Stray for You (Rainbow Rescue Cat Café #3)

Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Cameron

JULIAN INSISTS ON cleaning both of us up. I submit to his fussing mostly because I’m too fucked out to want to move. It’s been a while since I’ve bottomed, and I don’t remember it feeling quite that good.

I’m never, ever admitting that to him.

The last thing the world needs is a Julian Brooks with a swollen head because of his topping prowess. Nope, this one is going with me to the grave.

It’s not even dinner time, but Julian climbs into bed with me regardless, snuggling up against my back as we lie naked under the sheets. The sun went down early, leaving my room dark enough to make falling asleep like this before eight p.m. powerfully tempting. Lord, what am I becoming? I barely got out of bed with him this morning, dragged myself to band practice, then came home and ended up right back where I started the day. Good thing this is temporary or I’d never be a functioning adult again.

Is that how adulthood works? You go to your job and you cook dinner and that’s it? Part of me always hoped it was more like … well, more like this. I never wanted a life where I tended to hobbies and responsibilities at the expense of passion. With Julian, it almost feels like I could have both, but that’s probably the endorphins speaking.

Julian nuzzles against my back. “How do you feel?” he asks.

“That is such a lame question,” I grumble.

“I see the high has worn off,” Julian says. “I guess I should have worked harder.”

I don’t respond, mostly because I can’t fathom what “working harder” might entail. I’m so thoroughly done over that anything more sounds as much like a threat as an enticement. Yet heat tickles my belly, suggesting perhaps there are greater heights I’d be willing to explore with him.

Yeah, that’s definitely the endorphins talking.

Julian sighs, warm breath blowing against my back. Contentment wafts off his body and laps against my skin with his every exhale.

“I’ve been thinking about getting my tongue in you since we got in that tub in my hotel room,” Julian says. “I can’t get enough of you, Cam. Christ, I could do it all again right now.”

There’s enough heat in his voice that I set a hand on the arm he has wrapped around my chest in an attempt to calm him.

“You could, but I couldn’t,” I say. “I haven’t done that in a while.”

Incredible as it was, my body is reeling from the experience. I stood under the hot water in that shower delaying things due to nerves for longer than I care to admit. In the end, it didn’t even matter. Julian was so ridiculously … devoted that it short-circuited any anxiety trying to inhabit my brain.

“I’m surprised,” Julian says slowly, carefully. “Surprised you’d, you know, do that with me. If it’s been a while and all.”

His stilted speech reveals his nerves. The hell is he nervous about though? I just let him top me, and I might do it again before he leaves.

“We can do it the other way too if you want,” he says. “I mean, apparently we’re both at least a little vers, so fair play and all that.”

“Fair play?”

“Well, that and I really want your dick in me.”

I snort a laugh. “My dick isn’t going to work anymore by the time you leave if we keep going like this.”

I expect him to chuckle or retort. His silence sets off a warning in the back of my mind. Is it the mention of the inevitable future barreling toward us? It’s not a secret that this is going to end. He bought a round trip ticket. In a few days, he’ll get on a plane and return to New Jersey, and both our lives will return to normal. They have to.

“You know,” I say, trying to lighten the mood, “we can keep visiting after this. I mean, it’s been fine and all, so there’s no reason not to do it again except for the cost of the flights, but if we look for windows where the tickets are cheaper, we could work it out.”

“Yeah, we could do that,” he says, but it sounds half-hearted at best.

Maybe the travel isn’t worth it to him. He can afford the tickets way more easily than a barista and musician, so maybe it sounds like an unfair burden. Maybe he’s having so much fun jetting around for his conferences that it wouldn’t be worth the trouble to see only me, but then why come here at all?

“We don’t have to,” I say.

“No, no,” he says quickly. “No, it’s fine. We can do it that way.”

I shimmy out of his grasp and turn over to face him in the bed, staying far enough away that I can see his face. I expected satiation, peace, contentment, but tension tightens the skin around his eyes and mouth.

“If you don’t want to, you can say so,” I say. “It won’t hurt my feelings. This is just a visit. If it’s done after this week, that’s alright.”

The tension pulling his face taut cinches. From this close, it would be impossible to miss the flinch that flickers through his features.

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

“No,” he says, “just…”

“Just what?”

Julian seems to gather himself, collecting words in one big jumble that bunches up behind his tongue.

“Do we need to keep doing it this way?” he asks. He rushes on before I can squeeze in a question. “I mean, if it’s working for both of us, does it need to stay this way? The distance is a lot, but I’m sure we could figure something out. I have money. I can travel back and forth as much as we need. Maybe I could see if my company has a West Coast office or something. I don’t know. I’m just saying that the possibility is out there if we wanted to … to take this seriously, you know?”

Silence drops between us like a stone plunking into a still pond. Every ripple makes his words echo in my head and washes away all that languid contentment.

“Julian, I’m not sure we could… I mean, the distance is so much. You can afford it, but I can’t, and that’s not really fair.”

“I don’t care,” he says. He scoops up my hands, squeezing them between our chests. “I’ll pay for it. My money isn’t good for anything back in New York anyway. All I do is work and pay for my overpriced apartment.”

I shake my head. “I couldn’t let you do that. It’s not fair.”

“I don’t care about fair.”

“Well, I do. It would feel like we aren’t equal partners if you had to carry the cost of everything on your back.”

“We can solve that,” Julian says. “We can sort it out. When you’re a famous musician you can pay me back.”

He attempts a smile, but it lacks its usual dazzling intensity. I keep trying to deflect and watch his frustration grow with every counter.

Finally, his patience snaps.

“What is this really about?” he says.

“What?”

“Cam, come on,” he says. “What’s the real problem here? I know you’re holding back. You’ve been holding back this whole time. I thought this week might change things, but I’m starting to doubt that. So what’s the actual issue? Please, I need to know. I need to know why I’m … why I can’t have you.”

I swallow, throat suddenly dry. I wasn’t planning to tell him this ever, least of all after a night like this. Then he continues.

“I ran into your mom at the supermarket today,” he says quietly, like a confession. “She was surprised to see me.”

“You ran into Mom?”

Fuck, that definitely wasn’t part of the plan. In fact, I intended to keep the two of them as far apart as possible.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know she’d be there. She actually spotted me first. I … I didn’t tell her. I gave her some vague excuse instead. It seemed like … like you didn’t want her to know that I’m here. Is that true?”

My worlds collide all at once. I thought I could keep these two spheres separate, thought I could live out a stupid fantasy for a week then go on like it never happened, but it seems fate conspired against me.

If fate is kind…

The walls of my little apartment close in around me. There’s no more deflecting this, no more pretending I can maintain the partition between Julian and my life. He’s here. He’s all over my apartment, my body. It’s a matter of time before that spills out to touch my real life.

Why did it have to be my mother, though?

“Fine,” I say in a burst. “Fine. Yes. It’s… Yes, I didn’t want her to know.”

“But why?” he pleads.

“Because… Damn it, Julian. Because… Because you hurt her, and I can’t let someone who’s hurt her anywhere near her. I don’t want to tell her what we’re doing because it feels like a betrayal, okay? It feels like stabbing her in the back.”

Confusion knots his eyebrows. He’s still gripping my hands.

“I would never hurt your mother, Cam. Never,” he says.

“Not now, but back then…”

The confusion only thickens, and I take a breath before attempting to explain.

“Back when our moms were dating,” I say, “there was that one time when they wanted us all to have dinner together. We were kind of at each other’s throats back then, but we got through dinner. Then … then you followed me to my room. When they found us, you had your hand on my thigh, and you were leaning in like you were about to kiss me.”

Understanding opens his expression. “That’s what this is about? But…”

“They stayed together for a while, but I saw the look in Mom’s eyes that night,” I cut in. “I know my mother. If she thought there was something between us, she’d sacrifice her happiness for mine. So … so I hated you for that. I hated you for their breakup. Dating your mom was the first time mine seemed happy since Dad abandoned us, and she lost that because of some stupid flirting that wasn’t going to go anywhere.”

He stares at me in mute horror.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know it’s unfair, but I … I’ve always felt guilty about it. If I told Mom that we were dating, maybe she’d think she made the right choice back then. I don’t want that for her. She deserved happiness, and we took it away from her. How could I tell her that she was right?”

“That was so long ago. We were kids,” Julian says. “Everyone has moved on, Cameron.”

“Maybe I haven’t. Not completely. Every time I look at you I think about it. Every time we talk about the future, I think about how she’ll react. I … I just can’t right now, Julian. I’m sorry. Maybe some day, but for now … you appeared in my life again out of nowhere, and I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t know what to do with our pasts. I don’t know what to tell Mom. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to feel … completely safe around you. What if we broke up and it was all for nothing? Again. What if it dredges up a past my mother moved three thousand miles to forget?”

“I think she should get to make that decision, Cam,” Julian says. “You can’t make it for her.”

“I don’t know,” I say, voice dropping to a whisper, eyes dropping to the sheets.

Silence wedges itself between us. Julian lets go of my hand.