Emory turned and gave a clear order to the hostess, specifying the grape, vineyard, and even the year. Cameron took advantage of the moment to take a few deep breaths and try to will his hand to stop sweating in Emory’s grip.
The hostess left in a swirl of black coattails, promising their server would be with them shortly. Emory turned the full weight of his attention back on Cameron.
“Thank you! For the wine and your jacket,” Cameron blurted out, earning him an affectionate squeeze of Emory’s hand.
“You’re very welcome, Cameron. As I mentioned, I’m also rather nervous.”
Emory looked down at his menu, but his eyes didn’t move, boring a hole into the rich paper. Cameron was tempted to squeeze his hand in return, but he wasn’t sure if it would be reassuring or a nuisance.
His octopus urged him to do something,anything, but before he could, Emory glanced up through his lashes, and Cameron’s breath caught. He was unspeakably handsome, and despite all of Cameron’s reservations, Emorywashis fated mate. He could feel it in every place their skin touched, and his octopus was practically doing cartwheels being in his presence again.
There was something about Emory’s eyes, too. There were flecks of gold in the deep brown irises. They seemed todance and shift, and while there was a softly flickering candle sitting between them, Cameron thought it might be something else. Something deeper. His octopus was practically sitting at the table with them. Maybe Emory’s inner beast was showing through as well?
“Despite the nerves, it’s very good to see you, Cameron,” Emory said, his eyes crinkling in the corners.
“You’re welcome to call me Cam if you want,” Cameron said, which was definitely not one of his eleven talking points. “Some people prefer it since Cameron is a bit of a mouthful.” Thomas had been the one to tell him that.
Emory’s jaw shifted back and forth, like he was moving the name around his mouth. “I don’t think Cameron is a mouthful. Cam isn’t bad, but… I’m not sure which I prefer.”
“You can call me whatever you want,” Cameron said, unconsciously leaning forward in his seat.
The boundary between Cameron and his octopus was usually crystal clear. While he’d lost a little of his sparkle thanks to Thomas, his octopus had always been so full of life. Even at his best, Cameron could never compete. When he was filled with bubbly excitement or random urges to twirl and shout, he knew it was his octopus’ influence. Right now, though, he was struggling to separate himself from his inner beast. The longer he stared into Emory’s eyes, the more he wanted to rush around the table and envelop the larger man in an eight-armed hug.
Their waiter appeared in Cameron’s peripheral vision, and he blinked, breaking whatever spell had been cast over the table. Both Emory and Cameron leaned away, and Emory took his hand back to pick up his menu.
Cameron could barely focus as the waiter poured the wine. The heady, tangy smell went straight to his head, and his eyes struggled to focus as he stared at the menu.
Emory ordered succinctly and folded his menu with deft, purposeful movements. Cameron ended up ordering the first dish he saw that didn’t contain onions or garlic. His octopus twitched his tentacles in excitement, but Cameron ignored him. He wasn’t making any promises with his order. It was just that the last thing he needed was to be anxious about bad breath.
“Are we far from where you live? I apologize, I didn’t think to ask before selecting the restaurant,” Emory said once the waiter left.
“Oh, no, not too far. It was just a tram and a bus ride to get here.”
Emory grimaced and took a long drink from his wine. “I live only a few blocks from here. I suppose that was rather unfair of me to choose somewhere only convenient for myself.”
Cameron took his own sip of wine and found the crisp, light body to be easy to drink. Dangerously easy. He took a second, more careful drink and gently set the glass back down.
“Oh, that’s right, you said you liveandwork in the financial district?” Cameron asked, racking his memory for all the crumbs of knowledge he had collected thus far.
Emory’s smile returned, and Cameron’s octopus high-fived himself. “I do! I actually live in the same building as my office, as do several other members of the C-suite.”
Cameron was distracted by his octopus, so he didn’t catch himself in time before he blurted out, “Does Christopher live there as well?”
Emory froze halfway through taking his next drink and gave Cameron a skeptical look. While they’d texted briefly about Emory’s work, he’d never shared the names of any of his colleagues. He had briefly mentioned he was going to a brunch with his friend Christopher, and Cameron had put two and two together when researching his company.
“Did you scope out me and my company?” he asked.
That anxious tingling was back, and Cameron was overwhelmed with the childish desire to curl up in a ball and roll out of the restaurant. His omega twitched his tentacles, offering his services as a small ball-like vessel for him to make his escape in. At nearly thirty years old, the thought should have been humorous, but he had a few snippets of memory of having to deploy that particular trick when he was a kid. It hadn’t been at all funny then.
Emory’s voice wasn’t angry, and neither was his face, but Cameron couldn’t bear to watch it transform when he realized Cameron had indeed combed his social media. Unable to hold his octopus back any longer, he gave in to his urges and buried his face in his hands.
He spoke quietly through his fingers, refusing to look up at Emory. “I’m sorry. I was with my family for Fall Harvest, and my sister said it was fair game to check your socials as long as I friended you and gave you the same opportunity. I swear I didn’t get very far. I just saw a few pictures of you and your friends. I did some research and happened to see that the COO’s name was the same as your friend’s, so I kind of put two and two together.”
He flinched when strong fingers circled his wrist. A flash of a different pair of hands grabbing him shot a bolt of ice into his stomach, and it roiled around the few sips of wine he’d taken.
Emory’s grip—because of course it was Emory, not Thomas, touching him—loosened until it was a barely there touch. His octopus fidgeted anxiously, but Cameron remained frozen in place, caught between fear and embarrassment.
More gently than it seemed possible for someone of his size, Emory pulled on Cameron’s wrist, and Cameron lowered his hands away from his face but stared resolutely down at his lap.
