The Book of Daniel by Z. A. Maxfield

than I had since dinner arrived. “Thanks Cam.”
    “For what?”
    “For being a nice guy. For being the kind of guy who always makes people around you feel better.” He smiled and took a sip of his beer, and I went for broke. “So…should I get two hotel rooms for Friday?”
    He shook his head. It was the minutest, most tentative no.
    “Are you sure?”
    Again, he signaled with a brief, embarrassed nod. “One hotel room is fine. One bed.” He glanced away. It was odd that it embarrassed him, considering we’d known each other for a while—we might even be considered friends—and I’d watched him get a blowjob from a stranger.
    He ate the last few bites of his taco in silence. Its filling oozed out onto his fingertips—salsa and sour cream—which he licked off without taking his gaze from mine. His blue eyes glowed like the heart of a flame as the tip of his pink tongue snaked out to swipe over his full lower lip. Fuck , he was hot.
    “I want to see if I can tie your dick in a knot with my tongue like a cherry stem.”
    “ Shit .” Cam dropped his taco, which had somehow imploded, onto his plate. “I have to head to the station right after dinner because I’m working a double shift starting tonight. I promised one of the guys I’d come as soon as I ate.”
    I nodded. “Rain check?”
    “Hell yes.” Cam happily scooped the rest of his food up on chips. His demeanor had changed again. He’d gone from happy, to subdued, to happy again in the space of a meal, and ah, damn. I just needed that. I needed to see him smile.
    At least when I was irritating the shit out of Cam, he didn’t seem sad. I’d growled at him, taken potshots, treated him like a rube or whatever, and he’d given as good as he’d got from me. But ever since the fire he’d been vulnerable to even that, diminished somehow or damaged—- as fragile as my hand. I couldn’t stop myself from doing everything in my power to protect him.
    My gut argued caution. I told myself to watch out. I didn’t want to find myself tied back down to someone and inevitably worrying about what he was thinking or how he was feeling. I didn’t want to have to change my behavior at every turn based on what some guy thought of me.
    I had to tell myself that Cam wasn’t my dad, who was unstable and impossible to make happy, or my mom, whose happiness depended on my living a lie. He wasn’t Bree, who constantly required me to adjust to an ever-changing array of rules, rituals, and magical thinking.
    It occurred to me then what a chameleon I had turned out to be.
    Well. That bore looking into. No wonder I’d become an adept obfuscator.
    I frowned.
    Cam had apparently been watching me. “What is it?”
    “Nothing.” St. Nacho’s felt itchy again. It was closing in on me, I was sinking in it; it covered me like so much beach sand and swallowed me up. “Maybe I’ll head up to the office for the next few days. There are a million little things I know Al wishes I would see to, but he’s been trying to cut me some slack. It’s not fair to expect him to do everything without me.”
    That was deliberately vague. If I’d been talking to Bree, I’d have said I needed to go shopping. Shopping was something she never questioned.
    He wiped his hands on his napkin. “Okay.”
    “I think I need some time.”
    Cam nodded. What could he do? He’d demanded honesty, and I’d given it.
    After that I stopped wondering whether he was happy and started worrying about why I cared as much as I did.
    Cam continued to eat, and I continued to worry, and after we’d paid we walked together to the parking lot.
    I turned to him. “I guess I’ll see you next Friday?”
    “Sure,” he regarded me thoughtfully.
    I opened the door to my car, but Cam closed the distance that separated us, stopping me by grabbing the center of my shirt, buttons and all in his fist, and pulling me back around.
    “I think you forgot something.”
    I gasped, both surprised and frankly turned on