The Truth Within (Pelican Bay 3)

The way he said “dessert” had me shivering.

But the fact that he wasn’t telling me we were over because I couldn’t bring myself out of the closet like I’d promised him, like he deserved, had me covering my eyes as tears of relief threatened.

I hadn’t lost him… yet.

I knew it was just a matter of time, but I would take every minute he would give me.

Maybe if things at home had been shitty, it would have somehow made the decision to tell my parents I was gay easier and them kicking me out would have been a welcome thing. But for some reason, my mother had been more relaxed, friendly even, since she’d returned home from her cruise with my stepfather. Each afternoon that I’d driven her to church, she’d regaled me with stories about the places they’d seen and the things they’d done on their journey. I’d even gotten rare praise when she’d said how nice and clean the house looked when they’d gotten home.

I hadn’t told her that it was because when I wasn’t around Cam I had to keep moving to keep from driving over to see him, and cleaning the house had been one of the best distractions.

I nodded in response to Cam, even though the guilt inside was killing me. I could only hope that the things he’d said about me not wanting to share personal things with him were the only things he’d noticed about my behavior. The one day he’d seen me in town outside the fabric shop and I’d pretended not to hear him had gutted me.

But my mother’s friends had been inside that shop and would have seen me greeting him.

And that would have gotten back to my mom in a matter of minutes. I would have been read the riot act by the time I got home. She would have probably only seen it as me being friends with my uncle Curtis’s rival. I could have handled that, but no doubt if Jimmy had been home, he would have seen my behavior for what it was. My brother wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, especially when he was high, but he would have known. Fortunately, Jimmy had taken off again to Minneapolis to meet up with his friend after I’d gotten paid the previous Friday… the day Cam had gotten shot. Jimmy hadn’t returned yet, which was unusual even for him, but he’d texted my mother to say that he was visiting a friend who could potentially line him up with a computer job that would let him work from home.

I knew the whole story was bullshit, but I hadn’t told my mother that.

She wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

Cam climbed to his feet and then pulled me to mine. When he went to release my hand, I wouldn’t let him and he didn’t protest the move. He led me out of the nursery. I left my brushes behind because I’d only used them as an excuse to escape the Kent house for a few minutes. Watching the two couples and Newt and Sawyer laugh and joke as they’d all prepared dinner had been painful for me.

Like the mural I’d painted that very day, it was exactly the scene I’d imagined in my head when I’d put my paintbrush to the wall. Only, it’d been Cam and me hosting dinner at his house and it’d been him and me touching each other with soft caresses and sweet kisses. I’d even gone so far as to imagine a couple of additional kids in the mix.

We’d been a family that shouldn’t have worked according to the bible and Reverend Page and my mother, but we had. It’d just been a daydream, but the proof that such families did exist was a mere few hundred feet away. The idea that I could be a part of something like that, or that Cam and I could one day have the same thing, was like a virus in my body that kept multiplying inside me.

But along with the hope that Cam had stoked within me had come the stark fear that when Cam walked away – not if, because my heart was telling me it would be inevitable when I clung to him the way my aunt had clung to all those men, desperately trying to find that missing part of herself – I wouldn’t survive it. I’d be alone. I’d be back in that icy pond and there’d be no reason to keep struggling to pull myself up and over the smooth edge of the broken ice. I’d just let go and slip beneath the surface this time…

We were at the house by the time Cam gave my hand a little squeeze. “You okay?” he asked.

I nodded. His attentiveness made my heart hurt.

He pulled my fingers up to his mouth and kissed them, then released my hand. Despite knowing that the Kent house was the one place I wouldn’t be judged for being with Cam, I still couldn’t bring myself to interact with him the way I wanted. I’d thought that confirming my sexuality to Walter would have somehow freed me from the self-inflicted moratorium I’d put on my physical contact with Cam in public, but no such luck. The only time I still felt comfortable touching Cam was when no one was around.