11. Cam

Fuck me, I'd forgotten how much rejection sucked. The last time I'd had an active sex life, I'd been too bombed on something to care. Or maybe I hadn't gotten rejected. Sometimes I couldn't even fucking remember what happened when. Sometimes that was a good thing.

Really, no sane person in Lusk's position would have said yes to my proposition, so I didn't know why I'd bothered to hope for more, even if I could tell by the look in his eyes that he'd wanted to say yes. I struggled sometimes to discern people's intentions toward me, but I didn't miss the desire in Lusk's eyes, no matter that his mouth had said otherwise. I knew that fucking much.

I couldn't blame him either. At least I'd shot my shot. Now, I could feel free to go crawl under a rock and wither. Seeing him every day in class for the rest of the semester was going to be a next-level suckfest. Still, it could've gone worse, I reminded myself. Grady could have looked at me with disgust, told me to drop the class, get out of his office, and never speak to him again.

I banged through the front door of the house, tossed my backpack down beside the stairs, and followed the hubbub to the kitchen. There was always a hubbub. It was one of the reasons I loved living here. Quiet reminded me of growing up and of the long nights in rehab.

Hubbub was distracting. Hubbub was exactly what I needed.

"Cameron," Jesse said sternly, and I winced at my full name. Fuck, why couldn't the professor have called me Cam like everyone else did? Maybe hubbub had been the wrong move. Retreat sounded better, but I was also hungry. "You are the deciding vote on a housewide poll. This is very important—" He waved what appeared to be a baguette at me.

"I don't live here anymore, technically," Nate cut in.

"The indelible marks you and Eric have left upon this abode say differently." Jesse pointed the baguette at him. "You're still considered household until the day this house gets fumigated or set on fire."

Sam snorted as Nate smirked, and Mark straightened from where he was peering into the fridge. "What'd I do?"

"Existed," Chet quipped, and Jesse waved his baguette again, narrowly missing Ansel's head.

"Shh! Focus!" Jesse returned his attention to me as I shuffled toward the kitchen island, where sandwich fixings were spread over the counter like a culinary obstacle course. I needed sustenance. The rest of the house needed Jesus. "Sandwiches should have both mustard and mayo on them. Yes or no?"

"Ummm." I chewed on my lower lip, considering.

"Just yes or no," Jesse insisted, impatient as ever.

"I can tell you want me to answer a certain way, so I'm having to consider what I really feel versus…" I waved a hand. "Never mind." Why could I be so certain of my desires in Professor Lusk's presence and indecisive when it came to a stupid food preference? I exhaled. "No. Final answer."

The kitchen erupted in whoops, and Jesse flipped all of us off. "Not a goddamn one of you knows what you're talking about. You need both."

I absently made a sandwich, ignoring Jesse's tsk when I only added mustard to it, then slid into an empty chair at the kitchen table, listening to the guys as they continued to debate the necessity of mayo and growing increasingly louder.

A moment later, Mark dropped into the chair next to me and stole a chip off my plate. "You're welcome," I muttered with a wan smile.

He planted his elbow on the table, cheek to his fist, and gave me a gauging glance. "You good?" I got asked this question a lot when I'd first returned, but it had tapered off over time.

"I'm fine. I'm not relapsing or anything," I said around a mouthful of sandwich, which I then pointed to. "Just hungry."

"I'm not buying ‘just hungry'." Mark narrowed his eyes. He was different than the other guys, though. We'd initially been close, roommates in the frat house until I'd soundly fucked that up in a lot of ways. Our current status was a work in progress, and I wasn't sure we'd ever be as close again as we had been. A while before he got together with Chet, Chet and I had screwed around. And I'd kissed Mark before, too, in my pillhead days. The memories were there in hazy fragments. Oops. Made for a little awkwardness that we all tried to bluster past, usually. I'd spoken to each of them alone when I'd returned to campus, apologizing for being such a hot fucking mess, and they'd both accepted. But that didn't mean things were ever going to go back to the way they were before. I accepted that, too.

When Mark's stare didn't let up, I chuckled softly. "How the fuck do you know when something's up with me?"

He shrugged. "You remember how my mom is." Mark had told me long ago that his mom suffered from depression that reared its head periodically and knocked her down for days, weeks, sometimes months. Mark was super protective of her. "Something about your expression. I know you're not relapsing, by the way. You can stop saying that every time someone asks you a question."

I shrugged. "Preemptive assurance, I guess."

Mark tapped his brow. "I'd be able to see it in your eyes."

I believed him, too. I set down my sandwich. "I got rejected by a guy I was into. It's not a big deal. It just stings a little. It'll pass."

"Holy shit, did GHG reject you?" Jesse cut in, eyes going wide.

Goddammit, I should have known better. I swear the dude could be across a football field and would still somehow home in on anything remotely resembling gossip.

Then, he clapped a hand over his mouth, expression apologetic.

"Who's GHG?" Sam asked.

"Sounds like the initials of a judge." Nate frowned thoughtfully. "The honorable Garrison Herbert Garrible the Third."

"Gary Garrible. Definitely a lawyer in a strip mall." Chet cackled.

And we were off to the races.

"He buys up billboards on every highway in every state advertising his services."

"Like Alexander Shunnarah."

"Yeah, and he and Alexander are die-hard rivals. I'm liking this." Jesse continued to use his baguette like a conductor's baton.

"But secretly fucking."

"Can't some people just dislike each other and not be secretly fucking?" Nate narrowed his eyes at Eric.

"Haha, no. Super unlikely," Ansel weighed in with a smirk.

Jesse flapped his baguette for attention. "Has anyone here ever slept with a guy named Gary? Let me know so I can unfriend you from my life."

"For the record, my dad's name is Gary, and he's a cool dude, so chill with the Gary hate." Ansel scowled at Jesse.

Jesse wasn't one to be dissuaded easily, though. He smiled brightly and addressed the rest of us. "Has anyone slept with Ansel's dad?"

"No, but I probably would. Is he hot?"

"The hell you would." Mark glared at Chet, who shot him a wink back.

"Is there gonna be payback later?"

"You bet your ass."

"Exactly what I was hoping for."

Mark flipped him off, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

A pang of melancholy hit me as the conversation continued around us. Mark inclined his chin at me again, his voice low as he spoke.

"You know if you ever want to talk about anything, you can talk to me. I won't say anything to anyone, not even Chet. I promise."

The sincerity in his eyes smacked me hard in the chest and created a lump in my throat because I believed him for the first time since everything had gone down sophomore year. Shit, maybe this was progress, and if it was, I would take it.

But there was no way I could tell him, or anyone else, about Professor Lusk. No fucking way.

"Anyone notice Cam is neither confirming nor denying?" Nate grinned.

"It's just a guy I was talking to on an app. It's not a big deal." The disingenuity of the statement sat heavy in my stomach. I fucking hated lying. I avoided it as much as possible, but lately, I was discovering maybe there was a difference between lies you told yourself and lies you told for the benefit of someone else. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or bad, but I didn't ever want Professor Lusk to come under fire for something I'd had a part in, too.

Jesse set a plate of deviled eggs in front of me, and I knew it was his peace offering. "No more apps, Cambo. Come out with us Friday. We'll get you hooked up." He leaned closer and whispered, "Fuck that dude anyway. He's an idiot."

Over the next two weeks,I threw myself into my cafe shifts and my classes. Paul, Professor Lusk's TA, reached out to me via email, and we'd been able to arrange a time to meet. He was friendly, approachable, and super smart. After he helped me get the structure of my essay sorted, I ended up asking if he wouldn't mind meeting every couple of weeks to go over the coursework. While I knew I could probably manage to pull off an A, especially since I was no longer distracted by my mystery man-turned-professor, it still seemed smart to make sure I was on the level in regard to the coursework with Paul and try to avoid any interaction with Professor Lusk outside of class at all.

Sitting through his classes left me with a dull ache that settled in my chest. He'd stopped coming to the cafe as well, at least when I was working. I supposed it was for the best, but after two weeks, I had to reluctantly admit that despite my nonchalant attitude in his office and my no-strings-attached proposal, I'd gotten a little too attached to the outcome. It was a strange kind of disappointment, too, because I'd been totally into sex with my mystery man, while I'd really loved the rapport I'd established with Professor Lusk. Finding out that they were one and the same person was a total kick in the nuts. It felt like two rejections at once. I missed the sexy thrill of Glory Hole Guy and stimulating conversations with Professor Lusk. He was the full package and completely off-limits. What sucked even more was knowing I'd never get to experience both sides of him in one person. That door closed as soon as it opened, leaving me in emotional limbo.

At night, I'd shut myself in my room and study or gather with the guys on the couch downstairs, joining in whatever they were watching. Eventually, I'd make my way to bed and scroll social media until my eyelids grew heavy. I saved recipes to share with Jesse, quotes I liked into a folder called Good Advice, and places I wanted to see someday. Which was how I ended up squinting at something on my screen called the Enigma maze on a Friday night when the house was empty. I'd never seen anything like it before and quickly saved it to my Travel folder before clicking to read more about it. It was extravagantly complex and looked like something you might find overseas, but was listed as being a temporary exhibit in DC. I swiped through the photos, studying the twists and turns and wondering if I could convince my roommates to make the drive with me. Nate and Eric might, although I could also see them sneaking off to take full advantage of the illusion of privacy. So maybe Mark and Chet were the better choice.

Inevitably, Grady popped into my mind, and wistful loneliness curled through me like tendrils of smoke as I tried to imagine how he'd approach the maze. Probably with a thorough plan in place, his clever mind meticulously recalculating as he went. I smiled to myself, and then it faded as another thought occurred. I jolted upright in my bed.

Grady had mentioned not having a hook for the chapter he needed to write. The Enigma maze might be the perfect solution, and he'd told us in class the other day to be patient if we emailed him because he'd be in DC for the weekend.

I gnawed on my lower lip, debating, then forced myself to lie down again. He could figure it out on his own. He didn't need some dumb undergrad's help. Besides, we'd drawn boundary lines, and we'd both been diligent about honoring them. Messaging him would probably constitute a breach. It might even piss him off. But shit, what if he didn't know about the maze and it was exactly the solution he was looking for? I knew he'd put a lot of work into his book. I knew he wanted it to do well. Hell, regardless of what had happened between us, I wanted his book to be awesome, too.

I lay there a half hour longer agonizing before sitting upright again and turning on my light.

Then, I typed the message and sent it, because fuck it.

When I woke up the next morning and saw the message had gone unread, I wasn't surprised.