“Fair enough.” Cam helped him slide into his shoes. He had learned not to wear his boots when he was going to be wrung out like a dishcloth. Then he gathered up his shit and got him moving for the door.
Thank God Cam was here, because Mitch wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to make it home after a session like this without some help. Not to mention, it was good to have Cam there, period.
His girls weren’t the only ones who were getting used to having the man around.
Chapter Twelve
Cam waited a couple of days after Mitch’s therapy session to ponder things, to mull things over before he pursued the conversation they’d had.
He wasn’t the only one involved here, and neither was Mitch. He had to think about the kids. He had to wonder and weigh everything, see if it was worth starting a relationship or not. He thought they had the beginnings of something far more interesting than they’d had in high school, far more mature and worthwhile, but those baby girls were the priority, and he knew it.
So he needed to talk to Mitch about the things he’d been thinking about.
He waited until after the girls had been in bed for damn near an hour, and he and Mitch had been sitting there watching TV—Mitch in his recliner because that was the best thing for his back. Cam sitting on the other side of an end table with a lamp on it.
Cam would rather be sitting together on the couch so maybe he could reach out and touch, but he would take this right now.
He waited until a commercial break, because Mitch was watching some murder-death-kill show about some serial killer who had taken out thirteen people. That was never conduciveto personal relationships or discussions. Then he cleared his throat.
Mitch glanced over at him, raising an eyebrow. “You coming down with something?”
Cam snorted. “Asshole. No, you know I’m not.”
“Well, then you better tell me what it is. Come on, out with it.” Mitch made a come-on sort of motion with his fingers, as if he were being impatient. Too bad for him it looked more like a come-hither kind of signal, and it made Cam’s cock start to harden up in his jeans a little bit.
“Okay, so I’ve been thinking about things ever since you were in therapy the other day.”
“I knew I smelled smoke.” When he raised an eyebrow in return, mirroring Mitch’s earlier action, Mitch shrugged. “Okay, I’ll try to be serious. What were you thinking about?”
“I was thinking about you, the girls, whether or not it was worth it. I don’t want to break anybody’s heart.” Hell, he didn’t even want to come close.
“I don’t want anyone heartbroke, up to and including you.” Mitch never glanced away from him, those sloe eyes burning into him.
“The thing is, what we got going here, though, it feels like it could be a real thing.” Cam tilted his head and held his breath, waiting to see what Mitch might say to that.
Mitch nodded, as if he was telling the gate puller it was time. “It does. We’ve always had chemistry, man.”
“But?” It sounded like there was abutthere.
Mitch shrugged again, wincing a little. His shoulders were moving now when he did it, at least. Therapy was doing some good. “It’s not so much abutas it is anif this, then that.”
“Okay, that’s fair. What kind of ‘if this, then that’ are you talking about scenario-wise?” Cam figured this was how grown-ups did things.
He sort of preferred the get-drunk-and-fuck way.
“If you and I decide to be an ‘us,’ we’ve got to think about what we show the girls and what we don’t. We need to have a frank discussion about what we’re going to tell them when they start asking questions.” Mitch stood, then came over to sit with him on the couch, which suited him down to the ground.
Cam wanted to be closer. He wanted to be able to look Mitch right in the eye and not be distracted.
He reached out to grab Mitch’s hand because Cam felt like this was one of those discussions that should have some touching that went with it. “That’s totally reasonable, babe. And I agree, we ought to know what we’re going to tell the girls if they happen upon something they shouldn’t.”
Lord have mercy. He felt as if he were applying for a job or fixin’ to sit down with a new sponsor. This was intense, and his heart was pounding. Unlike most of his business dealings, this was important because he cared about what happened.
“I guess one of the first things I need to ask you is when you plan to hit the road again.”
Cam had thought hard about that, and he had an answer for this one. “Well, I’m gonna have to do a few of the bigger fall rodeos, some of the ones in October and November, but I have an in on the NFR from the stock shows I won. Those put my standings up so well early in the year money-wise that I didn’t have to really fight this season.”
Mitch arched an eyebrow. “That doesn’t quite answer my question.”
