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The wrongness of it is a stone in my chest, heavy and immovable. We’ve never slept together, but we’re meant to. Cameron should be with me, his back against me, my arm around his waist, his heartbeat under my palm.
19
CAMERON
The cold settles into my bones, turning the hollow part of me frozen. The trees in the quad are bare, the grass brown beneath my boots as I walk out of the campus bookstore with a coffee that’s already losing its warmth, when I see Lucien twenty yards away.
His hair is parted to the side in a dark wave, and he’s wearing all black except for the red in the tartan scarf wrapped around his neck, and for one stupid second, I want him. I haven’t seen him since he pulled me out of the river and I called him a psycho, since everything fell apart. And seeing him here, existing in the same space as if none of it happened, disarms me and makes me dizzy.
I think about turning around and walking the other way, pretending I didn’t see him. But my brain moves too slow and my feet are even slower. I’m caught between running and staying, between the coffee growing cold in my hands and the heat rushing up my neck.
His head whips in my direction.
His eyes seek mine, and they’re alert, instantly reading the alarm in my face.
I turn and rush the other way, my breath forming white clouds and my fingers growing numb from the coffee cup.
“Cam.”
I panic at the urgency in his voice and walk faster.
“Cam, wait!”
His hand catches my elbow, and I jerk away, spinning around to face him.
“Are you following me?”
Lucien arches an eyebrow.
“Following you?” He shakes his head. “Cameron, this is my school too. I’m not following you. I’m just…walking through the quad.”
He’s right. I can’t argue with him. Deep down, a part of me is relieved to see him anyway, to know that he’s still close. But I can’t lean into that relief.
“Right. Okay. Well, I have to go.”
I try to move past him, but he steps to the side, blocking my path, making it impossible to ignore him.
“Can we talk?” His voice is tender now, and something in me begins to thaw.
“Please?”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Then just listen.”
I cross my arms over my chest, defensive.
“Fine. Talk.”
Lucien takes a breath. His eyes move carefully over my face and then travel down my body before he talks, and I suddenly feel warmer.
“Everything I told you as Gwen was true,” he says. “All of it. My thoughts, my feelings, the things I said about understanding you—that was all real. That was me.”
“So you were being real when you asked to see my dick?”
“Yes,” he says quietly. “Even then.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t believe he admitted it. Lucien sat in his room, listened to my voice, and asked me to do things.
