Chapter Sixteen Cam
Chapter Sixteen
Cam
“Try not to be annoying,” I plead, eyes wandering between my parents as they clean up and prepare dinner.
“You’ll find that I’m quite average, son,” Dad says at the stovetop, flipping the vegetarian lemon chicken slabs sizzling in his massive pan.
“You look like the son of a Mafia boss.”
“But I have the cuddly personality of a koala.” He pops open the oven to peek at the cheesy scalloped potatoes. “Ask your mother. She was disappointed to discover I’m not the mysterious, dangerous bad boy I appeared to be.”
Mom gives a wistful sigh from the living room, where she’s fluffing couch pillows. “He ended up being perfectly levelheaded,” she says solemnly. “Not a single toxic quality for me to fix.”
If they’re bantering like this before dinner, they’re about to be insufferable. “Just don’t show him baby pictures or start making out to make me uncomfortable,” I snap.
“We’d never, Cammy.” In the corner of my eye, I notice her tuck a giant binder under the couch. Predictable.
“What’s got you so nervous, anyway?” Dad smirks as he hands me a collection of plates to set the table. “Could it be because this is the first time in years that you’ve invited someone over to dinner? Friend or otherwise?”
“Mason is coming to eat a balanced meal and then I’m showing him his workout regimen,” I say shortly. “It’s to pay him back for tutoring me. Not because I want to see him.”
Then I remember that smile, and I realize I’m a dirty fucking liar. Christ, why am I so obsessed with that little asshole’s teeth?
Except it’s not just that, is it? I’m anticipating all of him.
It’s the dry wit, the calming atmosphere, the cutting jabs meant to insult me but mostly fluster me.
It’s his swooshing hair meant for tousling and cute hands meant for holding.
It’s those tiny moments where he feels comfortable enough to crack the ice fragments sealing him from head to toe, allowing me glimpses of someone much warmer, much happier.
I readjust the kitchen chairs for the fifth time. “You’re sure that’s fake meat?” I ask Dad.
“Ask me one more time, boy, and I’ll tattoo my face on your ass cheek while you’re sleeping,” he growls, his annoyed eyes piercing through my face.
I scoff, turning to Mom and gesturing at him. “Not a single toxic quality, huh?”
She looks ready to console me for the verbal threat uttered by her husband, but then the doorbell rings, and she beelines for it. Who else could it be but the water boy, who’s dressed in a knitted pumpkin-orange turtleneck and matching beanie, looking as cute and cuddly as always?
“Ah,” Mom says. “This must be my son’s failed conquest.”
Oh. My fucking God.
Mason’s pallid face colors, and his dark eyes flit over her shoulder to see me, slack-jawed and ready to careen out of the nearby window. “I…Hello,” Mason says, extending a tense hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Morelli.”
Mom fans a palm over her heart, finding this endearing, apparently. “What a sweet, polite boy. Much sweeter and politer than mine. I’m sure that’s why you rejected him, hmm?”
So my parents are planning on making me the miserable type of miserable tonight.
Got it. “Hi, we don’t need to discuss that either now or at any point in the future for as long as we both shall live, so let’s move along,” I wheeze out, nudging my mother aside and snagging Mason’s hand.
I tug him over the front step leading into the house.
I can’t help but notice the way his fingers press light imprints into my skin.
“Thanks for inviting me to dinner,” he says, eyes widening when my father rounds the corner—this looming wrestler of a man wearing a floral apron.
Dad reaches his beefy hand out in greeting. “It’s an honor, Mason. I’m Nico,” he says pleasantly. “Nice to put a face to the man, myth, and legend who can put my son in his place.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Mason says, laughing uneasily. “Cameron does what he wants. But nice to meet you, too.”
This feels suspiciously like a “meet the parents” date scenario, which makes me uncomfortably hot around the collar, so I clear my throat and grumble, “It’s a quick meal before a workout. Can we skip the meet and greet?”
Dad’s lashes flutter with an intense eye roll. “Like I’m a peasant,” he mutters, trailing into the kitchen to retrieve the food.
“We’re trying this plant-based chicken he found at the store yesterday,” I tell Mason, seating him at the kitchen table. “Hope that’s okay?”
Mason offers a little closed-lipped smile, toying with the gemstone on his necklace. “Thanks for being so thoughtful,” he says lightly.
“You brought workout clothes, right?”
“No. I thought it would be a fun extra challenge to try exercising in jeans,” he says, staring unblinkingly at me.
I stare back, deciphering whether he’s being a sarcastic little shit or not.
He must notice my brain muscles straining, because he smirks and opens a plastic bag dangling from his arm, revealing a T-shirt and shorts.
Sarcastic little shit, then.
The meal goes as wretchedly as I expect.
My parents ask Mason an assortment of embarrassing questions, from Has Cammy been treating you well?
to Are you sure you didn’t reject him because you’re dating someone?
to Other than saving our son from his own incompetence, what do you do in your free time?
Mason takes everything in stride and doesn’t seem to mind being grilled.
I wonder when someone last asked him about himself.
“Cameron is behaving well,” he says, smiling in that fake sweet way, like he’s about to expose me for something dreadful. “I’m not dating anyone. And I like drinking coffee and working at the gallery.”
“He also likes painting, guitar, and photography,” I chip in.
Mom’s blue-green eyes glitter. “Maybe we’ll have you bring your guitar next time and play a song. None of us are musically inclined. Or artistically.”
“I’m literally a tattoo artist,” Dad says grumpily.
They’re being annoying, but Mason laughs genuinely enough to cover it with his sweater sleeve.
I guess it’s not that easy to break a habit you’ve been doing for years.
Evidenced by my mom, who occasionally glances around with apprehension, like she’s afraid she left Pride paraphernalia out despite not having put anything on display since we moved.
When dinner is over and the dishes cleaned, Mason changes into his workout clothes and follows me into the basement. He glances up at the ceiling boards and smiles at the sound of my parents walking around and talking. “They’re nice,” he says softly.
“Meh,” I grumble, folding open the paper I jotted his routine on.
“You feel like a family. It’s sweet.”
He sounds wistful. He’s standing at a yoga mat, nudging the curled corner down with his foot. Something glints in my eye as he shifts around.
“You should take that off,” I say.
Mason’s hand reaches up, snagging hold of his necklace. “Take what off?”
It’s strange, the way only his subconscious knows what I’m referring to. “The necklace,” I clarify. “So it doesn’t get caught on something and break again.”
Mason’s grip tightens around it. Reluctantly, he unclips the back with trembling fingers. “Is there somewhere safe I can put it?” he mumbles.
I retrieve a jewelry bowl from upstairs and set it on the counter behind the equipment.
Mason drapes the necklace inside like it’s a fragile newborn baby.
“Ready?” I ask, positioning him on the yoga mat in front of mine.
Mason’s eyes haven’t left the bowl. It’s like he thinks the gemstone will leap out of the holder and plunge into the nearest vent. “Eyes here, water boy.”
The nickname pulls his attention to me.
“Remember, bulking isn’t a race. It requires patience.”
“Okay,” he whispers. “I trust you.”
My heart squeals, which is probably a medical emergency, but I proceed like nothing is wrong.
We start with our stretches. He muscles through his discomfort as music echoes through the basement, his forehead gleaming from strain.
He does better at sit-ups, his face coming closer to mine as I sit atop his feet, counting, trying not to wonder what he’d say if I leaned forward and bumped our lips together.
I don’t know why. Why is he different? Is this…
Is this what attraction is supposed to feel like?
I’ve always liked looking at him. That’s why I asked him out—if he said yes, staring at him unblinkingly wouldn’t be (as) creepy.
But after spending time with him, it’s becoming more than the desire to look.
I want to touch. To feel. I want to tug on his hair and smooth his palms out and trace the indent of his spine.
I’ve never had that desire with my previous partners, and Mason isn’t even my boyfriend.
It’s half the reason people break up with me.
The disinterest in physical intimacy. The other half being that I never let them get close enough to see the jostled bricks in my walls.
It should’ve been the same with Mason, but somehow, he saw through the holes from as far back as he could’ve possibly been standing.
All it took was a couple of hours of one-on-one interaction.
He’s been chipping at them gently. He knows I have two sides, an exaggerated one and an authentic one, and a strange central line where the two blend together.
He knows I’m a momma’s boy and that I used to paint rocks and that I was bullied at my old school.
And…I don’t know. I think I’ve started to cut through his own fortified, looming steel walls.
Centimeter by centimeter. Though, I’m still painfully in the dark.
All I have to go on is that damned necklace.