Instead I went out of my way to make sure my phone was never unsupervised around Cam. I was still receiving the texts and phone calls, at least two times a week, and I shied away from my email. Several times over the last two months, I almostresponded to the text. Or I almostpulled up my email and responded to one of the messages.
Just like with Cam, I rather pretend it wasn’t happening than deal with it. I hated that part of me, loathed it really, because I was still running instead of facing anything.
As winter loosened its hold on the tiny speck of the state and the ground began to thaw, Cam was deciding on if he should pay a visit home over the mid-April weekend or hang out here and be lazy while Jacob spent lunch trying to convince Brit to accompany him to some kind of volunteer garden planting adventure.
Brit swirled her fry in a glob of mayo. Ollie watched her, handsome face twisted in awed-disgust. She was completely oblivious. “I’m not going to spend my last four day weekend of the semester planting daisies.”
“It’s not daises.” Jacob sighed. “It’s a botanical garden of wonder and love.”
Cam was sitting at the table, facing me. He dropped his head on my shoulder, hiding his snicker. I went with the old hand over the mouth method.
“That just sounds stupid.” Brit popped the mayo-covered fry in her mouth, and Ollie groaned. “I’m going to spend the four days being a veg.”
“Would you rather spend your time being a cucumber or making your soul feel happy?”
Cam’s shoulders started to shake.
“I think I will go with being a piece of broccoli,” Brit replied.
Across from us Ollie finally dragged his gaze away from Brit’s place and looked at Jacob. “Are you serious?”
“Yes!” He smacked his hands down. “Why not paint the world in beautiful flowers of all different colors?”
I stared at him. “Are you high?”
Jacob looked affronted… for maybe two seconds. “Maybe a little.”
Laughing, I glanced at Brit. “You should help him build his happy garden.”
She snorted. “You can help him.”
“Oh, no.” Cam lifted his head as he scooted toward me, slipping his hand over my leg, just above my knee. “She’s all mine this weekend. No garden of love.”
“Unless she’s planting in yourgarden of love?” Jacob queried.
I rolled my eyes. “Cute.”
“Sounding like she was doing some planting last night.” Ollie moved the tiny paper cup of mayo further away from Brit. “At least from the noises coming from your bedroom.”
My mouth dropped open. “Whatever!”
“Did you have your ear plastered to my bedroom door?” Cam hand inched up, and my cheeks were suddenly burning for a whole different reason.
Ollie shrugged. “What else am I supposed to do?”
“Freak,” Cam tossed back.
The three of them launched into a discussion about vegetables, leaving Cam and I on the outside of the bizarro conversation, which was okay with me. I wasn’t a fan of vegetables.
“I have another great idea.” Cam propped his chin on my shoulder, voice low.
I turned my head just the slightest toward him. “Oh dear…”
“You’re going to love it.”
Warmth bubbled up my chest and I wanted to say I love you, but sitting in the Den, while our friends were discussing the pros and cons of asparagus didn’t seem like the best moment to blurt that out. So I settled with a, “What’s your idea?”
“Take the rest of the day off and chill with me.”
That sounded like an excellent idea. “I have class.”
“You have art. That doesn’t really count as a class.”
“How so?”
He lifted his head, pressing his lips to the space beside my ear. “You told me you almost fell asleep on Monday.”
“Almost,” I reiterated.
Cam now kissed the spot under my ear, and I shivered. “Trust me. What I want to do is so much better than art.”
My mind went straight to one thing. Sex. Like real sex with real penetration.
Oh my God, I couldn’t believe I just thought that. Was there a fake penetration I was unaware of? Actually, sort of. We’d done everything except sex. We’ve touched, groped, he’d gone down on me and I on him, but sex? There had been none of the actual act, but the last time, what Ollie was claiming he heard, it had seemed like we were heading there. There had been a certain intent
I’d panicked and basically went down on Cam. Not that he was complaining, but I couldn’t keep doing that. We had to take our relationship to the next level. Besides, I was probably the only twenty-year-old virgin on campus and how long would Cam wait for me to be ready? We’d been together for four months and guy time was like dog years so that was like four years.
Anticipation tingled throughout me, but under the excitement, unease formed like a ball of ice in my chest.
Cam circled his arms around my waist, pulling me out of my chair and into his lap. The people at our table basically ignored us, but the ones at the tables around us, were starting to stare.
He was totally unfazed by the attention as he tipped his head back, grinning widely. “So what do you say?”
“You two are so sickly sweet it’s actually cute,” Jacob said, interrupting us. We looked at him. “If you don’t skip art and run off with him, I’m going to kick your ass.”
“Well then, how can I say no?”
I just hoped that when it came down to it, I could say yes.
#
Cam really was extraordinary.
And I don’t know how he managed to continuously surprise me with his thoughtfulness or how it was even possible for him to be so wonderful. Or why it took me so long to pull my head out of my ass and to see that.
When we’d left the campus, he met me about my car and ushered me over to his truck. “What are we doing?”
“You’ll see.”
The secretive half smile had me on edge. It wasn’t until we hit I70 and I saw the sign did I know where we were going. I twisted toward him and in my excitement, I almost choked myself with the seatbelt.
Cam laughed.
“We’re going to D.C.? Aren’t we?” I exclaimed, practically bouncing in my seat.
He slid me a sly side look. “Maybe.”
“And we’re going to the Smithsonian, right?”
“Quite possibly.”
I flipped forward, clasping my hands together. “Why?” I blurted out. “I mean, I know history bores you, so why?”
“Why?” He laughed again as he messed with his baseball cap. “I told you that I’d go to the Smithsonian with you and I didn’t get to do it with you on your birthday, so I thought why not today?”
Why not today? That was one of the things I loved most about Cam. His ability to do things on the spur of the moment, no thought or plan behind them. He literally lived by the moment and nothing held him back, not even the trouble he’d gotten into, because he had moved past that.
Mainly because I knew he’d accepted what he’d done and the consequences of his actions. It may have taken him a few weeks after it happened, but he’d come to terms with it.
I admired that in him.
We spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening going from exhibit to exhibit. Cam seemed more interested in touching me and stealing kisses than what we were looking at and I was okay with that. I thought of the couples I’d watched last time and realized I had become one of them. It was so normal, so perfect. There was nothing different between us and them and I reveled in that.
It was late when we got home and since there were no classes on Thursday, we had the whole night. Buzzing from out impromptu trip, I dropped some of the stinky tortoise bites onto a little bowl and slipped it into Michelangelo’s home.
As I closed the lid on the terrarium, Cam came up behind me, placing his hands on my hips. He turned me around, and I stretched up, placing a kiss on his lips.
“Thank you for today,” I said, looping my arms around his neck. “I had a lot of fun.”
“I told you that my idea was great.”
“They usually are.”