In Every Universe

25. Cameron

TWENTY-FIVE

CAMERON

Coming home with Zacky instead of coming home to Zacky was the best thing. Ever since Zacky’s injury, Cameron had hated leaving him for long stretches of time. Especially since he hadn’t known what he was coming home to. Sometimes Zacky was okay, happy, energetic. But he had often been asleep, in pain, frustrated, or grumpy. Coming home with Zacky, as his teammate and his…lover…was so unbelievably normal and relaxed that it made it profound.

It was so late it was early since they got on a plane right after the game. Zacky and Cameron had both napped on the plane, and now, while Cameron was ready to go to bed, Zacky was still wired.

“Are you hungry?” Zacky said, dropping his duffel in their tiny entryway and heading straight for the kitchen.

They were hockey players. They were always hungry. “What are you making?” Cameron picked through the mail they’d grabbed from their mailbox in the lobby, and found a letter for him, handwritten. He left the rest on the breakfast bar.

“Popcorn?” Zacky asked it like a question, but it wasn’t a question.

“Sounds good.” Cameron brought their bags and his letter to the bedroom and quickly picked through them, hanging up what needed hanging, tossing dirty clothes in the hamper, and then tucking the empty suitcases into his closet. He skimmed the note his parents sent him and rolled his eyes. He left it on the dresser.

Zacky was sprinkling white cheddar powder onto popcorn by the time Cameron finished. Cameron snuck up behind him to steal a piece, and also to press the two of them flush together. Zacky was the barest hair of an inch taller than him, and the slight offset made every bit of them line up perfectly. He wrapped his arms around Zacky’s chest and nuzzled his neck.

“You can’t get frisky when I’m snacking,” Zacky said, paying more attention to the popcorn bowl than to Cameron.

“It’s hot in here. I’m going to bump the AC up. Do you want to eat the popcorn on the balcony?”

“Sure do,” he said, taking the popcorn with him as he headed to their sliding door. Cameron took care of the temperature settings and grabbed them each a bottle of water and a couple KitKats he’d snagged from the plane.

The night was cool, and there was a slight breeze. Much more comfortable than inside. Their balcony had two chairs and a small table, and as Cameron went to sit down, Zacky pulled his chair closer to him, like the extra six inches closer they were sitting would make a difference.

It did, unfortunately. When Cameron thought about sitting any farther away from Zacky, it made him want to pull Zacky into his lap. The cheap outdoor chairs they had wouldn’t be able to hold both of them, though.

They were quiet as they snacked, Zacky’s gaze loosely focused somewhere out beyond their apartment. In moments like these, Cameron felt nearly certain that he was thinking about his other life.

“Will you do something with me?” Zacky’s tone was hesitant. Unlike him.

“Anything, babe.”

“I want to do something as a marker of the end. A way to let him go. A send-off.”

“Of course, baby. What do you want to do?”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

Cameron leaned over to press a kiss to Zacky’s cheek, and then he let silence stretch out between the two of them again.

“I know it’s not a mistake to say goodbye and give the life I’m living my attention. And I know I’ll never forget him. But on our wedding day, I could have never imagined having to get over him.”

“You don’t have to get over him. You can love him until you die. He would want you to live your life, though. Play hockey. Be loved by me. Someday, maybe have some kids.”

“Our little card gamers?” That was what got Zacky to smile. Making fun of their future fictional children.

“Yeah, our indoor nerds.”

Zacky was picking the most appetizing kernels of popcorn from the bowl, so Cameron unwrapped a KitKat, then broke it in half and handed half of it to Zacky.

Zacky looked at him strangely but took his half of the KitKat.

“You brought out two,” Zacky observed before popping the entire chocolate-covered wafer into his mouth. Cameron crunched through his own half, then opened up the second package, doing the same as the first.

“It’s more fun to share,” Cameron said, and Zacky’s face got soft.

One thing Cameron liked about having a job with a fluctuating schedule was weird pockets of time like this that they wouldn’t have carved out for themselves. And now they were together, with a double batch of microwave popcorn between them, the hum of the air conditioner next to them, and real memories of NHL hockey that they now shared.

“Hey, babe?”

“Yeah, babe?” Zacky teased, flicking a piece of popcorn at Cameron. Joke was on him though, because Cameron caught it in his mouth.

“I got a letter from my folks.”

“A letter? What is this, 1882?”

“Well, as it bluntly pointed out, I’m not responding to them on any other mode of communication, so letter it is.”

“You haven’t texted them at all?”

“Not in a couple of weeks. It’s been longer since I answered a phone call.”

“I’m proud of you.”

“I’m frustrated with myself that it took so long for me to put up any boundaries with them that I was only able to when I was so fucking overcapacity.”

“Any time is a good time to tell your dad to fuck off.”

Cameron had a knee-jerk reaction to defend his dad like he always had, but he caught himself. “Yeah, he’s a fucking dick.”

“What did they want?”

“I guess I needed to be notified by a letter carried from a literal different country that I’m disappointing them and that it’s not fair what I am doing to them.”

“Your parents never fail to amaze me. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to email them, I think. Because I barely remember how to send a letter and don’t want to pay for postage. And tell them to leave me alone until the offseason. And then maybe we can talk.”

“I support you with whatever decision you make.”

“But?”

“You don’t want to cut them off completely?”

“I’m going to give them a chance to respect me. I don’t know. When we have kids, I want that connection to be there. Or to be an option.” Fuck, a couple months of being with this Zacky, and he was saying when to kids, not if. Not no .

Zacky put the nearly empty bowl down on their tiny patio table and took Cameron’s hand.

“I love you eternally.”

“I love you, too. My bullshit feels so petty and small-time compared to yours.”

“Well then, good thing it’s not a competition.”

“Still. Thanks for showing up for me when you’ve been dealing with some heavy shit, too.”

Zacky squeezed his hand.

“Can we live together this offseason?” Zacky asked, the grip on Cameron’s hand tightening. For some reason they had both always stayed close to their respective family homes over the offseason. It didn’t make sense anymore.

“I insist.”

“Will you find us a cute apartment?”

“Of course I will, baby.”

“Good. Let’s go the fuck to bed, Jesus. The sun is starting to come up.”

“No, it’s not,” Cameron argued, but he followed Zacky back into their apartment, which had cooled down enough to sleep. Zacky tossed the unpopped kernels at the bottom of the bowl and stuck it in the sink to be washed later. They were so tired they sped through their night routine, and so thoroughly exhausted from hockey and travel that even though they were both in underwear, pressed against each other’s bare skin, alone in their own home, they didn’t have the energy to fuck.

They would when they woke up, though.