Page 33 of Stray for You

“Yeah, such a gentleman,” Dom says. “I’m sure. Well, fine, whatever. You know that chick Sheila, though? Definitely had her up for a nightcap on Saturday.”

He waggles his eyebrows at me. I really don’t want to hear his likely exaggerated story, but I encourage him anyway, if only because it takes the heat off of me. Dom is more than happy to brag about Sheila, regardless of how she might feel about the story. Hopefully, she doesn’t care because Dom is plenty forthcoming with the details.

Cameron would throttle me if I ever discussed what we did in this much detail with some random rep. Fortunately, he doesn’t need to worry about that. The second I even consider it, I want to hug myself as though I can lock up those memories inside me for safe keeping. Those stolen moments don’t belong to anyone else, and I intend to guard them like Fort Knox. They’re certainly not for the likes of Dom and his ilk.

When Dom finally finishes, I offer a fist bump.

“Nice, man,” I say.

He preens like a peacock. I cut in before I can get stuck listening to another harrowing story or pushed for details about my own adventures.

“Listen, I’m really tired,” I say. “Up late every night and all that.”

“Yeah you were,” Dom throws in with a leering smile.

“So I’m going to put on some headphones and try to conk out,” I say, ignoring him. “That cool?”

“Sure, man, totally. I’ll catch up with you another time.”

I hope not, but I don’t say that, instead diving for the backpack I shoved under the seat in front of me so I can dig out headphones. I lower the tray and set up my phone. I downloaded some movies for the trip and choose one at random to play. I don’t actually care what it is. I just want noise in my ears that isn’t Dom’s voice. I lean against the window at my side and pretend to stare at the phone screen, barely focusing on the people playing out the drama on the device.

Then someone on the screen breaks out a guitar, and my heart jumps into my throat. The guy is doing it for comedic effect. His playing is terrible and the other people in the scene cover their ears and scream in despair, eventually pushing him out of the room, but the damage is done. One glimpse of a man with a guitar and I’m getting flashbacks of that bar, flashbacks of Cameron’s deft fingers flying up and down the neck of hisinstrument until the sound seems to pour out of the very walls. My heart races like I’m back in my seat in the crowd watching him play, my mouth hanging open as I glimpse a piece of his soul I never knew existed until that moment.

How much more of him could I discover if he gave me the chance?

The man who nearly became my step-brother lies perpetually out of reach. I never got close to him back then, and I’m not making as much progress as I’d like now. If our mothers had gotten married, would it be different? Would we actually be like brothers? Or would my ever-present attraction to him have complicated things beyond repair? It’s hard to imagine that alternative future when I spent the past week getting as close to him as possible. When we were kids, I knew he liked music, but I never guessed how much. I never heard or saw him play. I was too busy being preoccupied by other, less important things.

What I’d give to hear him play again. I’d fly out here on my own dime to listen to him tune his guitar. It’s not about the music as much as it’s about him. When he played on that stage, I witnessed a hidden side of him. He was unleashed for a moment, the sound bursting out of him like water punching through a broken dam. All those things he keeps bottled up so tightly exploded free for a moment.

I hastily switch what I’m watching to something, anything else. I think I end up on a reality show, but I’m paying even less attention now than I was before. With any luck, no one on the show will turn out to be a musician.

I can’t keep going like this. I’ve survived since high school on scaps, but I guess a piece of me took it for granted that Cameron would always be around. When he and his mother moved all the way across the country, it knocked me off-balance. I suppose that’s why I grasped so eagerly at this opportunity to see him again, why I acted so rashly, why I took so many chances. Icouldn’t help myself after all that time apart.

Now, I’m jetting away from him, every minute separating us by untold miles. The entirety of the country is wedging itself between us, and I don’t know what I’m going to do when I’m back on solid ground and that unfathomable chasm of space separates us. Maybe Cameron can move on without any issue, but as I sit here trapped in a metal tube with my turbulent thoughts, I’m increasingly sure I can’t.

I’ve finally had a taste, and I’d do anything for more.

I’ll text him, I resolve. I can start there, see if he responds. Maybe there’s some future where he’ll want to visit New Jersey. He and his mother must have some friends and relatives back east. Maybe he wants to see our old co-workers from the Boyfriend Café, though many of them have scattered to the wind since graduating. There’s gotta besomethingI can use to see him again, I simply have to figure out what.

Dom doesn’t bother me for the rest of the journey across the continent, which leaves me ample time to muse and plot and plan. A reunion. A birthday. A work trip. I’ve got to cobble together some kind of plausible excuse. The truth is, as nice as the past week was, I’m not confident Cameron would agree to see me just for the sake of it. I’ll need to construct some sort of excuse.

Is this starting to sound desperate? Maybe it is. I’ve always been desperate when it comes to him. I simply used to have the excuse of being a shitty teenager. All that teasing and prodding has turned into more than I ever could have dreamed of, but my old methods aren’t going to work anymore.

If I want to win Cameron over, I’m going to have to do things differently.

Only one thing feels certain in this moment: Things changed between us in Seattle, and from this point on, there’s no going back.

Chapter Seventeen

Cameron

LIFE RETURNS TO NORMAL. My normal routine. My normal co-workers. My normal Julian-free life.

It should come as a relief, but for some reason I float through work and band practice and dinner with Mom and Aunt Mary like a sleep walker. I’m only ever half-present, half-awake. My mind is like a puzzle dumped directly out of the box; all the pieces are there, but they’re upside down and backwards and heaped in a messy pile I can’t seem to organize into anything coherent. Do I miss Julian? Is that what this feeling is? Or am I wallowing in guilt for spending so much time with a guy who should be my enemy? I wrote him off years ago because of the way he interfered with Mom’s happiness. What was I thinking letting him back in?

If this is guilt, it wasn’t potent enough to stop me from going to that hotel room.

Twice.

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