Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Cameron
I hated the kitchen table.
It wasn’t even really a table, more like a door someone had balanced on two sawhorses and declared “good enough.” It rocked every time someone leaned too hard on it, and if you set a mug down too firmly, the whole surface wobbled like a cheap carnival ride.
Today, it was also where our landlord—grey suit, greasy hair, indifferent expression—had sat ten minutes ago and told us all we had two weeks to move out because he was selling the flat.
“It’s just good business sense,” the man had said with a shrug, sipping tea from one of our chipped mugs as if it were his.
“It’ll cost me a fortune to renovate this place.
My brother-in-law has offered to buy it at a fair price, you know, take it off my hands.
” He snorted. “Which makes a lotta sense seein’ as he already owns the rest of this building.
Might as well have the full set, right?”
“And we couldn’t pay rent to him?” I was caught somewhere between anger and frustration.
Not even one drop of sympathy crawled across the landlord’s face.
“He’s gonna gut it. That’s what he’s gonna do with all the flats. By the time he’s finished, you couldn’t even afford to rent a cupboard in here.” Another shrug. “Sorry, boys, but that’s that. Nothing personal, okay?”
Nothing personal. I stared at the still-warm mug the landlord had abandoned, my fingers tightening around my own. My tea had gone cold before I’d even sipped it.
Two weeks.
My chest buzzed as though someone had plugged me into a socket.
Across from me, Darren swore under his breath. “I hope his brother-in-law is riddled with an incurable case of… something painful. Him too, while we’re at it.”
Ben banged his fist against the door-table hard enough to slosh my untouched tea. “Don’t we have rights or something?”
Malik leaned back in his chair, his face still and blank the way it always went when he didn’t want anyone to see him rattled.
“Sure we do. And it’ll just drag things out, and we’ll still be homeless at the end of it.
Better to make a clean break now and find somewhere else.
” Then his face tightened a fraction. “If we can.”
Twenty-two years old. A student. Broke, and feeling as if the rug has just been yanked from under me. Again.
I wasn’t surprised. The flat had always been one cough away from collapsing.
The roof leaked. The heating worked only when it wanted to.
The walls were thin enough to hear every argument, every laugh, every muffled groan through the night.
But it had been ours. A terrible little patchwork life, but my own.
Now it wasn’t even that.
I rubbed my hands down my jeans, and they came away damp with sweat.
Darren muttered something about crashing with his sister. Malik had cousins. Ben was already texting his ex, which was either brave or suicidal.
I had no plan.
I had art supplies I couldn’t carry, an easel I’d dragged from place to place like a loyal dog, and a string of part-time jobs that barely paid my bus fare. The same jobs I’d pulled out of on occasion as the exams drew closer, because I needed to draw, paint, focus…
I also had nowhere to go.
I dug out my phone, my fingers trembling. I didn’t think. I didn’t want to think. Instead, I called the first number my brain offered me.
“Cam?” Gary’s voice came through rough and warm. My older brother always sounded like he’d just been laughing at something or yelling at a football match. “What’s up?”
I swallowed. My throat was a knot. “We… got evicted.”
Silence. “Shit. You okay?”
“No. I mean, yes. Hell, I don’t know.” I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. “We’ve got two weeks. Two weeks and I can’t—” My voice cracked like a plate.
I had an assignment to finish—who was I kidding? I hadn’t even started it yet—but every artistic instinct had fled, pushed out by rising panic.
“Aw, Cam. I wish I was nearer. You’re always welcome here, you know that. Okay, there’s only the couch, but it’d do at a pinch.”
I let out a sigh. “Somehow I don’t think commuting every day between Manchester and London is a viable prospect.
” I closed my eyes. Not that I’d have taken Gary up on his offer anyway.
My brother’s place was small, cramped, with Gary’s girlfriend and their endless parade of friends coming and going.
I could already picture myself tripping over bodies.
“Wait. I may have an idea.” Gary paused. “You remember Theo?”
I froze. The name still hit the same way it always had, like my brain skipped a beat before catching up.
Stupid question. Of course I remembered Theo. I’d seen him barely a month ago.
As if I was going to forget that night. I’d gone home from that bar, and the first thing I’d done when I reached the sanctuary of my small room was to lock the door and grab my dildo and lube.
Three loads in one night was a record. There were times when I wondered if having a dick inside me would produce the same results.
God, I hope so.
I knew exactly whose dick I wanted. Had wanted since I was sixteen.
“I, uh, yeah.” I kept my tone careful.
“He’s in London now. Hammersmith, I think he said.
The flat belongs to his aunt, but she’s away travelling at the moment, so he’s staying there.
It isn’t a huge place, but then again, there’s only him.
I’ll ask if you can crash there until you sort something permanent.
He won’t mind. It’s not like you’re a stranger, right? ”
My stomach flipped. What came to mind was Theo’s serious gaze that had made my sixteen-year-old pulse riot.
And he’s even hotter now.
I’d learnt that a month ago.
And Gary was now proposing I share living space with the man who owned the dick I’d been fantasising about.
I wasn’t sure if the prospect excited or terrified me.
“Gary, I don’t know if—”
“Don’t be daft. He’s solid. Of course he’ll let you stay. He’s like family.”
Family.
I pressed my palm flat against the table’s uneven surface. I’d never thought of Theo as family. I’d thought of him as untouchable, as dangerous as a live wire.
If you got too close, you’d burn.
Once again my mind flicked unbidden to that night in the leather bar. The way he looked.
The way he made me feel.
It was becoming a familiar route.
“Cam?” Gary prompted.
Back to Planet Earth.
“Yeah. Sorry. Just got a lot on my mind.”
A load on my mind would be more accurate. Several loads, in fact.
Then I remembered what had sent my mind off on a tangent in the first place. Those words that had turned my insides to liquid.
Of course he’ll let you stay.
Stay. With Theo.
Sleep in his flat. See him every day. Breathe the same air, share the same space.
God.
“I’ll text him now. He’ll say yes, don’t worry. You’ll be sorted.”
Sorted.
Yeah, right.
“One thing… you might have to be a little open-minded while you’re staying there. You know, about the whole gay thing. Theo might have… guests overnight. Except I don’t think you’re that easily shocked, are you?” A pause. “You did know Theo’s gay?”
I struggled to take a breath. “Yeah, I knew.”
“So you might have to put your love life on hold for a while.” Gary chuckled.
“As if I know what you do. You never tell me a thing. You could have a different girl every night for all I know.” Another chuckle.
“Make the most of it. But be safe. Mum would explode if you get someone pregnant. She isn’t ready to be a grandma yet. ”
You may be my brother, but you don’t know me at all.
Except that wasn’t fair. I hadn’t come out to my family, and I’d done my damnedest not to be obvious, not to give too much away.
Apparently, I’d given an Oscar-worthy performance.
I couldn’t take another second. “Sorry, Gary, but I’ve got to go.” I ended the call and set my phone face-down on the table. My pulse wouldn’t slow. My hands were damp again, so I wiped them on my thighs and sat there in the echo of the conversation.
Theo.
He’d never felt like family, only the first boy I’d ever wanted. The one I’d thought about late at night, guilty and aching. The one I’d glimpsed in a leather bar and realised with a sharpness that lanced through me, that Theo wasn’t untouchable anymore.
He was real. Solid. Still beautiful.
And I was still a virgin.
Okay, so it was a little pathetic to have reached twenty-two and never managed it. Not that it was from lack of trying exactly, but more a case of always pulling back at the last minute. Of not being sure. Being weighed down by expectations I couldn’t meet.
Be honest. There was only ever going to be one person you wanted to be your first.
Theo.
The prospect of sharing a flat with him felt like walking into fire.
I pressed both hands to my face. I should say no. I should find another couch, another floor, any other option.
But the thought of Theo’s voice, low and steady, cutting through chaos, pulled at me like gravity.
Maybe it was stupid, not to mention dangerous.
And maybe it was also inevitable.