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He shook his head. “I saw her, in the one behind the plant in the corner. You look like her.”
“The nicest compliment anyone could give me.”
Cameron’s chest hiccupped and he looked up into dark, curious eyes. “I didn’t come in to find her picture.”
Henry rubbed his thighs slowly and picked up his candle holder, like he’d sensed it’d been touched. Maybe it carried Cameron’s traitorous scent. Henry studied him, piecing the clues together.
“You think my dad will be fine with me,” Henry said with painful accuracy. His gaze fixed Cameron to the spot. “He loves me. You can see it everywhere you look. But love has boundaries. You know that better than anyone, the dreamers usually do.”
“I just want you happy. Maybe one day you’ll marry a woman and she’ll be the love of your life. Maybe it’s Alicia. Don’t you want that to be a choice?”
Henry’s voice sharpened. “I’m not a prince for you to save, Cameron. That was just a story.”
Just a story. Those words sliced him through flesh and bone to that unknown essence that made up all these extraordinary feelings.
His eyes stung. Defensiveness and frustration punched through him. He jerked a finger toward the shelf. “He has your dissertation.”
“What? You think that means he bought it himself? He read it? I’m sorry to burst your bubble. He didn’t, he hasn’t, he won’t.”
The break in Henry’s voice had Cameron aching to hold him.
“I’m sorry. I never should have—”
“What would you have done?” Henry said quietly. “Shown him the dissertation and confronted him?”
“No, never. I wouldn’t ever have gone to him. I’d have shown you. I’d have found a way to drag you in here. I’d have told you I like this room. That it gives me . . . hope.”
“That my dad might accept me?”
“That I could be up on a wall like this one day.”
“Cameron . . .”
The immediate forgiveness in his voice overwhelmed Cameron. “I won’t do it again. My imagination has always gotten the better of me. It’s lost me people before. Look, if I’ve messed up . . . Even if . . . can we stay friends?”
“Friends? Cameron, stop. You must know the answer to that.”
He was a dreamer if he thought they’d remain friends once their . . . whatever this was . . . was done.
“Right.”
It was his own fault.
His visions of romance were merely indulgence. Henry had opened his eyes.
He stumbled to the library, needing its warmth and security. He gravitated toward the armchair across from Henry’s mum’s, still positioned where they’d first played Scrabble.
He sank into the cushions and closed his eyes on the sting. God, what must Henry think of him?
His curiosity and imagination had only caused pain. He’d basically told Henry he was making the wrong decision by hiding. Had he learned nothing from The Charioteer?
Henry would write the ending to his own story, and Cameron, his.
Air stirred and the heavy door shut. The sound of Henry’s familiar gait carried across the room.
Cameron opened his eyes.
He thought shame would consume him, but relief swallowed it.
Henry perched on the Scrabble table, holding something in his hand. His hair looked curlier. He smiled softly.
Cameron’s grip on the chair lessened. “Thought you were doing lunch?”
“She was exhausted. Took her to her room to sleep it off.”
He nodded.
Henry touched his knee, a whisper of fingers and the heavy pressure of his palm. In the gentle light from the lamp, the softness in his dark eyes deepened. “She’s just a friend.”
He swallowed thickly. “Is that my phone?”
Henry revealed it. “You left it in the kitchen. It keeps ringing.”
As if to punctuate, the phone leaped to life in his outstretched hand.
Cameron took it.
“Brandon?”
His brother’s deep voice croaked down the line. He sounded distressed. Cameron stiffened. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“Why did she do this?”
Cameron’s heart pounded up into his throat. “Do what?”
“I’ve been so stupid. A fool. Forgive me for being so senseless.”
“Brandon, tell me what happened.”
“I’m just letting you know, I might not make it in on Monday. If you’d take my meetings?”
“Of course.”
“John and I settled her mother into her new home. She kept forgetting what was happening, kept wanting to know who I am. I told her I was her daughter’s boyfriend, I can’t say, maybe a dozen times.”
Cameron ached for Brandon. His brother had only ever been the giver in life. Finally he had the opportunity to be the taker, and this is how he’s treated?
He lifted his foot up on the table with a frustrated push that shoved him back in his armchair. Henry caught his ankle and lifted it onto his lap. He rubbed his foot, comforting, his expression etched with concern.
“I left John and took a bus back early to surprise her.”
Cameron shut his eyes.
“It was surreal. I shouldn’t have run into her, but I was out of milk and she loves milk in her coffee so I ran to the dairy. There she was across the road, tumbling out of the pub glued to some man’s hip, laughing like she’d had the time of her life.”
