Stray for You (Rainbow Rescue Cat Café #3)

Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Julian

FOR ONCE, I’M NOT the conquering hero. I slouch in my seat as the stewardess rattles off the usual airline safety instructions. No one listens, and I’m the only one even looking at her, though her words wash over me.

Mere hours ago, I was in that tub with Cameron. I was touching him, and he was responding. It’s such a delightful memory I can’t help but wonder if it was a dream. Not only did I have him last night, but he gave me one final taste in the morning. I could have touched him all day. I could have canceled this flight, quit my job and remained holed up in that hotel room with him until they kicked down the door and dragged us out. I doubt Cameron would have been as excited by that plan as me, however, so I packed up my stuff and left.

I barely remember the trip to the airport. I bumped through security in a daze, then flopped into my seat and stared at the runway until the plane took off and clouds swallowed up my final fleeting glimpses of Seattle.

We’re passing over a mountain range now. The snowy peaks poke up through the clouds hanging low over Washington State, like nosy neighbors watching us over a fence. We’re probably well beyond the city limits, but I scan the churning field of clouds below us, searching for some final glimpse of the place where Cameron lives.

The stewardess finishes her safety briefing. The plane levels out. Everyone breaks out computers, phones, books, gaming consoles, whatever they’ve brought with them to help pass an uncomfortable six hours. I could have asked the company to send me home first class, but I didn’t want to push it, so I’m stashed away in business class like everyone else. It doesn’t matter. I doubt a bit of extra leg room would make any difference.

When I asked Henry to get me in contact with Cameron, my expectations were low. I’d simply wanted to see him again; I couldn’t help myself. I thought I’d poke at him, get a reaction, have a bit of fun. I never expected those two incredible nights, and one morning, we spent together. It felt like something changed between us, some barrier crumbled, but I fear that’s a one-sided appraisal. If I text when I get home, will Cameron answer? If I want to see him again, would he say yes? The guy is like a bank vault, and I possess neither the code nor the safe-cracking skills to get inside. My usual charm doesn’t work on him. My usual perceptiveness proves worthless against those inscrutable black eyes.

For most of our lives, he was someone I enjoyed messing with. I don’t know exactly when I became more desperate for his attention, but it didn’t change my methods. I kept poking because it always got a response, and getting something was preferable to getting nothing.

What if I pushed too hard? What if I did something back then that he’s still holding onto? I rack my brain to figure out what it could be, but nothing stands out. Maybe he got sick of all of me, the whole package. Maybe he’s only willing to tolerate me if I’m temporary.

An elbow nudges into my ribs, drawing my attention away from the clouds boiling outside the window.

“Hey, man, what was your score this time?”

Through some quirk of fate, my seat is next to Dom from the conference. He considers it good luck to end up next to me when he’s stuck with a middle seat, but I would prefer to fly home beside a stranger who has no intention of talking to me. For once, I just want to be left alone.

I paste on a smile anyway. “Not sure.”

“Oh, come on,” he says. “You? I don’t buy it.”

“Really,” I say. “I was on my best behavior this time. I do also have to work sometimes.”

Dom rolls his eyes. It seems my reputation precedes me. Like a lot of fellow reps, he suspects I racked up quite the body count in the past week, adding to my “score” of escapades. I can’t possibly tell him that the only person I slept with, the only person I even wanted to sleep with, was Cameron.

“You definitely hooked up with Jessica,” he says. “Everyone knows that. And maybe that dude Zane? You guys went out to some bar, didn’t you?”

“There was a group of us that time,” I say. Besides, the person I kissed that night at the bar was Cameron, not Zane. Any other lips were far from my mind once I tasted Cam’s.

Dom shakes his head. “Come on, man. It’s a long flight. You’re really not going to tell me?”

“I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I did,” I say, trying to find a playful tone. I don’t feel like I succeed, but Dom chuckles anyway.

“Yeah, such a gentleman,” Dom says. “I’m sure. Well, fine, whatever. You know that chick Sheila, though? Definitely had her up for a nightcap on Saturday.”

He waggles his eyebrows at me. I really don’t want to hear his likely exaggerated story, but I encourage him anyway, if only because it takes the heat off of me. Dom is more than happy to brag about Sheila, regardless of how she might feel about the story. Hopefully, she doesn’t care because Dom is plenty forthcoming with the details.

Cameron would throttle me if I ever discussed what we did in this much detail with some random rep. Fortunately, he doesn’t need to worry about that. The second I even consider it, I want to hug myself as though I can lock up those memories inside me for safe keeping. Those stolen moments don’t belong to anyone else, and I intend to guard them like Fort Knox. They’re certainly not for the likes of Dom and his ilk.

When Dom finally finishes, I offer a fist bump.

“Nice, man,” I say.

He preens like a peacock. I cut in before I can get stuck listening to another harrowing story or pushed for details about my own adventures.

“Listen, I’m really tired,” I say. “Up late every night and all that.”

“Yeah you were,” Dom throws in with a leering smile.

“So I’m going to put on some headphones and try to conk out,” I say, ignoring him. “That cool?”

“Sure, man, totally. I’ll catch up with you another time.”

I hope not, but I don’t say that, instead diving for the backpack I shoved under the seat in front of me so I can dig out headphones. I lower the tray and set up my phone. I downloaded some movies for the trip and choose one at random to play. I don’t actually care what it is. I just want noise in my ears that isn’t Dom’s voice. I lean against the window at my side and pretend to stare at the phone screen, barely focusing on the people playing out the drama on the device.

Then someone on the screen breaks out a guitar, and my heart jumps into my throat. The guy is doing it for comedic effect. His playing is terrible and the other people in the scene cover their ears and scream in despair, eventually pushing him out of the room, but the damage is done. One glimpse of a man with a guitar and I’m getting flashbacks of that bar, flashbacks of Cameron’s deft fingers flying up and down the neck of his instrument until the sound seems to pour out of the very walls. My heart races like I’m back in my seat in the crowd watching him play, my mouth hanging open as I glimpse a piece of his soul I never knew existed until that moment.

How much more of him could I discover if he gave me the chance?

The man who nearly became my step-brother lies perpetually out of reach. I never got close to him back then, and I’m not making as much progress as I’d like now. If our mothers had gotten married, would it be different? Would we actually be like brothers? Or would my ever-present attraction to him have complicated things beyond repair? It’s hard to imagine that alternative future when I spent the past week getting as close to him as possible. When we were kids, I knew he liked music, but I never guessed how much. I never heard or saw him play. I was too busy being preoccupied by other, less important things.

What I’d give to hear him play again. I’d fly out here on my own dime to listen to him tune his guitar. It’s not about the music as much as it’s about him. When he played on that stage, I witnessed a hidden side of him. He was unleashed for a moment, the sound bursting out of him like water punching through a broken dam. All those things he keeps bottled up so tightly exploded free for a moment.

I hastily switch what I’m watching to something, anything else. I think I end up on a reality show, but I’m paying even less attention now than I was before. With any luck, no one on the show will turn out to be a musician.

I can’t keep going like this. I’ve survived since high school on scaps, but I guess a piece of me took it for granted that Cameron would always be around. When he and his mother moved all the way across the country, it knocked me off-balance. I suppose that’s why I grasped so eagerly at this opportunity to see him again, why I acted so rashly, why I took so many chances. I couldn’t help myself after all that time apart.

Now, I’m jetting away from him, every minute separating us by untold miles. The entirety of the country is wedging itself between us, and I don’t know what I’m going to do when I’m back on solid ground and that unfathomable chasm of space separates us. Maybe Cameron can move on without any issue, but as I sit here trapped in a metal tube with my turbulent thoughts, I’m increasingly sure I can’t.

I’ve finally had a taste, and I’d do anything for more.

I’ll text him, I resolve. I can start there, see if he responds. Maybe there’s some future where he’ll want to visit New Jersey. He and his mother must have some friends and relatives back east. Maybe he wants to see our old co-workers from the Boyfriend Café, though many of them have scattered to the wind since graduating. There’s gotta be something I can use to see him again, I simply have to figure out what.

Dom doesn’t bother me for the rest of the journey across the continent, which leaves me ample time to muse and plot and plan. A reunion. A birthday. A work trip. I’ve got to cobble together some kind of plausible excuse. The truth is, as nice as the past week was, I’m not confident Cameron would agree to see me just for the sake of it. I’ll need to construct some sort of excuse.

Is this starting to sound desperate? Maybe it is. I’ve always been desperate when it comes to him. I simply used to have the excuse of being a shitty teenager. All that teasing and prodding has turned into more than I ever could have dreamed of, but my old methods aren’t going to work anymore.

If I want to win Cameron over, I’m going to have to do things differently.

Only one thing feels certain in this moment: Things changed between us in Seattle, and from this point on, there’s no going back.