Page 43 of A Loser by Christmas
“You held fast for Reece. Never gonna forget it.” He sets a red light blinking. “Go ahead, Valentin. Video every single minute.”
So that’s what I do until he has to leave again that evening. I fill a whole SD card with Calum recreating past Christmas visits to this city, and he doesn’t do it alone—Patrick flanks him every step of the way, and his husband joins us.
This time, elfin eyes don’t narrow at my camera. Seb actually smiles to see me. I guess that means I’m out of danger, and I do feel safe until Calum leaves the city later for another of those meetings to keep his side of a hockey bargain.
He tells me goodbye at Kings Cross station. I’m not ready to hear that word. Apparently, he isn’t ready to say it, because he rushes to add, “Wish you could come with.”
“It’s okay. I always knew your evenings were off-limits.”
“Listen.” He almost snags my hand, and he probably could risk it here where people are in too much of a rush to take any notice. He doesn’t do it. Calum shoves his hands deep in his coat pockets, then leaves to play ambassador for ice hockey far away from London. Before his train has even pulled out, my phone pings.
Big & Bad:What if not all my evenings were off-limits?
Big & Bad:Want to come to one of those with me?
Big & Bad:Y/N
I restrain myself by only typing Y once. He sends back a smiling selfie with a final message.
Big & Bad:Work on your win x
That’s what I do for what turns out to be an extended absence. He’s missing from the marina for days. At least Daddoesn’t need me to give any test drives, but that freedom to dive into my edits does lead to a discovery—I’m in more danger than I ever faced aboard a lifeboat.
I’m not saying a storm swamps the marina.I’m battered by this footage of Calum. He soaks up London sights, gazing the same way he did at me before leaving. I’m punched in the chest each time his gaze finds me, and it happens a lot. Frame after frame also highlights the same determination YouTube showed me in hockey replays, only in this brand-new content, he’s determined for me.
I have evidence to prove it. Hours of it.
Days after he left, I listen to Calum through my headphones while replaying footage of a visit to Covent Garden. “Want me to heckle the street performers?” He’s full of loser ideas. “Look at that one on stilts. I could steal one from him. Use his stilt to do some trick shots with the coins he’s collected. Send them flying over the crowd.”
My mic caught another offer in the food hall at Harrods.
“I could drop a ton of cash here if you wanted. Buy all the cheese, then throw it in the river.”
If I’d said yes, that extravagance could have made for a good contrast with the people who have nothing that Reece works with. Today, I press Pause, but I don’t see someone rich and thoughtless frozen on my laptop screen. I witness the same expression over and over. It’s in each clip I layer into my entry. Again and again, Calum’s expression shifts to...
Hungry.
I see it most clearly in what I recorded in a Kensington restaurant where that sightseeing trip ended with a goodbye supper. Calum still looked hungry after Patrick and Seb headed off to get their Cornish Christmas started early.
Now I sit alone on my bunk and spot more of Calum’s hunger, only not for Penny’s one-star cinders. My laptop showshim hug his brother goodbye, then chases him for another the same way he once did with her, and I have to walk away from that rawness.
I need some distance from it.
A distraction.
I find one in Dad’s sales booth. “What are you doing?”
Dad tells me without any booming or bluster. Without barking at me or issuing any orders. He simply shows me his phone where a marine disaster plays out. “I’m looking for the video where Reece Trelawney listed the names of all the children saved by that foundation he works for. I know I watched it. Now I can’t find it. I need to if I’m going to paint their names on the boat your Trelawney has selected. He wants some upgrades added to it by Christmas, but he also placed an order for me to build another.”
I’ve heard a lot from my father lately. This is a first for relief.
“I can’t lie, Valentin. It’s a weight off my mind. I was starting to worry about more than whether I could cover the team’s Christmas bonus. Really didn’t want to leave a layoff under anyone’s tree.” He holds out his phone again. “Help me find that list of names so I can get the boat back to the yard and start painting?”
After so long of needing his help, it’s weird to be the one who gives it. Even stranger to hear him say, “Good thing I subscribe to your channel, or I wouldn’t have got the notification to watch that video.”
“You’re a subscriber?”
“Of course I am. How else would I know if you needed me?”
