Page 78 of The Leaving Kind
Victor made a study of the water, the fading light making it hard to see below the surface ripples. They’d have to start back to the house soon.
Cam swirled his hands through the stream, cupping water and letting it trickle through his fingers. When he touched Victor’s upright knee, his fingers were both warm and cold.
Victor looked up.
Brow pinched, eyes darker now, the light not sufficient to show the depth of color, Cam seemed to move words around in his mouth a moment. Then he shared his thoughts. “I don’t know what we’re doing, Vic. I know we’re trying to be friends, but ...” He shook his head. “I started in the wrong place. What I’m trying to say ...”
He dropped his hand. Played in the water.
Victor waited, not sure what he could offer in response.
Finally, Cam tried again. “Is there anything I can do? To help you paint?”
Another thread pulled free. But instead of the thrill of connection, Victor felt sadness. And fear. Despite his best efforts, he’d started to fall and losing Cam was going to hurt. But he couldn’t see how else this might end.
Why, oh why did he have to start thinking about the end?
Cam was a beautiful man, and Victor already cared too deeply. But he was also a broken man. And he wasn’t the only one. Victor’s heart harbored deep wounds that hadn’t been left there by departed lovers.
Maybe that’s why he understood Cam so well. They shared another sort of loss, one that had apparently shaped them over all the years that had followed.
The fading light started to feel inconsequential and, measured against the blackness rolling in toward Victor’s soul, it failed. Because, while night always ended with the dawn, a tide of sadness might last for days.
Not now. I will not do this now.
With a sigh, Victor found Cam’s hand in the water and tangled their cool fingers together. He forced a smile. “Just be you, hm? That’s all I’ll ever ask.”
Cam’s smile was gentle.
Victor softened his and started planning for the oncoming storm.
When he got no answer to his knock, Cam dug out his cell phone and texted Nick. At the back door.
A minute later, the left-side door at the rear of Nick and Ollie’s shop creaked open and his brother’s smiling face peeked out. He had one earbud in. The other bud rested in his fingers and a slim note of music fluted up from his hand. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself.”
Nick pulled the door wide. “Are you coming in?”
“Please.”
Nick shut off his music and pocketed both of his earbuds. “Let’s go upstairs. I think there’s still coffee.”
“Where’s Ollie?” Cam had expected them both to be here on a weekday.
“In the city visiting Dani and Adam.”
Oliver’s daughter and her boyfriend had an apartment in Manhattan. Very low on the East Side. The actual area had a name, but Cam could never keep all those city neighborhoods straight.
Upstairs, Nick retrieved the carafe from beneath the coffee maker and poured out two cups. Cam sat at the breakfast bar and Nick slid a cup toward him.
“Cheers.” Cam took a swallow and hummed in satisfaction. Even half a day old, the coffee tasted better than whatever he usually managed to put together. “How is it you make such good coffee?”
“Precise measurement.” Nick grinned.
“That can’t be all it is. I measure!”
With a shrug, Nick sipped his own coffee. Cam thought he detected a note of mischievousness in his brother’s eyes, and it warmed him. That his brother could still play. Nick had often been a serious kid. Had always seemed such a serious adult. He’d been a complete mess when Cam arrived home two years ago, though.