Liz laughed, and the thought was so lovely and bittersweet it almost cracked my heart in two.
I looked over at Liz, her face bathed in the orange glow of the fire.
“I wish I could just talk to him. You know?” I said.
Liz shrugged one shoulder. “So do it. Talk to him.”
I shook my head.
“I mean it,” she told me.
“You’re crazy,” I said.
“Yup. Now do it.”
I was silent for a long while. Minutes passed with no sound in the air other than the fire. We got drunker and drunker, staring at the fire.
And finally, I spoke.
“You’d love him, Jason,” I said softly, staring into the flames. “There’s a whole lot to love. I think you could have helped him with his puzzles better than I ever could. And Cam would get a damn kick outta you. If Cooper saw your skills with a yo-yo, he’d never leave you alone.”
I felt dumb, talking into nothing.
But of course, Liz was right. It did feel good to talk to Jason, even if he wasn’t there. Even if he could never be here again.
My throat got tight as I spoke again, tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. “I want to try with him, Jase,” I said quietly. “And it’s the scariest fucking thing I could imagine, but I think I can do it. I know I can. And you taught me that.”
I finished the rest of my beer. I clenched my teeth together, trying so hard to hold myself back.
But when Lizzy came over and pulled me up out of the chair and into a hug, I lost that game. I cried in her arms, drunk and stupid and full of every goddamn emotion I was capable of. I cried so hard that it turned into a laugh at the end, and when I pulled away from her, I ran my forearm across my face, wiping away the tears.
“You suck, Liz,” I said.
“Yeah, I love you, too,” she told me.
She disappeared into her house and then emerged a minute later with a tray full of graham crackers, big marshmallows, and bars of chocolate. In the other hand, she had a box of tissues.
“Busting out the big guns,” I told her.
“Get that snot outta your nose and roast some marshmallows with me,” she said.
We spent the rest of the night talking about the littlest things. Our favorite cartoons when we were kids, the best condiments for sandwiches, the optimal amount of char on a roasted marshmallow.
But Liz had given me something I hadn’t even known I’d needed. Tonight, she’d given me permission to let a chapter of my life come to a close. To grieve it without staying stuck in its currents forever.
To look forward to new things, new hopes, and new love, without it fucking terrifying me to my core.
And at the end of the night, even while I was drunk and my eyes hurt from crying and my cheeks hurt from laughing with Liz, I felt only one thing about Cam.
I felt sure. Sure about something, maybe for the first time in my life.
17
Cam
“He’s going to be here in half an hour,” I said to Perry as I walked back into my kitchen after hanging up with Luke. “Are the chocolate-dipped strawberries ready? And what about the caprese bites?”
“We’ve got ‘em, we’ve got ‘em,” Perry said, waving me off. “What’s got you so riled up?”
My brother was usually the one who was about ten times more nervous for anything than I was, so I knew if he was telling me to calm down, hell was freezing over. We were hosting a dinner party here tonight for him, his partner Rock, my kids, and Luke.
“I’m not riled up,” I said.
“You look great, by the way,” he told me. “Is that shirt new?”
It was another fitted henley shirt. Luke had liked my other henley shirt so much on our date that I’d gone a little crazy, getting three others.
“I ordered it last week,” I said. “Late night purchase. Are we sure the whipped cream will stay fresh enough in the fridge?”
Perry chuckled, returning to chopping up carrots for our veggie plate. “You’re buzzing like a little bee tonight, Cam. You’ve got your energy back.”
I bit my lip, glancing out the back windows to make sure the kids were still out playing.
“Perry, I’ve got to tell you something.”
He stopped chopping, grabbing his wine glass nearby and taking a sip. “Dish.”
“I… went on a date the other night.”
I braced myself, waiting for his reaction. My heart felt like it slowed to a crawl inside my chest. My brother had been close with Rachel, too—they’d basically been like siblings for their whole life. I knew that Perry had taken the divorce hard, and I’d been steadfast about telling him that I wouldn’t be dating for a long, long time.