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His voice thick, Cam says, "Co me breathless Ibecause my mental state at the e"
"I’ll buy you a ticket, one with an open-ended return date so you can stay as long as you want Take some vacation time, see if you like Scotlandwhy’re you shakin’ your head?"
"You know it’s i hoeepy I sound These kinds of moments call for the type of frontier-wo my snot from his chest any minute
"Lass--"
"I’ot neuroses older than you You’re a glamorous, famous person whose house is always filled with people and parties, and I’m a homebody who only socializes withlike a burden We both have pretty significant proble each other as crutches isn’t going to do anything but create , tense ain And this tiroan and roll over onto ht that would work as a final punctuation on the conversation, Ca his arainst hiainst my ear and speaks softly and slowly, like you would to a scared wild aniive a fuck about our age difference Neither should you Number two, my house is always filled with people because I’laoin’ a hundred kiloht toward a cliff Nu I’ll ever resent about you is your relentless commitment to put yourself down I don’t have an answer to the possibility that you et homesick, but I bloody sure would do my best to make sure you feel as at ho four, whatever problenificantly better by bein’ with the only person either one of us can trust
"You’re not a crutch to ift If you don’t want to come to Scotland because you just don’t want to be with me, have the balls to say it, but don’t feed me any more excuses And stop applyin’ your worst-case-scenario thinkin’ to this thing between us--keep that negative bullshit in check"
There’s a long, terrible silence in which I stare out theat the flurries of snow and try h he just completely broke me apart
Normally this is where I’d burst into tears and hurry home to stress eat No--that’s incorrect Normally there’s no universe where a s famous athlete just screwed me silly and invited me to come live with him in Europe, but apparently this isto have to suck it up and deal with it the best way I kno
"I bet you probably only have, like, vanilla ice creah, softly at first, but then he gives over to it and collapses against the bed, shaking the ales overtake hi sme in that wonderful way he has that rateful for his dedication to growing his"You’re just too weird and wonderful to stay "
He kisses me, his hands in my hair and a smile on his mouth He tucks row deeper and more even until I know he’s asleep
I lie next to hi myself it’s for the best if I slip out before he wakes so we can avoid the inevitable atherthe door softly behind me
THIRTY-THREE
It’s Christ day of the year behind Christmas itself and Valentine’s Day This year is even worse than usual because not only does Michael Maddox still not love one and fallen for yet another uess it’s justat the ceiling, feeling sorry for myself, when I hear a knock on the door His knock He must’ve just woken up, because it’s still dark outside