Hush (3 page)

“Wren.” The boy doesn’t offer a hand, just shifts his weight onto one leg so his hip juts out a bit. He’s wearing wide-buckled boots that come up almost to his knees. His pants are insanely tight. That’s a strange thing to notice… Cam snaps his eyes up and the boy’s—Wren’s—smile only widens. He leans forward and eyes Cam’s notebook. He smells like rain. Cam has to close his eyes against a disorienting wave of dizziness; it’s a little frightening but also inexplicably
good
.

“Stats, hmm?” Wren shifts the strap of his satchel, stretching his shirt to reveal a little more skin.

“Yeah,” Cam forces himself to breathe normally. What is wrong with him? “Not my thing.”

“You should get a tutor,” Wren says. “You’ll get it down in no time.”

“Final Wednesday.” Cam shrugs and tries not to feel stupid. Obviously Wren knows this, since they share the class. “Not a lot of time.”

There’s another long silence in which they just stare at each other; it’s not awkward, but something else, and Cam’s unable to look away. A flush starts to rise through his body.

“I should go,” Wren says. His eyes never leave Cam’s. They’re the color of May grass, and when they settle on Cam’s that something hot, that something new, flares and falls deep in his stomach.

“Studying?” Cam manages faintly.

“Not exactly.” Wren gestures toward the stacks. “Research.”

“Oh,” Cam says. His fingers buzz, and his skin, his muscles, his lips.

“I’ll see you later,” Wren says lightly, and bites his lip around a flirtatious smile. Cam has seen that sort of smile countless times as he watched others engage in that dance. He’s never had such a look directed at him—not like this. It’s disorienting, how much it makes him want more.

Cam turns to watch Wren go. He probably looks a fool, but he cannot take his eyes from Wren as he disappears into the stacks.

Cam closes his eyes and tries to breathe, and all he can see is the slim width of Wren’s shoulders under that shirt, the fit of his jeans and those boots miraculously making his legs look miles long.

He lets a moment pass and inhales as slowly as he can. His fingers shake. Something is
insisting
inside him, pulling and pull­ing, wanting him to follow. When deep breathing doesn’t work, and when trying to name the feeling and put it away doesn’t work, when acknowledging that he hasn’t any idea what the hell is hap­pening doesn’t seem to make a difference, Cam does what he can’t seem to help doing and follows.

Wren doesn’t have to wait
long;
maybe a touch longer than he expects, when he broadcasted so clearly. He sets his bag on the floor, leans against the wall between rows of books and props one foot against the wall. He doesn’t untether, not for a second, not when Cam is in his blood like this. Impatiently, he pulls a little, touches the desire inside Cam’s body and compels him to come closer.

Getting to look at Cam, to examine his face close up and for a longer period, was lovely. His triangular chin and slightly slanted eyes, a deep chocolate brown Wren’s not seen before, are stunning and sensual. Something steady burns inside those eyes.

Wren tugs harder, and finally, satisfyingly, Cam is there. His eyes are wide and he looks unsure, but it doesn’t really matter, not when Wren’s eyes meet his, not when Cam’s hands, wide and hot, come up to frame Wren’s face. Wren’s eyes want to flutter shut; he tilts his head back and feels them grow heavier as his body’s imperative rises. He covers Cam’s hands with his own and exhales brokenly.

“I don’t—” Cam says, pressing and molding his body until it is curled around Wren’s. It thrills him, the sharp bright desire flaring in Cam. Wren breathes him in, waiting. Cam is all boy and heat, and his lips are so, so close. Wren flattens his shoulders against the wall and shifts his knee so Cam can crowd closer, opens his mind and uses his gift to project his desire, hot and strong into Cam, and swallows the sharp inhalation of Cam’s breath just before his mouth crashes against Wren’s.

Wren’s mouth is invitation.
It’s
an inevitability Cam wasn’t expect­ing but
feels
. Some part of him, deep in his core, recognizes that he has no idea how to do this. But his body moves instinctually, and no part of him second-guesses Wren’s lips. Wren’s tongue slips past his; his mouth pushes against Cam’s and then draws back, as if he’s expecting something, and Cam is defenseless. He has no idea what he’s doing, he’s never done this, but kissing Wren is intuitive. The slide of his tongue along Wren’s, pulling his mouth back and nibbling at those lips before dipping back in, just happens. A primal need unlocks, their mouths are open and blazing and Cam is suddenly
ravenous;
a shocking chasm of desire is cracking open inside his body. The pleasure he feels at the touch of Wren’s lips against his cascades through him until he aches. Pushing Wren roughly against the wall, he strains for more.

Wren’s arms are around his shoulders and he’s making delicious sounds of pleasure and encouragement against Cam’s mouth. Cam pulls away, sucking in shaking breaths. He startles at the touch of those lips against his neck, kisses that feel like fire. He tips his head back, and one hand comes up to thread through Wren’s messy hair and keep him close. Wren nips and sucks and holds Cam close as he trembles. He feels as if he’s about to shake out of his skin.

It’s with that hand in Wren’s hair that Cam pulls him back to lean down for another kiss, his tongue stroking into Wren’s mouth. Everything is silk and wet and heat and Cam is hard—unex­pectedly hard. Pressing against Wren’s stomach, his body seeks something more.

“Yes,” Wren pulls back to whisper. Cam looks into his eyes then and feels his knees buckle from a rush of intense pleasure.

“What—” he swallows, closes his eyes and can’t help crowding closer. There’s no other word for his body demands; he grinds against Wren even as his mind wakes. “I don’t under—
oh
—”

He stops when he feels Wren’s erection against his leg. With his eyelids sultry at half-mast, Wren bites his lip. When he closes his eyes and arches his hips into Cam, something… leaves. The inten­sity of pleasure that has overwhelmed Cam abates long enough for his complete confusion to surface.

“Oh
shit
,” Wren swears, then pushes him away, so suddenly Cam stumbles back. “
Oh shit,
you don’t—”

“Wait what?” Cam reaches for him and Wren just shakes his head and sidesteps him.

“You don’t know, oh my god I thought you
knew
,” Wren says, closing his eyes and taking a stuttering breath. With that, the frantic wanting slowly wanes from Cam’s body.

“What… I—”He can barely formulate words. “What
was
that?”

“I thought you
knew
,” Wren accuses. “Have you ever—have you ever even been with someone?”

Cam feels a flush stain his cheeks. “That’s—I, I mean—”

Wren pulls away. His cheeks are hectic; his eyes are wide. “I don’t play with new. I’m sorry. I can’t, it’s a rule.”

“A rule? What—” Wren turns away. “Wait,” Cam says, to no avail. He watches, tingling and dizzy, as Wren walks away, light-footed and fast.
So fast
. It’s all happened so fast, he feels as if he’s been picked up by a tornado, turned around and utterly flattened, confused and unsure. The long room bracketed by bookshelves is empty, but the echo of Wren lingers in a wake of sibilant energy streaming through and past Cam.

Cam lies awake in bed
for hours that night, puzzled and turned on. It never occurred to him that he might be attracted to men, too. What’s more confusing, he parses in the dark, is how… not-weird the idea is. Or seems. It’s not threatening, even if he’s never felt it before.

Then again, maybe he has. Cam thinks of his friend Adam in high school. They’d run track together and admiring Adam’s body, as another athlete, had made sense to him. Adam had a sense of humor and a lightness to his personality that had drawn Cam to his friendship as soon as they’d met. Maybe it wasn’t as intense or confusing as what he’s been feeling for Wren, but from where he is now, Cam can see that it was attraction.

Is it his nature, buried deep, or is it just
Wren
? Nothing has ever felt like this connec­tion with Wren, the curiosity and longing these last months, then the explo­sive fervor between them when Wren kissed him. Cam recalls the moments just before, staring at his notes in the library base­ment, confused but unable to resist his body’s call toward Wren. He pictures Wren’s smug expectation, his lightning eyes.

Cam rolls over; his phone tells him it’s past three a.m., and he’s nowhere close to sleep. The screen casts a too-bright light, piercing the dark. No matter though; Nate could sleep through anything. He’s snuffling lightly in his bed. Cam breathes steadily and tries not to relive the moment, the crash of energy and desire and light between his lips and Wren’s, their bodies and skin. He tries to ignore the way his skin still throbs and the unsettling desire flooding his limbs, so that he can sleep.

It’s useless, resisting. It’s strange too, to feel pulled toward such a con­crete fantasy. His fantasies have always been vague, flashes of desire and thoughts of pleasure between nameless bodies. Cam has always wondered at his own lack of desire com­pared to what he’s observed in high school friends or liv­ing with Nate, who brings a casual stream of women through their door and has a well-developed libido and ease with sex that Cam doesn’t.

This desire is definitely more specific. Uncomfortable, but sweet. Grounding, as if—for one of the rare times in his life—he is present in his own body and the space around it. He’s seldom noticed that he
wasn’t
grounded. Running feels almost the same; the high that comes after­ward matches the rush he felt kissing Wren.

* * *

Wren walks out of the
library
on autopilot, not really aware of what he’s doing until he’s getting off the bus in his neighborhood. It’s dark enough that he knows he has to be alert, but he’s still in enough shock that he has to actively work to try to sense his surroundings in any way.

Nora is home, he knows. He left her there just a few hours ago, with a promise of a late night guilty pleasure
Clueless
screening. Fuck. He cannot even face her, or the sheer volume of internal
I Told You So
that will come pouring out of her. Wren grits his teeth, shoulders open the door and drops his bag. Nora’s already on the couch, hair in a half-fallen bun, wearing her kitten pj’s.

“I can’t,” he says as soon as she looks at him.

“Wha—?”

“I just said,
I can’t.”

“You can’t…?” Nora says.

“Talk about it? Deal with you being smug?”

“Okay, so.” Nora tries to smile at him
,
her
calm down it’s going to be okay Wren
, smile. “We won’t do any of that. How about, because you seem to be in…distress,” she says delicately, “We can watch the movie quietly with no talking, or we can raincheck the whole thing?”

Wren closes his eyes and flumps onto the sofa next to her. “It’s a lot easier to be mad at you when I prematurely assume what you’re going to do, you know,” he informs her.

“Well, yes, I would think so,” Nora says with a laugh. “Why do you want to be mad at me though?”

“Cause you love me and it’s easier,” Wren says, shuffling so he’s more comfortable and cuddled against her. She pushes him off and starts to help him with his boots.

Clueless
is a magical movie, because despite hundreds of view­ings, it still holds Wren’s attention and entertains him well enough to give him a small buffer of time between what hap­pened in the library and his need to process it. He doesn’t talk to Nora that night, but locks himself in the hush of his room and tries to reason himself out of the recoiling internal horror he’d run from the library carrying.

Despite Cam’s protests as Wren fled, Wren cannot help but believe he took advantage of Cam in an unacceptable way, with­out true consent. Wren breached a trust; it was incredibly fool­ish to assume that Cam knew what was going on and to allow him­self to be misled by the strength of the connection he felt. Cam’s ini­tial abandon and then his sudden confusion is one of those gut twisting memories Wren knows he’ll be actively avoid­ing for months. Cam had been so
open
, a flavor unlike any Wren’s tasted. Cam’s inside him now, bringing a deep, longing tug that radiates through Wren. His skin feels too alive and everything tingles and aches, aches from wanting but also because he
can’t
have him now. It is rending, wrangling the discipline to walk away not only from Cam, but, until he can trust himself again, the game.

Wren has to forget this whole thing. Although he’s built for touch, Wren’s lived through enough wanting and needing and denying to know he can forget. Taking Cam, who apparently didn’t know or understand who Wren is, would be wrong. It’s a game for a reason: because no one gets hurt, not him or the person he’s with.

Wren remembers what it was like to trust someone so much he let him in and in, opened himself with the faith that he’d never be mis­used. He remembers months when he waited for the right times to let Robert take him apart so sweetly. More acutely, he remem­bers what it felt like to have that trust broken. In the wake of broken promises, Wren refused to touch or let him­self be touched intimately, to relive that vul­nerability with no one to catch him in the fall.

Wren is built for touch. Affection and simple love he has with Nora, with his family; they won’t break his heart.

As for the rest, for pleasure beyond what he can provide him­self… the game is a safe way to feel physical release and inti­macy and fun, without having to let go or risk himself. Or, at least, it had been.

“It’s over,” Wren greets her
with in the morning, thumping a box of Fruit Loops onto the table between them.

“What is?” Nora asks cautiously.

“The game. The boy,” Wren says, waving his spoon. He hardly slept, he feels as if someone put his skin on inside out, and the last thing he wants is to have to talk about this.

Scratch that. The last thing he wants is to have to talk about this
ever
again.

“Wanna tell me wha—“

“Nope,” Wren says, opening the box of cereal so vigorously it tears down the side. He sighs. “It won’t work out, it’s not gonna happen, it’s over, and we’re all moving on.”

“We?” Nora asks.

“Yes. You, me, the fucking cereal, all of us,” Wren over-pours the milk and then sighs again. Being defeated by breakfast cereal on top of all the rest is almost too much. If there wasn’t so much milk in the bowl, and if he didn’t care so much about his bedding, he would retreat into his cave with his cereal.

“Okay,” Nora says quietly. She puts her hand on his, smiles and then hands him some napkins. “Eat your cereal so
it
can move on, then you and I are going shopping so that
we
can.”

* * *

The cheapest flight home
takes
him to an airport hours away from home. Nebraska unfolds as the highway ribbons its way closer to a house filled with an energy Cam once uncon­sciously freed himself from.

His father is awkwardly silent on the drive—they both are. Luis Vargas has always been a quiet man, contained in all the ways Cam trained himself to be as a teenager.

Cam’s leaving Nebraska for Chicago was an impulse that shook everyone. Cam wasn’t the impulsive one. He had always been steady, nearly unchanging in the constant roil around his family.

When his plane home lifted into the air, Cam really knew in his bones that Chicago had been the real flight, the best escape.

On the drive Luis talks about his long-deserved promotion at the plant and buying a new car for the first time in his life, a small coupe. They talk about it, his father haltingly pointing out features Cam would never have imagined he would want.

At the house, he and his father unfold similar long frames.

“Every­thing in your room is the way you left it,” Cam’s mother Julie says, as soon as he walks through the door, and kisses both his cheeks.
Of course.
Because clichés have a basis in truth, and what college home­coming would be complete without a realiza­tion that one no longer fits into the husk of one’s old life? “I know it’s din­ner and not breakfast, but I thought we’d do
arepas
tonight. Your favorite.”

“Thanks, Mama,” Cam says, kissing her back.

“I wish you were staying
longer
than a few weeks,” Julie says that night. “We miss you.”

“I know,” he says, smiling at her.

She’s changed her hair slightly; it’s shorter and lighter. Cam has a feeling of slight displacement, as if everything he’s deeply familiar with, constants during his whole life at home, are slightly off-center. Not unfamiliar, but strange. The kitchen table is the same, but the chairs are different. They’ve recovered them.

Luis nods in acknowledgment and goes back to cutting his
arepa
, a cornmeal-based flatbread his mother made from scratch for Sunday breakfasts since Cam was a kid. There was always an array of cheeses and deli meats laid out on the table to stuff into the steaming, torn-open pockets, where the cheese melts deliciously in the heat. He hasn’t had them since he left for Carlina. He opens one carefully and avoids the steam; thin-sliced asadero cheese and ham are at the ready.

“But I got a job that I could keep through the semester, and…”

“And?” she prods gently.

“I really like it there,” he admits. “Not that I don’t
here
, it’s just different.”

“I can’t imagine Lex holds much of a candle to Chicago,” his dad chimes in.

“Just a different pace,” Cam says. It seems like betrayal, to feel hemmed in by his old home and old room and the big, empty spaces in their small town. The running here is better, true. But he just doesn’t feel as awake. What was home doesn’t sit right around his skin anymore.