10. Cam
CAM
Oh God.
Jordan knew.
He knew.
There was no other explanation for how quickly he’d left my grandparents’ house, the minute he’d felt me brush up against him. And I couldn’t blame him. I’d practically molested him.
Why couldn’t I have just stayed away? Or at least tried to squeeze in next to him at the sink, instead of humping him. Why couldn’t I have used my brain for a single second?
It was like my body had moved of its own accord. Sure, Jordan’s ass was cute, but it wasn’t even the way he was waving it around, arching his back and spreading his knees as he peered under the sink.
Or, okay, it wasn’t only about that. It was everything about him. He was magnetic. Something deep in my core was drawn to him.
It was like he’d flipped a switch when he’d kissed me last night. I couldn’t forget the feeling of his body pressed to mine, and I’d needed it again.
It didn’t matter that the kiss had been a joke to Jordan. It had been real to me. Way too real. And now he fucking knew.
Even if he hadn’t hightailed it out of there, I would have known from the sound he made when I touched him. He’d groaned. Like I disgusted him. He hadn’t even been able to look me in the eyes before he left.
God, what if he told someone? What if he told everyone? What if I got a reputation around Summersea, not for being gay but for being some kind of predator?
Fuck, what if Levi found out?
I wanted nothing more than to run and hide, but Nana and Grandpa were confused enough by how Jordan had run off. If I left too, it would only make it more obvious that something was wrong. So I stayed long enough to diagnose the sink, buy the replacement part they needed, and fix it.
I probably didn’t do as good a job as Jordan would have, but I couldn’t let myself think about that. Couldn’t let myself think about him at all.
I put the toolbox away, hugged my grandparents, and biked home, torn between burying myself alive under several tons of fertilizer or just hiding from the world for a thousand years. But when I reached my cabin, I couldn’t do either, because I wasn’t alone.
Deacon Murphy was standing at my front door.
I blinked. Deacon and I hung out sometimes, but never on our own. I wasn’t even certain we’d had a one-on-one conversation since…possibly ever? Sure, we’d gone to school together, but Levi was the lynchpin between us. So what was Deacon doing here without Levi, unless…
My face paled. Had Jordan already talked to Levi? Was Levi so disgusted, so angry with me, that he couldn’t even tell me to my face that our friendship was over?
My heart spasmed. Levi was my oldest friend. My only friend, in some ways. What would I do without him?
Deacon didn’t look angry, but then, Deacon wasn’t the kind of guy who wore his emotions on his face. He could probably be planning your murder and still be perfectly peaceful and serene on the surface.
Feeling queasy, I leaned my bike against the side of the cabin, walked over to Deacon, and swallowed.
“Hey,” I said, willing my voice not to quaver. “What are you, uh, doing here?”
His brow furrowed, and he didn’t answer immediately. His hands were in his pockets. Not a stance that shouted, I’m about to start a fistfight, but not one that said, I’m totally relaxed and comfortable with being here, either.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he said, finally.
“Ah.” I nodded. Was it better to pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about? Or to just tell him not to bother, because I understood I was being ex-communicated? “What’s up?”
Deacon winced. “It’s kind of a sensitive topic. Might be more comfortable to do it inside.”
“Sure.” I forced a smile. “Sure, no problem.”
I led him into the cabin, and he sank onto my couch. I sat down on the green deck chair, then popped back up, narrowly avoiding the ceiling beam.
“Do you want a beer?” I asked. “I’ve got a few IPAs left, and some of that cream ale that you liked.”
“Nah, I’m good.” He gave me a hesitant smile. “Somehow, I have the feeling you might not want me to stick around after you hear what I have to say. So I don’t feel like I should impose on your hospitality.”
God, was he trying to give me a heart attack?
I sat back down, then regretted it. Deacon might not want a beer, but I wasn’t sure I could handle this conversation stone-cold sober.
But I’d already sat down and gotten up once, and if I did it again, I’d look nuts.
I already looked like an asshole; I didn’t really need to add crazy on top of that.
So I just looked at Deacon. Deacon looked at me.
I swallowed.
He swallowed.
When I was little, my mom used to call me into her room whenever she was mad at me. She wouldn’t tell me what I’d done wrong, though—she’d make me guess. I didn’t realize until high school that sometimes, she wasn’t even mad about anything. She was just fishing, trying to get me to confess.
So I really should have known better than to turn myself in now. But as the silence dragged on, I realized she’d trained me too well. I couldn’t bear it. The need to apologize for my actions, for the mere fact of my existence, was overwhelming.
The words spilled out of me. “Look, I totally understand where Levi’s coming from, and I want him, and you, and everyone, to know that I never meant to—”
“Cam, are you gay?”
I stopped short, staring at Deacon.
He stared back.
“What?”
We said it at the same time, and then stared some more.
Did Deacon not know? But then why was he here to yell at me, if he didn’t know? Did he—did Jordan and Levi and everyone—think I’d dry-humped Jordan as some kind of weird, straight-guy joke?
I couldn’t decide if that was better or worse.
“I don’t—I’m not—I’m confused,” I stammered. “Why are you here?”
“Mal told me not to just dive right in.” Deacon shook his head. “He said it would make you uncomfortable. I thought it might be like peeling off a bandaid, but I should have listened.”
I blinked. “I’m not…less confused.”
“Well, I’ll take confused over angry and offended,” Deacon said with a sigh.
“Here’s the thing. You and I aren’t that close, I know.
And you have every right to tell me this is none of my business.
But I kept thinking about how Levi was pushing you to ask someone out on Thursday night, and something you said stuck with me.
You told him, ‘Maybe I don’t want to meet a woman,’ and something about the way you said it… ”
He trailed off and gave me an assessing look, like he was waiting for me to say something. But I was too busy trying to figure out if he’d talked to Levi, and if Levi had talked to Jordan, to do anything other than wait for him to say more.
“I’ll put it this way,” he said. “I spent a long time hiding a part of myself because I was sure no one would accept me if they knew the truth. It took meeting Mal to make me brave enough to come out. And maybe I’m way off-base, maybe I’m imagining things, but I just—if you were feeling the same way, that there’s this part of you that you have to hide—well, I just wanted you to know that you’ve got a friend if you need one. Two, actually, if you include Mal.”
His words stung. More than stung, they burned. Deacon and I weren’t that close. I’d always wondered if he secretly hated me. And yet he’d seen right through me. Seen through to the part I’d tried so hard to keep hidden, just like he said.
Deacon didn’t know anything about Jordan. But somehow, he knew about me.
“Does Levi know?” I whispered.
“No.” Deacon shook his head. “Mal is the only person I’ve talked to about this, and that was just because I wasn’t sure if talking to you would be supportive or sticking my nose where it didn’t belong.
To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure.
But I figured it was worth the risk, just in case you needed somebody to talk to.
And I promise, I won’t tell anyone else until or unless you want me to. ”
I nodded. My brain was oddly muted. Like it was lying under a blanket of ash.
Why wasn’t I panicking? I should be panicking, right? I’d built up the idea of coming out so much, tortured myself over how I could never tell anyone, about how it could change everything. But here was someone who knew, and I was…okay.
The strangest sense of weightlessness filled me.
My heart felt raw, exposed, but not altogether bad. More like the underbrush had been burned off. A forest fire clearing away dead wood.
Granted, Deacon wasn’t Levi. He wasn’t my grandparents. He certainly wasn’t the rest of the island. But he was someone. And suddenly, I was on the verge of tears.
“Thanks,” I said, my voice hoarse.
“Nothing to thank me for.” Deacon’s words were firm, but his smile was kind. “And we don’t have to keep talking about this. Really. There’s no pressure for you to do anything at all. You don’t have to tell anyone else, or download ten different dating apps, or do anything you don’t want to—”
“Oh, fuck,” I said, remembering Miller’s messages from this morning. I’d never responded to them, and he’d asked if I wanted to meet up tonight.
“Everything okay?” Deacon asked.
I ran a hand over my face. “Yeah, no, I just—there’s this guy.”
“Shit, really?”
“No, not—not like that.” I waved his words off. “We’re not dating. Just hooking up. Except we’re not even doing that, because he didn’t show up when we were going to meet last night, and then he apologized, and asked if I wanted to get together tonight instead. And I haven’t responded yet.”
“Oh.” Deacon’s eyes went wide. “Well, do you want to see him?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I thought I did, at first. I was the one who messaged him, because he said he was just looking to hook up, and I had this whole plan about how I wanted to get some experience under my belt—experience with guys, that is,” I added, deciding that Deacon didn’t need to know every detail about my desperation, “before I actually came out and tried to date anyone. But then things kind of changed.”
Deacon tilted his head to the side. “Did you start to like him?”
“Not him,” I said. “Someone else. Someone who’s very, very off-limits. And not interested. And who doesn’t even know I’m gay, because no one does. And it’s absolutely ridiculous to not want to hook up with this other guy just because of a pointless crush, but—”
“Is he straight?” Deacon asked.
“Who, the hookup guy?”
“The other one.”
“Well, no, but—”
“Then how do you know it’s pointless?”
“Because it is! He doesn’t like me.”
“But how do you know?”
“Because I just…do. I would know if he did.”
“Maybe.” Deacon shrugged. “Or maybe he doesn’t realize you like guys, so he’s been hiding it. Maybe he thinks you would never like him, so he thinks he has no chance.”
“That’s ridiculous. Have you met me? I’m not exactly beating people away with a stick.”
“Yeah, but that’s because you’ve done such a good job of hiding yourself away that half the island thinks you hate them.”
I stared at Deacon. It was like a funhouse-mirror version of what I’d said to Jordan earlier today. It didn’t sound right. But then, I’d been wrong about what people thought of me before. Case in point, Deacon being here at all.
“Look, I’m not saying you have to run up to him and declare your love or anything,” Deacon said.
“I’m not even saying you have to come out to him, or anyone.
What I am saying is that you owe it to yourself to treat your feelings with respect.
And if your feelings mean you don’t want to hook up with the other guy, there’s nothing wrong with that. ”
“But maybe I should. I mean, what guy is going to want me when I’m completely inexperienced?”
Deacon laughed, then apologized when he saw my look of consternation. “Sorry, sorry. You just remind me a lot of me, is all. I felt the same way when things started happening between Mal and me. But with the right guy, that won’t matter. The right guy won’t care at all.”
“That sounds overly optimistic.”
“Maybe,” he said with another kind smile. “But then again, maybe not.”
“I can’t just not respond to this other guy, though. Leaving him hanging would be rude.”
“So respond and tell him you’ve changed your mind.”
“Over text? That feels even shittier.”
“Cam, are you trying to make this hard for yourself?”
I frowned. Was I? “I’m just remembering how I felt when I got stood up last night. I feel like you owe it to someone to let them down in person.”
“Then do it,” Deacon said.
“And then what?”
He grinned. “I can’t tell you that. But I think if you listen to your heart, you just might figure it out.”