The Parable of the Mustard Seed Read online

  John laughed silently, and traced Caleb’s jaw with his thumb.

  “I’ll bet he did it on purpose.”

  “Probably.” John leaned in and kissed him softly. “Goodnight, Caleb.”

  Caleb smiled. “Goodnight, John.”

  John lay in the dark and watched the moonlight slanting through the wooden blinds, and listened to Caleb’s breaths even out as he fell asleep. John fought sleep for as long as he could, the moment too precious not to savour, and when he did finally close his eyes he dreamed of Caleb.

  “Analise Jones,” John said on Monday morning, when she opened the door to him, “I’m arresting you for breach of your parole conditions, and for conspiracy to commit crime.”

  “Crime? What crime?” Analise asked, her eyes wide, and her forehead scrunched. She wore that slightly confused air well, but John didn’t believe it for a second.

  “Kidnapping, for starters,” John said. “You told Leon Harrison where to find Caleb.”

  “No,” she said. “I—”

  John couldn’t be bothered listen to her bullshit. He turned her around and cuffed her, shocking her into silence, and the sound of the mechanism clicking into place was like fucking music. He wrenched her arms, and savoured her gasp of pain.

  Liz watched, her arms folded over her chest.

  John leaned in close, speaking in an undertone that wouldn’t carry. “You gave your own son up to those men. Twice. You’re a fucking monster, and you’re going to rot in prison. And after that you’re going to rot in hell, and that’ll still be too fucking good for you.”

  Analise flinched, and John wrenched her arms back again just to make sure she really felt it.

  He walked her back to the car in full view of the curious neighbours, Liz at his side.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  John didn’t know when it happened.

  He’d always been in love with Caleb Fletcher.

  It was his spirit he fell in love with first.

  All of the rest came later.

  On the morning of his thirty-first birthday, John woke up late in Caleb’s bedroom, and took a moment to remember where he was. He smiled when he realised.

  Caleb wasn’t in bed with him, but that was no surprise. John had worked until past midnight before driving here, letting himself in with his key and then sliding into bed beside Caleb. Caleb had woken just long enough to murmur something to him, and then he’d fallen asleep again. He’d taken his pill before bed, and John hadn’t expected him to wait up. He probably should have just gone back to his apartment, except he’d wanted to wake up with Caleb on his birthday.

  Except where was Caleb?

  John sat up and stretched, his bare feet hitting the cool floorboards. He reached down for his pants, crumpled from a night on the floor, and stood up to step into them. He buttoned yesterday’s shirt on, more or less, tossing his tie onto the bed to remember later. He checked the clock beside Caleb’s bed: it was almost nine.

  The bedroom door was ajar, and John heard the clicking of claws on the floor outside. A moment later a nose appeared in the gap, and Cricket nudged the door open further, her body vibrating and her tail wagging when she saw John was awake.

  “Hey, Cricket,” John said, and ran a hand down her spine. “How’s my gorgeous girl?”

  She beamed up at him.

  Her hair had mostly grown back in now from where the vet had shaved it weeks ago, and she had a few lumpy scars hiding underneath it, but she’d bounced back from her ordeal in the way that only a dog could: with pure optimism. She was a little more skittish of strangers coming to the door now, but weren’t they all? Darren had got a top of the line security system installed, and one of those cameras that caught whoever was at the door and sent alerts to everyone’s phones. John could watch parcels getting delivered from his office in Logan.

  John leaned down to give Cricket a more thorough scruffing, and in response she bounced up and licked his face.

  “Not the birthday kiss I wanted,” John told her wryly.

  He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and set out looking for the one he did want.

  He found Caleb in the kitchen, staring down at a carton of eggs as though he’d forgotten what he was doing with them. John moved up behind him, and slid one arm around him. With his free hand he took the carton of eggs from him and set it down on the benchtop. “Good morning.”

  Caleb jolted. “Good morning. Sorry, I zoned out.”

  “You feeling okay?”

  Caleb made an ambivalent sound in the back of his throat. “New meds, so you know. Like Dr. Harper agreed that while it’s great I don’t want to slit my wrists, if the reason I don’t want to slit my wrists is because I’m a complete zombie, that’s not exactly ideal. So we’re trying a new prescription.”

  “And you’re zoning out on it?”

  “Little bit,” Caleb said. “But that could also be last night’s sleeping pill. Dr. Harper says to give it a week or two and see how it goes. My system has to flush out all the old shit before we can see if the new shit is better.” He jolted again, and twisted around in John’s embrace. “Shit! Happy birthday! I had this whole plan to make you breakfast and wish you happy birthday when you got out of bed!”

  He leaned forward for a kiss.

  John put a hand on his chest and held him away. “Already got my birthday kiss from the dog. You should let me wash my mouth first.”

  “Gross.” But Caleb’s eyes lit up with delight. “I can’t believe you’re cheating on me with Cricket.”

  John moved to the sink and splashed water onto his face, grimacing. “It surprised me too.”

  He turned around again and Caleb stepped into his space. John leaned forward to kiss him, but was distracted by his sleep-rumpled hair. He teased a few strands apart between his thumb and forefinger, and Caleb’s smile was soft and shy.

  “You’re beautiful,” John said.

  Caleb wrinkled his nose.

  “Beautiful,” John repeated, and claimed his mouth in a kiss that was definitely better than the one he’d shared a few minutes before with the dog. Caleb put his arms around John’s neck, and John’s hands slid to his hips and held him close.

  “Happy birthday,” Caleb whispered when the kiss ended.

  And John couldn’t remember having a happier one in his life.

  “You’re an idiot, Faimu,” Liz grumbled.

  “I’m the smartest man in the world,” John corrected her as he signed the paperwork.

  Liz rolled her eyes. “Jesus. School-based policing? You’re insane. You always said you’d go up the wall working eight to four, Monday to Friday.”

  “That was sleep-deprived John talking,” John said. “That guy didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.”

  Liz tried to keep scowling, but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “You’ll still be a senior constable when I’m commissioner, you know.”

  “Probably,” John agreed contentedly. “You can make fun of me with your new partner Aaron, in between training sessions.”

  Liz punched him in the shoulder. “Don’t even joke about that, you bastard!”

  John laughed.

  This was good. He’d expected to have more mixed emotions about making the move to school-based, and while there were a lot of things he’d miss about leaving his old position—being on the front line, taking the lead in investigations as they unfolded, and even the occasional adrenaline burst from chasing a suspect down or wading into a brawl—he sure as shit wouldn’t miss the shift work. And while he knew that working as a school-based police officer would come with its own new challenges and frustrations, John loved the idea of being able to spend his evenings and weekends with Caleb.

  He had no doubt at all that he was making the right choice.

  “I’ll still bring you coffee,” he said.

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Liz replied with a smile.

  They went and got shitty takeaway for lunch for old time’s sake.
r />   John’s birthday party wasn’t until the weekend, so he headed to Caleb’s again after work, this time with an overnight bag stuffed with clean clothes. He was more or less living there now, and Darren was making vague noises about remodelling the downstairs and turning it into a self-contained place for Caleb. John appreciated the gesture, even while he was a little uncomfortable with it. Not because he didn’t want to move in with Caleb and not because he didn’t appreciate the practicalities of the idea—Caleb would still have Darren nearby if he needed him, and he’d be in a familiar enough place that he could keep his routine intact—but it bruised his pride a little to have Darren footing the bill. Then again, what was a little bruised pride in the end, when the payoff was moving in with Caleb?

  And they were a team, he remembered, and being part of a team meant knowing when to let someone else take the lead. Caleb liked the idea and Darren wanted to do it for him, so John wouldn’t object. Pride was pride, but family came first, and Caleb and Darren were family.

  O le fogavaʻa e tasi.

  One family.

  It was just on dusk when John pulled up out the front of the house. The dying day had painted the sky with fading swathes of pink and orange, and the flock of rosellas that lived in the rain tree came winging home as John climbed the front steps. They screeched and screamed as they swooped low over the roof of the house, and John knew from experience that it’d take them an hour or two to settle down and shut the hell up.

  John rang the doorbell, and then listened for Cricket’s claws clicking on the floorboards. They were followed a second later by the soft creak of bare feet, and Caleb opened the door before John could get his key out.

  “Hi,” John said.

  “Hi,” Caleb echoed softly, and then reached for John’s hand to tug him inside.

  “Where’s your dad?” John asked. “I didn’t see his car.”

  “He’s going straight from work to dinner at Emily’s place,” Caleb said. “He’s still calling her his friend.” He rolled his eyes.

  “He’s out of practice,” John said with a smile. “He’ll get there in the end.”

  “I’m making dinner,” Caleb said. “Come and help me?”

  John followed him through to the kitchen.

  Dinner wasn’t fancy—premade pasta and garlic bread—but then Caleb was no chef. He studied the jar of pasta sauce, like he was worried there was some way he’d screw up reheating it, until John took it off him and tipped the contents into a saucepan.

  “They never make this spicy enough,” he said. “Have we got anything with kick?”

  Caleb shrugged helplessly, but when and dug through the pantry. He reappeared with two small jars: granulated garlic, and—John smiled as he took the second one—mustard seeds.

  “What’s so funny?” Caleb asked. “Can’t we use these?”

  “We can use the garlic,” John said.

  “How much should I put in?”

  “Just a dash,” John said.

  Caleb made a face. “How much is a dash?”

  “A little bit more than a smidgen.”

  “John!”

  John laughed at Caleb’s outrage, and put the mustard seeds back in the pantry. Then he stood behind Caleb, arms around him and chin on his shoulder as he watched Caleb carefully shake a few granules of garlic into the sauce.

  “More?” Caleb asked.

  “A bit more.”

  John thought of Jess and her mustard seeds, and the thoughts and deeds she’d been sowing. Thought of how they’d taken root and poisoned everything around her, and how hard it had been for her to tear up those weeds and start fresh. And he and Caleb were doing the same, weren’t they? For a long time John had refused to pursue an intimate relationship with Caleb, let alone even acknowledge that was what he wanted. The seed of love had been there, but John had refused to let it grow in the way they’d both wanted. And when John had finally tended that seed, it had grown into something more beautiful than he could have imagined. John’s miracle wasn’t just that Caleb had survived, it was that every single day they loved one another.

  Caleb stirred the sauce, his brow furrowed, and John wanted to reach out and smooth the lines away. He smiled instead, and reached past Caleb to turn the heat off.

  “What are you doing?” Caleb asked.

  “This.” John spun him around and walked him backwards across to the other side of the kitchen. He swept a newspaper off the benchtop, and lifted Caleb and sat him there. Pushed into the space between his knees, and grinned when Caleb locked his ankles behind him.

  “Shirt off,” John said, and Caleb wriggled out of it. John helped him with it when it got caught on his head, tugging it free for him. He caught the fabric between his hands, and pulled Caleb’s arms back down to his front. The T-shirt twisted between Caleb’s wrists.

  John stared for a moment at the boar’s tusk necklace that rose and fell against Caleb’s pale chest. Strength, he thought, for the strongest person he knew. Then he looked back to the T-shirt, and Caleb tried to turn his arms to hide his scars, but John didn’t let him. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to one of the newer scars. It was pinker than the others, the rough flesh still raised.

  “Are they okay?” Caleb whispered.

  “They’re a part of you,” John said. “And I love you.”

  The scars didn’t make John think Caleb was weak. They reminded him of how strong Caleb was, of how much of a fighter he was, just like the boar’s tusk around his neck did.

  He tugged Caleb’s shirt free and dropped it onto the floor.

  Caleb bit his lip, his gaze dropping to John’s shirt as he reached out and began to unbutton it. John braced his hands on the edge of the bench, wanting nothing more than to lean in and claim Caleb’s mouth in a kiss. Use his tongue to sooth away the indentations in Caleb’s bottom lip. But Caleb was still working on his buttons and John didn’t want to stop him. He lifted one hand to slide it up Caleb’s inner thigh, and Caleb dug the heel of his foot into John’s lower back reflexively.

  Caleb shoved John’s shirt off his shoulders, his breath coming in such short pants that John didn’t even need to reach down and cup his dick to know if he was hard or not. He did it anyway though, and Caleb arched into touch and moaned.

  “I want to blow you,” John said, an answering wave of lust rushing through him as he palmed Caleb’s erection. “Can I?”

  “Oh, fuck, yes.” A full body shudder ran through Caleb. “Please.”

  John opened the button on Caleb’s fly, and Caleb leaned back. Caleb’s chest heaved as he rested his weight on his hands. John tugged his zip down, and Caleb lifted his arse off the benchtop so that John could pulls his jeans down to his thighs. Caleb’s dick strained against his red boxer briefs.

  “You’re fucking gorgeous,” John said, and slipped his finger beneath the wide elastic band of the underwear. Caleb sucked a breath in, his stomach hollowing and the muscles of his abdomen dancing under his pale skin.

  “So are you,” Caleb said on a moan, taking his weight on his hands again so that John could pull his underwear down. His dick sprang free, lean and hard, the head gleaming with arousal. John licked his lips instinctively, and Caleb jolted.

  “Lean back for me,” John said and, when Caleb obeyed, he ducked down and licked a stripe up Caleb’s hot, hard dick.

  “John!” Caleb rocked his hips up, one hand finding John’s head. His fingers scrabbled for purchase in John’s short hair.

  Jesus, he tasted good. John’s mouth watered when he finally closed his lips around the head of Caleb’s dick, and he pressed his tongue against the slit. Caleb jerked as though John had put a couple of thousand volts through him, and the sound he made—caught somewhere between a gasp and a groan—was like music. John kept one hand on Caleb’s tense thigh to keep him in place, and used his other hand to cup his balls. He tugged and squeezed gently, not enough to cause any pain but more than enough to have Caleb shuddering and bucking into his mouth helplessly. His boy was on a
hair trigger, and John loved it.

  He sucked, hard, taking him deeper, and Caleb’s entire body tensed. The muscles in his thigh tightened under John’s hand, and he groaned and pushed up, the head of his dick nudging the back of John’s throat.

  And John swallowed him down.

  Caleb didn’t last more than a few second after that. He came, shaking and crying out, his fingers digging into John’s scalp. John swallowed quickly, and then straightened up, pulling Caleb into an embrace. Caleb panted against his throat, his breath hot. He stroked John’s hair with a trembling hand, tiny aftershocks quaking through him.

  John slid his thumb against his thigh, and the soft hairs there. “Good?”

  “Mmm.” Caleb got his spare hand between them, pushing his palm against John’s throbbing dick. “Can I touch you?”

  “Hell, yes.” John leaned back a little, and helped Caleb unbutton his fly. Then Caleb pulled his zip down, peeling his fly open and slipping his hand inside John’s briefs. His palm was warm and dry, and John shivered at the slight rasp of his skin against the sensitive head of his dick.

  It didn’t take much to bring him off, not when he could still taste Caleb’s cum in his mouth. He rocked into Caleb’s grip burying his face in the crook of Caleb’s neck and kissing and licking at his skin, and then came, his legs quivering at the suddenness of it. It took him a little while to get his breath back.

  Caleb laughed softly “My hand is sticky. You gotta move so I can wash it.”

  Did he though? John straightened up and raised his eyebrows. He took Caleb’s hand, and lifted it to his mouth. Licked those trembling fingers clean while Caleb stared, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Only when he was finished did he move back and let Caleb shuffle off the benchtop.

  “Holy shit,” Caleb said. And then, in a much for urgent tone: “Holy shit!”

  John turned to stare at the oven, at where smoke was starting to curl in the air.

  Holy shit alright.

  So much for the garlic bread.

  He dived for an oven mitt, dragged the garlic bread out of the oven, and then flapped a tea towel in the air to try to prevent the smoke alarm from going off.