Chapter 30

Chapter Thirty

Julian

THIS HAS GOT TO be the strangest meal of my life, but Miss Ortiz is right. It’s probably the best chance I’ve got of getting through to Cameron.

He looks numb when he lets his mother lead him away to the table. I fly around the kitchen as timers beep and water boils. I get the potatoes off the stove and drain them in the sink, then rush back to the oven to pull out the chicken. The smell that hits me when I set the baking dish on the stovetop instantly calms my nerves. This is my mom’s chicken and potatoes recipe, a real classic, a meal that has always been synonymous with comfort.

Eventually, I emerge from the kitchen balancing three plates, each bearing a piece of chicken and a heap of soft, fluffy mashed potatoes seasoned with butter and salt. I set a plate down for Miss Ortiz, then Cameron, but I hesitate with the last plate until Miss Ortiz nods her head pointedly at the seat beside her son. Right. Yeah. I should probably sit with him if we’re going to do this.

A thick silence drapes itself over the dinner, like a second table cloth dropped on our heads. Cameron is looking down at his food, Miss Ortiz is frowning at him from across the table, and I’m trying not to jump out of my own skin with nerves. I still can’t tell if his mother’s words got through to him, if my words got through to him, but the fact that Cameron hasn’t stormed out of the house should be a positive sign at least. I made my case, ripped out my heart for all to see. All I can do now is hope it was enough.

“Let’s eat,” Miss Ortiz says to break the tension.

The clatter of silverware is not much better than the silence that preceded it. I cut off a bit of chicken and attempt to eat it, but my throat is so tight that I have to chew it for way too long to make any progress.

“Julian, this is wonderful,” Miss Ortiz says.

I brighten a little. “Thanks. It’s my mom’s recipe.”

“I thought it seemed familiar. I’ll have to text her and see if she’ll share it with me.”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. I can write it down for you if you want.”

“It’s alright,” Miss Ortiz says. “It’ll be nice to have an excuse to contact her. I haven’t been very good about that. At first I blamed it on the move, but we’ve been out here long enough that I can’t really fall back on that excuse anymore.”

Her casual tone finally manages to set me somewhat at ease. And Cameron notices it too. From the corner of my eye, I catch him watching the exchange as though he’s searching it for any sign of trouble.

“You know,” Miss Ortiz says, “Stacy and I always wanted to do things like this when we were together, but you boys never seemed to stop fighting.”

I run a nervous hand through my hair. “That was kind of my fault. I couldn’t help myself around him. I knew if I teased Cam he’d pay attention to me, and I was a dumb kid who wanted his attention, so…”

Miss Ortiz chuckles. “Is that what that was all about? I should have known.”

Heat washes into my cheeks.

“It wasn’t only his fault.”

The quiet voice beside me draws my attention instantly. Cameron is playing with a bit of chicken, pushing it around his plate, but his shoulders aren’t bunched up by his ears anymore. Progress?

“I mean, I’m the one who always took the bait,” he says. “I didn’t make things better.”

Miss Ortiz heaves a motherly sigh. “You certainly did take the bait. Sometimes I worried about that temper of yours.”

“I didn’t mind,” I throw in. “I mean, it was kind of fun, bantering like brothers.”

Only because I’m watching Cameron so closely do I catch the hint of a smile that glances along his lips. My chest seizes around it, clinging to it as I totter on this cliffedge of uncertainty.

The mood tangibly lightens after that. We talk about what we’ve been doing since college. I get to tell Miss Ortiz about my job, though I leave out the part where I used to sleep around at conferences. She seems a little too smart to miss the implications, but she doesn’t pronounce any judgments about my playboy lifestyle. She’s actually … kinda cool. This is the first time I’ve really spoken to her. When she was dating my mom, my focus was entirely on Cameron. I never spent any time getting to know her.

“And then he ran all the way back to me — ran back to me — to tell me his foot was definitely broken.”

“Mom, please,” Cameron groans as his mother finishes another embarrassing childhood story.

Miss Ortiz and I are too busy laughing to heed his pleas.

“What a drama queen,” I say.

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Miss Ortiz says. “He was always a good kid, but when he decided to get up to something, that made him even more dangerous.”

I try not to grin too broadly at the image of baby Cameron running around pretending he broke his foot in order to get extra candy, but it’s too adorable. I have to bite my lip to keep the smile from taking up my whole face.

Then I hear the craziest thing beside me. Laughter. Cam’s laughter. I look over and he’s shaking his head as he chuckles at himself.

“Mom, come on, he’s going to head directly to the airport if you keep telling him all this embarrassing stuff,” Cameron says.

My heart flips. I don’t want to presume too much, but that statement really makes it sound like Cameron is hoping for the opposite, hoping I’ll stay, hoping this isn’t over.

I all but float through the rest of the dinner. The conversation remains light, even when Miss Ortiz dredges up the past. I can tell little pieces of it are painful for Cameron. Every once in a while his lips pull taut in a grimace. But he doesn’t stop her from talking and even joins in, and by the time our plates are clear, Cameron is reclining easily in his chair and nodding along to his mother’s stories.

Miss Ortiz sighs during a lull in the conversation. “Let me get these plates,” she says.

Instantly, I leap up to help her, even though there’s only three plates and some forks. We stack the dishes in the sink, along with the baking pan and pot I used.

“I can do the dishes before we head out,” I offer.

She’s shaking her head before I even finish. “I think you have something more important to do tonight.”

My heart could burst for this woman. “Are you sure? I made all this mess.”

“And I’m happy to clean it up. Now go.”

I suspect she means more than the dirty dishes, and in both cases, I’m more than happy to accept her help.

Cameron hugs his mother goodbye, then we pile into his car so he can get us back to his apartment. It’s an awkward drive. We both know there’s a conversation waiting for us on the other end of it, and we both know the car isn’t the right place for it to begin. But at some point in the drive, Cameron takes my hand in his, and that tiny bit of reassurance gives me the strength to get back to his place without fainting from nerves.

We go right to his bed. His room feels like the right place for this. Even with him living alone, this conversation should happen in a secluded, private location.

The dark drapes over us, obscuring our faces as we sit on the edge of the bed half-turned toward each other. Neither of us make any move to flick on a light. Cameron clasps my hand, and I feel his eyes on me, two darker pools of night in the gloomy bedroom.

“That was nice,” he says. “I wasn’t expecting it, but it was nice.”

“Yeah,” I say, “it was.”

We’re both speaking in hushed tones, like we’re in a library. Something about this moment carries the same weight of solemnity.

“So, look, I still have a lot to think about,” Cameron says, diving straight for the heart of the matter. “I mean, obviously I do. This all happened so suddenly. I didn’t plan on any of it. My head is kind of a mess, to be honest.”

“I know,” I say. “That’s okay. I’m not asking you to have everything figured out instantly.”

“Then what are you asking for?”

Those dark eyes fix on me, and I nearly lose my nerve. I want to skirt around this with a joke or by turning things physical. That’s what I would normally do. I’ve avoided anything serious or real for my entire life by being the funny guy, the guy who only does hookups, the guy you never need to take seriously.

My old antics aren’t going to save me this time. Cameron is too important to me, as I’ve blurted out quite bluntly tonight. I can’t hide behind a clown mask, not with those piercing eyes looking straight through me.

I suck in a shaky breath.

“I’m asking for you,” I say. “I wasn’t lying before. I love you, Cam. I have for a really freaking long time. This is what I want, and I’ll do whatever I have to to make it work.”

He’s so still. I wish he wasn’t so good at going completely blank and leaving me in agonized suspense.

“I still have things I need to work through,” he says, slow and deliberate. I can feel him choosing each word like the wrong ones might explode. “This all happened out of nowhere.”

“It’s not out of nowhere, Cam.”

He holds my gaze. “No, I guess it’s not.”

That tiny admission gives me strength. “I don’t think I can walk away from this. I don’t think I can get on a plane in a few days and go back to my life the way it was before. This is too important to me. No matter what happens in my life, you keep pulling me back. It doesn’t matter if our moms are dating or we live three thousand miles apart. Somehow, I always come back to you. I don’t know how else to live my life except with you.”

Even in the dark, I catch the way his Adam’s apple bobs.

“Julian,” he says, “you scare the shit out of me.” I nearly speak, but he hurries on. “But you’re right. No matter which direction our lives go, we always end up here. I think I’d be a fool to believe that was an accident. And … and Mom’s right. I can’t live only for the past. Part of me is trapped back there. Part of me can’t let it go. But I’ll try. If you want to. If you can be patient with me.”

I bundle him into my arms. “Cameron. Of course I can. I’ve waited my whole life for you. Do you really think I couldn’t be patient a little longer if you were mine?”

He chuckles against me, his arms slowly sliding around me. “Yours,” he says, like he’s testing the word out, seeing how it tastes.

I ease away so I can look at him. I drag a finger along his cheek, tucking dark hair behind his ear. “Mine,” I say. “If you want to be.”

He simply looks at me for a moment, then he mutters softly, as though speaking only to himself, “If fate is kind…”

Confusion bunches in my face, but then Cameron smiles.

“Yes,” he says. “Yeah. I want that. I want to try. With you, Julian.”

A rush floods my ears, and I sweep down to kiss him. We topple sideways onto the bed, and I don’t bother thinking about anything else for the rest of the night.