Page 65 of The Bartender Special

It wasn’t smart.

They were a lie.

One with an expiration date to boot.

After that lie served its time, Benny would be back in Nashville, hopefully one step closer to realizing his dream. Jack? He’d still be at the bar, living his. A book deal for one, more customers for the other.

That was it.

There would be no more lies, plans, or festivals between them once he left.

Definitely no kissing—or anything else.

Post-spider adrenaline, he decided. That’s what got me. That’s why I didn’t hear Cal come in.

Benny’s heart sank just a little.

That was why Jack had most likely kissed him back. He’d heard the front door unlock and open. He’d heard Cal and leaned into Benny to keep their cover.

He’d—

“Oh my God, I left him alone with Cal.”

Benny hurried past his framed Tom Welling and swung out into his childhood home, hoping his older brother wasn’t having it out with his fake boyfriend.

What he found caught him, admittedly, off guard.

Callum was the spitting image of their father, Art. Just as Benny had an uncanny resemblance to their mother, Stella.

It had felt cruel for a year or two after the accident. In just the right light, or when they weren't fully paying attention, sometimes their brains would see one of their parents just standing or sitting around the house like nothing had happened. The set of their brows, the shape of their eyes and nose. The same hair and way they shrugged just so.

The little things no one realized were there…until they weren’t.

But then, as the years went on and they'd both accepted, subconsciously and otherwise, that their parents were truly gone, the uncanny resemblances had slowly become the things that made the old aches lessen.

A blessing, if Benny wanted to be cliche about it.

Callum was leaning against the kitchen counter now, a cup of coffee in his hand, talking to Jack. The sight slowed whatever panic had been about to escape Benny’s mouth.

Callum was particularly Art-like in his thirties.

Right down to the way his eyes crinkled and his smile went from folded to unfurled with an ease Benny had never been able to mimic.

In a way, it was almost like his father was meeting Jack.

An idea that made him feel warm, torn, and confused all at once.

Art and Stella De Carlo had died before Benny could tell them who he was. He’d like to think they would have supported all of him, but the truth was he would never actually know. A fact that ate at him on occasion still, even after all these years.

But, if they had accepted him, would his dad have liked the brooding bartender?

He thought his mother might have.

She would have probably called their contrast fun.

“Sometimes when my social battery runs out, I just give your mom a look and she knows what to do,” his father had once told him, standing in comfort on the outskirts of a neighborhood party while their mother was speaking a mile-a-minute a few steps away. “Then it’s time for me to do the watching while she does the talking. When I see she’s done, I swoop in and give some dumb husband excuse to leave.” His eyes had crinkled at the side as he’d smirked. “I used to use you and Cal as an excuse to flee, but now that you’re older and going with us to these things, it’s hard to say you’re back home with a fever and need us STAT.”

Benny had laughed with his dad then.