Page 47 of The Leaving Kind
Now would be an excellent time to share the fact he had someone to get home to, even if that someone had floppy ears and a tail.
At the sound of voices in the driveway, Victor hopped off the couch—where he absolutely had not been waiting with his hands in his lap like a debutant—and crept to the front door. He could peek through a window, but curtain switching wasn’t his thing. Neither was feeling as though he and Cam were about to embark on their first date, but there he was, leaning against the door with his heart pinwheeling inside his chest.
He clapped a hand there, left of center. “We are done with men, remember?”
In Victor’s mind, his heart said: No, we’re just done with love. For the moment.
Outside, the voices continued.
Victor cracked open the front door, expecting to find Cam talking to his dog. Instead, he found Cam talking to a human who more resembled a mountain than a man. Tall, with the broadest shoulders Victor had seen since his barhopping days, dark shaggy hair, and a weathered complexion. Warm and engaging eyes. And listening to Cam as though he had all the time in the world.
Between them, stood Honey. Spying Victor, she yipped and hobble-trotted toward him. Cam turned and winced lightly. “Victor, hey. Sorry I’m so late. My car broke down. Thankfully, Jorge was with me, so here I am.” He gestured at his filthy jeans and T-shirt. “But I didn’t have time to go home. I guess I could have but—” He shook his head before turning back to Jorge. “So, yeah, um, can you pick me up around eight?”
Victor glanced at his watch. It was six now. That didn’t give them a lot of time. “I can drop you home.”
“Huh?” Cam’s brow wrinkled.
“Later this evening.”
“Oh, yeah, that’d be great. I think we have one Uber driver between here and Milford and her car smells like week-old Chinese food.”
Lovely. “Isn’t there a local taxi service?”
“He seems to quit at five.”
Behind Cam, Jorge’s granite visage softened toward a smile.
Cam offered his friend a casual salute. “I’ll see you at eight.”
But wasn’t Victor driving him home?
Jorge responded with a nod and climbed into a vintage Mercury Cougar. Cam stepped back to let the car swing past and waved him out of the driveway.
“I’m confused,” Victor admitted.
“What about?”
“I thought I was driving you home.”
“Oh, you are. Jorge is picking me up tomorrow. We’ve got six acres to clear.”
“That’s a lot of grass.”
“And all of it bumpy and rocky. There’s about one acre of it flat. I kinda wish we had a third person. Heck, four would be ideal. Two to clear and two clean up.”
“Is that what you do when you’re not bullying your clients into planting their trees?”
Cam chuckled, then shrugged. “Maybe? I just sort of started this thing. Had hours in the day to fill, you know?”
Oh, Victor knew. After Sage left for college, he’d become an expert at dealing with extra hours. He hadn’t always turned to his friends Chardonnay and Sauvignon. Once upon a time, he’d developed hobbies. He just couldn’t seem to remember what they were.
Well, there’d been one named Tholo, but better not to think about his trashy ex right now. He had a filthy gardener shedding dirt onto his driveway.
As though he’d read Victor’s thoughts, Cam was once again examining his clothing. “I meant to shower and change before I came over, but the job Jorge and I were on ran long. Not six acres long, but a lot of digging. Then my car wouldn’t start.” He indicated a row of darker streaks up one arm. “When we couldn’t figure that out, we hatched the plan to have him drop me off.”
“You could have called.”
Cam’s head whipped up. “Huh. Yeah, sorry ’bout that. I kept thinking ... We never established, ah, this modeling. Did you want me to take my clothes off?”