“But… How did he…Whywould he do that?” Cam demanded. He didn’t attempt to pull away, and in fact he seemed to be pushing into Cort’s touch, seeming to enjoy the sensation. He twisted to get more comfortable, and one of his hands came to rest on Cort’sthigh.
Cort increased the pressure of his thumbs on Cam’sneck.
“I don’t know. Maybe because he had no idea he wasn’t supposedto?”
Cort could feel Cam’s frown against his chest. “That completely defies logic. How would he know how to build the mechanism but not know how to control it? Or not know it would bedangerousto launch himself into the air with no sure way to getdown?”
Cort snickered. “Babe, have you not realized that hardly anything in life is logical? Logic and magic are both prettyscarce.”
Cam shook his head, his body growing more pliant against Cort’s, even though his hand was still clenched around the quarter. “You’re totally wrong. Almost everything is logical. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. There are three hundred sixty-five days in a year. One plus one istwo.”
“Those things arefacts,” Cort said, glancing out the window to see they were now surrounded by puffy white clouds. “That doesn’t necessarily make them logical.Whyare there three hundred and sixty-five days, not an even hundred? Why does the sun rise in the east instead of the north? You can’t explain it, there’s not a logical explanation behind it, it justis.”
He scratched his fingers through the hair at the base of Cam’s neck, felt him shudder slightly, and continued in a lowervoice.
“Sometimes the truest things are the weirdest ones, the ones you think couldn’t possibly work. And I think…” He hesitated. “I think a lot of the time when people do really remarkable shit, it’s because they didn’t know they couldn’t, or they didn’t listen when people told them they weren’t supposedto.”
Cam was quiet for a minute, digesting this. Cort watched his fingers play against Cam’s neck, and felt Cam’s fingers - the ones not holding his lucky quarter - contract against his thigh before the man relaxed against Cort morefully.
“Gimme an example,” Cam said, one hundred percent serious, and Cort had to bite his lip to stop himself from grinning like an idiot. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had listened to the bullshit he sometimes spouted and seriously considered it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt soimportant. It was odd, and really, reallysatisfying.
“Okay, think about the first dude who rubbed two sticks together and made fire. I mean, he couldn’t have known for sure it was going to happen. If you didn’t know anything about friction, and some guy came to you and grunted that he was gonna make a spark by rubbing two boring-ass sticks together, you’d think he was off his rocker. But he didn’tknowit was a stupid idea, so he did it, and voila.Fire.”
Cam snorted. “Voila,fire?”
“Hush,” Cort said, yanking a lock of hair at the crown of Cam’s head. Cam inhaled sharply, but didn’t pull away. In fact, he sank further into Cort’s lap. Cort lifted his knee onto the seat sideways, and shifted so Cam was leaning against him morefully.
“That actually makes a lot ofsense.”
Cam sounded so surprised, Cort yanked his hair again. “Thanks for the vote ofconfidence.”
“No, no. I mean, I’d just never thought of it like that before. My dad, when he started Seaver Tech, he was the same. Everybody thought he was going to fail. His own parents wrote him off. ‘Don’t come crying to us when you end up bankrupt.’ My mom’s parents were just as bad. Nobody would invest in the business at first. I remember hearing my parents put up our house as collateral, and if he’d failed, they would’ve been homeless with a baby to support. That’s really stupid, when you think aboutit.”
Cort chuckled. “Massivelystupid.”
“But it paid off.” Cam’s voice was stilldisbelieving.
“Given that we are currently sitting on a leather sofa in the sky, winging our way to a private island, I’d have toagree.”
Cam jerked his head up and looked out the window, then back at Cort in surprise. “We took off. We’re already in theair.”
“Yup.”
Cam’s eyes widened and his lips turned up in a small smile. He glanced back down at the quarter in his hand. “Uh. Thanks. I think maybe I’m good now.” He held the quarter out on his open palm for Cort to takeback.
Cort pushed Cam’s fingers closed around the coin. All the things he could say -My fault I made you do this in the first place.andThank you for making me feel necessary.andCome lean on me again.- sounded like sappy bullshit, so he stuck to a simple, “You hang ontoit.”
Cam swallowed and looked down at his lap. “You know, I don’t know if I could have done what my dad did. I’m, uh,risk-averse. I think I mostly do what I’m supposed to. One foot in front of the other, youknow?”
It sounded as though Cam was reciting something he’d heard somewhere. The ex again? That asshole had better hope he and Cort didn’t meet up anytimesoon.
Cort frowned and ducked his head, so Cam’s eyes met his. “Bullshit.”
“What?”
“I said,bullshit, badass. You take risks all the time, and I know what I’m talking about. My friend Derrick used to say I should get ‘No risk, no reward’ tattooed on mesomeplace.”
“This doesn’t surprise me.” Cam raised oneeyebrow.
