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If only.
“Not quite. Training camp plays into things. But it sounds like management liked how I played while Boomer was out. Enough that my agent’s saying they might want to try me for a couple games to start the season, just to see. Doesn’t mean I’ll stay there.” Doesn’t mean they won’t change their mind completely.
“Doesn’t mean you won’t,” he says, like he knows something I don’t.
“True. Still. Lots of question marks.” And no end to them in sight.
Cam takes a deep breath. Even in the darkness, there’s something thoughtful in the slope of his shoulders and angle of his head. Something beautiful about this man beneath the night sky.
“It’s got to be rough having so much uncertainty,” he says. And damn, I need to stop staring like a creeper.
“Yeah, but I get to play. And that makes it worth it.”
A smile. “Ah… the trade-offs.”
“Always, right?” I expect him to chime in with a hearty agreement, because if anyone should get it, I imagine it’s him.
“Sorry about your friends not supporting your achievement, man. Sounds like you’re better off without them. But even so, that’s bullshit and it’s gotta suck.”
I laugh. “That it does.” In ways I’m afraid to talk to even him about.
Instead, I ask about our friends from high school, wanting to hear the same updates I already got at the party, but in his words. His rich voice. I ask about his dad’s store and school and swimming, which is now water polo for him. I ask the polite questions old friends ask, skimming the moonlit surface between our lives without delving into the inky waters below.
Without telling him the things that really matter to me or asking him the same. Things like whether he’s found love, or if he ever thought about me the way I’ve thought about him. Because I don’t want to risk crossing a line with Cam that might make him shut me out again.
We end up laughing about the time Randy Harris smuggled his new puppy into school, and how all the teams came together to hide him.
“Football, band, chess, and debate.” He’s got that one arched-brow thing going, and combined with his crooked smile, it’s taking everything I’ve got not to lean in and touch him. “Hockey, newspaper, and swimming. I don’t even know who coordinated the effort, but we had that puppy daycare running out of the west bathroom for the better part of a week.”
“Pretty sure we got busted on day three. Sylvia Cortez was allergic and had to go to the nurse with asthma and hives.”
He snorts. “She married one of the Lacher brothers. Sylvia, I mean. Baby number three is on the way.”
I let out a whistle. “Three? Jesus. I can’t even commit to a dog.”
He laughs and then slowly, the laughter fades into a silence that stretches and pulls at this thing between us.
This thing I know better than to give in to.
Him, too.
“It’s getting late.” He leans back and rocks up to stand.
Shit, shit, shit.
He stretches out his shoulders beneath the moonlight, powerful arms swinging in a few mesmerizing arcs. “See you around, yeah?”
I get to my feet and nod too, looking away so I don’t stare at his flawless body.
God, his ass in that suit.
He doesn’t hesitate, just takes a couple fluid steps and does a shallow dive before popping up. I need to stop him. Say something.
“Hey, Cam.”
He rolls onto his back to face me, arms barely moving at the surface.
“I won’t—” I clear my throat and try again. I can’t let him worry about me outing him. “You know, I won’t say anything about what happened with us. That last summer.” It’s too dark to read his features, but I— Shit, maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it at all. “Cam?”
