cheek, and when she turns her head for another, he leans into her mouth and tastes her lips again.
“Friends or more?” she asks when she pulls away.
“Uhh…” He feels puzzled. Hasn’t kissing spoken for itself?
“I want to be sure that was—that you’re okay with this. That it’s something you want,” Maggie says. She touches his hand.
“Yeah.” He smiles. Her face lights up, delighted; it’s as if he’s done just the right thing, taken the next right step.
It’s nice to feel close to someone like this.
“So…” Lying down, Cam stares at the ceiling. He shapes the words he’ll use, and breathes through that twisting feeling in his stomach again. It’s so strange and unfamiliar, wanting to talk to someone about things inside himself. “I kissed Maggie. Well, technically, she kissed me.”
“Yeah!” Nate cheers, a little too loudly for midnight in a dorm with paper-thin walls.
“Shhh.” Cam waves his hand but doesn’t look over. He isn’t sure he can get through such a personal conversation and look at Nate.
“Awesome, right?”
Cam considers this. “Yeah, it was really nice.”
Nate is quiet so long Cam wonders if maybe he’s fallen asleep. It’s stupid, trying to talk to Nate like this.
“Dude, do you really like her?” Nate finally says.
“Yeah, of course,” Cam says.
Another pause, then Nate speaks again, teasing clear in his voice. “So how far’d you get? Round any bases?”
“Shut up,” Cam says more easily, grateful that the conversation hasn’t wandered too far into territory he isn’t sure about. “To be honest, I’ve never been clear on what happens at each base,” he admits.
“Yeah, me either,” Nate laughs, “other than home plate. I definitely know that one. It’s the best.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Cam yawns.
“For now,” Nate says smugly. Cam yawns again, feeling the sleepy press of darkness. Finally.
* * *
Sometimes it feels a bit like work, or a thing he hasn’t quite grown into, when he’s with her and she’s obviously hoping for more. It’s weird; he knows how guys are supposed to be. He knows Nate, and how much he wants and has sex. Thinks of friends in school, their consistent discussion and desire for it.
Sometimes, when he’s with Maggie, he wonders if he was just born with something less—his desire isn’t pressing, isn’t urgent. It’s nice, though, when he does manage to let himself go. Maggie is both reassuring and self-assured, and it’s been long enough that next steps are definitely a natural progression.
“Will you touch me?” she asks one night. It’s dim in her room and the TV volume is low. She’s lying back on her futon, and her body is so welcoming under him. Cam swallows and lets her guide his hand under her shirt, where her skin is warm.
* * *
After a while, he’s sure he should feel more. How long can he give Maggie what she wants, when she so clearly wants and enjoys more than he? Nate is the only other person that Cam knows well enough to confide in, but this is not something he can talk about.
Cam watches. Nate seems to have a new girl every few weeks; Cam is regularly exiled from their room, and the library becomes his sanctuary. Linoleum and fluorescent lights, the smell of books and the quiet calm him with a grounding familiarity. Of course, he’s not ready to admit how much he hopes to run into Wren there. His library visits are frequent, that hope watercolor-layered with guilt. He likes Maggie, and has no concrete understanding of what he’s searching for or why he can’t stop seeking that connection he felt with Wren. Sometimes, he searches campus—not just for Wren. His body seeks something hotter, more acute.
* * *
“You with me?” Maggie gasps one night, lips against his cheek, skin dewed with sweat.
“Yeah,” he lies, and thinks helplessly of another moment, of pressing a small, harder body against a wall, of feeling as if he were on fire, Wren’s
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