come and meet her, but she’s not herself today.” He stares past me at the black bedspread and then turns ice-blue eyes on me. “When she gets like this, she starts telling me things I don’t want to know about.”

“Like?” I ask as Cal sweeps past me like death himself, opening a wardrobe next to the bed and then pulling his hoodie over his head. This isn’t the first time, obviously, that I’ve seen him stripping down, but my breath catches anyway. My eyes trace the scars across his beautiful skin, blending in with the tattoos on his arms. He catches me looking and glances my way, the expression on his face making me take a step back.

His gaze goes from my mouth to my eyes, holding me captive in that one spot.

“The truth, mostly,” he says, shrugging and then turning away from me like he can’t bear to look without touching. But that’s okay, because I want him to touch. I want him to hold me tight and tell me that everything is going to work out just fine. “Like, how she killed her husband and made my mother help dispose of the body.”

Callum digs around in the wardrobe for a minute, pulling out a white tank and slipping it over his head before he closes the doors and turns back around.

I’m not exactly sure how to respond to his statement, so I just wait, standing awkwardly near his bedroom door.

He chuckles at me.

“Oh come on, Bernadette, we’re way past that.” Cal climbs onto his bed, kicking off his boots and then leaning back into the pillows with a sigh. His blue eyes close and for just a second there, I can imagine him going to Juilliard and dancing on a stage in Paris. If only … “You, hovering near the door like a stranger.”

He’s right. I’m just so fucking tense.

I move over to the bed and perch on the edge of it, taking off my heels before I join him, resting my head on his chest.

“Today’s certainly been a clusterfuck, hasn’t it?”

Cal smiles, eyes still closed, hand absently stroking my hair back from my face.

“Bernie, everyday in Havoc is a clusterfuck.” He’s right: it is. Cal continues on before I get a chance to respond. “And seriously, stop worrying about Victor and Trinity; you’re going to end up killing yourself over it.”

“Poor choice of phrasing,” I murmur, but Callum’s undeterred.

“You’ve been punishing yourself since Snow Day. That’s all this is, more of the same. You know that Vic would never betray you. All the same, you’re letting it get to you the way you let Kali get to you. But it’s not about Victor, and it’s not about Kali. Bernadette, this is about you. Stop hurting yourself. You don’t deserve it.”

I sit there quietly for several minutes, but I’m not sure how to respond to that. Yet again, Callum is right. When I close my eyes, I can hear his heart, a steady, even rhythm that makes me feel peaceful in a way I haven’t felt since the after-party.

“Can I stay here with you tonight?” I ask, and Cal’s fingers still in my hair. His breathing slows, hitches slightly. I open my eyes and glance up to find him watching me.

“I’d love that,” he replies, his tone warm. “I’ll admit, I was jealous as fuck that Hael got a sleepover before I did.” His beautiful mouth turns up at the corner in a teasing smile. “Last one to get fucked, last one to get a sleepover …”

“Oh, stop,” I murmur, sitting up and pushing my hair back from my face. If I’m staying here, then I need to call Aaron and let him know to pick Heather up. Heather. Fuck. By calling Havoc, I’ve made things so much more complicated for her. Neil was bad, but the GMP … Jesus. I can only imagine the state that Stacey’s dead girl was in when they found her. Briefly, I think about Aaron’s suggestion that we send the girls to Oak River.

I’m starting to think he’s right, and I hate myself for that, too. As Cal said, these last few weeks have been all about punishment, haven’t they?

Thinking about Heather makes me think about Pen, as it always does. And then I’m missing her so hard that my stomach hurts and my head throbs. I want her stuff back. I want it out of that fucking awful house, spirited away from all the nightmares that reside within those four walls.

“I need to get Penelope’s things back from my mother’s place,” I say, wondering when and how I’m going to manage that. Pam and I aren’t exactly on good terms right now.

Callum thinks for a moment and then encourages me to sit up. He’s off the bed and digging through his wardrobe again before I can figure out what exactly he’s up to. He takes a fresh hoodie out and slips it on.