Look at You

Epilogue: Little Gifts

Simon

Cameron hasn't left my apartment in 95 days. Not that I'm counting.

"Do you have your wallet?" He's eyeing the kitchen counter, the new sideboard by the door. "Keys?"

"Yes and yes," I tell him, reaching up to kiss his cheek.

"I'm so nervous," he says, grabbing my wrist, preventing me from heading out the door. "Call me the second it's over."

"Cam!" I'm laughing. "It'll go well. I'm prepared."

For the first time since I started this side hustle, I'm negotiating my rate with Epic Games. It was Cameron who told me I was worth so much more than a measly 400 grand. Cameron Lewis using the word measly to modify 400 grand was the only reason I decided to initiate this meeting in the first place.

When I head downstairs and get in his truck (despite all the tender love and care Cam had put into her, the Rover was at quitting time) he's already texting me another emphatic GOOD LUCK.

When I call him after the meeting, he is so convinced that it was this text that helped me secure my first million-dollar deal that he suggests printing it out and putting it in a scrapbook.

"Cameron Lewis," I am yelling at him through the car's speakerphone. "Did you just use the word scrapbook?"

Twenty minutes later I'm home, and he's kissing me and taking off every piece of business casual I picked out this morning. It's disgusting, how often we're naked.

A mutual shower and an order of Thai food later, we're back in bed recounting every detail of our days (my meeting, Cameron's day off, which included lunch with Riley and a pilates class with Callie). 

I eye the Nike duffel bag next to my dresser that plays home to Cameron's rotating set of clothes. I eye the nightstand behind him, with his stack of library books and half-empty bottle of melatonin.

"You haven't left in 95 days," I tell him, because I am counting.

He furrows his eyebrows but he's smiling. "What do you mean I haven't left?"

"You quite literally have spent every waking and sleeping moment in my house since we started dating."

"Dating for the second time," Cam amends. I nod.

"Fine. The second time."

"Should I go?" He plays it off casually, but I see a film of fear in his eyes for the first time since that night.

"I was actually hoping you'd stay." I prop myself up on my elbow. "Permanently."

He swallows. "That rent bill getting steep for you, is it?" When I don't answer, he says, "Is that a little soon, Si?"

"Oh, cut the shit," I tell him, because we are both well aware that this isn't us five months ago. Now, we stay up all night sharing our deepest fears and longest-kept secrets. We are each other's emergency contacts. He goes out to lunch with my mother without me and calls my nephew his own. We listen, we talk, we understand each other, we love. Every damn day.

"If this is about you feeling bad about using my truck all the time, let's just get you a new car."

"Cameron." I give him my best serious face. "I don't want a new car." 

"Simon," he winces. "I can't—this place—" his eyes are drawn around the room. At the lofted ceilings, the walk-in closet, the shower with two shower heads.