Page 27 of As Many Stars
“We’re brilliant,” Ash said from Blake’s other side. “Blake’s a genius writer and you’re a genius physician and I’m a scholar. We’re perfect.”
Cam began laughing, shaking them all.
“Sounds good to me,” Blake said. It did. He held them both tightly. He kissed Cam one more time, because he thought maybe he needed to.
“Ah,” Cam said, an answer. “You heard what I said, when you were…when I wasn’t sure you’d be…I wasn’t sure you’d heard.”
“I did. I’m here.” He tapped Cam’s shoulder with his thumb, mostly because he couldn’t move more, having Ash’s weight atop him. “I just want you to know that.”
“What did you say?” Ash lifted his head. “And why don’t I know? And of course I’m here too.”
“Oh, you two,” Cam said. “So sweet, both of you. Right where you belong. Where I can love you.”
“Yes,” Ash said. “Yes, please.”
Blake echoed, heart in the word, “Yes.”
“About that, then…it’s about how I felt, y’know. How I feel. Not about how I love you, I’ve said it, aye?—but the moment of it, knowing…” Cam did not flinch, but let them in, instead. A memory in the green. “You know I’m a bit older than you both, right?”
“You’re not old,” Ash protested.
“Didn’t say I was. But you’re, what, twenty-eight, the pair of you? Nine years on you.” Cam tapped Ash’s nose, more affection than scolding. “And the thing of it is, y’know…thatnight in Edinburgh…it was the day right after an anniversary, though you’d no way of knowing that. I’d had someone, you see—not recent. Long gone. Six years, that day. It’s a bad few days, all of them, right together.”
The grief lay bare as sun-scoured bone, in his voice; Ash made a wordless sound, sympathy, hurting for him, and managed to stretch an arm all the way over to pat him. Blake held on closer, Cam right up against him, muscles and competence and strength and pain for the comforting. “What happened?”
“He died. Carriage accident. In the rain. And it was stupid—a bad road, too fast, avoidable—and if I’d been there maybe I could’ve done something, saved him—-but I wasn’t, and I couldn’t, and I didn’t even know for two days. Because his family didn’t know about me.” Cam’s exhale might’ve been the wrenching-apart of mountains. “What I meant, about the days, plural, there. All bad. I only found out when the family thought to tell me, as his partner—I mean professionally, in our practice. He’d been a medical student, too, when we met—just started. Actually that was partly why I went into it, because he loved it and I was curious, and then it turned out I loved it too.”
“You were happy.” Ashley’s eyes were enormous with the emotion of it, understanding. “You loved him.”
“I did, and he loved me. We moved in together, that first year. Told everyone it made sense, sharing rooms, then setting up a joint practice. Never could tell anyone it meant more, of course. His family would’ve…not taken it well. Mine…” Cam’s voice went dry, recalling that too. “They most certainly did not. They caught me with a stableboy, when I was fifteen—they’re horse-trainers, my family, and good ones—and that was that. Disowned.”
“I’m so sorry.” Ash dove across Blake to kiss Cam, to kiss Blake, to kiss Cam again, little scattered kisses like sun andshadows. “We’re here now. We’re not leaving you.”
“No,” Blake said, “we’re not leaving you,” and met Cam’s eyes. “None of us is going anywhere.”
“You ran into me in the rain,” Cam said, “and I’d been feeling…grey, I suppose, all flat and dull…and I saw you, and I knew who you were—Blake Thornton, adventurer, all that—but you didn’t look at me like that, like you were an earl or arrogant or any of it. You looked like someone lonely, out in the rain. And then you looked me up and down like you saw someone who could make you feel less lonely, maybe, for a night. And I wanted to be that person for you.” He hesitated, added, “I’d not been with anyone in, oh, about three years, mind. And that was purely…for release, for one night. I tried to make it good, for you. For us. Kept hoping I’d got it right.”
“Very right,” Blake said. “Very.”
“Was your…lover…” Ash put out a finger to touch Blake’s mouth, evidently just because, and then pushed the fingertip into his mouth. Blake licked and sucked obediently, and did not miss the way Cam’s eyes got all dark and smoldering at that. Ash finished, “Did he like it like…the way Blake does? Or me, when you tell me what to do, though that’s not quite the same.”
“He did, and we fit that way as well.” Cam watched Blake lavishing attention on Ash’s finger. “We were both…a bit new to it, he knew more than me about what he wanted, but we figured it out together. Figured out we made a good pair.”
Blake stopped worshiping Ash’s fingers—two now—to ask, “What was his name? If you want to say.”
“I can tell you. I’d like that. He’d like that, I think.” Cam drew a breath, noiseless. “Hugh. That was him. He liked sunrises and terrible wine, too sweet, no refinement at all.”
“He sounds lovely,” Ash said.
“He was.”
“You had each other,” Blake said. “You know about love.Being loved. And you’ve got that now, too. With us.”
Cam’s smile reappeared, brighter than the afternoon. The bedroom lay warm and sticky and thrilled around them. The painted flowers danced across the ceiling. “I do.”
“I was thinking about something, too.” Blake drew a breath, let it out. Felt their bodies entwined with his. Recovery, he thought. Renewal. All of them, perhaps. “I’m not leaving. I know I said so. But I mean…voyages, explorations, all of that…I think I’d like to stay put for a while. To help with your library. To write the next memoir. To…be here, not in between travel, but…because I’m home here. I’ve never had that. I might want to know how it feels. You know. A next adventure.”
“Yes,” Ash said. “Blake—yes.”
