Cal gave a breathless laugh at that, releasing with it the tension that had built as he leaned a hip against the work bench. "Believe me, I don't like it either. But neither do I like living every day wondering when the other foot will fall."

He'd done that long enough, and while being forcefully driven from the place he'd come to exist in wasn't he most ideal way of breaking away from it, it had in its own way become freeing. It hadn't made him less cautious, but at the same time it did let him feel like he was finally able to stretch his metaphorical wings.