Chapter 2
Cam
Sunlight nudges me awake, and it takes a moment to remember where I am and why. For a second I think the weight on my chest is Siena, like it had been most mornings for the past six months. Six months. My longest relationship gone, just like that.
I don’t have time to be upset, though, as I blink my eyes into focus looking down at Bo’s face pressed against my chest—arm slung over my stomach, knee dangerously close to my balls. His mouth is parted open and yeah, yup, there’s the drool.
How can I not smile? So much for the pillow wall.
One point for me.
Warm puffs of air graze my nipple as he snores, my skin heating with each soft caress of his breath.
I don’t move him—I have to pee, but I don’t want to move just yet—and instead I smooth the hand of my arm he’s cocooned under down his spine.
I feel lighter. Happier. All day it’s like I have to wind myself tight.
Don’t be so excitable. Don’t be so goofy and loud.
Stop talking so much. With Bo it’s like my threads unravel.
I don’t have to pretend to be anyone other than me when I'm with him.
Bo settles my soul in a way I haven’t yet replicated with anyone else. Believe me, I’ve tried! Hard. Too hard, maybe.
I thought I’d found it with Siena.
Okay brain, don’t go there. Not now. Not with Bo’s body tucked in my arms. I’m so upset.
It’s not the first time I’ve been cheated on, but it’s the first time I’ve gotten this far with someone.
I let Siena see me—the nerdy, the clumsy, and sometimes the dumb parts of me.
Okay, I’m not dumb, I’m just . . . I don’t know.
My brain freezes sometimes. Bo calls it thought paralysis, but I don’t know.
What I do know is that Siena saw parts of me I haven’t shown anyone else. Except Bo. She laughed at my jokes, and watched anime with me. She played video games, and we just had a good time. The sex was fire. She was a great cuddler. I am clingy, and she didn’t even mind. Everything seemed so great.
I gave up my apartment to live with her and now I’m back at the starting line.
Yesterday we got into a small fight. It was dumb.
All I wanted to do was hang out with Bo for a bit.
I know she didn’t like hanging out with him.
She used to say she felt like a third wheel, and I get it.
The few times I tried to hangout all together was weird.
I’d planned to come to his house after work because I haven’t really had one-on-one time with him lately.
I felt like shit about our fight. So instead of seeing Bo I wanted to surprise her after work with her favorite flower.
I didn’t realize how damn expensive orchids are.
Who spends a hundred dollars on one flower?
Anyway, she’d been a bit weird lately. Distant.
I don’t know. I thought it may be because she told me weeks ago that she loved me, and I .
. . I don’t know. I like her . . . a lot.
Something in me hesitated, though, and I know she’s been upset ever since. Even if she told me it’s okay.
Anyway, I went home to surprise her, but I was the one surprised finding one of the guys I’ve seen around the gym face down between her thighs.
I stood there in the doorway watching them for a moment before reality sunk in.
She fluttered her eyes open and screamed .
. . which made me scream. I don’t know why.
Not really proud of that, but I did. Then I ran out the door, breaking the world’s most expensive flower on the way out.
And I ran to Bo’s. To his house, to his arms, to his safety.
I blink.
Then blink again. I refuse to cry! I’ve cried enough. Fuck, I hate being angry. Why can’t I just fly into a badass rage like most people do when they’re mad? Nope, I fucking cry, because I’m a loser.
Bowen shifts in my arms, hugging me tighter, and a few locks of silky black hair fall in front of his eyes.
It’s longer than when I last saw it. My fingers itch, and I reach toward him to lift a couple of strands.
Warmth spreads along my chest, and my eyes dart over his face as I just enjoy this for a moment.
Damn he’s a cutie. His small nose is pointed a little at the tip, and his pouty mouth is soft now with sleep. He plucks his own eyebrows and it makes me cringe when I watch him do it. They look nice, shapely and neat. He’s got one tiny mole under his right eyebrow, another dotting his chin.
I swallow the clog of tears in my throat. How can I be upset with him in my arms?
I comb my fingers through his black strands, watching each one fall back obediently like a silky curtain.
He doesn’t have to do shit to it to make it look like this.
I have to put so much product in my hair just to keep my curls from frizzing, but it’s like his hair falls into line at his command.
I feel his knee slide up, and I wince as he just grazes my sac—no harm. I pull him tighter against me.
Goodbye stupid pillow wall, hello Bobo cuddles.
I close my eyes, breathing him in. He’s warm and smells like pineapple.
I don’t know why he was so worked up last night, but it’s better sometimes to let Bo work through his ideas than to stop him.
Once his mind latches onto something he needs to see it through, and he wanted to build that stupid pillow wall, so I let him.
I knew it would end up being demolished.
There’s no way cotton and fluff can keep us apart.
The only downside to Buddles—Bo cuddles—is that he’s not a sound sleeper.
He moves so much it’s funny, and maybe if I didn’t sleep like the dead it would bother me more.
We used to do this all the time, but this last year something has shifted between us.
I don’t know what, I just know I don’t like it.
Bo’s been a little closed off . . . distant.
Or distant from me. We text every day, play games together online, but when I ask to see him he’s always busy.
I knew he’d let me in last night, though. When it comes down to it, he’s always here for me.
Always has been.
Carefully I prop my pillow up just a bit with my free arm so I can sit up a little.
I’m going to have to get up soon to use the bathroom.
Today’s going to suck, and maybe that’s why I’m procrastinating in bed.
Once I get up it’s all going to be real, so even with the bloodflow completely cut off to my arm, I don’t want to.
I don’t have much to grab, really—clothes, my laptop, my blanket. I’m afraid to go there today, and I left a dozen phone calls unanswered last night. All I wrote back to her was that I was coming this morning to get my shit. Cheating is pointless and painful.
And unfortunately, it happens to me a lot.
Maybe I should have told her I loved her. Did I? I’m not sure. I liked her a lot, and I’m upset she cheated. She was funny and cute, and downright vicious playing Boderlands. It was hot. We talked a lot, and I shared things with her only the person currently drooling on my nipple knows.
I almost told her about my abuela.
Bowen shifts again, and my fingers are still stroking his silky hair.
My chest warms. The emotion I’m feeling is overpowering, stronger than usual, and I don’t know why.
It’s cozy. Bo is safety—my safety. No one understands me the way he does.
Having a best friend is awesome, and I just so happen to have the bestest.
A soft noise leaves his lips as he presses against my side. His knee moves up, and I say a silent prayer for my balls, letting out a breath as he misses them. Something hard jabs me, and it takes me a minute to realize what it is. He lets out another moan, jutting his hips into my side. Oh shit.
My belly floods with heat. I shift a bit, trying to get away as breathy noises slip from his lips.
Okay, I really need to get away. I try, but freeze as the hand draped across my stomach smooths down over my abs, tickling the hair under my belly button.
His face buries into my side, practically in my armpit, and I debate waking him now, but I don’t have much time to execute a solid plan before his fingers slide over my abdomen to rest on my boxers.
Heat spreads through my chest—it feels tight—and a soft hum vibrates under my skin. Not an uncomfortable feeling, but charged. Charged with something foreign. I watch him, his face soft with sleep.
Then he moans.
My dick takes notice, perking up behind the thin fabric of my boxers.
I’m already sporting morning wood, and this .
. . this shit is not helping. “Mmm.” He let’s out a soft moan, rutting into me and burying his face deeper against my side.
Is he inhaling? His fingers move down, grazing my cock, giving my dick a pretty solid hello.
Okay, yeah, this . . . this is . . . why are dicks so dumb? It’s just biology that’s all. My breath sharpens as his palm smooths up, and I think I’m safe when he rests his hand back on my belly.
Good.
Safe.
The relief is short-lived. His fingers push down inside my boxers. “Bo! Bobo, wake up. Wake. Up.” I feel frozen as his fingertips graze my head. “Bo!” Careful not to hurt him, I pull my arm out from under him, and his eyes flutter open, confusion soaking his dark gaze before he lifts his head.
I almost laugh at the drool plastered on his cheek. “What—” He looks down as his brain boots back up, and he yanks his hand out of my boxers like my dick is a venomous snake. His eyes widen into saucers. “What the fuck, Cam!”
He swings his legs over the side of the bed, searching for his glasses and knocking them off the nightstand. So I get up and go round to his side, crouching down to grab them before he accidentally steps on them. He slides them onto his face and pushes them up his nose. “Hey, relax, it’s—”