Chapter 29

Henry collapsed onto the bed, exhausted physically and emotionally. Cameron had told him it was the comedown from the molly. He shook his head to himself, sitting up on the edge of the bed with a faint smile remaining on his face as he peeled off his sweaty clothes, tossing them to the floor.

You know, because I took some ecstasy and then came in my pants on the dancefloor of a nightclub. A normal Saturday night.

A shower could wait until morning, even if his crusted cum was still on him. He was too spent.

The experience at Moonlight had been ... well, whatever he’d thought it was going to be like, it wasn’t that. He’d felt outside of himself in a way he couldn’t express. It was incredible, indescribable ... and probably not something he particularly wanted to do again.

Still, Henry had never felt so uninhibited, so in tune with the people around him — especially with Cameron. Something had happened between them on that dancefloor, something more than the physical. He couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around it, but he knew there was something personal about it he couldn’t put his finger on, like she’d let him into a private part of her world — one that defied words and was pure experience.

Or something.

Naked and sighing, he swung his legs into bed, enjoying the cool air after being overheated all night. Cameron was finishing stripping off her own clothes, looking just as exhausted as he felt. If he weren’t so utterly drained, he would have been turned on again by the sight of her lithe body so casually exposed next to him.

She didn’t have a whole lot of muscle — there wasn’t that much on her petite shape at all, really — but what was there, he knew, was denser than it appeared. He may have been too tired to want another round, but he still admired — appreciated — her body, as they both slipped under the sheets.

His gaze lingered on her while she settled in. He wasn’t just admiring what was on the outside.

Henry felt so guilty about how things had gone down, almost ruining their night. Cameron, though, had handled things so much better than he’d expected, and so much better than he could have — yet again.

He’d been frozen with shock and rage — which he supposed was better than how Mal had frozen him at the same club... wow, was that a month ago? He couldn’t decide if it seemed like longer ago than that or just yesterday.

Cameron switched off her lamp — he always made sure she had control over the last light on — and lay there on her back, unmoving except for her steady breathing. Maybe she was too tired to do anything else, but as his eyes adjusted, Henry could see she was staring at the ceiling.

No, she has to be thinking about Mal. How could she not be?

They’d had such a great, unforgettable night ... but Mal had nearly ground it to a halt before it got started. He’d done his best to ignore it, even in his own mind — especially in his own mind — and he supposed Cameron probably had, too.

But they could only do that for so long.

He was so pissed at his wife, though he knew it was really his own fault. Three years had passed since he’d filed for divorce, and there was no one to point the finger at, really, except himself. He’d had plenty of time to get her out of his life. Now, he was still tangled up with her, and Cameron was caught up in the web.

“Hey,” he said, using that soft voice they seemed to automatically use with each other in the dark and the quiet.

She didn’t answer.

He tried again, letting her know in his voice that he knew what was finally surfacing in her mind. They just had to talk about it now. “What’s up?”

Cameron stayed silent for a few beats, but he could tell from her dim silhouette that she was thinking as hard as ever. She spoke quietly, without turning to him.

“When was the last time you fucked Mal,” she said, as if asking the ceiling a question she didn’t really want to know the answer to.

Henry winced and closed his eyes in a long blink that he wasn’t sure he really wanted to end.

Mal must have told her. Shit, has she been holding onto this all night?

The fact that she knew he’d had sex with his wife only a couple of weeks ago didn’t scare him on its own. He was embarrassed about what he’d done with Mal, yes, but only because of what it said about how naïve and lonely he’d been. He trusted Cameron to see those sides of him without seeing the same pathetic person he saw in his own mind’s eye.

No, what concerned him most was that Mal had told her anything about them at all. Why? Was she trying to drive a wedge between him and Cameron? He didn’t think she was the type, but...

What else did Mal tell her?

Henry took a deep breath and decided he would just tell Cameron everything. That was the only way to make sure she knew he trusted her — even with the parts of himself he was most ashamed of. Especially the parts of himself he was most ashamed of. He sure as hell didn’t trust himself with them.

He reached for her hand under the sheets, closing his fingers around hers. She didn’t return the gesture, but didn’t take her hand away, either.

“Cameron,” he said, hoping she’d turn to look at him. They always said so much to each other through their eyes. He felt like he could only tell half the story without them. Reluctantly, she slowly dragged her head over to face him.

Once he saw her eyes, almost gray in the darkness, he could tell immediately why she was reluctant to meet his gaze.

She doesn’t even want to know, but it’s driving her crazy.

He squeezed her hand and felt even guiltier inside. They’d still had what he would think of as a special night together, but the whole time she’d been bottling this up. Somehow, he was sure that wasn’t the only time she’d lost herself completely in the music when something more serious was plaguing her thoughts. Even more of who the woman next to him was fell into place.

“It was ... a couple of weeks ago,” he began. He didn’t want to say exactly which night, even as he exhorted himself to be as honest as he could. He tried to meet Cameron’s stare while he said the words. But he couldn’t. “I don’t know what she told you, but it was ... a huge mistake. It reminded me of all the reasons we aren’t together anymore — and why it’s good we’re not.”

Cameron’s eyes searched his intensely, narrowing just a fraction. Maybe she was trying to figure out if he was telling the truth. Maybe she was doing the math on how far along the two of them had been in their confusing relationship a couple of weeks ago.

She pulled the sheets up a little further over her neck, the rest of her body still square with the ceiling as she looked at him for a long time in silence.

“What ... happened between you two?” she finally said, her lips forming each word deliberately. Another question her eyes said it hurt to ask. Her hand hadn’t budged in his.

Henry’s focus drifted away from her, unable to look at Cameron while he let the memories come back to him, all the moments and feelings he’d worked so hard to bury over the years. He hadn’t spoken them out loud since he told Paul and Heather a few years ago, just after he’d spilled everything to his sister. But he knew he wanted Cameron to know — that if they were going to move forward from tonight, she needed to know.

He told himself Cameron wouldn’t look at him any differently. She already knew the broad contours, probably, just from who he was and how he acted. Maybe she even thought it was something worse than what it actually was. Honestly, that thought frightened Henry more than any other.

She’s gonna say, “That’s it?” That’s why you’re such a fucking pussy?

The gentle feeling of her hand tightening around his brought him back to what he needed to do, and he took another deep breath.

“It ... wasn’t just one thing. Everything was great for a long time. I don’t know when I can say things started to change. It didn’t happen overnight.” He sighed again. Cameron still held his hand, patiently letting him gather his thoughts together. “But maybe ... I don’t know, five, or six, or maybe seven years in, she just ... started asking me to do things ... in bed ... that I wasn’t ... super comfortable with.”

Save for the steady murmur of the central heat, his low voice was the only sound in the room, allowing Henry to hate how every word out of his mouth sounded — so shallow, so inconsequential compared to how actually living through what they were describing had made him feel at the time. He didn’t dare look over to see Cameron’s expression.

“She ... wanted me to be rougher,” he continued, watching in his head the movie he was commentating. “To ... hit her.” He swallowed. “Choke her. Things like that.”

He flicked his eyes to Cameron’s, succumbing to the need to know what they were saying.

They weren’t saying much. Maybe she was thinking, “That’s it?” But her delicate hand squeezed his tighter under the covers anyhow. He swallowed again and kept going.

“Then ... if I didn’t do what she wanted — or ... or even if I did — she’d...” He couldn’t look at Cameron anymore. He was so embarrassed and ashamed at how stupid it was going to sound out loud.

My wife called me names. And that hurt. Because I’m 5 years old.

He slipped his hand out from Cameron’s grasp and ran his palms over his face, turning to speak to the ceiling, too. The heater kicked off, leaving an eerie quiet in place of the hypnotic hum. When he spoke again, it was even more softly.

“She would tell me how pathetic I was, how I wasn’t good enough for her. How lucky I was I even got to ... to fuck her. She’d say afterwards it was just dirty talk, that she didn’t mean it.” He felt a tear roll down the side of his cheek even though he was doing his best to disassociate, to just say what happened as evenly as he could without acknowledging that it had happened to him. “It was ... every time. For years. I didn’t want to have sex anymore. Every night we went to bed, I was afraid she’d want to.