“I’m sure it does.” I watched him, and it hurt to see how sad he looked.
“It’s funny,” he began softly, “but what I missed most was not being able to offer him my help, because I felt stupid, inept, like I couldn’t do anything right. It’s why I was always so eager to assist his friends. I was trying so hard to prove to him that I had value.”
“Why did you allow him to do that to you?”
He didn’t answer, turning away from me to stare out the window again.
“Cam?”
“It’s embarrassing,” he said to the night sky and passing scenery.
“Tell me anyway. You know I would never laugh at you. Not unless you farted in public, ’cause that shit’s funny.”
He turned, and I saw that I’d gotten the smile I was after. “It sounds so stupid when I say it now, but I was amazed, for the longest time, that he’d ever looked at me in the first place. I couldn’t believe it.”
“Everybody looks at you. I can vouch for that. Even when I had Doug draped over me in the hallway of that hotel and you were standing there arguing with me, even when I thought about decking you––”
“What? I was the absolute embodiment of politeness.”
“You were a pill.”
“You woke me out of a sound sleep!” he countered defensively.
“Anyway”—I rolled my eyes at him—“even when I was considering violence, my brain still catalogued your beautiful eyes and gorgeous bod.”
“You did?” He sounded amazed.
“How could I not?”
His breath caught and released, and then caught again. “But see, I’m awkward around strangers. I never know what to say, and it was always torture when I’d be out at a club or at a party with friends and guys would try to talk to me. I’m the king of answering questions with a flat yes or no. I know far too much about different kinds of weather. I never think to elaborate on an anecdote, because why would anyone possibly care? And did you know that most people hate it when you do exact math in your head? Like when everyone’s laughing and someone will say, ‘It’s, like, a million dollars,’ but you bring the conversation to a screeching halt by saying, ‘No, actually it’s blah-blah,’ down to the exact change.”
I snickered, because I could imagine him doing that clear as day.
“In the beginning, back when Troy laughed with me, I was bespelled.”
His comment, the inflection, told me that somewhere along the way, Troy had started laughing at him, and the desire flared in me to give the man a good ass-kicking.
“I thought he was Prince Charming and that he got me and how my mind worked, but I should have known better. He was always selfish in bed, never laughed at himself, and he never brought me dessert.”
“No?”
“Not once.”
“But you needed pie. How else were you supposed to know I was serious?”
He nodded, and when I looked closely, I realized he was brushing away tears.
Our exit off the freeway came at the perfect time, and after I made the turn and went through an intersection, I pulled over, hit the hazards, unclipped my belt, and was out of my seat and around to his side of the car in seconds.
When I opened his door, he asked, “What are you doing? We’re almost home, and it’s cold out––”
“Hey, it’s okay, baby. I know how uncomfortable you are talking about yourself, but this is me, right? You know I want to know everything about you, so tell me what’s got you upset.”
He sucked in a breath. “I just…God, I made such a doormat of myself with Troy, and I can’t stand the idea that you might think less of me for being with someone like him, and not only that, but I was planning to stay with him if it hadn’t been for him humiliating me so publicly.”
“Yeah, no,” I assured him with a scoff. “There’s nothing you could tell me about yourself that’d make me think less of you.”
It was really something to see how big his deep, dark indigo eyes got whenever something I said surprised or delighted him. Both reactions resulted in the same response, and I loved it.
“There isn’t?”
“No.” I didn’t need to elaborate. The word was a full sentence.
“Could you perhaps go into further detail?”
I grinned. “Yes.”
“Stop it, now, this is serious,” he warned. “I want to know everything you think about me.”