Page 104 of Becoming His Perfect Daddy
His shoulders slumped, and my heart fell with them. “I don’t know, Sam. I don’t know how to get past this. I want to let you in, I do. I just don’t . . .” He choked back a sob. “I don’t know how I can. I don’t know what to do.”
I reached a hand out toward him again, stopping inches from his shoulder, my eyes asking for permission to touch him. When his gaze flicked to mine, the pain and hurt and uncertainty in his eyes nearly broke me, and I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck, pulling his forehead to mine. He didn’t resist, but his energy told me he was still tortured. “Listen, Cameron. I’m not going anywhere. I know you’ve been hurt before, badly. Your dad, Victor, that dick, Jason—you didn’t deserve any of that. But I know it leaves scars. I know you can’t just talk yourself out of trauma like that. That’s what my therapist tells me, anyway.”
His lips twitched like he wanted to smile, and I let a small one turn up my lips.
“Anxiety doesn’t go away overnight. Sometimes it never does. But, baby, I’m here. I’m always going to be here. I’vefallen so completely in love with you—with all your beautiful imperfections—that I can’t go anywhere else. You’re my haven, my heart, my home. You’re everything I never knew I needed.” I pulled back to look into his beautiful eyes. Despite the rain, I could tell he was crying. “I’m not leaving you, baby. Ever. You’re it for me.”
“You can’t know that, Sam,” he offered, but it sounded half-hearted. In that moment, I knew he wanted to believe me.
I nodded. “I can. Whatever you need, I’m here. If you need it, I’ll give you some space. But believe me—I’m not going anywhere. Until you order me away, I’m yours.”
He started sobbing then, and, unable to hold back any longer, I pulled him into my soaked chest. His arms wrapped around me, tentatively at first then so strongly I could barely breathe. But I wasn’t complaining. I was exactly where I wanted to be.
After several long minutes, Cameron’s sobs quieted, and he pulled back to find my gaze. “Sam, I . . . I don’t trust easily.”
I nodded, kissing his temple. “I know, baby.”
“You know I’ve been hurt before. Like you said, it’s left scars.”
“I know that, too.”
He nodded, swallowing once. Then he took a deep breath, and something inside me squeezed. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
My brow furrowed. I hadn’t expected this, and I wasn’t sure I was going to like where this was going. “Any of what to happen?”
He stepped out of my embrace, and I felt the loss instantly. “This. Us.” He scrubbed a hand over his wet hair, matting it to his head. I was sure mine was just as bad—but he was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. “I used to do this thing, imagine my perfect man. I knew what he looked like, what he liked and disliked, everything about him. I imagined every detail of our life together.”
My eyes narrowed again. There was something he wasn’t saying, but I wasn’t quite sure what it was. The beer had dampened my senses for sure.
Cameron kept going. “Call it a writer’s curse, I guess. I had a plan for my life, Sam, but then you showed up. You threw me, and now my plan has been thrown out the window. And that scares me.”
My eyes widened as I put the pieces together. I took a protective step back. “You imagined yourself with a cis guy, didn’t you?”
He paused before nodding once, his expression contrite. “I did. But that was before I met you, Sam. You’ve turned everything on its head.”
I crossed my arms, a terrible feeling of inadequacy trickling through my veins. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because, Sam, I want you to know how much you’ve changed me. I don’t want that anymore—it would’ve never been right for me. Because that elusive fantasy man wouldn’t have been you.”
I just stared at him. “What are you saying?”
Cameron smiled for the first time since we’d come outside and gotten drenched in the rain. “That I’m in this, too. I want you, Sam, more than I ever thought possible. It’s just that . . . sometimes the anxiety gets loud, and I don’t know what to do.”
I eyed him, pleasant and uncomfortable emotions coalescing inside me until I was a jumbled mess. I didn’t know how to feel.
Over the past year, I’d learned that two or more seemingly conflicting things could be true at the same time—I had to make space for the “both/and.” I could be elated he’d chosen me but hurt that he still hadn’t told me he loved me. I could want to jump for joy that he said he wanted me while empathizing with his anxietyandbeing angry and insecure that he’d always wanted a cis man with a bio dick who could give him everything he wanted in bed.
All of the above were true, and that was a hard pill to swallow. But I’d grown over this past year, too. Both intentionally and without seemingly any effort at all, I’d become the man I was meant to be. I’d become the Daddy I was meant to be. I was confident, and I was trying to be brave.
So I knew I could hold space forallthese feelings. I could push through the hard emotions and sit with them, not shove them down. I could feel them. I could let them guide me to my truth.
That didn’t make me any less of a man—it made me a better one.
“Cameron, baby, I’m so sorry you’re anxious about this, about us.” I took a breath. “But I need some time to process all this, okay?”
His eyes flicked up to mine, questions in them.
“I . . .” How the hell did I explain all this?
