“What do they think about you not ever leaving your place?”
“Ileave my place,” Cam argued. “I told you. I have to.”
“So they haven’t noticed?” His dad’s tone had gone arch,knowing.
“A few comments, but not like . . .” Cam didn’t say,I’m good at hiding it, but he was.
His dad hummed again, like he didn’t quite believe him—but it was the truth.
And didn’t that suck even more than the fact Cameron’s breath went short and fast whenever he had to leave his bitty apartment.
If a group was going out, he’d go out with them. It was easy to hide in a group. But he didn’t go out alone anymore, and since Dawson was pretty occupied with his own shit, and Joey, the other guy who made the third leg of their special teams triumvirate, had a family—a wife and three kids—Cam had been sort of on his own. A lot.
The rest of the team was wrapped up in their own problems on and off the field.
Aidan was trying to get the offense to gel—working harder than he should’ve behind an offensive line that was still struggling to protect him. Trevor was a rookie, too, but he was constantly revolving around his older stepbrother, Lane. Their running back, Jaden, had been a rookie last year, but from thefirst time Cam had met him, he’d seemed ages and ages removed from where Cam was.
Nate was kind, but he had his hands full with the defense.
There were a few rookies there, too, but Nate had taken them under his wing, and it hadn’t really seemed like there was room for Cam there.
Everyone believed that someone else was looking out for Cameron, and he hated to correct their misassumption, because that would meanadmittingto shit he barely even felt comfortable admitting to himself.
“You need to get out,” Shane said bluntly.
Cam considered arguing, even though he knew his dad was right.
“Okay,” he finally said.
“I mean it,” his dad reiterated. “Go to the grocery store.”
“Alright,” Cam said. He could do that. Well, next week, anyway. He’d already gotten his meal plan service delivery this morning, and like absolute fucking magic, his groceries at his door, this afternoon.
“Cam, I mean it,” his dad said warningly.
“I mean, Iwill, just not today. I’ve got everything I need for the week.”
“Cam,” Shane repeated, same tone of voice.
“What? I don’tneedanything,” Cam argued.
“What you need is to get out of that goddamn apartment.” He could hear his dad pacing in their living room, boots clicking against the worn hardwood. “You could go get dinner somewhere.”
“Alone?” The word escaped from Cam’s mouth before he could snatch it back.
His dad sighed. “Okay, how about this—there’s that exercise center in the basement, right?”
“Yes,” Cam said hesitantly. He didn’t want to go work out.
“And it has a swimming pool, right?”
He had a feeling he knew where his dad was going.
And as expected, Shane said, “You should go down there for a bit. Swim around. Try to relax. It’s safe there, even if you’re on your own. You need a keycard to get into your building. It’ll be good for you to get out of your apartment and it’ll be a good first step.”
Cam thought it made him sound a little pathetic—that he needed the reminder that his building was safe—but it wasn’t a terrible idea.
“It’s not a bad idea,” he said.
