Chapter 19
Cam had never really been one to celebrate his birthday.
It wasn’t that he had anything against birthdays, but with the erratic, constant travel that had defined his life since early childhood, birthday celebrations had always been an afterthought.
But Scott wouldn’t hear of it when Cam said he wasn’t planning to celebrate.
“Are you kidding?” Scott scoffed. “You only turn thirty once in your life!”
“Every birthday happens only once in my life,” Cam said dryly, earning a playful smack to his chest before Scott cuddled up to him again.
“We’re totally celebrating it!” Scott declared, his eyes bright with excitement.
“How many people do you want there? Probably the other drivers, your mechanics and engineers, right? That’s how many people?
Fifty? Sixty? If there are more people, a yacht party may not work, but I guess it depends on the yacht… ”
He was still chattering, but Cam barely listened. He simply watched Scott’s animated, lively face—the way his long lashes framed his pretty eyes, the dimple that appeared on the left side of his mouth whenever he smiled. Fuck, Cam wanted to chew on him.
So he leaned in and kissed him, cutting him off mid-sentence.
Scott spluttered, but after a moment, kissed back, squirming closer and closer until he was all but in Cam’s lap.
“You’re not listening to me, babe,” he complained when they pulled apart.
“I am,” Cam lied, stroking Scott’s arm and pulling him closer.
Scott’s eyes narrowed. “Prove it. What did I say?”
Fuck.
Cam strained his mind, trying to remember. “The birthday party. Eh, a yacht party?”
Scott laughed, shaking his head. “That was half an hour ago!”
It was?
It wasn’t the first time Cam had caught himself zoning out around Scott. Not because he was bored—quite the opposite. He just got too distracted watching the tiny expressions that flitted across Scott’s lively face to pay much attention to what he was saying.
“So not a yacht party?” Cam said, his lips twitching. “I was warming to the idea.”
Scott grinned at him, slinging a leg over Cam’s lap. “I have a better idea: Chateau de Pierrefonds.”
Cam frowned. “A what?”
“The French castle near Paris! The one from The Man in the Iron Mask? Merlin BBC?”
When Cam gave him a blank look, Scott rolled his eyes with a laugh. “You’re impossible! It’s like you didn’t watch a single show or movie!”
“I had a busy childhood,” Cam said. “And those are, like, ancient shows.”
Scott shot him a mock-affronted look. “Excuse you, Merlin finished running just a few years ago! What do you mean, 2008 was nearly twenty years ago?”
“Can we aim a little lower than a medieval castle?” Cam said with a wry smile. Scotty was so ridiculous.
“Pfft, you’re no fun!” Scott pouted, playing with Cam’s fingers restlessly. “Fine, what about Villa del Balbianello? Don’t tell me you don’t know what it is, either!”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Cam said, trying to keep a straight face. He actually did know what it was.
“Come on, Star Wars? Anakin and Padme? Unbelievable! Don’t tell me you haven’t watched Star Wars, either—”
Laughing, Cam cut him off with a kiss. He kissed him and kissed him some more, feeling like he wanted to crawl into Scotty’s mouth and devour him from the inside. Fuck, he wanted to—
His phone went off.
Cam ignored it at first, intoxicated by the softness of Scott’s lips and the way Scott kissed him back with equal hunger. But the phone kept ringing.
It wasn’t normal.
Tearing his mouth away reluctantly, Cam picked up. “Richter,” he barked, still looking at Scott’s wet, kiss-swollen lips.
“Get to the factory now.”
Cam frowned. It was Daniel, his team principal. And he didn’t sound amused in the least.
“What’s wrong?” Cam said.
There was silence on the line and then the sound of Daniel taking a deep breath, as if trying to calm himself down. “We had to pay a TMZ journalist half a million dollars to buy photos of you that he otherwise would have published.”
Cam stiffened. “What photos?”
“It isn’t a conversation to have over the phone,” Daniel said, his voice clipped. “They were taken through windows. Probably with a long-range lens.”
Cam’s stomach dropped somewhere to his feet. His face must have betrayed something, because Scott had sat up straighter and was looking at him with a frown.
“Understood,” Cam said stiffly. “I’ll be at the factory as soon as I can.”
“What is it?” Scott said when Cam ended the call and got to his feet.
“Someone must have papped us through the windows,” Cam said tersely as he walked into Scott’s bedroom to grab his suitcase. He’d have to catch the first flight to the UK.
“Fuck,” Scott said softly, following him. “Are you in trouble?”
Cam grimaced. “With my team principal? For sure. But this might be bigger than TMZ. The pictures might leak somehow anyway. I need to talk to Daniel, find out how bad it is.”
“Do you want a lift? I can have my jet ready within the hour.”
Cam hesitated. The urge to say yes was nearly irresistible, but arriving in the UK on Scott’s private jet probably wasn’t the wisest idea—not until he knew how bad the situation was.
“No need,” Cam said. “There are plenty of commercial flights from Geneva to London. I should be able to catch one.”
The light in Scott’s eyes dimmed. “Oh,” he said. “All right.”
His jaw working, Cam stared at him for a moment. He kind of… he wanted to pull him close and kiss him goodbye. But that would be… it wasn’t something they did. Kissing Scott goodbye would eliminate any pretense of this being a casual friends-with-benefits thing—which it was.
“I’ll text you once I know more,” Cam said, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“Right,” Scott said, blinking. He chewed on his bottom lip. “Of course.”
Later, Cam would regret the way they’d parted.
But he didn’t know that yet as he turned and strode out of Scott’s apartment.