8. Nico
NICO
Mark
We’re down at the baseball field hanging out. Want to take a break and join us?
I’d finished up half of the pizza Cameron had ordered and was deep in flow on the popsicle forest. So, no, I didn’t really want to take a break.
But I’d come to town under the auspices of seeing Mark, and I honestly missed my best friend.
I texted back that I’d be there in twenty, sealed my paints, and headed out.
When I arrived, everyone was still out on the field.
Mark was hovering around first base, and Cameron was in the outfield stretching his arms over his head.
I could see a sliver of his abdomen under his T-shirt from here, and my stomach swooped.
I spotted Bowie curled up under the bleachers, so I went and sat next to her in the dirt.
She immediately laid her head over my thigh, demanding scratches.
There was a cooler beside her, and when I looked down the bleachers, I noticed a familiar face.
“Jorge, hi!” I waved, and he gave me a nod. “Are you on Cameron’s team?”
I winced internally. Why did I say Cameron’s name instead of Mark’s?
“I umpire for the league, so no.” He stood and meandered closer until he lowered himself to the bleacher on the other side of the cooler. He was wearing a basketball jersey that looked vintage. “Just here to make sure none of them are doping.”
I grinned. “Do athletes typically dope in the middle of a field during practice?”
“Caught me.” Jorge shrugged. “It’s the free beer.”
I laughed loudly and tried not to notice how Cameron’s head snapped in our direction.
“I ordered the parts I need for your car,” Jorge said. “I’m not sure it’ll be done by Friday, but I’ll do my best.”
“Appreciate it, man.”
We watched the team finish their drills, then they jogged over to join Jorge and me.
Mark slapped my shoulder and sat on the bleachers behind me.
Cameron had a slight frown on his face as he looked between Jorge and me.
It almost made me laugh again. Jorge had beautiful eyes and a nice smile, but my interest was elsewhere.
“Nico, this is our team captain, Dove,” Mark said, gesturing toward a stocky woman with messy blonde hair tucked under a Sleighbell Springs High School baseball cap. “She and her mom run Third Base Batting Cages in town.”
“Nice to meetcha,” Dove said.
I nodded, reaching up to shake her hand from my spot on the ground where I was dog-trapped by a now-sleeping Bowie.
Dove broke into the cooler and passed around beers. It was a local IPA, the hoppy flavor lingering perfectly on my tongue. I sipped and let the conversation flow around me.
“Cameron, you need to be quicker on your feet out there if we wanna win this season,” Dove said with a wry grin. “Do I need to cut off your ice cream supply? The dairy might be weighing you down.”
“Maybe I need to give you more chores at the farm,” Mark chimed in.
Cameron threw up his hands in mock exasperation. “You’re not the boss of me.”
I liked this version of Cameron. Playful, relaxed—more self-assured than the teenager I’d known. I wanted to earn this version of him for myself, too.
The air had a bit of a chill to it tonight, a whisper of the autumn season to come, or maybe it was just the beer. I was still in a T-shirt and shorts, which was fine during the day, but when a breeze fluttered by us, my whole body shivered.
A few moments later, a flannel shirt fell into my lap. Cameron’s flannel shirt. I looked up at him, tilting my head.
“You’re cold,” Cam said with a shrug. “Put it on.”
As I slipped it over my shoulders, the soft, worn-in fabric heated my skin in more ways than one. Cameron’s smell lingered. It was manly and nostalgic—like what I imagine a hot Santa might smell like. Christmas trees and cookies with milk. There was no way Cam was getting this flannel back.
When I tilted my head up, Cameron was looking at me with an unreadable expression.
His eyes were dark, which could have been a trick of the light, and his brow was scrunched in that thoughtful way of his.
He chewed his lower lip, and I was laser-focused on the way he worried the skin between his teeth.
“Thanks.” I couldn’t resist using a little more tongue than necessary when I lifted my beer bottle to my lips, swallowing the cool liquid.
Cameron’s cheeks flushed under the dramatic lights of the baseball diamond.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” Mark said from behind me, breaking the moment. “Isn’t it great, Cam?”
Cameron hummed and sipped his beer.
Guilt swam in my stomach, but I covered it with a laugh that felt only a little more awkward and high-pitched than normal. I couldn’t keep ogling Mark’s little brother right in front of him, no matter how big a flirt I was.
“Feels good to be back,” I said, grounding myself with my fingers in Bowie’s fur.
As the conversation flowed around me, I realized this had been completely missing from my life back in Boston.
I had friends, sure, but we were also peers and competitors, in a sense.
Most of the people I knew had been Gus’s friends first, other artists trying to claw their way to the top of the art world, or dealers looking to scout the next hot new talent.
I could never let my guard down. I hadn’t felt this relaxed in forever, surrounded by people who’d known me since high school.
“You said you had to be back in Boston for an art show this weekend?” Jorge asked, and suddenly everyone’s eyes were on me.
“Uh, yeah.” I looked down at the beer bottle in my hand and chipped at the label with my fingernail. “It’s my first solo show. Fifteen large-scale canvases. The opening is on Friday night.”
“Fancy,” Dove said.
“It sounds fancier than it is, but yeah, a bunch of people with a lot of money will hopefully buy my work, and then I’ll be able to pay rent.”
Mark shoved my shoulder from his spot beside me. “Don’t sell yourself short. You told me it was at one of Boston's most prestigious galleries. That people were flying in from New York.”
“That’s incredible,” Cameron said, his expression fond. “You should be proud.”
It could have been my imagination, but a touch of sadness seemed to cross his features before that soft smile returned.
“I wish I could make it,” Mark said. “I feel really bad that I can’t.”
“You’ve got forty-two cows to look after.” I winked at him over my shoulder. “It’s fine. You’d be miserable at this snobby party anyway. I’m tempting Cameron into being the Frost family representative instead.”
Mark burst out laughing, which sent him into a coughing fit. Cam handed him his water bottle with a scowl.
“Ah, yes,” Cameron said wryly. “Exactly my vibe. I’m thrilled.”
When the others called it a night, I found myself meandering back to Frosty’s with Cameron, my arms wrapped around my body, holding Cam’s flannel closed against my chest. We walked close enough that my shoulder occasionally brushed his.
I kept waiting for him to put more space between us, but he didn’t.
Before I was ready, we arrived in front of Frosty’s.
“See, I’m walking you to your car like a true gentleman,” I teased, finally bumping our shoulders together on purpose.
“I notice you’re leaving the dark, scary alley for me to brave alone.” Cameron smirked. “Yet your truck is conveniently right here.”
I shivered again, and my eyes widened when he ran his hands up and down over my biceps. The heat from his palms sank into my skin. He leaned in, his lips hovering over my ear.
“So, who’s really being the gentleman?”
“Cam…” My breath caught in my throat, frozen on the edge of want, scared to move and ruin the moment.
“You know, you claimed you’d be wooing me this week. Strange move to flirt with someone else right in front of my face.”
He brought his hand to my chin, tracing my lower lip with his thumb. I snuck my tongue out quickly to taste it.
“Is that what I was doing?” I raised my eyebrows and met his gaze with my own challenge.
He claimed not to want me, but his possessive hold on my face said another thing entirely. Maybe all I needed to do to get Cameron to Boston was ask someone else.
I was dying to kiss him, but I wasn’t sure yet whether that would hurt my cause or help it. I licked my lips, and his gaze followed the movement.
A honk from a passing truck startled us both, and Cameron dropped his hands from my body like he’d been burned.
“See you two at home,” Mark hollered from the open window of his pick-up.
I waved at him as he passed, pretending like my heart wasn’t about to beat out of my chest. When I turned back to where Cam had been standing, he was gone.
By the time I made it back to the farmhouse, I was exhausted. Whenever I got involved in a big project, my sleep schedule went totally out the window, so I was used to it, but I’d been expecting more of a break before jumping into another large-scale piece.
The exhaustion didn’t matter, though, because I was having so much fun.
I was proud of the work I was showing at the gallery, but at Gus’s insistence, I’d been trying to fit my style to suit a more high-brow taste—art snobs, really—and it had started to feel suffocating.
This mural was silly and unserious and a perfect palette cleanser.
After a quick rinse in the shower to make sure I didn’t have any paint on me, I collapsed into the bed in the guest room. I barely managed to close the curtains and pull the quilt over me before I passed out.
When I woke hours later, I was hard. I’d been dreaming of Cameron.
Everything about him enthralled me: the focused scrunch of his eyebrows while he worked in the kitchen, the small half-smile he wore for customers, the way his forearms looked when he rolled up the sleeves of his flannel.
The flannel I had draped over my pillow.
It smelled like his sweat and cologne: pine, nutmeg, and something sweet. I hadn’t been ready to return it.
Now, I had a face full of the smell of this man who had sucked me right back into his orbit, and I never wanted to be free of it.
I couldn’t resist rolling to my stomach and burying my face in his shirt, with my cock pressed between my body and the sheets. The friction was just on the edge of not enough, so I grabbed a pillow and stuffed it under my hips. It was easy to lose myself in the fantasy for a little while.
What would it be like if I’d woken to the man himself, instead of just his smell lingering on his clothes?
I’d have him in my arms, tucked against me. I’d feel the muscles of his strong back against my chest, and my hand would trail along his skin, and I would plant kisses along his shoulders until he stirred beneath me.
His hole would be loose from the way we fucked each other the night before.
Because in this dream world, there wasn’t a night that we went to sleep without coming apart with each other.
He would groan sleepily when I rolled him to his stomach and pressed my weight on him.
I would spread his cheeks and watch myself slide inside him, feeling his tight heat wrap around my cock, stealing my breath.
I imagined every gasp and moan that would fall from his lips as I thrust into him.
I knew what our dynamic had been like in college, but what if things were different now? He’d let me take the lead back then, because I had more experience. Current Cameron seemed a bit bossier. I heard his voice in my head, hazy with lust.
“Harder, Nico. Fuck me like you mean it.”
That was the fantasy that finally sent me hurtling toward the edge.
I slid my hand beneath me, wrapping my hand around my cock and creating a tight channel to fuck into until I was spilling onto the pillow.
My face was still buried in Cameron’s shirt, and his scent soaked into me deeper each time I tried to catch my breath.
I wanted to know everything about this new Cameron, but we didn’t have much time. Could I be brave enough to find out what would happen if I stuck around?