Chapter Four
Cameron tensed. It had been a long time since he’d heard that name, but it still made his palms sweat and his teeth clench.
He didn’t dare look at Asher.
“What about him?” Clearly, Talon had been busy. He couldn’t even imagine how deep the guy had to dig to pull that name out of his hat.
“What are you talking about?” Asher interjected. He sounded strained, like he was doing his best not to shout. “Who is Benjamin Moore?”
Cameron curled both hands around his coffee cup and stared into it, still unable to meet Asher’s gaze. “A mistake.”
“Okay,” Asher murmured as he exhaled in a rush, “start from the beginning.”
“It was six years ago.” Vibrating with nervous energy, Cameron tapped his foot against the black rug that covered the floor as he spoke. “Do you want the long or short version?”
“Either.”
Cameron breathed in deeply through his nose and focused on the warmth of the ceramic in his hands.
The guy’s lack of preference was telling in and of itself.
He was a storyteller, and he always wanted the details, no matter how insignificant.
The fact that he’d be willing to settle for a short, condensed version of events didn’t bode well.
“Nico had just opened his tattoo shop, and we had gone out to the club to celebrate.”
Natalie had barely been old enough to drink, but no one would have guessed by the way she tossed back tequila shots.
Derek had convinced Tyler to join them, and while Tyler had refused to dance, he and Derek spent most of the night stealing glances at each other.
Nico had been on top of the world, and Cameron…
well, he’d been content to just sit back and observe.
“I guess we’d been at Swerve for a couple of hours by the time Ben got there.
It was kind of obvious from the beginning that Nico had set us up.
” Normally, he’d have been pissed about that, but at the time, it had been months since he’d been out with anyone.
“We danced a little, but mostly, we just sat and talked.”
He’d actually been surprised by how much he had liked the guy, especially since they had very little in common.
Ben had been charming, though, witty, and he was the type of person who seemed to listen with his whole being.
So, while Cameron would have liked to blame the alcohol for his lack of good judgment, it had really been more about hormones and vanity.
Asher’s hand tightened on top of his thighs as he shifted in his seat. Whether because he didn’t want to interrupt, or because he didn’t know what to say, it was odd to see him so quiet. He usually had a comeback for everything, and he’d talk himself hoarse trying to have the last word.
“We, uh, ended up going back to his place since he lived in the city.” With his experience in such matters, Asher could likely deduce what had happened next, so Cameron didn’t feel the need to go into detail.
“He called me a cab about two in the morning, and I figured that was the end of it.” Ben had walked him to the door where they’d exchanged a few awkward words, and Cameron had assumed he’d never see the man again.
“The phone calls started two days later.”
Asher’s eyes narrowed, and a strange, little growl reverberated through his throat. “He started stalking you?”
“No.” Cameron huffed out a shaky laugh. “The phone calls were from his wife.”
“He was married?”
Cameron bobbed his head slowly, a shudder going through him.
Fuck, it had happened six, almost seven, years ago, but just thinking about it still filled him with shame and guilt.
It was a stupid response. He hadn’t known Benjamin Moore had been married.
He hadn’t noticed anything in his apartment to indicate that a woman lived there.
Telling himself these things didn’t change how he felt, though .
He’d been mortified when he’d found out, and he’d been so pissed at Nico he hadn’t talked to his best friend for nearly a week.
Ultimately, however, it hadn’t been Nico’s fault, and really, it hadn’t been Cameron’s fault, either.
Benjamin Moore alone had been responsible for his own actions, as well as all the chaos that had followed.
“Damn,” Asher breathed. “I’m sorry, Cam.”
“It could have been worse,” he responded honestly. “It was your cliched, jilted wife stuff. Nita, his wife, called me a few times. She found out where I worked and showed up at my office.” When Asher tensed, he shook his head. “She never made it past security.”
It had been uncomfortable and inconvenient, not to mention, a constant reminder of how badly he’d screwed up, but he’d meant it when he’d said it could have been worse.
Nothing violent ever happened. He hadn’t ever come home to find dead animals on his porch, nor had he ever worried that someone was watching him from the shadows.
All her presence had really done was amplify the self-disgust he’d already felt.
A frown tugged at Asher’s lips. “So, what happened?” His gaze slid to Talon. “How does he know about it?”
Heat infused Cameron’s cheeks, and he coughed twice to clear his throat before continuing. “It was about a week later. I got a call from Maya around one in the morning.”
“Who? ”
“Maya Young. She owns that bar off the highway by the lake.”
“Lucky’s?”
Cameron nodded.
To outsiders, it was a fairly typical name for a bar.
The residents of Mission Grove, however, knew that she’d named the place after her one-eyed, bobtailed cat.
The thing was a freaking menace, too, stalking people outside the bar and jumping into their vehicles when they tried to leave.
Of course, Maya always sided with Lucky, and everyone else just sort of dealt with it.
“So, Derek’s drunk. Like, falling down, slurring his words drunk.
” Derek didn’t drink often, and never enough to get sloppy—except when Tyler had a new girlfriend.
“Maya called me to come pick him up and take him home.” From the time he’d received the call to the moment he’d walked his friend out of the bar couldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes total. “Nita was waiting in the parking lot.”
“She’d followed you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah, so she starts yelling and waving her hands around while I’m just standing there, doing my best to keep Derek upright.” He could only imagine what the three of them had looked like. “Anyway, Maya hears the yelling and calls the police. They show up and take Nita down to the station. ”
She hadn’t even protested when they’d ushered her into the back of the cruiser.
“Did you press charges?”
“No.” Cameron shook his head. He’d just wanted to be left alone, not ruin the woman’s life.
She’d been hurt and angry, and maybe she’d lost her grip on reality there for a while, but even now, he didn’t believe she was a bad person.
“They let her go the next morning, and I never heard from her again.”
“Sooo…” Asher said, drawing out the word as he looked between Cameron and Talon.
“It’s a small town,” Cameron reminded him with a casual shrug. “It was in the Sunday edition of the Mission Grove Herald.”
Talon dipped his head once in confirmation of where he’d found the information.
“Jesus, fuck,” Asher breathed as he carded his fingers through his hair. “That’s…wow.”
Not the most eloquent assessment, especially considering the guy made his living with words. Cameron didn’t fault him, though. If he’d heard the story secondhand, he probably wouldn’t know what to say, either.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was a long time ago.” He would have told Asher…
eventually. Hell, he’d been with Richard for three years, and he’d never told him.
“I don’t know. It wasn’t a bi g deal.” Honestly, it had been more humiliating than anything, especially since it had taken the townspeople a good three months to stop talking about it.
“Besides, there’s not exactly a good way to bring up something like that. ”
“I told you about Kyle. About Mitchell.”
Cameron tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. “True, but you also tried to get rid of me first. If Kyle hadn’t arrived when he did, would you have told me?”
Asher’s silence spoke volumes.
The attraction between them had been instant and explosive. Their connection was borderline epic. The past few weeks had been like something out of a fairy tale—a crazy, fun, slightly slutty fairy tale—but that didn’t change the fact that it had been barely six weeks since they’d met.
“No wonder you have trust issues,” Asher mumbled.
Cameron straightened, his spine stiffening. “Right back at you, asshole.”
“Sorry.” Rubbing both hands over his face, Asher blew out a long breath. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know.” They were both tense and on edge but taking it out on each other wouldn’t get them anywhere. “It really wasn’t a big deal,” he added, arching a brow at Talon. “What does it have to do with Asher?”
Talon, who hadn’t said a word during Cameron’s retelling of the events, linked his fingers together and rested his hands over his stomach.
“Probably nothing.” He offered a placid grin as he inclined his head.
“The media is going to come at you from every angle, though, and that makes you fair game. They’re going to dig up everything they can on both of you and twist it into a story. ”
Some part of Cameron had already known this, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear. “It’s not just us, though, is it? They’re going to drag my friends and family into it.”
“I’m sorry,” Talon answered, and he sounded like he meant it. “You’ve spoken to them? They know not to say anything to reporters?”
“They won’t say anything.”