“I know it’s pretty unusual,” Luke said. “But it’s the only way I know how to be. I can’t be anything but myself, you know?”
“A year ago, I couldn’t have even dreamed of having a night like this,” I said, adjusting on the mattress, facing him. He came and sat down on the mattress, too, propping up a couple pillows behind him and lying back.
“You could have a night like this anytime you wanted,” he said. “You’ve got a backyard, right? You can toss up a tent.”
I puffed out a laugh. “I actually don’t own a tent anymore. Rachel took it. A nice new one, too. We’d been planning a camping trip for this summer, with my brother Perry…”
I drifted off, not knowing how to finish the sentence.
We’d had plenty of plans. And none of them meant a damned thing now.
“It must be hard, Cam,” he said. “But it’s true. This backyard was nothing but a pile of dirt, weeds, and some trees when I bought this place. You can make your life what you want it, even with a big, blank slate.”
My chest ached. Big, blank slate. That’s exactly what my life felt like now. And I knew Luke must have understood that feeling too, in some completely different way.
“It feels so aimless,” I said quietly, my chest still tightening. “I’m not used to aimless. My life was always on track. To something. You know?”
“I know,” he said. “And now you’re forced to let go, even if you never asked for it.”
I swallowed, and it was difficult. “Yes. It’s funny, because one of the big reasons Rachel wanted a divorce was because I was too rigid. Too set in my ways.”
“Set in your ways? What are you, secretly eighty years old and doing some Benjamin Button thing?”
“I am thirty-six going on ninety-six, as Rachel used to put it,” I said. “I know she was right. Our life really had become boring. We tried everything, too. Salsa dancing classes. Pottery classes. Couples therapy. Traveling to Paris.”
“Sounds like you can be a little adventurous,” Luke said.
“It might sound like that, but I planned out every last thing,” I said. “I couldn’t let go. And I knew it. But my brain just… does that. It wants to solve things. Fix things. Make sense of the world.”
“I bet Cam-brain can be a blessing and a curse.”
I snorted. “Yes. Cam-brain helps me at work, and helps me with crossword puzzles, but life is just… messy sometimes. Rachel felt trapped, and I felt like she was slipping away from me.”
I stared up at the patterns on the top of the tent, the long shadows cast by the edges of the lamp up top.
So much for getting my dick wet and breaking my rules. Instead, I was pouring my heart out to a poor ex-Marine in his backyard.
“Hey,” he said, reaching out and squeezing my arm. “You’re getting in your head too much. Stop it.”
I pulled in a deep breath of the fresh air through my nostrils, looking back at him. “Guilty.”
“I promise, one day you can be a weirdo just like me, sleeping in a tent in your backyard whenever you want, hooking up whenever you want, having total and complete independent freedom,” he said with a small smile.
I lifted an eyebrow. “So this is where you take all your hookups, huh? Here I was thinking it was your bedroom.”
“Oh, no. I only take the ones with bad behavior out here,” he said.
“Great. I thought you said I was pretty, not bad.”
“You can be both,” he said, squeezing my arm again before pulling it away.
“You enjoyed that kiss, and we both know it.”
He sighed. “I loved that kiss,” he said, shifting on the mattress, kicking off his boots and bringing his feet up. “And no, I do not take any of my hookups out here. This is my place.”
“So I’m special?”
“You’re not a hookup,” he clarified.
“Oh. Right,” I said, rolling my eyes. “It’s a damn shame. I really did want to feel what those rough hands would be like on my body.”
“Rough?” he asked, with mock offense. “I try to put lotion on them. When I remember.”
I laughed. “When you remember?”
“It’s not easy to.”
“I have an entire skincare routine, every morning and every night,” I said. “I’ve never admitted that to anyone but Rachel.”
“Of course you do,” Luke said. “You’re very cute, Cameron.”
A little flutter of butterflies passed through my chest every time he complimented me. I had forgotten how nice it felt to be wanted by someone new, or at the very least, liked.
He sat up for a second, reaching over and turning off the little electric lantern. We were bathed in darkness for a moment, but as my eyes adjusted, the soft glow of the outdoor string lights filtered through the gauze of the tent.