Chapter 3
CAM
I’d like to think I’m a decisive man, that I don’t live with many regrets, that I don’t torture myself over what-ifs. In fact, other people have said those things about me too.
The past week has taught me differently.
Talking about this . . . idea, plan, whatever, with Caden—and yes, with Lindsey too—hasn’t brought me any closer to coming to a decision. I haven’t talked about it with Morris, who’s the first friend I ever made in LA, but I know what he’d say since he’s about as sane as AJ.
I’ll have to tell Morris soon enough, though, no matter what choice I make, because canceling lunch two days ago didn’t go over well—as I didn’t think it would.
As I sit in the owners box with the owner of the LA Warriors, and with the legend that is Clive Darnell—an eighty-year-old Hall of Famer who got the Warriors their first two Lombardis—I still have no clue what I’m going to tell AJ when I see him after the game.
They’re playing Seattle, a division rival, and are so deep into the season this game is more important than almost any other until the playoffs, but I can’t seem to keep my eyes focused on the field.
Even when AJ is right there, all I see is the horrifying nightmare my mind conjured up a few days ago when I looked more carefully at the schedule for the reunion.
I imagine myself walking alone into the gym and it’s all decorated for the joke of a prom, but I don’t feel as if I’m walking into a joke of a prom.
I feel nervous and a bit nauseous. I know I’m going to see Soren dancing with the beautiful Marie Anne Perry and smiling down at her as if he loves her, and I feel my heart break.
Then the scene changes, and everyone’s older now, but my heart is breaking all over again.
And that makes no fucking sense.
I would probably scoff if Soren was still dancing with Marie Anne, and I would probably just turn away and ask Caden to dance with me or something.
But then there’s the last image my asshole of a brain conjured up . . . Soren looking over at me and with a smirk, he says, “I told you you’d be alone forever.”
Now that . . .
Well, that’s the only fucking reason I’m actually entertaining the idea of taking AJ with me, so he can act as a human shield that doubles as a traveling circus.
He’ll protect me and he’ll take my mind off of everything that’s wrong with the world.
That’s the magic of AJ Quick.
The stadium erupts with shouts and cheers, and I stand with Clive on autopilot and clap and cheer while looking at the Jumbotron. As expected, they show the replay of the absolute mind-bending dart AJ just threw at the far left corner of the end zone.
Richard Matthewson, the star wide receiver for the Warriors, caught it in the air—after jumping and twisting while airborn—and then landed just on the tips of his toes before falling face first out of bounds.
A perfect throw and a perfect catch.
Yeah, that’s the other magic of AJ Quick.
Damn, he’s so fucking good.
More than a decade since I first saw any film of him, and I’m still struck speechless every time he shows just how much gold he has in that arm.
I resist looking to my left where Trip Ramsey, the GM, and Warwick O’Donnelly, the owner, are sitting.
They know damn well what they’ve got in AJ, and that’s at least another five years of a good, reliable leader for their team.
I might want to get his next deal done now, but despite what so many other people think of him, he has good business instincts, and like he told all of us last June, he feels strongly that we should wait until the off-season to negotiate his contract.
I don’t have any doubts that they want to re-sign him, but he’s not getting any younger, and that’s when contracts start to become a real pain in the ass.
He’s never been injured, though, not seriously, and that bodes well for him.
And if he can get another ring this season . . . Yeah, no, those thoughts won’t do anyone any good. He’ll win or he won’t, my job is going to be the same either way.
I know AJ wants to win, he always does, but I’ll never tell him how much easier my life will be if he does . . . that wouldn’t be fair to him.
Or to any of my clients, I add, reminding myself that he is my client.
And that brings up another roadblock for me.
Anyone who knows I’m an agent—and a successful one—also knows I represent AJ, and though Lindsey doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal, announcing to basically my whole home town that I’m dating one of my clients could present some potential risks.
We’ll have to think carefully about how to go about that, because being outed as bisexual sadly has the potential of affecting his life in ways we can’t predict.
I realize then that I just thought all that as if us doing this is a given.
I . . .
I guess it is?
“Do you want to go out for a celebratory dinner?” I ask AJ as soon as he’s in sight.
“I just wanna go home,” AJ mumbles dejectedly when he stops beside me outside the family room.
“What’s wrong?” I demand.
It’s not unlike him to want to go straight home after a game, and he has no reason to be so down right now. They won the game by more than a score.
“The reporters were mean.” That damn pout of his comes out and it pulls a smile out of me involuntarily.
“Those assholes are always mean.” I clap him on the shoulder and steer him away to the players’ parking lot. I’m not worried about how he answered the mean reporters, because not only has he gone through media training that would make a world leader baulk, but he’s never been too bad at it.
“I know,” he grumbles. “I just have to shake it off.”
And he’s great at that too. It’s one of the few things that have actually changed about him in the last decade.
He’s still the same guy who loves football and horses, the one I met right before the draft, but now he knows his worth, and I couldn’t be prouder that I got to watch that transformation in him.
He tells me Derek picked him up earlier, so I drive him home and we share a rare forty-five minutes of silence on our long way to the hills where he has his sprawling mansion.
When we get there, we work in tandem in the kitchen making a salad and reheating some chicken his chef left for him, and all the while I wonder exactly how to bring up the subject.
Maybe tonight isn’t the right time?
His eyes are shining with that happy, full-of-life glint again when we’re two bites into our late dinner, and I know I can’t really put this off, because my biggest worry about this plan is something we need to get way ahead of.
“If the offer still stands,” I start off slowly. “Then I’d like to take you up on it.”
He looks confused for a second, but I see he understands when his eyes open wide and a smile takes over his face.
“Really?” he shouts, way too excited.
“Yes, but—” I stop him before he can start a celebratory dance or something. “We’re gonna have to set some rules.” My tone might sound like a warning, but I have to admit I’m smiling too.
There’s nothing I want more in life than to actually find a man to love who loves me for who I am, but I know that if I want that to happen, I need to find a way to finally exorcize Soren’s words from my brain.
This is the first step to doing that.
“What are the rules?” he asks, clearly overstimulated now and almost jumping out of his seat.
“I don’t want my mother to hate me for breaking her favorite person’s heart once we break up.”
I might sound a bit jealous, and who gives a shit if I am?
Mom’s love for AJ is well documented, and I don’t want it to change, not really, but I also want to be her favorite, dammit.
“Aww.” He drags out the word exaggeratedly. “Mama Jameson is a sweetie pie, but don’t you worry, Cam. We’re gonna make sure she still loves us both when this is done.”
And we better make sure our working relationship and our friendship is intact too.
Since I can’t avoid him any longer, and I don’t really want to, I invite Morris over for brunch the next day.
Thankfully, he just wrapped up a movie a few days ago, so he has some time to hang out while his husband, Mack, deals with post-production and whatnot.
As a world-class cinematographer, Morris sees everything in a way few people do. He has a true gift—and a couple of Oscars to prove it—but as a friend, he never misses anything, so I’m not surprised when he stares me down at the front door and demands, “Why have you been avoiding me?”
He’s never been one to shy away from tough love either, and that’s probably why I’ve been avoiding him, but now it’s time to lay it all out for him and see what he thinks.
“Because I’m about to do something very stupid.”
I wave a hand so he’ll come in, and he groans as he walks past me.
“You’re not gonna marry some young up-and-coming pretty boy who wants to be a movie star, are you?”
I snort and shake my head.
“No, worse.”
His frown tells me he can’t think of anything worse, but I see it dawns on him that it is worse when I tell him about AJ’s idea.
“So that’s what we’re doing,” I finish with, and he barks out a laugh that goes on obnoxiously long.
“I’m sorry,” he says at last, then lets out a long happy sigh. “I know how much that asshole hurt you back then. I swear I’m not laughing because of that. I’m just picturing you trying to resist this idea. It’s genius,” he cries out and even throws his hands up.
“Why do you think it’s genius?” I’m genuinely surprised by this.