“Ramsay wouldn’t do something like that,” I say, staring down at the countertop. “It’s not him.”

“Lennox…”

“I know what we heard but I know Ramsay. He wouldn’t join that group on his own. He… he’s probably working for my Dad. Ramsay isn’t a cruel person.”

Callum keeps giving me a pitying look and I know he doesn’t believe me. He puts the biscuits in the oven and sets a timer before getting out a gravy packet and some ground turkey sausage. Callum isn’t the best chef, but the things he can make, he’s really good at. Biscuits and gravy is one of those things, so long as the gravy isn’t from scratch. 

“I don’t want to upset you, Lennox,” Callum says, putting the sausage in a pan to cook it off. 

I feel tears well in my eyes. “He wouldn’t do something like that, Callum.”

“Your dad wouldn’t ask Ramsay to join that group. He wouldn’t even ask Raina or Joseph to do that. He’s too protective over you and your siblings. Lennox… we both know Ramsay made the decision on his own.”

I don’t cry often and I hate that I am now. I’m not sobbing, but I can feel the tears dripping down my cheeks. There are so many emotions flowing through me and I’m not sure if the tears are from anger or sadness, but there’s definitely both of those feelings living in me. 

Callum hands me a paper towel from the kitchen to wipe my tears. “But… I don’t want to give you false hope, but we don’t know Ramsay’s reason for joining yet.”

“It could be for a good reason?” I ask. 

“I’m not going to say that, but we don’t know for sure if he’s working with that Conrad guy or if he has his own ulterior motive.” 

I wipe my eyes once more, getting rid of the rest of the tears on my cheeks. I don’t feel embarrassed crying in front of Callum, but I still want to have it together a little bit. 

Callum slides a plate of food in front of me and sits down beside me with his own plate. He made my plate up exactly how I like it, with equal parts of gravy and sausage. In restaurants, I don’t like when there’s an overwhelming amount of gravy and not enough biscuit. Callum likes it the restaurant way; his plate is smothered in gravy. 

We eat in silence and I clear our plates once we’re both done and wash them while Callum packages up the rest of the food. We’ll probably have the rest of it for breakfast tomorrow because I doubt I’m going to be in the mood to go out tomorrow. 

Callum and I go upstairs and I head for the bathroom to shower, but I pause at the door. 

“Are you okay?” Callum asks, standing in the doorway of his room. 

“Will you shower with me?” I ask, looking back at him. “I don’t want to be alone right now. If you don’t want to get into the shower you could just sit on the floor or something.”

Callum follows me into the bathroom and closes the door behind us. He hugs me from behind and kisses the side of my face. “Do you want me to get in with you?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will,” he murmurs, kissing the juncture where my neck meets my shoulder. 

Callum turns on the shower to start warming the water. His shower is one of the bigger glass showers with black tile on the ground, but he doesn’t have a bathtub like we do at home. He and I both prefer showers to baths, though, so I don’t foresee it being a problem. 

I start to unbutton the fancy shirt I’m wearing, but Callum steps behind me and reaches around my body to start undoing the buttons for me. I put my hands down and rest my head against his shoulder. My eyes feel heavy and I’m exhausted, partially from the events of tonight but also because of the sensation of being fully relaxed. 

Once my shirt is fully off, I turn around to face my boyfriend. I unbutton his shirt in the same, slow way he did mine. I tug it off of his shoulders before leaning forward and kissing his lips. My hands find his hips and his are on my face. 

Callum’s hands leave my face and begin running up and down my back, making me shiver from his cold fingertips. He pulls away, breathing a bit heavier than he was before. He smiles softly and kisses my forehead softly. 

“Come on, you’re tired. Let’s shower and go to bed.”

I nod tiredly, pulling off my own pants and underwear before climbing into the shower. The hot water cascades down my back and I have to take a few seconds to get used to the heat. By the time I get used to it, Callum gets in and gets in the way of the stream of water. 

“Rude,” I mutter, and Callum just laughs, hugging me so we’re both warm and partially covered by the water. “Helen should invest in two shower heads.”

Callum scoffs. “How about your dad investing in them?”

I roll my eyes, grabbing the bottle of shampoo. “My dad is pretty practical and I don’t think he’d go for it.”

“Are you saying Helen is impractical?” 

“I’m saying that she’s more likely to support shower comfort in the form of more shower heads than my dad.”

Callum makes a small “hm” sound, and I know he knows that I’m right. He closes his eyes while I lather his hair with shampoo, but I’m careful not to get any in his eyes. After he’s sure his eyes are safe, Callum returns the treatment. His hands scrubbing my head is comforting and I feel my eyes slip closed. 

We take turns helping each other wash out our hair before applying conditioner. Callum stops me when I try to instantly wash it out. 

“You need to let it sit so it gets silky and smooth,” Callum insists, grabbing a purple loofah and covering it with pomegranate scented soap. 

My strong sense of smell is slowly coming back; I can tell by how powerful the soap’s scent is. Usually, I go for a more neutral scent, but if Callum likes this weird pomegranate soap then I’ll have to deal with it for tonight. I’ll have to buy a more neutral scented soap for his house. I initially had a bottle here of mine, but it was only a quarter full and I work out a lot so a lot of showering follows. 

Callum rubs the soap on my skin; he’s still standing behind me, his arms wrapped around me. He runs the loofah down my arms, my lower stomach, and then my upper thighs. He pushes the loofah in between my legs, and his touches are gentle and hesitant, giving me the chance to ask him to stop. 

I don’t; I can feel myself growing hard at the touches, which would embarrass me if I didn’t already feel Callum’s erection poking against my lower back. My stomach turns nervously. We’ve made out before and had things escalate to where we were both turned on, but we never took it further. We would leave things and wait awkwardly until our erections went away. 

I reach back and touch Callum’s thigh, turning my head briefly to make sure he’s okay with it. His cheeks are pink, whether it be from the hot water or from recognizing how hard we both are, I don’t know. Callum gives a small nod, enticing me to wrap my hand around his cock. 

He inhales sharply and drops the loofah, grabbing my own cock with his soapy hand. Before I have a chance to do anything, he pumps his wrist twice, making my legs shake. Sure, I’ve masturbated before, but this is definitely a different experience. 

“Everything okay?” Callum asks, scraping his teeth along my neck. 

“Mhm,” I mumble, trying to keep myself under control. I move my hand a few times and feel Callum’s breathing get heavier against my neck. “Are you okay?”

Callum chuckles. “Perfect,” he says, groaning when I tighten my hand a bit and move slower. “Gods, have you ever done this before?”

“Not on another person,” I start to take my hand away. “Am I doing badly?”

“No, no, you’re doing good…” Callum sounds a bit breathless. “Really good. It feels like you’ve done it before.”

I turn around and kiss his lips, closing my eyes as the water hits my face. I grab Callum’s cock in my hand once again and repeat what I was just doing, and he uses his arms to brace himself against the shower wall as he groans and pants. My own member is still hard and I’m so turned on that it kind of hurts, but I’m more focused on my mate. 

“Gods, Lennox,” Callum pants, resting his head against my shoulder. 

I don’t get any warning before he reaches his limit and cums all over my leg. I smirk when he has to pause and catch his breath because I feel pretty proud of myself for my first time, but my smirk falls when Callum abruptly drops to his knees and shoves my entire cock down his throat. 

I struggle to keep myself from bucking my hips forward and have to grab the wall the same way Callum just did. I’m already turned on and with Callum’s tongue being as skilled as it is, I don’t even have time to react before I cum down his throat. He swallows it all with ease, and it’s kind of gross because I’d probably spit it out, but it’s also kind of hot. 

My legs are shaking as I awkwardly help Callum to his feet. Everything moves in a blur; we rinse the conditioner out of our hair and dry off, wrapping our towels around our waists. I’m exhausted and Callum also looks pretty worn out, though I don’t think it has anything to do with the events of the club.

Callum offers me a pair of sweats that I accept. Since we spend the night at each other’s houses so frequently, we have clothes at each house, but we still share a lot. Besides, I don’t want to share my underwear with Callum and I don’t think he wants to share his with me, so it only makes sense that we bring our own clothes. 

It doesn’t mean I won’t steal his overly comfortable sweats at every opportunity. They’re really not more comfortable than mine, but they smell like him so they’re more attractive to me. Vampire sense of smell isn’t that strong, but Callum steals my clothes anyway because he still can pick up on scent. 

We brush our teeth after we get dressed and dry off our hair. Everything is done in silence, but it’s a comfortable silence and we keep swapping soft kisses and gentle touches. Once we’ve finished our nighttime routine, it’s already past midnight and I feel completely wiped out. 

Callum and I take turns when it comes to who’s the big spoon and who’s the little spoon, but he holds me tonight even though he did it last night. He must be able to tell that I’m still pretty stressed out and overwhelmed by what we discovered earlier this evening. 

“It’ll all work out, Lennox,” Callum whispers, rubbing my belly with his hand before holding my hand with one of his. 

I have no choice but to trust him and hope he’s right.