7. Jordan
JORDAN
Cam’s fingers grazed my cheek, and again, something electric crackled through me.
I sucked in a sharp breath of air, trying not to sway. Cam’s eyes, blue as the azure evening sky, went wide. I looked down. Could he tell how badly I wanted him?
He’d just finished explaining how nervous people made him, and the last thing I wanted to do was add myself to the list of people he felt uncomfortable around. So letting him know he could have me on my knees in a heartbeat was probably not the best course of action.
“Sorry,” he whispered, his fingers withdrawing.
My cheek burned. I flicked my eyes back up and saw his nostrils flare. Great, I hadn’t just freaked him out, I’d annoyed him too.
“No, it’s fine,” I said quickly. “I just wasn’t expecting that.”
Silence hung between us. I studied Cam, trying to make sense of him. He was so solid and unshakeable, but he held himself like he was trying to disappear. He glanced down at his beer—mostly empty now—and frowned.
“I should probably—”
“So, come on, tell me,” I interrupted, refusing to let him finish that sentence.
I knew where it was going, and as awkward as I’d just made things, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Tonight might be my only chance to hang out with him. If I left things feeling this weird, it definitely would be. I couldn’t let it end like this.
“Tell you what?” he said, his eyes suddenly wary. What did he think I was going to say?
Tell me you’re just the tiniest bit curious if I could make you feel as good as whatever woman stood you up tonight.
“About melons,” I said with a laugh. “I’m dying to know.”
Cam snorted. “You’re lying, is what you are.”
“I am not! I mean it, I wanna know.”
“Maybe right now. But you’re gonna regret that pretty quickly once I get started.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
“You sure?” He arched an eyebrow.
“Dude, why are you so hesitant to tell me? Are you using dead bodies as fertilizer? Should you be on a watchlist?”
Cam sighed. “No, I just—nevermind. If you really mean it, I can tell you.”
“I do. Lay your melons on me.”
“Well, it’s not just melons, for one thing. There are also squashes, and watermelons.”
I frowned. “Watermelons aren’t melons?”
“Well, honeydew, cantaloupe, watermelon, and squashes all belong to the Cucurbitaceae family. But within that family, watermelons are part of the Citrullus genus, while honeydew and cantaloupe are part of the Cucumis genus.”
“Okay. So that’s what you’re writing about?”
“Not exactly. The thing is, the Cucurbitaceae family generally grows in tropical or temperate climates, so it thrives here on Summersea, even the genera that originated in Africa or Asia. But all the agricultural histories of the island focus on the cash crops that were grown using enslaved labor—indigo, rice, and cotton. I mean, the amount of writing on Sea Island cotton alone is staggering. People romanticize the wealth it created and this lost way of life, but it was a way of life only made possible through slavery. And in addition to being brutal and exploitative and immoral, plantations were some of the earliest examples of monoculture farming, which still dominates the United States today, and yet the writing on them is practically hagiographic. I just think it’s worth looking at other aspects of that history, you know?
The Sea Islands were inhabited by Indigenous peoples long before European colonization, and subsistence farming continued through the colonial and antebellum eras, right up to the present day.
So that’s more or less what I’m writing about, and part of that includes trying to recreate the farming practices people would have engaged in at different times.
Hence the fertilizer. I’m trying to see which types of fertilizer different crops respond to best. Including melons. ”
I stared at him, my mouth hanging open, when he finished.
“Sorry,” he said after a moment. “I told you, it’s not actually that interesting.”
“Stop saying sorry. It’s fascinating.”
“Jordy, you don’t have to—”
“I’m not lying,” I said. “I’m really not. That’s so interesting. And actually important. Why would you think people wouldn’t want to hear about that?”
“I mean, aside from people not liking to be reminded about slavery, people also don’t usually like reading about manure,” Cam said. “Fertilizer has historically been a pretty smelly thing. Seaweed, oyster shells, dung. The fruit is nice, but the way it’s grown is a little less savory.”
“Yeah, but you’re still writing a book about it, right? You wouldn’t be doing that if it weren’t at least a little interesting.”
“Interesting to a very small handful of people, maybe. I don’t think it’s really the kind of topic that excites normal people.”
“Cam, aren’t your books crazy popular? Wasn’t the last one a bestseller for weeks? About foxes?”
He looked down at the bench. “It did okay.”
“You got a huge write-up in The New York Times. Or that’s what Levi said, anyway.”
Maybe not the best time to mention that I’d found and read every interview Cam had given over the years, read each of his books so many times I had portions of them memorized. I was pretty sure his first one, about dolphins, was being made into a movie.
“My other books were more accessible.” He shrugged. “People are more interested in animals than plants, especially charismatic megafauna. Dolphins, foxes—they’re always popular.”
“I think it’s your writing that makes things popular. Regardless of subject matter.”
“Are you sure you’re not the one who gives pep talks?” Cam smiled wryly.
“Maybe I should go into that.” I smiled back. “Jordan Brooks, life coach. It has a nice ring to it.”
Cam’s brow furrowed.
“Bad idea?” I asked.
“No. Excellent idea.” He shook his head. “I just realized, I’ve been calling you Jordy this whole time. But do you go by Jordan now?”
For approximately the millionth time that night, my mouth dropped open.
“What?” he asked.
I shook my head in wonder. “I’ve been asking Levi to stop calling me Jordy for ages, and he hardly ever remembers. And then here you come, not talking to me for six years, and yet you notice and ask about it unprompted after like, two conversations?”
Cam flushed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be weird.”
“Don’t apologize! It’s not something to be sorry about. I’m just a little dumbstruck over here.”
He shrugged again, and I got that same feeling that he was trying to shrink into himself. It didn’t make sense. Cam was insanely smart, and talented, and kind, not to mention hot, and he seemed to think there was something wrong with him.
“I just wish you’d told me earlier,” he said. “I’ve been calling you Jordy in my head all day.”
“I don’t mind so much when you do it.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re—” But I cut myself off before I could finish.
Because you’re hot, I wanted to say. Because you are sweet. Because you could call me anything you wanted if it meant you’d stay a little longer tonight.
“When Levi calls me Jordy,” I said after a moment, “it’s like he still sees me as a child.
This kid who needs looking after. The way things were with my mom, and then Taylor—he had to grow up fast, and I know I’m lucky to have him, but sometimes it’s like he never realized I grew up too.
” I made a face. “There you go, you’ve got me rambling again. ”
“Still not rambling,” Cam said with a chuckle. “But A for effort.”
“A compliment from the master?” I brought my hand to my chest. “I’m flattered.”
“Oh, you should be.” He grinned. “I hold gold-level certification in rambling. I’m on the Olympic judging panel.”
“The woman who stood you up has no idea what she’s missing out on,” I said, laughing, but I winced when that look of pain flashed through Cam’s eyes again. Dammit, why did I have to keep putting my foot in my mouth?
“Honestly, I’m probably better off not meeting, um, her,” Cam said, his smile growing sad.
“Oh, don’t say that. I mean it. She’s an idiot if she doesn’t see how great you are.”
I cringed, because seriously, could I make my crush any more obvious? But Cam was looking down at his empty glass again, and I wasn’t even sure if he heard me, much less saw my face.
“I wouldn’t even know what to do,” he said, so softly that I almost didn’t hear him.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He still wasn’t looking at me, but I could see his grimace. “Let’s just say I’m a little out of practice.”
“With dating?”
Cam was silent for a long moment before finally looking up. “Yeah. With dating.”
Something felt different about our conversation all of a sudden, and I couldn’t figure out what. Maybe I’d offended him with my joke, and he didn’t want to admit it? But he didn’t seem mad, exactly.
It was more like one of those summer afternoons when a thunderstorm gathers, clouds rolling in from the west. It gets windy, and then eerily calm, as blue-gray ink spreads across the sky.
Even the gulls stop swooping, and the whole island waits for that first crack of lightning to set the rain free.
What was Cam holding back?
And why wouldn’t he tell me?
Don’t be stupid, I reminded myself. You don’t know him. You have no idea if he’s holding anything back at all. And even if he is, why would he tell you?
But thirty seconds ago, I could have sworn it felt different. Like something was growing between us. The kind of new life that comes after rain, fresh and full of possibility.
This evening should have been terrible. I’d fucked up my date. I’d fucked up my future. I was wearing waders, for God’s sake. But it was the best night I’d had in months. Possibly years.
“I’d say you’re doing just fine,” I whispered.
Cam’s eyes were so intense, I wanted to look away. The black of his pupils almost eclipsed the blue, and I wondered if he could see the things that I was holding back.
“This isn’t exactly a date,” he said.
“It’s not that different. Drinks. Conversation.” I waved to the string lights woven through the trees. “Romantic setting.”
I was pushing it. I knew that. But I couldn’t seem to stop. It was like some secret, hidden part of me that had been starving for so long was suddenly in charge of my body, and all I could do was watch.
“Yeah, but I’m not—that is, we’re not—” Cam swallowed. “That is, you’re not actually interested in me.”
I knew I should drop it.
I knew it.
But I didn’t want to.
“You sure about that?” I said.
His eyes went wide—but he didn’t look away. He didn’t look anywhere else but at me, and I knew, then, that this was my chance. If he was ever going to see me as anything more than Levi’s kid brother, I had to show him that I was more than that.
“I’m pretty sure if you liked me, you wouldn’t be—I mean, obviously I don’t think you do.” Cam smiled, but it was a tremulous thing, a fawn on wobbly legs.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because if you did, you’d—”
“Do something like this?”
Before he could answer, before he could ask what I meant, and before I could lose my nerve, I brought one hand to the side of his face, the other to the collar of his shirt, and kissed him.
Cam gasped, a tiny sound almost swallowed by the breeze. My tongue darted out, licking the opening between his lips. I expected him to freeze. To pull away. Instead, his mouth parted, and he tilted his chin down. My tongue swept inside, meeting his own.
I pushed forward, my grip on his shirt tightening. His cheek was rough with blond stubble, invisible to the eye, but lighting up my fingertips. And then he moaned, soft and sweet, and heat shot straight to my cock.
I wanted him.
His hands alighted on the small of my back, and I shivered.
I tugged his shirt, then slid my hand down his chest. I could feel his heart beating beneath the cotton fabric, feel his nipple, hard and alert.
He bit at my lip, and my hand dropped lower still, to his stomach, to his thigh, and then in towards—
Cam pulled back abruptly, breaking free of the kiss and wrenching his body away from mine.
“What—what the—what was that?” he spluttered, looking horrified.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Oh, fuck, I’m so sorry, Cam.”
“You can’t just—I mean, I can’t—I’m not—”
“Please,” I said, “I didn’t mean to freak you out. I was just—”
“You can’t just do that,” he said, knocking his beer glass over as he stood up. “You can’t just go around kissing people.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “God, Cam, I really am. Please don’t—”
“I can’t do this,” he said, taking one step back from the table, then another. “I just…can’t.”
“Don’t leave,” I finished, but it was too late. He was already gone.