Hush (5 page)

“Family?”

“Well, you told me you have a twin sister named Peyton… as far as genealogy, damn. I’m not sure I caught that part. Do we have a family tree I can reference? Is this an open book test?”

“I don’t know,” he says, “you made it.”

“Well…” Maggie taps her fingers against the table and pretends to think. “I think you said your parents are Venezuelan? I guess the only question I’m really sure about is that your toenails are pink.”

“Pink?” he says.

“Yup, cotton candy pink.”

He looks away from her then, pretending that he’s been caught. Outside, clouds are rolling in and the sun is fading behind them. It looks like rain. Cam had been hoping to go for a run tonight.

“So how did I do?” Maggie prompts when he doesn’t look back at her.

“You’ll have to wait and see.” It’s very bright in the cafe—at least it seems so, with the sky dimming outside. “So is it my turn? I’m pretty sure I can win this.”

“Oh, we’re competing now?”

“Well, what’s the point otherwise?” he jokes. She makes a
you may have a point
sort of face.

“All right then, do your worst.”

“Maggie Hall. Nineteen. Psych major, one older sister. Guessing from your last name, there might be some English roots to your family tree. You like your coffee sweet, chocolate chip cook­ies and spaghetti.” He thinks back on his observations for a second. “Though I’m pretty sure you don’t like the spaghetti at the cafe­teria, and I have a hunch that you don’t like wearing a coat if you can avoid it, because you weren’t that one day it was so cold last week.”

“Damn,” Maggie says with a smile.

“I have no idea about your blood type and I’m going to take a shot in the dark and guess that your toenails are painted some­thing in the purple family.”

“Okay, how did you know that?” she demands.

“You wear a lot of purple.” Cam explains. She narrows her eyes thoughtfully and scrunches her brow. Finally her face clears and humor floods it again.

“But not purple coats.”

Cam laughs with her, then, and it’s easy; it’s easy and not pecu­liar that he knows all of this about her, and he senses that she’s flattered by his observations.

“What kind of movies do
you like?”
Cam drops into the chair next to Maggie, interrupting her reading. She pauses with her fork halfway to her mouth; tiny droplets of salad dressing fall to her plate. She flips her book face down and pushes it away.

“Hi, Cam, how are you today?” she says, eyebrow arching—a look that’s somehow lovely despite the sarcasm.

“I am great,” he says, and pauses. He really is. Usually Cam responds to questions like this automatically; people never really expect an answer other than
fine
. But it’s been a good day.

“Wonderful,” she says. “I like all kinds of movies. Well, no,” she gestures with her index finger, “I take that back. I don’t like scary suspense-type movies.”

“Well, how do you feel about satire?” he hazards.

“I feel like I could manage that.”

“So how would you feel about accompanying me to see
Formula Lost
tomorrow night? Nate has a date and wants us to come along.”

“Ohhhh, a double date.” Her eyes sparkle mischievously. “This must be step two on the dating path checklist.”

“You know it,” Cam says, and then—for some reason—winks. He’s not sure if he’s ever winked at someone. He’s watched enough people flirting to know that this is something people do, but he always thought of such things—playful touches and winking, soft smiles and a certain eye contact—as deliberate. They probably are, most of the time. But it’s something new for him, realizing that sometimes, energy between two people like this can just happen.

“So what’s the story?”
Nate
flops onto his bed with his sneakers still on. Cam takes his keys from the lock and shuts the door gently; it’s late. He hates when slamming doors wake him at late hours. Interrupted sleep is one of the few things guaranteed to make him grumpy.

“You just watched the same movie I did.” Cam hangs his keys by the door, carefully removes his shoes and hangs his jacket over the chair in front of his desk. He tries to modulate his voice; Nate’s not done anything—in fact, nothing really happened all night. But he feels on edge and has since they got to the theater. A faintly familiar buzz seems to have settled in his bones tonight. “How can you not know this?”

“First of all,” Nate points out, “I wasn’t paying that much atten­tion.”

Cam frowns. “Why not?”

Nate just stares at him for long seconds before seeming to move on. “Second of all, I wasn’t talking about the movie.”

“Huh?” Cam pops his head up, and then goes back to searching for his well-worn Huskers T-shirt.

“I mean with you and Maggie,” Nate explains with exaggerated patience.

“What is this, a midnight gossip session?” Cam says a little defen­sively. Nate’s question seems probing, though it probably shouldn’t.

“Man, you are so hard to read sometimes.” Nate toes his shoes off.

Cam doesn’t say anything. What is there to say, really, when he can’t even read himself?

* * *

“Cam?” Maggie says.

“Hmm?” Cam squeezes her shoulder. She doesn’t move, keeps her head tucked against his shoulder. After a moment of silence, she sits up, grabs the remote and pauses the movie.

“Are you—” She bites her lip. “What is this?” She gestures between them. Cam folds his hands together, something twisting in his stomach. “What do you want it to be?” he says, stalling.

“I think it’s pretty clear what I want,” she states.

It is. Cam has known for a while, now—the way she kisses his cheek when she leaves lately, lingering longer, her eyes on his. Wait­ing. Maggie’s not the sort to wait for some­one to make a move. She’s her own person—he admires this a lot—and isn’t afraid to go after what she wants. Cam senses that she is respect­ing his uncertainty. If that is what it should be called. Reticence? Insecurity?

“I’ve just never—” he starts. He sits up a little straighter, folds one knee and tucks his foot under the other. “I like you, a lot. I like being with you.” Cam runs his hand down her arm, testing. Her smile is small and sweet, and she’s so gentle with him. He feels strange in his skin, as if he wants that sort of carefulness, but at the same time doesn’t, wants something bigger and sharper too.

“Here,” she says finally, and kisses him. She kisses him slowly and confidently, but doesn’t push. Maggie always smells wonder­ful, and when they watch movies or spend time together, the shape of her body against him is very comforting.

He cards his fingers through her hair; it slips like silk. She opens her mouth a little and it’s moist and warm, so he does too.

* * *

Cam ends the night
with
a kiss to Maggie’s cheek, and when she turns her head for another, he leans into her mouth and tastes her lips again.

“Friends or more?” she asks when she pulls away.

“Uhh…” He feels puzzled. Hasn’t kissing spoken for itself?

“I want to be sure that was—that you’re okay with this. That it’s something you want,” Maggie says. She touches his hand.

“Yeah.” He smiles. Her face lights up, delighted; it’s as if he’s done just the right thing, taken the next right step.

It’s nice to feel close to someone like this.

“So…” Lying down,
Cam stares
at the ceiling. He shapes the words he’ll use, and breathes through that twisting feeling in his stomach again. It’s so strange and unfamiliar, wanting to talk to some­one about things inside himself. “I kissed Maggie. Well, technically, she kissed me.”

“Yeah!” Nate cheers, a little too loudly for midnight in a dorm with paper-thin walls.

“Shhh.” Cam waves his hand but doesn’t look over. He isn’t sure he can get through such a personal conversation
and
look at Nate.

“Awesome, right?”

Cam considers this. “Yeah, it was really nice.”

Nate is quiet so long Cam wonders if maybe he’s fallen asleep. It’s stupid, trying to talk to Nate like this.

“Dude, do you really like her?” Nate finally says.

“Yeah, of course,” Cam says.

Another pause, then Nate speaks again, teasing clear in his voice. “So how far’d you get? Round any bases?”

“Shut up,” Cam says more easily, grateful that the conversation hasn’t wandered too far into territory he isn’t sure about. “To be honest, I’ve never been clear on what happens at each base,” he admits.

“Yeah, me either,” Nate laughs, “other than home plate. I defi­nitely know that one. It’s the best.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Cam yawns.

“For now,” Nate says smugly. Cam yawns again, feeling the sleepy press of darkness. Finally.

* * *

Sometimes it feels a bit
like work,
or a thing he hasn’t quite grown into, when he’s with her and she’s obviously hoping for more. It’s weird; he knows how guys are supposed to be. He knows Nate, and how much he wants and has sex. Thinks of friends in school, their consistent discussion and desire for it.

Sometimes, when he’s with Maggie, he wonders if he was just born with something less—his desire isn’t pressing, isn’t urgent. It’s nice, though, when he does manage to let himself go. Maggie is both reassuring and self-assured, and it’s been long enough that next steps are definitely a natural progression.

“Will you touch me?” she asks one night. It’s dim in her room and the TV volume is low. She’s lying back on her futon, and her body is so welcoming under him. Cam swallows and lets her guide his hand under her shirt, where her skin is warm.

* * *

After a while, he’s
sure
he should feel more. How long can he give Maggie what she wants, when she so clearly wants and enjoys more than he? Nate is the only other person that Cam knows well enough to confide in, but this is not something he can talk about.

Cam watches. Nate seems to have a new girl every few weeks; Cam is regularly exiled from their room, and the library becomes his sanctuary. Linoleum and fluorescent lights, the smell of books and the quiet calm him with a grounding familiarity. Of course, he’s not ready to admit how much he hopes to run into Wren there. His library visits are fre­quent, that hope watercolor-layered with guilt. He likes Maggie, and has no concrete under­standing of what he’s searching for or why he can’t stop seeking that con­nection he felt with Wren. Sometimes, he searches campus—not just for Wren. His body seeks something hotter, more acute.

* * *

“You with me?”
Maggie gasps
one night, lips against his cheek, skin dewed with sweat.

“Yeah,” he lies, and thinks helplessly of another moment, of pressing a small, harder body against a wall, of feeling as if he were on fire, Wren’s teeth lightly biting his neck—and comes so suddenly it catches them both off guard.

* * *

Cam twitches and then
tries
to settle. He shuffles papers on his desk, pretends to study, looks out the window to where it’s gray and raining miserably.

“Talk to me.” Nate doesn’t look away from their TV. He hits the buttons on his Xbox harder and winces as the zombie on the screen destroys him.

“What?” Cam puts his pencil down.

“You need to talk. I can tell. I’m your bro, right?”

“Bro?” Cam smirks.

“Shut up and tell me about your feelings before I change my mind and force you to play with me.”

Cam sighs and stands. He stretches and sits next to Nate, shov­ing him over on the futon as he does. “I’ll play anyway.”

“I’ve ruined you with video games,” Nate says.

“Yeah. I despair for my future,” Cam responds dryly.

“Either that or I’ve expanded your horizons. Although I did hear a rumor once that they have Xboxes even in Nebraska.”

“We have lots of things in Nebraska.” Cam turns on his remote while Nate backtracks so Cam can join the game. “I just didn’t do them. We weren’t an Xbox sort of home.”

“Hmm,” Nate spares him a look. Cam shrugs. He doesn’t talk about home much. “Anyway,” Nate turns back to the screen, “Nebraska aside, you need to talk; it’s killing me.”

“It’s killing
you
?” Cam says.

“It’s hard to tell, you know,” Nate jerks to the side when he’s assaulted on the screen. He’s very physical even when playing video games. “If it’s killing you not to talk, but you know, rumor has it that it helps.”

Cam swears softly when he’s hit, then bites his lip and focuses. He finally responds. “I’ll think about it.”

“Okay,” Nate says.

* * *

So far, Nate is the
best thing
Cam’s gotten from his college expe­rience. After initial awkwardness and feeling each other out, figur­ing out how to coexist in a small dorm room, Cam learned to appre­ciate him. Nate’s a good friend; he’s easy with Cam. Now that he knows Cam, he doesn’t ever press too hard, but leaves the door open between them for whenever Cam does decide to talk, or for when he feels like getting up to some­thing. Nate is a good influence in many ways; he’s the reason Cam has experi­enced Chicago and college in a more youthful way than he lived before.

When Cam lets loose, it’s generally due to Nate’s influence—recently, Maggie’s as well. But Nate knows how to push without pushing too hard, mostly.

* * *

“What’s wrong?” Maggie pulls away
from him. He chases her lips a little, and then sits back with a sigh.

“Who said anything is wrong?” He tries not to feel edgy. He’s always been very adept at pulling himself in; generally only Peyton has been able to read him so easily.

“You seem distracted,” Maggie says.

“Oh.” Cam runs his hand up and down her arm. “I think I am. Chem­istry is challenging me in a way I didn’t expect.”
And some­where out there there’s this guy,
he doesn’t say,
who’s light-boned and lithe and incredibly sexy, and it seems so wrong to be thinking of him right now, but I can’t stop.

Maggie smiles indulgently. “You don’t do well with challenges you didn’t see coming, do you?”

“Does anyone?” he responds, trying to change the track of their conversation.

“Cameron,” she says, “lots of us.”

He smiles at her. She’s beautiful tonight; her eyes are bright and her hair is in loose curls. He has so much affection for her, a softness inside that’s uniquely Maggie-shaped. “One of the many things you have to teach me, I guess.”

She laughs, as he hoped she might, and kisses his cheek. “Between Nate and me, honey, we’ll get it done.”

Cam isn’t sure, but goes along willingly enough.

* * *

When he’s not measuring
his
own internal state, Cam observes Nate. This is nothing new; his default setting is observation. But now he is watching for something specific.

Nate is easygoing about many things. He makes off-color jokes Cam doesn’t always get, and some that he does and later feels mildly guilty for laughing at. But he’s never said anything truly offensive about anyone in Cam’s presence. Can he trust Nate with what’s been eating him for months now? It’s hard to go by the data he has; it’s not as though they sit around talking about confused or gay or bisexual men.

Once he accidentally opened the floodgates with Maggie, think­ing of Wren instead of her, it’s been harder and harder to push everything back into the proper places. The spark of heat between him and Wren felt completely natural, in a way Cam doesn’t under­stand. But he’s not felt anything quite like it with anyone since. The closest he’s come has been with Maggie, but even that is still nowhere close. Attractions have been more present in him than ever before, lately, and he’s noticed with increasing frequency an especial affinity for men: a face or body that calls to him, bright flickers that still don’t compare to Maggie’s lasting warmth or the combustion of Wren in his arms.

Cam doesn’t want to live his life missing something, but he’s not sure he’ll ever find something so right and simultaneously so explosive that it will be worth the risk. A sustainable heat seems to be something he should want, but looking for more when he has Maggie doesn’t sit well with him.