Emory took the stairs two at a time, nearly colliding with the banister as he whipped around the corner and ran down the hall. The door to his wing was semi-ajar, and he barreled into it, nearly tripping over Ronan’s backpack as he entered the sitting room.
Not seeing Cameron, he charged ahead, dodging around the couch and shoving open his bedroom door to find the room… also empty. He ran into the bathroom and didn’t see anything, so he rushed back into his bedroom and searched for Cameron’s bag.
Thankfully, it was still on the floor next to Emory’s open suitcase, and it didn’t look like anything was missing. Had he taken some of Emory’s clothes from the closet and fled? Had he actually run out the front door and not up the stairs?
Emory poked his head into the closet and was about to turn around when he noticed a mound in the back. The closet was about half the size of the bedroom and was filled with boxes, crates, and baskets of detritus from his childhood. A box had been tipped over, spilling a pile of Emory’s old soccer jerseys, afew hoodies, and his varsity letter jacket across the back corner of the closet. As he approached the pile, he noticed a pair of pink silk panties, a powder blue button-down, and lilac chinos in a pile.
When they’d been packing to come here, Emory had noticed that Cameron had packed only his most masculine-looking clothes. Over the past month, he’d watched in awe as Cameron had blossomed like a flower, wearing softer, more conventionally feminine-looking clothes, ranging from fuzzy jackets, blouses, and neon leggings to a few house dresses he now kept at Emory’s house. When they’d been packing, it had made Emory sad to think Cameron didn’t feel safe around his family, and he’d been able to convince him to at least bring some of the pretty, pastel dress clothes he wore to work. Clearly, though, Cameron had been proven right in his mistrust, and seeing his pretty clothes balled up on the floor broke Emory’s heart.
“Cameron?” Emory called quietly.
The pile of his things shimmied slightly, and Emory tried again. “Honey…?”
One of the jerseys fell to the floor, and a single tentacle poked out of the hole it left behind.
The tentacle was much smaller than Emory was used to, about half the thickness of Cameron’s arm. The skin was a beautiful auburn color with fluorescent blue suction cups. There was webbing near the base of the tentacles, right before it disappeared into the pile of clothes.
“Cameron, it’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay. I…I imagine you might not want me to see you or your animal form like this, so…I can leave?”
The tentacle curled and uncurled in the air, not really answering Emory’s question.
“I’m going to go back into the bedroom. You can stay here until you’re ready?” Emory hedged, and the tentacle snapped out towards him, moving agitatedly back and forth.
“Okay, how about I come inside, but I’ll sit outside your...den?”
The tentacle wiggled in the air and then slowly retracted back into the clothes.
Emory walked closer but sat down a good foot away from the pile. When the pile remained still, and no more tentacles appeared, Emory gazed around the closet and noticed a bin right next to his foot labeled ‘vacation items.’ He dragged it towards himself and opened the lid.
“My father used to take me on business trips when I was little,” Emory said, not really sure where he was going with this. “We went to Alaska, Canada, California, and even Hawaii. My mother didn’t really like to travel, and as she explained to you, there were a lot of complications with us having different last names.”
He pulled a fridge magnet out of the box, depicting a glacier he’d seen in Alaska. He held it out towards the pile, and when nothing happened, he placed it down in front of the opening and continued rustling through the bin.
“My favorite part of every trip was always the food. Like me—or I suppose, I am like my father in that he couldn’t cook either. He always knew exactly what someone needed to eat to feel better, though. That stew we had was one of the few things he knew how to cook, and he’d make it for me all the time when I was a kid. My mother makes it from time to time when I come home as a way to remember him.”
He pulled out a flower lei from the box, and a whole slew of memories hit him. Although the flowers were fake, he could still smell the Hawaiian flora and feel his father’s warm hand in his.He tilted his head up, as if maybe he’d be able to look up and see his dad, but he was still just sitting on the floor of his closet.
He rubbed a finger over the lei and noticed it was a similar shade of pink to Cameron’s panties. He placed it next to the opening to the den, and after a beat, a small tentacle appeared and stroked the flower.
Emory turned back to the box and let out a surprised laugh as yet another memory hit him. “I was having a hard time adjusting to the time change in Hawaii.” Emory pulled out the two husks of a coconut shell and held one in each hand. He’d remembered them being so much bigger, but of course, they would seem big to a ten-year-old’s hands.
“I wasn’t sleeping and was finding it very hard to eat, not just at the appropriate times but virtually at all. We went to a luau, and I barely ate anything. There was anentire pigon a spit just begging to be eaten, but I couldn’t stand even the idea of food. My father found this coconut tree, and he picked up a coconut, extended his claws, and cracked it right open for me.”
Emory traced a finger over some of the hairs on the shell. “I was so impressed and proud of him. I think of him every time I eat coconut now. To be honest, I’m not even that big a fan of coconut, but?—”
Emory nearly dropped the shells when a tentacle appeared next to his hand. Before he could turn his hand over to touch the tentacle, it grabbed one half of the shell and yanked it into the clothing den. Another tentacle emerged and reached for the other shell, but it was in Emory’s farther hand, and the tentacle couldn’t reach.
To Emory’s amazement, the tentacle flopped onto Emory’s hand, making a sort of “gimme” gesture. Pretty much willing to do anything for his mate at this point, he handed over the shell, and it quickly disappeared into the den.
The closet fell still, and Emory glanced back into the bin, but nothing else caught his eye. He felt the weight of the evening settle on his shoulders and creep across his chest, constricting like he was caught in a trap. He didn’t even know how to begin processing Ronan’s announcement. On top of that, they hadn’t even made it to the voting portion of the evening. At this point, he couldn’t care less about his family’s vote, but some part of him was enraged that they hadn’t received it, given that it was the whole reason for this cursed trip.
There was a shuffling noise in the den, and Emory held his breath until the closet fell quiet again.
“I didn’t know you liked coconuts so much, honey. Or maybe…your octopus likes coconuts?” Unsurprisingly, he was met with more silence. “I can keep some in the house if you’d like. I could even open them for you like my father did f-for me.” Emory choked on his words, tears thickening his voice and burning his nose.
Gods, what would his father think of today? This week? His entire time courting Cameron?
He would have demanded Emory tell Cameron he loved him the second he knew he had those feelings. He would have said fuck family tradition, fuck this trip, and fuck anything else that kept Emory from admitting how much he truly loved Cameron. He would have told Emory how none of that mattered, because Cameron was the love of his life and he was going to mate with him regardless of anyone else’s thoughts, feelings, or opinions.
