4. Cam

Ilowered the weight bar back into its cradle and grunted in disgust at myself for continuing to submit to this well-intentioned torture in the name of vanity and endorphins. Nate laughed at my misery as he slung another plate on the end nearest him. Show-off. "Have I mentioned that I'm here against my will?" I groused.

"Only after every set we've done for the last six months." He grinned as he picked up an additional plate to tack on the opposing side of the bar. "I'm hard of hearing when it comes to whining, though."

"I can sign it in ASL if that helps."

"He's just used to being the one whining. You're stealing his thunder." Eric came to a stop beside us, a towel draped loosely around his neck. He'd been on the treadmill the entire time Nate and I had been doing our "personal training" session. Sam was the better impromptu personal trainer, but ever since he and Jesse had gotten together, they'd spent most of their free time shooting videos for Sam's OnlyFans. That little endeavor was an open secret among the roommates that had come out when the washing machine had gone unbalanced due to Jesse and Sam using it for one of their scenes. Neither could lie for shit, so it'd taken one hard stare from Mark for them to confess what they'd been up to. Now if anything in the house broke, we looked to them first, which annoyed them to no end but was super entertaining for the rest of us. And, it was usually their fault.

"I don't whine in the gym." Nate gave Eric a narrow-eyed stare.

"True. Just other places." Eric arched a brow, a lascivious tinge to his smirk as they exchanged a longer look. When Nate wrenched the towel from Eric's neck and snapped it at his ribs, Eric's grin widened.

It was a hazard I'd gotten used to with them, pretending not to notice when they'd occasionally disappear into the locker room's showers together. Much like Sam and Jesse, their insatiable sex life was an open secret. I'd walk home alone when they ditched me, vaguely horny, envious, and absolutely convinced they'd hit a relationship jackpot few did.

Well, except my other roomies who were also in kick-ass relationships.

I'd told them all more than once they should buy lotto tickets. Always seemed to go over their heads, though, except Mark's. Meanwhile, I could barely get a shoelace to commit to a knot, much less find someone I was interested in—not that I was searching hard. Or at all. Jesse said it was because, deep down, I was closed off to it, just like he had been before Sam. Sometimes I thought he was right. I didn't know why. The idea of a whole-ass relationship still seemed overwhelming. I didn't believe in soul mates or twin flames or anything like that. At least not for me. That was for normal people who hadn't spent a year in a pill fog going buck wild and hardly remembering a goddamned thing about it. I only dimly remembered the first time I'd kissed another guy, for fuck's sake, which sucked because I'd been fantasizing about it for years before that. And while I wasn't physically a virgin, in a lot of ways, I was mentally. I felt awkward and behind the times when it came to dating and relationships, and no amount of dating app profiles or episodes of Love Is Blind had changed that.

"Hit the showers?" Nate asked, and the way Eric's gaze prowled over him served as my cue.

"I'm gonna head on home. I'm starving." They probably didn't even hear me.

"Hey," Eric called out from behind me. "How was that club you went to the other night? Worth checking out?"

I spun back around to face him and affected a noncommittal shrug. "It was alright. I mean, yeah, it was cool. There was a…ummm… There were glory holes there. Never seen that before." I'd kinda hoped they'd forgotten I'd mentioned that I was going to the club at all, and I hadn't told Jesse or Sam because they'd have wanted to come along. I loved my roommates, but all of them together was overwhelming at times, and a solo night out had sounded way better than a bunch of couples trying to wingman for me.

"Interesting." Nate's brows perked. "And? Were people using it?" Behind Nate, Eric's expression turned thoughtful. I recognized that look. He was plotting.

The back of my neck was warm just from saying the word "glory hole" and all of the memories it called up. I hoped my cheeks weren't turning pink. That hookup had been fucking wild, and I continued to relive the highlights nightly. "Just an observation. Not sure anyone still uses those. Kinda weird, you know?" I hedged. "Stranger danger, and…yeah." As if I hadn't been down on my knees lapping at a stranger's dick like I'd invented glory holes.

Eric's expression said he was far from dissuaded by my lackluster report. "Fuck, we definitely need to check that place out, then."

"No." Nate scoffed. "I know how that scenario ends."

"In mutually explosive pleasure?" Eric leered at Nate.

I rolled my eyes with a chuckle. "Y'all tell me how it is. Or actually, don't. I'll just avoid the last two stalls if I ever go back there again." Which I wouldn't because I'd always heard lightning rarely struck twice. Returning to the club to lurk in the same stall in the hopes that the same guy would return on the same night and time that I did sounded both pathetic and impossible.

I bent down, retied my shoelace, and set off for home.

There was a tinge of spring in the air as I walked across the U's main quad, and everyone was taking advantage of it ahead of an arctic blast that was rumored to be arriving next week. A bunch of Sigmas were playing a pickup game of flag football. I sketched a wave to the ones I recognized. I'd bailed on the frat when I'd returned to the U, unsure initially whether I could handle all the partying, that the temptation might be too strong. As it turned out, the only thing I'd really missed was the camaraderie, but I'd fucked that up, and there was no going back. It'd taken me months to get back on better footing with Mark and Nate, and while the rest of the Sigmas were chill, it had been immediately apparent when I returned that I just didn't fit in there anymore. I had no idea where I fit now, but I was certain it wasn't in a fraternity.

I scanned the players, trying to find Sam among them. The guy lived for anything sports related, which was why him coupling up with Jesse had caught me off guard at first. I tried hard to forget I'd basically offered myself up to Jesse once, but neither of them made it weird, and I fucking adored them for that. Offering no-strings to Jesse had been a sort of misguided attempt to ease into hookup culture, which seemed to be the prominent MO of half the campus. Jesse had felt safe in a way I couldn't explain, though I'd never truly crushed on him. But once he and Sam had made it official and I'd seen them around each other, they made total sense, like puzzle pieces that slotted together perfectly. Or yin and yang. I didn't know how the fuck anyone found that. Maybe the answer was that it wasn't something you could seek out. It either found you or it didn't, and I was starting to get the idea I was a lost cause.

"Cam, wanna join?" Eddie Fisk shouted, and I shook my head, holding up my phone as the silly excuse it was.

I moved on, glancing through my notifications, then sighed as I punched my parents' number and steeled myself. I'd put off returning their weekly call for as long as I could. Despite sending them texts a couple of times a week and always answering theirs, if I waited too long to speak to them on the phone so they could hear my voice, they'd start calling incessantly.

"Hey, Mom," I greeted cautiously as the call connected.

"Hi, dear! Gosh, I'm glad you called. I was starting to get a little worried." Her voice, although warm, was tinged with concern that'd become familiar to me since I'd returned to campus. It wasn't unwarranted, given how sophomore year had gone, but sometimes I wondered if it would be this way forever, them always on tenterhooks, expecting me to relapse at any moment.

The therapist I'd seen after I returned to the U had told me to give them grace, whenever possible, because they were dealing with two blindsiding events. My overdose and the fact that I wasn't straight. For the first several months I'd been back in Silver Ridge against their wishes, I'd taken weekly drug tests and sent them the results, trying to ease their mind. But it didn't seem to make any difference, so I quit.

"How are your classes?"

This was our routine. My schoolwork, polite questions about my social life, and then eventually, we'd get to sobriety, if I still thought returning to the U was the best thing, was I sure I didn't want to come back home and reconsider seminary or equivalent work within the church or a less secular field. The answer to the latter questions had been no for a long time.

Today, once we'd covered all the usual bases, she paused and then said, "I've just left a support group."

"Oh?" The last support group she'd gone to had been through her church, and while they weren't outwardly homophobic, there had been an underlying implication that if I would just stick to going to church regularly, switch to religious studies, especially at a college that was religiously affiliated, I would magically no longer be a gay recovering pillhead.

"It's a new one, not through the church. It's only parents with LGBTQ kids who are struggling with addiction or their sexuality."

I gritted my teeth but kept my voice even. "Do you mean the kids are struggling with their sexuality or the parents are?"

"Cam."

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be disrespectful."

"Thank you for the apology, sweetheart. There's no need to get worked up."

We'd had this conversation a hundred times, and I kept trying to be patient, but holy shit, sometimes I didn't know what else I was supposed to do. I was grateful that they'd taken care of me and gotten me the help I needed when I'd spun out of control, but rehab hadn't changed the fact that I was gay or that I had no interest in centering religion in my life, particularly their brand of religion.

God, I missed freshman year, before I'd taken that first stupid pill Ronnie Meecham had offered me outside a frat mixer. So fucking stupid. "What I was trying to say," my mom continued, "is that I like it more than the other group because of the LGBTQ aspect. It made me feel less alone, more understood."

I scraped my teeth over my lower lip to keep from saying anything harsh. I'd wrestled with my sexuality throughout middle school, high school, and the early part of freshman year. I hated that there was a struggle at all or that my parents would struggle with who I was attracted to, so that even now, with all the progress made, the word "struggle" could still be so easily attached to anything that wasn't heterosexual. I hated that I'd ever felt ashamed of my sexuality. I hated that I'd felt like I'd had to take pills and drink a shit ton to shut down my brain long enough to explore and satisfy the sexual urges I'd had since I was thirteen. Which was why, when I'd decided to transfer back to the U from the little community college I'd attended in my hometown after rehab, I'd changed my major immediately. I wanted to help people try to figure out who they really were and what they really wanted out of life, help those struggling break through the coded messages they'd been receiving all of their lives. My primary problem hadn't been pills. The pills were a shitty solution to a larger struggle, which had been merging my sexuality into my reality and unraveling my own internalized homophobia.

"That's really nice, then. I'm glad you found the group."

"I was wondering if you might consider going to a meeting with me when you're here for spring break?"

"Mom, I told you, I'm probably going to just stay here and work over spring break. And there's also the queer outreach?—"

"Do you have to use that term? It's so crass."

My jaw tightened as frustration bubbled inside me. "As I was saying, there's an outreach event for students staying on campus over the break."

"Will there be alcohol or drugs there?"

"No, Mom." I winced at the suspicion in her voice. "It's not that kind of event. It's during the day, and there will be plenty of faculty attending, as well."

"Well, you have a home and parents you can visit, so we'd like for you to make time for us. It'll be a good time to talk over your summer plans, too."

I'd stayed with them for a week over Christmas and could hardly wait to get back to Silver Ridge. Every visit seemed like another reminder of how far we'd drifted apart.

I started to tell her I was uninterested, that I was in a different place in my life than she was. I'd worked through a lot of guilt and shame over the last year, but mom guilt was still a struggle. "Okay, Mom. We'll work something out. Hey, listen, I'm almost home, so I'm going to let you go. Tell Dad hey for me."

"Okay, darling. Good hearing your voice." I sensed she wanted to say more, but she must have decided against it because after a beat, she told me to take care, stay out of trouble, as usual, and said goodbye.

I ended the call, bummed that I'd long since started viewing these conversations from home as something to be checked off my never-ending chore list. My parents weren't bad people; they were just struggling the same way I once was, and I didn't know how to help them.

Tucking my phone in my back pocket, I picked up the pace and cut behind the library, taking a path that would lead me to the edge of campus. In the distance, I caught a glimpse of a figure heading my way and realized with a bolt of recognition that it was Professor Lusk. I raised my hand to wave before putting it back down. Classes hadn't even started yet, and I'd only served him a few times at the cafe. It was probably dumb to assume he'd recognize me. But as we drew closer, he glanced up from the phone in his hand and locked eyes with me. A hint of warmth crinkled at the corners of his honey-brown eyes, and I couldn't help but notice how his muscles flexed under his button-up as he shifted the messenger bag he carried to the other side.

He tipped his chin indicatively toward the sky as a smile carved dimples on one side of his face. "How goes, Cameron? Taking advantage of the nice weather before the blast comes, I hope?"

Fuck, he did remember my name. Why the hell did that please me so much? Also, why did he have to be so unholy hot? He definitely lived up to his reputation of being one of the hottest professors on campus, looking more like a model than a man who spent his days trying to teach college kids about analysis paralysis.

"Um," I fumbled, then gathered myself. "Something like that. You?" Bury me now. He was clearly not at all taking advantage of the weather. He looked like he was on his way to a meeting or something.

"Faculty meeting," he confirmed with a playful grimace, then waggled his brows. "Maybe I can convince them to hold it outside." He glanced down at his watch. "And on that note, I'm almost late."

"Oh! Of course. See you around, and good luck." And I wondered why the fuck I struggled with dating. Jesus Christ.

"I check attendance at three minutes after the hour. Even a nanosecond of tardiness is unadvisable," he called out over his shoulder.

I had no idea if he was joking or not, but I did take that opportunity to glance behind me at the pants stretched tight over his perfect ass. Damn. Why was it that the only men who piqued my interest were out of reach?