Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 1

little low. He reaches up and twists his hair. Somewhere along the way he'd lost his hair band too and although it's got a nice length to it, it's still a little tough to twist it up into a knot without something to hold it there. He manages though and then pushes away from the sink.
    He doesn't look in Cam's direction as he moves to the table and starts to collect the pizza boxes.
    For a while, all that accompanies his clean-up is the sound of the rain outside, a soft thing at odds with the ill feeling in the pit of his stomach. The room feels like a completely different place. There's a pressure on his temples and his ears feel like they're about to pop. He moves the chairs, tucks them back in and the scrape of the legs on the tiled floor feels as if it's coming from a long way away. But when Cam finally speaks, it all snaps back into place.
    "What was that?"
    Cam's voice is whip sharp and hard, like it's containing all that aggression Jace had seen out in the park, all of it compressed under fisted hands and white knuckles.
    There's no one to see and question it now, though.
    He wants to move out of there, feels cornered, his skin too tight and cold, hyperaware of the slightest shift of air against him. He can smell rain and sweat and he doesn't know if it's him or Cam.
    The rain starts hitting the window a little harder.
    Jace wets his lips and carries his stack of pizza boxes over to the counter. He starts in on the glasses, focusing on the clink of glass meeting glass. "What?"
    There's a stillness there, and Jace doesn't know what to do with this. This was never a scenario he planned for. This was never meant to have happened, and now he's fucked it all up. Shit. Shit .
    He carries the glasses to the sink too, keeping his back to Cam. "You should go and get cleaned up, you might catch something," he says instead. He doesn't know what else to do except carry on as he would otherwise. Even though it's not the same. Everything is strained; every calm gesture as he puts the kitchen slowly back to rights, is forced.
    "Jace."
    This time he can't ignore it. There's a command in that tone. It says stop . It says listen to me . So he does. He takes a breath and though it feels like it barely fills up his lungs, his chest feels too tight for him to breathe easily. After another moment though, he manages to lift his gaze.
    He hasn't changed since getting back, had stayed with the others out front when Jace had rushed by and given strained smiles when they patted his back, talked about a good game— but Cam had stood with them, flicking only a tense look his way as Jace had walked past him. So he's standing there, still shirtless, jeans clinging a bit more now from getting drenched.
    Jace doesn't look although it's all there and it's like an itch in the back of his throat driving him crazy, warring with the roll of nausea doing the rounds too, trying to climb its way out. If he looks he'll remember— and if he remembers it in any more detail, he might have to turn back around and throw up the few slices of pizza and gulps of beer he'd had earlier.
    Cam isn't having the same problem. There's no flinching away when he meets Jace's eyes, not even a twist in his expression. He's all hard lines, the shade of his eyes harder to see in the lightless kitchen. It seems a shade closer to Jace's jar of water after he dips his brush in to wash off the paint.
    "It was an accident," Jace says, and his Adam's apple bobs with a hard swallow. He licks his lips and then rubs his fingers over his mouth hard, like he's wiping something away. "Right?"
    It's like all the muscles in his face lock up. His teeth are clenched so hard he feels the pressure on the bolts of his jaw. He can't lie.
    "Jace?"
    He shakes his head and shoves away from the counter, control cracking open and making way for the smaller cracks, the ones that leave him feeling raw and exposed, and he knows it's all on his face now, that Cam knows him the same as he knows Cam and he can see it in the tightness of his mouth, in the hunched line of his shoulders and the dipped set of his chin.
    "I've still got some work to finish." This time his voice does shake.
    He leaves everything else where it is. Clean up can wait.
    Right now he wants to be in his own space.
    ****
    The next morning when he gets back from his run, Cam is at the table, the morning's newspaper spread out on the table.
    The smell of coffee is strong and Cam's got a mug of it on the table, his hand covering the