The Men Next Door

Ch 34 - Brooks

The next five months flew by in a happy, blip-less blur. Luca turned twenty-six. Campbell was well on her way to twenty-seven. And by the time Brenna called at the beginning of June, panically telling me to cancel my flight to Nashville because Elijah had gotten the call for a foster placement—a fifteen-year-old boy named Judah—I was mostly just relieved to have a few extra days at home with Cam.

Only we didn't get to spend it alone, because it was impossible to get away from Luca and Addy's will-they-won't-they nonsense that spring. Ever since he'd dropped the bomb about their hookups at the Knicks game, they'd been practically dating. Grabbing dinner every week. Showing up to my apartment together. Having sleepovers every damn night.

And I wasn't one to rush labels, but after the hundredth time they adamantly denied they had any feelings for each other?

I was tired of acting oblivious and nodding along.

"When do you think they're going to make it official?" I asked Cam after they left my place one evening, hand-in-hand and headed for yet another perfectly platonic sleepover at Addy's.

"Maybe never, at this rate," she said with a laugh. I made a start for the cozy solace of my bedroom and she followed me down the hallway before continuing with her thoughts. "It's been what? Almost six months since they started spending time together?"

"Something like that," I said, even though I knew exactly how long it had been. It was the very same week that Cam told me she chose me. How could I forget it? "When I asked Luca, he said he doesn't know how to, and I quote, 'have the fucking conversation when she changes the fucking subject every fucking time I fucking try.'"

Campbell giggled as she pulled back the covers on her side of the bed. "Addy's good at that. Avoiding the scary feelings. Focusing on the fun stuff."

"That makes two of you."

She nudged me with the pillow that she was propping against the headboard to use as a makeshift backrest. "Make that three of us."

"Me?" I asked. "What am I avoiding?"

Cam looked nervous all of the sudden. "I don't want to push you, but..."

I raised an eyebrow, wondering where the hell this was going. I felt like I'd been an open book. Skeletons in the footnotes and all. "But?"

"You were so cagey about Ilya, Brooks," she accused, slipping her legs under the sheets as she got situated. I laid on the other side of the mattress, elbow pressed into the foam and head supported by my hand before she added, "I've never seen you like that."

Ilya and I had run into each other again about a week prior. I was with Cam, in the exact same laundromat-slash-coffee-shop where I'd seen him before, and it could've gone seamlessly if he stuck with the 'business advice guy' identity. That was how I'd introduced him to my girlfriend, who recognized his name from our occasional texts. And it was pretty damn close to the truth.

But then he made a joke about not having to negotiate with Luca after all, and I, admittedly, shut the conversation down before he could explain exactly what kind of negotiations he was referring to. It was too much, too soon. I didn't want to risk the happy bubble Cam and I had been living in.

And as well as she'd responded to praise and fantasies and bondage, I wasn't sure how to broach the rest.

"Do you remember when you told me about church?" I started carefully. "How it made you feel guilty about sex growing up, and after the first time we fooled around?"

Campbell nodded. "You said you'd been there too."

"I have. I was. Only for me, it was like the more I was told 'no, don't do that,' the harder I wanted to look for it. To figure out exactly what it was they were so desperate to protect me from." When I looked at Cam, something in her expression had changed. Guarded eyes were exchanged for understanding ones. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. "And it was that unchecked curiosity that, eventually, led me to Ilya."

"The business advice guy," she said dryly.

I chuckled. "Yes. Which is true, by the way. He helped me figure out the legal stuff when I was getting started, and he still helps me out now when I'm not too proud to ask for it." My smile slowly faded while I homed in on my point. "But he gave me a very different type of advice when we were younger."

"Advice like..."

"How to negotiate. How to talk openly. How to stay safe." My gaze was drawn to the closet where the restraints I had yet to use with Cam were tucked away. "How to tie knots."

"What kind of—Oh." Her eyes widened. "Those knots?"

I nodded, returning my attention to her. "The pretty stuff is called Shibari. But he taught me the simple ties I've done around your wrists, too."

It was that statement that led the charge into our conversation about the New York kink scene. And over the next hour or so, I told Cam all about the meetups and clubs I'd explored in my mid-twenties. I met some great people. It was fun for a while. But that was about the extent of it for me.

I wasn't nearly as dedicated to the lifestyle as most of the other folks were, and I felt like an imposter, even when Ilya reassured me time and time again that I wasn't. That I was welcome anywhere he was. The guy was a great mentor—I'll give him that all day long—but even he couldn't convince me to stick around for much longer than a year. Not when every sub who stumbled into our circle was looking for a twenty-four-seven dynamic or more masochism than I was willing to give.

And after the night when someone asked me to push them harder, and I nearly had a panic attack about becoming some fucked up version of my dad?

I officially called it quits.

Maybe it was just a case of wrong place, wrong time. I'll never know who showed up to Ilya's newcomer party the week after I left, or who it was that reappeared and asked about me three months later, because I didn't let him explain much of anything over the phone. I'd made my decision, I was done, and I wanted to stay in the dark. That was the end of that.

But I still missed playing sometimes.

And kinkster or not, Cam's inclination to try out all my naughty suggestions was a dream come true.

"What do you need from me, then?" she asked at the tail end of our conversation. "Now that I know?"

"Not a thing." I placed my hand along her thigh as I gathered my thoughts. "If you want to try something, great. I'll almost always be willing. But at the end of the day, I just need you. My love isn't conditional. There aren't any secret fees or last-minute add-ons. You already have me."

She looked down at me skeptically. "You just said you missed it. I want you to be happy."

"I am happy. Beyond happy." I moved up beside her, leaning back against my headboard. "We already do some of it, Cam. Informally. The safe words, the restraints, 'good girl,' the way I tease you...that's all kink." I tilted her chin up with a few fingers. "And even if all of that stopped, I'd miss you a hell of a lot more."

She looked at me like she couldn't believe that was true. Like her worth was tied to her body, to sexual favors. Like I couldn't possibly just love her for who she was.

I wished I could turn back time and stop all the people who made her assume that.

But I guess without their interference, she never would've made her way to me.