Page 61 of Sunflower

“It’s mad.” He chuckled as he shook his head. “Totally crazy.” His hands rested on the edge of the table-top and he leaned back. “It was something I said to George the day after I left.”

Infuriatingly, he fell into silence again. I leaned forward and poked him in the sternum, making him startle and push my hand away. “And?!”

Grumbling, he rubbed at the spot where I’d prodded him. “I said that he was lucky I was gay and didn’t want kids of my own.” He shrugged. “I figured Apollo allowed me to survive, because he knew I wasn’t planning on continuing my family line, and there was no way for me to father anoopsbaby.”

Shocked, I sat back, blinking hard. Callum didn’t want children? For some reason, that thought saddened me. It was far,fartoo early for me to even think about having children,but the idea of never seeing little mini-Callum’s running around all carefree and joyful left me feeling cold. “You don’t want children?” I asked, my voice strangely quieter than I had meant it to sound.

Alarmed, he turned to face me and reached over to grab my hands when he saw the look on my face. “Mo lus na gréine, you misunderstand. I want toraisechildren, but I’ve always wanted to adopt or foster.” He looked deeply into my eyes, holding my gaze, pleading for me to understand. “You have to remember that I’ve always known I was gay. I knew from a very early age that if I wanted a biological child, I would need to spend thousands of dollars on IVF and a surrogate that would take months or years to get any sort of result from. It all seemed like such a waste when the money could be better spent on looking after a child that already existed and needed someone to love them immediately.”

As he explained, my heart melted, and I felt my eyes well up. Hedidwant children, just not in the conventional way.

Instantly, my fuzzy vision of little mini-Callum’s running around blurred and shifted clearly into a phone screen appearing in front of my eyes. A reflection of an older, bearded version of myself was laughing and leaning into an older version of a grinning Callum, before I murmured,“I love you, sweetness.”

A tiny Asian girl of around six and a slightly older bespectacled Black boy were happily roughhousing in a bouncy castle behind us. As this older version of myself tapped the screen to take the family photo, a sense of fulfillment, love, and affection for these unnamed children and the man standing next to me filled me near to bursting.

In that moment, when knowledge of this future slammed into my present, I knew, without any doubt, I would do anythingto keep these individuals,myfamily, safe and cared for. They meanteverythingto me.

And it all started with the wide-eyed young man sitting in front of me, wrapped in a ratty blanket, telling me the legends about how his family came to be while we waited to be discovered by a crazy jackass.

“Oh, my God…Yes,” Callum whispered in awe. “That’s our future.”

Coming back to myself, I blinked, my eyes clearing enough that I could see his still slightly glazed eyes peering back at me. “You saw that? How…?”

He shook his head, his mouth open in shock. “I don’t know. You shouldn’t be able to see what I see. It shouldn’t be possible.”

Still reeling from the images in my head of those two perfect children and an older Callum, I surged forward and kissed him with everything I had. The pure love and contentment that I’d felt in those precious few seconds rushed through me, and IneededCallum to feel what I’d felt in that vision.

What I still felt now, back in the present.

All the adolescent emotions I’d thought I’d felt so strongly for him over the past few years were now nothing but shades of gray. The explosion of a vibrant cacophony of color overtook my senses and the unerring certainty that Ilovedthis man with every fiber of my being, and that he loved me back with every beat of his heart, nearly stole my breath away.

Was this more of what he’d seen all those years ago? Had he been feeling the same unbridled adoration currently rushing through my blood all this time? How had he survived being away from me? After experiencing this riot of emotion for Callum, even for just a moment, I didn’t think I could bear the thought of being separated from him for more than a few minutes.

As I climbed into his lap, my knees straddling his thighs, he met me, kiss for kiss, breath for breath, each heartbeat solidifying our love for each other even further.

Letting go of my blanket, I cupped my hands on his cheeks and pulled away just enough so I could gasp for some much needed air. “Callum,” I breathed, my forehead resting against his. “My God. Is that how you’ve been feeling all this time?”

Tears filled his wild eyes as his shaking fingers traced over my face, desperation filling every movement. “Ever since that first touch,mo lus na gréine.”

“Oh, sweetness…”My hands explored his heaving chest, his shoulders, before settling on the back of his head so I could angle him in a way that I could drag my nose along the ridge of his ear, making him shiver in my arms.

“I love you,” I whispered, just a little louder than a breath. “My God, how I love you. How I willcontinue to love you. I had no idea... You don’t have to hold back anymore, baby. Let yourself love like you were always supposed to. I’m right there with you, sweetness.”

A heaving sob wracked him as he threw his arms around me and held on tight, his fingertips clawing desperately into my back. He buried his head into my neck, and I felt his tears fall as the barriers that he’d had to build up around his emotions just so he could scrape by in this crazy world crumbled into nothing but dust.

“I love you so much,mo lus na gréine,” he murmured, still crying into my neck. “Words can’t describe what I feel for you. What I’vefeltfor you.” He pulled me even further into him, like he couldn’t bear being separated from me, and if he could only squeeze us together hard enough, we could merge into one. “But you know now.” His breaths came heavy and hard as the realization that he didn’t have to hide anything from me anymore rushed through him. “You know now…”

“I do, baby.” With my fingers threading through his hair, I held him close as he continued to sob, until all the tension finally drained from his body. “I do.”

As the stars slowly traversed the sky above us, we sat there quietly on the hard timber picnic bench. I held Callum while he settled into what would hopefully be his new normal, rocking him ever so slightly from side to side whenever he started tensing up. A few murmured words along with the gentle swaying motion, and his anxiety evaporated.

Finally, when I couldn’t ignore the chilly night air any longer, I kissed him on the top of his head. “Come on, sweetness. Let’s go home. I think by now it’s safe to say that we lost the jackass.”

A small huff of laughter puffed against my neck before Callum nuzzled into me one last time and pulled away. “Yeah, I think you’re right.” He leaned back so he could look hopefully into my eyes. “Back to my place? Stay the night?”

Smiling gently, I pressed my lips against his forehead before saying softly, “Home is wherever you rest your head, Callum. And if it was up to me, I’d stay with you forever.”

His eyes lit up as a beaming smile spread over his gorgeous face. “I want you with me,mo lus na gréine. Always.”

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