First Down: a sweet romance, page 15
But then, I bite my lip in the dark. I didn’t say anything to him, either. My eyes squeeze tightly shut. Maybe he’s afraid… Hell, I know I’m afraid… This would be so much easier if he would just talk to me.
My hands fly to my eyes, rubbing hard as I blow out a shaky sigh. Giving up on sleep, I reach over to check the time on my cell. Five thirty. Maybe I just need to give up on sleep, get outside and clear my head. I crawl out of bed and cross to the closet, pulling on a pair of warm sweatpants and a hoodie to ward off the chill of the early morning air. I carefully slip downstairs and leave a note on the whiteboard hanging on the fridge.
Went for a run.
- E
Resting against the counter, I tie my shoestrings and stretch a little before making my way across the porch and down to the street. Without conscious direction, I find myself standing under Camden’s window. I look up, considering the dark squares, before reaching for a small stone and tossing it to bounce off the window. The tiny tink doesn’t seem to do the job, so I take a breath and try again. My arm pulls back, a third stone in my hand, when a vibration in my pocket makes me jump.
Is that you?
Yeah
I’m asleep, Elliot… Go home and go to bed.
Tried that… I needed to run
Come with me?
I watch the phone, eyes darting back to the window periodically as I wait for a response. I frown at the black screen, squeeze my hand around the final pebble, and start to wind back just as the front door opens and Cam slips out. He jogs towards me, raising an eyebrow behind his plastic frames as he takes in my stance.
“Good morning,” I murmur as I drop the rock.
“It isn’t morning yet,” he slips his hands into his hoodie pocket. His sleepy eyes scan me, and I feel heat rise up my neck.
Is he just tired, or did he just check me out?
“Right,” my voice slides, and I clear my throat as I turn and start jogging down the street.
I breathe out sharply and roll my shoulders as Cam catches up and falls into place beside me. He lets me set the pace, easily keeping up as we follow our familiar route. Tension seems to slip away as our feet pound on the pavement, my breath coming in little puffs of air. I push myself harder as we rise up a hill, then clench my abs to hold back and go slower on the way down. Cam passes me as he lets gravity push him to the bottom, and I grin for a moment. When it levels out I catch up to him, and without speaking a word we both adjust our pace to a jog. We’re both breathing heavily when we get to the water tower and slide to a stop underneath it.
I drop down, bracing my weight on my hands with my feet out in front of me as I measure my breathing. Cam mirrors my position, and I turn to him with a smile. The sun is just beginning to rise, and I can make out Cam’s features as he watches me.
“Thanks for coming with me,” I say.
“Yeah, well,” he half-smiles. “You asked me to…”
“Is everything okay?” I ask, blushing. “With us?”
“Yes,” he sighs. “I’m sorry, about Friday…”
“It’s okay.”
“No, I was embarrassed… I thought, the other day, that I knew… how you were feeling.” We both look forward, studiously taking in the sun’s slow ascent. “But then, you wouldn’t talk to me, and I uh, well I thought… That I was wrong, about how you felt about the breakup.”
“Oh.” A flush creeps up my cheeks.
“I guess I thought you had regrets about what you said.” He leans back into his hands a little more and they slide slightly farther apart. “About not liking Casey?”
“What, Casey?” I frown. “No, Cam, I told you… I’ve told you I don’t feel that way about Casey.”
“Someone else, then? Who?” I can’t read his tone. It might be easier to decipher if I look at his face, but I’m afraid that if I did that he might see more than he wants to.
“Someone I care about,” I take a steadying breath, hoping he can’t hear my heart beating from its position in my throat. “Very much.” I glance to the ground, where our fingertips are inches apart. Had I moved my hand, or had he moved his?
We sit in silence, the stillness of the air shocking against the energy I feel vibrating all around me like my own little atmosphere. I wonder if Cam can feel it, if he has his own atmosphere too. I think about our fingers, which are maybe a centimeter closer than they’d been a moment before… What would it feel like if those two fields came together? Would they spark and explode, destroying everything we’ve built around us for all of these years?
“Elliot,” he murmurs, his low voice sending a wave of electricity gliding from my shoulders down my back and spine. “Who is it?” You. “You always tell me everything…” Just not this… “But it feels like you put up, like, a wall between us.” His voice has an edge of hurt to it, out of the corner I see him set his jaw before continuing. “The other day,” he continues. “If I said, or did something that you didn’t like…”
“Camden…” Was that a confession, or a plea for him to stop asking? “I wish…” I wish I could know if I’m making a huge mistake. “That things were always simple. You know?”
“Simple is boring,” he smiles sadly into the sunrise. “Are they worth losing sleep over?”
“Yes.” I answer without hesitation. We sit in silence for a moment.
“Are you going to tell them that?” I can feel his hand inch closer this time. What if I held his hand? Is that what he wants? I swallow hard. What if I’m wrong? It would ruin everything.
“I don’t know,” I flatten my hands, slowly allowing my fingers to break the gap. I feel sparks shoot between our fingertips like arcs on a welder. “I think they’re worth losing almost anything over.” My voice is slightly too husky to be described as a whisper.
“Almost?” I feel his eyes on me.
“Almost,” I confirm.
The air is so still, I swear time stops moving. We breathe shallowly, in small puffs that betray our nerves as they float away like smoke signals in the morning air. My eyes drift from the rising sun to our hands, so close to being intertwined. Just about to jump off the edge. I swallow hard. So slowly I might have missed it if my body would allow me to blink, I watch Camden’s fingers drift into mine. They slot into place as if they’d been carved to fit together. I don’t breathe as his thumb drifts up onto my knuckles, then release it in a hiss as he brushes down over my own thumb. I turn to look at him. His hair glows golden in the sun, and the blush on his cheeks makes his eyes shine bluer behind his glasses. In their depths, I see a mirror of my own mind. Fear. Doubt. And stronger than all of that… something else.
“El,” an implied question.
“Cam,” a breathy consent.
Cautiously, we drift towards each other. I pause halfway, my eyes shutting as I take a steadying breath and give him a chance to say I have the wrong idea. Every nerve in my body is alert as Camden crosses the gap, nuzzling his nose against my jaw at the hollow under my ear and slowly… so slowly… drifting it towards my chin. I tilt my face, adjusting my lips to meet his in a light and tentative brush. When he doesn’t pull away I bring my hand up to gently cup the back of his neck, increasing the pressure slightly. Camden’s hand shifts to rest on my thigh as he pulls himself closer, and I am lost.
I don’t believe I’ve ever really kissed someone until this moment. The pressing of my face to someone else’s has never made me feel this way, like we're sharing each other’s life force. Like I might die if we stop.
When we finally pull apart, we’re both breathing hard and my hand is shaking as my thumb traces the curve of my best friend’s jawline, I feel tears prick against my bottom lashes. Camden, bathed in golden sunlight, glasses tilted slightly and his bottom lip swollen from the work it’s just been doing, is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. His eyes are warm and melty, but he doesn’t say a word. He just watches me. My stomach clenches in the fear that I’ve just made a huge mistake.
“Do you want to go home?” Do you want me to leave you alone?
“No,” he lays back, the knee farthest from me bent while the other leg lies straight in front of him pointing to the sunrise. “Not just yet.”
“Okay,” I stare over the hill. My brain races a hundred miles a minute, but I can’t seem to form a single coherent thought.
Feeling Cam’s eyes on me, I slowly recline on my elbows before dropping to lay next to him. He scoots sideways to lie closer to me, closing his eyes and reaching for my hand. Easy as breathing, our fingers intertwine, and my eyes squeeze shut as I breathe out all of the tension I didn’t know I held in my shoulders.
Oh, thank God…
I don’t know how long we lie there before I feel him shift up onto his elbow. A shadow falls over my face before I feel the gentle pressure of lips brush over my eyes, my nose, and down to my jaw. I turn my head, seeking his lips as a blush climbs up my neck, and he gladly complies. We lay forehead to forehead, and I dare to open my eyes and look into his.
“We should probably head back,” Cam murmurs. “Sun’s up.”
“Yeah, okay,” I stand, watching him nervously from the corner of my eye as we start walking. Fighting the insane urge to take his hand, to seek confirmation that the last moments hadn’t been my imagination, I shove them firmly into the pocket of my hoodie. I nearly trip when he breaks the silence.
“Is it football?” He asks as we near the first houses in our neighborhood.
“What do you mean?”
“The exception,” his eyes are fixed firmly ahead of us. “The thing that isn’t worth losing… the thing that would hold you back? Is it football?”
The silence grows thick between us as we take the block. He starts to speak quickly.
“Because I get that,” his jaw sets. “But I think you’re wrong. I think it would be okay, we don’t have to make it weird… I wouldn’t force you into anything, I know this is your first shot at varsity, but I just really wish you would-”
“It isn’t about football,” I interrupt gently.
“Oh.” We turn the corner and approach his house. “Well…” he speaks quietly. “Will you tell me what it is?”
We slow on his sidewalk. I take a breath and let it out shakily.
“There is one thing, Camden, that I don’t ever want to lose. And I’m so afraid that if I… if we… that if things… if I was wrong.” I look at his feet. “I could lose it. And then I don’t know what I would do…”
“If you were wrong?” He frowns, reaching for my pinky with his own in a quick brush, easy to miss by anyone passing by. His brow furrows as he runs a million things past himself.
“Our friendship, Cam.” I force myself to look into his eyes. “If I wanted more from you, and it meant we lose what we have, it wouldn’t be worth it.” The air crackles between us, emotion rising in both of our chests, but before anything more can be said my eyes flick to his lips and then away. “Thanks for the run,” I turn on my heel, throwing my hand up in a wave as I hurry down the street towards my house.
14
I open the kitchen door, and the smell of pancakes and frying bacon drifts over me. Mom stands at the stove, smiling at me as I kick my shoes off and breeze through the kitchen.
“Morning, mom,”
“Good morning sweetie,” she raises her voice to call after me as I head for the stairs. “I’ll have breakfast ready soon!”
“Okay, thanks!”
I slip on the stairs in my socks, grab the rail for leverage, and swing around the corner to my bedroom to throw my phone on the bed and grab a fresh pair of shorts before heading into the bathroom and turning on the shower. The water is barely more than cold when I step under it, closing my eyes and letting my thoughts run.
Camden Holt kissed me. I kissed Camden Holt. Equal doses of joy and fear crest over me in waves. What does that even mean? I’m gay, I stumble over the word, but what about Cam?
What if that was just an experiment for him, and as soon as I was gone he regretted it? He’d seemed into it, but what if he was just going along with it so it wouldn’t be awkward? No. No, he was definitely into it. Right?
I growl in frustration, running my hands through my hair, then I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. First things first, just get through this shower. There’s plenty of time to worry about kissing my best friend later. The rest of the shower passes in a blur as I studiously keep my mind blank.
After I turn off the spray and dry myself off I step into the clean basketball shorts, tossing my dirty clothes into the laundry hamper. The towel hangs over my head and I bring my hands up, agitating the fabric to dry my hair as I make the short walk to my bedroom down the hall. When I pull the white cotton down from my face I see Cam sitting on my bed, still wearing his glasses but in fresh clothes.
“What the,” I stumble backward into my door, shutting it closed. “What are you doing here?”
“Your mom let me in,” he blushes. “Is that okay? She sent up breakfast… I can go, if you want,”
“No!” I rub the back of my neck and speak more softly. “No, I was just surprised.”
“I wanted to talk... about this morning.”
I realize that his eyes keep darting down to my bare chest, across my shoulders, and back to my face. He’s blushing, and it only gets deeper when he notices me noticing.
“Maybe I should put on a shirt first..?” I half smile as I ask.
“Yeah,” Cam chokes out a laugh. “That might be a good idea…”
I throw my towel in the corner on my way to the dresser, grabbing a t-shirt and tugging it on before I cross to the bed where Camden sits with the two plates of pancakes and bacon that mom sent upstairs. My already small bedroom feels claustrophobic as I sit, wondering what’s on his mind that he couldn’t wait to bring it up any later than this morning.
“Hi,” Cam smiles, almost nervously.
“Hi back,” the corner of my mouth curves up without permission.
“So,” he lifts a piece of bacon from his plate. “You kissed me.” He watches me as he pops it into his mouth.
“Oh,” I feel heat rise to my cheeks. “Okay, so we’re just jumping in here then…”
“Did you like it?” He takes a bite of pancake.
“I… Well… Did you like it?” I know I sound twelve, but it seems advanced thought is a bit beyond me at the moment.
He watches me for a moment, eyes darting up and down like he’s trying to read my body language and see how he should respond. Not seeming to find anything, they finally met mine and he speaks plainly.
“Yeah. I did.”
“Well…” My eyes dart to his lips, despite my best intentions. “I did too.”
We each focus on our plates, but a small smile won’t stay off of my face. The bubble of tension in the room is gone, and I relax against the wall as we eat.
“So,” his warm voice has an edge of vulnerability to it. “You’re bi?”
“Ah,” I study my bacon. “That’s a great question. No. I don’t think so.” I look up, at a spot on the wall over his left shoulder more than at him directly. “I think… No, actually I’m pretty sure, I’m gay.”
As I say the words to a real person, out loud, for the first time, a warm feeling settles in my chest. Like I’m freeing a piece of me. In my periphery, Cam nods. Like he feels it too.
“I, um,” he clears his throat and starts again. “Me, too.”
“You never told me that,” I look at him more directly.
“You didn’t tell me, either,” he says evasively.
“I just figured it out!” I notice the smile he tries to hide. “How long have you, uh, known? That you were gay?”
“A while,” he pulls his lips to the side, a nervous tic that makes his glasses adjust themselves on his nose.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” I tear a pancake with my fingers.
“I don’t know, Elliot, I just… Why didn’t you tell me, when you realized?” Cam shoots back.
“Because I didn’t think there was a smooth way to tell my best friend, who I definitely thought was straight, that I’d realized that I wanted to kiss him!”
I blush a little at my outburst, reminding myself to be quieter if I don’t want my whole family to hear our conversation. Cam’s mouth relaxes into a nervous smile, and he looks up at me, shrugging slightly.
“Yeah, well… There you go then. That’s pretty much why.”
He watches my face intently. When the meaning of his words hit my eyes widen, the blush on my cheeks burning deeper and spreading down my neck in a way that I’m sure is super attractive. Oh… Ohhhhhh… So, he, hm…
“You wanted to kiss me?”
“Very badly.”
“Before today.”
“Yes, El.”
“For how long?”
“Well,” he smiles shyly, glancing over at me. “Let’s just say, a while.”
I grin, popping a piece of pancake into my mouth as I think about that. We finish our breakfast, setting our plates on top of the dresser. I rub my hands down my thighs, taking in Cam reclining on my bed. He looks too posed to be relaxed, the stiff set of his shoulders as they stretch his arms over his head giving him away.
“I guess,” he drawls. “I was just kind of wondering, if you might… You know.”
“Do I?” I lean against the dresser, crossing my arms.
“If you want to, like… Kiss, more. Again. Maybe, you know, regularly?”
“Camden,” I raise an eyebrow. “Are you propositioning me?”
“I should go,” he sits up quickly, flushing.
“No!” I reach for his hand. “Cam, I’m just joking.”
He pauses, his hand warm and unexpectedly soft in mine. I swallow, drifting my thumb across the pad of his palm. Small calluses break up the smooth flesh, dots of protection from the leather of many footballs that have left their mark. Cam closes his eyes, turning back to me. They open slowly, pinning me in place.
