One Door Closes by G.B. Lindsey Page A

home.
    It might have been a minute before the front door swung open—Calvin couldn’t pinpoint the passage of time. He could have been standing there for ages, except the sun had barely moved. His arms rippled into goose bumps and he turned to find Devon in the doorway, Will close behind him. Resignation twinged deep alongside all the rest. He wondered how something as petty as Will going immediately to Devon still had the power to hurt next to this new ugliness.
    “He left?” Devon’s voice was sharp. Will’s attention remained fixed on Calvin.
    “Yeah.”
    Devon pushed the door wide, eyeing the now-empty drive. Will squeezed by him and touched Calvin’s arm, causing another nauseating shiver. “Cal, what?”
    Calvin rubbed hard at his eyes with thumb and forefinger, edging out of Will’s space. “Will, can you call it for today?”
    Will’s hand dropped to his side. “Are you okay?”
    “Fine.” His smile felt stiff. He saw it when Will’s face closed down. “Just, let’s quit for the day. Get you home early.”
    He was repeating himself. He didn’t think it was possible to feel more misery, but Will’s face went completely still, as if he’d hit some button, locking himself into a single instant, and hidden the controls away so that Calvin had no hope of regaining that vitality. For an awful second, it felt like punishment. Calvin wasn’t sure who it was coming from.
    “Yeah,” Will said at last. He backed up, putting space between them all. “Let me get Julia.”
    His eyes flicked lightning-fast to Devon before he fumbled his hand onto the door frame and vanished into the house. Calvin could do nothing but stare after him.
    And Devon watched him do it.
    His foster brother, just standing there, was enough to ignite the regular bitterness full force. Calvin hitched his shoulders and glowered out at the drive, now long with shadows. “We need to talk. All three of us.”
    “Danny’s upstairs.” Devon’s voice was quiet enough not to grate. “You want us in the library?”
    “No.” Anywhere but a room that, whenever he walked into it, still managed to smell like their mother. “No. Dining room.”
    He stood on the porch until the chance of meeting Will and Julia on their way out became too great, then escaped into the kitchen and poured water down his parched throat. Two full glasses. Calvin wiped his mouth with the side of his wrist. “Fuck.”
    * * *
    It didn’t take long for Devon to get Danny down to the dining room, but the situation compressed until it felt like the passage of an age. Calvin kept his gaze on the table. Didn’t lead in with anything fancy. Just the basics, flat-out and in everyone’s face. Far less fanfare than Angus had managed. Other than his voice, the room was so quiet he couldn’t even hear his foster brothers breathing.
    “I’m not on them anymore.” He wasn’t about to look them in the eye yet. One battle at a time, and in light of the others lining up, this one was not worth the fight. He scratched at the tabletop with a fingernail. “They were prescription. I never—they weren’t even that bad, not on their own. There are others that are more potent, with worse side effects.”
    Devon’s face hovered between expressions, as noncommittal as ever, but Danny looked downright unsettled. His hands had curled tightly round either elbow, and Calvin found himself fixating, because that was the other half of this, wasn’t it? He had no idea what Danny’s side of the story was going to be and no idea how to segue into it.
    He’d deal with the mess he was bringing first. “They’re for clinical depression.” He’d always believed that it was good to talk about his situation openly, but that rarely made the initial revelation easier.
    “I had no idea you were having so much trouble.” That was Devon, finally, breaking a lengthy silence and sounding like he was stepping around landmines.
    Calvin reddened at the unaccustomed openness in Devon’s face and