Page 95 of The Leaving Kind
When he looked up, Victor was studying him with a calm and patient smile.
Cam breathed. In and out. Then shrugged. “I think so. I mean, yeah. I kind of have to if I want to make a go of this. I don’t have enough cash to do it on my own. I know Nick could help me out. Emma, even. But it’d be nice to build something without them. Hell, if I could do it without Jorge’s help, I would.”
“I imagine Jorge has been sitting on his money while he waits for the right opportunity. Now he’s found it. He believes in you. Trusts you.”
“And that shit is scary as fuck.”
Victor grinned. “Isn’t it, though?” He nudged one of his feet forward so their toes touched. “But I think his trust is well-placed.”
“I’m not a businessman.”
“You’ve come this far on instinct alone. You’re going to be fine.”
Cam groaned. “Aren’t you supposed to be talking me out of this? Offering words of caution?”
“Is that what you need me to do?”
Screwing his face into an I-have-absolutely-no-clue expression, Cam took Victor’s words on board and sat with them for a while. Sat metaphorically, seeing as he was actually standing in Vic’s kitchen, the toes of one foot pushing against his.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Cam looked up. “I think I just needed you to listen. I could have said all of this to a wall, or to Honey, but neither of them would have asked me that question. So, yeah.”
Victor’s shoulders shook with quiet laughter. “I’m so flattered.”
Cam nudged his toe. “You should be.” Unfolding his arms, he closed the distance between them and took Victor’s face in his hands. Bent to kiss him. Hummed softly at the warmth and lingering taste of ravioli. The slight tang of wine.
Victor kissed him back, gently, then with urgency. Hands slipped beneath shirts, Cam skimming his palms up Victor’s back, Victor’s fingers splaying over Cam’s heart.
The kettle burbled and switched itself off. Cam rested his cheek beside Victor’s, his lips close to an ear. I’m so tired of being scared, he imagined whispering. About all of it. You, Jorge, the future. You.
Being with Victor was dangerous. Cam’s need to connect was picking scabs away from wounds that hadn’t fully healed. His need to succeed at something had him reaching for a dream that hadn’t fully coalesced. It all came down to balance, with Cam portioning out how much of himself to give, how much to hold back.
Victor’s arms closed around him, and as the quiet deepened, Cam couldn’t help wondering whether Victor was thinking the same thing.
Without looking over, Victor tapped his fingers along the edge of the table for his 4B pencil. He wanted a soft black line here. One he could smudge, draw out, or deepen with the tip of a finer black.
“When you think it’s dark enough, go darker.”
The Wisdom of Victory Ness. If he ever wrote a book, he’d devote an entire chapter to that one.
His fingers brushed up against fur. Smiling, Victor curled his fingers into Dexter’s thick white coat and gave the cat a good pat.
“Are you sitting on my pencils, Dex?”
He’d been so absorbed by his work he hadn’t heard the burbling chirp Dexter always uttered as he jumped up from the floor. Had there been a tinkle of pencils spilling from the table? Quickly, Victor glanced at the floor. No pencils. “Just as well. The replacements would come out of your allowance.”
Graphite didn’t shatter quite the way lead used to, but it could still break inside a dropped pencil, causing the tip to wobble after a certain point. Then would begin the endless sharpening, frustration building as the broken piece fell out, only to be replaced by another one.
Victor tucked a couple of fingers under Dexter’s belly and laughed as Dex licked the back of his hand. “Stop, you old fool.” He located the pencil, all warm and snug, and pulled it out. Returned to the sketch pad propped on the table easel in front of him. He’d chosen a larger pad for this piece in the hope that giving himself room to expand his lines would release the feeling of restraint he’d experienced in his smaller studies.
Working on the cards for Aaron’s game had been illuminating. After playing with some nonsense landscapes, Victor had chosen character cards rather than terrain. He’d enjoyed putting together the landscapes, but they weren’t far enough away from the old Victor Ness. The lines had been too familiar and subject matter not compelling enough.
The character list proved far more stimulating. So far, he’d completed preliminary sketches for a ravager, a scavenger (both dwarves), and a troll. The subterranean setting included many underground species, and he planned to tackle a kobold next.
They weren’t exactly portraits, but close, and as each creature came to life, he could feel himself pulling closer to a line he hadn’t been able to cross.
This morning, he’d decided to try. Plunking down the sketchbook with the most studies of Cam, he’d told himself it would be just another character portrait.