Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 1

sound; something that's trying to be a laugh but doesn't quite make it, weighed down with disbelief and confusion. "I mean, I know you. I know you and— it wasn't an accident. I asked because—" he shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders, "because maybe if you'd said it was, I would've been okay with believing it. Or not." He gives that not-quite laugh again. "I'm just… still having a serious what the fuck moment here."
    Jace can't do anything else except watch him now, eyes tracking every shift of Cam's hands, the way his eyes flit to the side, touching on the fridge, on the counter, the window, anywhere but Jace. He's chewing at the inside of his lips between words and he's bouncing one of his feet on the floor.
    "I get that." It's the only thing he can say. Because he does.
    Cam lifts up and rests back against the chair again, gaze fixing somewhere on the counter behind Jace. "Yeah. I know you do." He falls silent then, reaches for his coffee again but all he does is curl his fingers in through the handle, plays his thumb along the curve.
    Jace stares out the window. The clouds are still lingering from yesterday's overnight rain, but it's softer. There's little bits of light playing over their small backyard, like the sun is trying to sneak through the breaks in the drifting clouds.
    "Just. Give me some time."
    Jace blinks, the tree in his line of sight blurring a bit as he tries to understand what Cam's just said.
    When he looks back to Cam, Cam's already pushing away from the table, still not looking at Jace.
    "Phil gets back Friday so…" he's tracing the edge of the table now, "give it 'til then. Then. Then we'll talk."
    "That's not very long," he blurts out. His eyes are wide and his chest feels constricted, that awful queasiness from the day before returning. It feels like something's trying to scrape his stomach out. What he doesn't ask and what he wants to know the most is, what Cam hopes being given time will achieve.
    At that Cam's mouth twitches, a wry twist to his lips even while his eyes stay sober. "For me and you, it's enough." Then the smile drops away. "But I'm going to sleep out though, bunk with one of the guys until… well."
    Jace swallows, looks down at his coffee. "Fair enough."
    "All right."
    "All right."
    It's more than he'd expected anyway.
    ****
    With the house empty, he migrates to the garage, his iPod for company.
    It's not that he loses himself in the painting. It just helps him to pretend Cameron isn't around.
    It's odd. He'd spent so much time trying to distance himself before that he hadn't even realized it had never actually worked. Even when they weren't spending time together, there'd been the creak of Cam's footsteps upstairs, the TV left on, the random interruptions when he'd barge into the garage and stay there until Jace gave in and agreed to a best out of three on Mario Cart.
    He hadn't realized he'd gotten so used to looking his fill either. Not until Cam's not there for him to look at. So all he gets is this replay, an infinite loop of Cam under him, ends up having to chew on his tongue to get rid of the sense memory of his skin.
    And there's the moment where he gives in. Just sits down right there on the floor of the garage, hand still dirty with paint and wraps his hand around his cock and jerks off to the remembered feel of Cam's ass tucked up against him, of Cam's back, lean and strong stretched beneath him and he imagines biting down over the mole on Cam's hip. Hand tight on his dick and thumb pressed firmly behind his balls and massaging there, that's the image in his head as his cock jerks in his hand, his thighs straining with the last push.
    It makes a mess on his stomach and some of it gets on the floor.
    It's not until he finishes cleaning it up that he realizes he's bitten his bottom lip bloody and that his cheeks are wet.
    He'd stopped himself from crying out Cam's name.
    ****
    He finishes his painting early dawn Thursday, just as the sky starts to get that soft glow of morning and the birds decide they need to start trying to wake people up with the damn chirping.
    His eyes are dry and aching by the time he steps back from it, eyes roaming the huge canvas, taking it in.
    His shoulders feel weighed down, the joints aching from holding his arms up for such a long while. He thinks it's a good likeness. There's something comforting about seeing that profile, that familiar smile so much like his and Cam's on such a large scale. He misses her.
    "Maybe if you'd