by RJ Scott
“And who is this?” Cam’s mom asked, and Gabriel realized she was asking about him.
“Gabriel,” he said, and extended his hand.
“Anne, Cam’s mom,” Anne said, and shook his hand warmly.
“And I’m Chloe, Cam’s sister,” Chloe said with a genuine smile.
“Really nice to meet you both,” Gabriel said.
He could do manners. Stefan had given him all kinds of pointers. Also, he’d mentioned that moms needed sex as well, and even though Gabriel was there for the men, Stefan always said he’d pick up the slack with any of the moms or sisters. Somehow that always made Gabriel feel slightly sick. He imagined that if he had a sister or a mom, he would want to protect them and not have them visiting guys like Stefan for sex.
“…through the hotel,” Cam was saying, and nudged Gabriel with his elbow.
“Sorry?” Gabriel said, coming back to the conversation.
Always give the client one hundred and ten percent of your focus.
“Mom asked how we met; I was telling her about you coming to the hotel.”
“Yes, that’s how we met,” Gabriel agreed, and slipped his hand into Cam’s. “Our eyes met across a crowded room,” he embellished.
Anne looked confused. “Cam said you were booking a conference here.”
Gabriel had to think on his feet. “I know, but that sounds so boring,” he teased.
Anne nodded and smiled, and it seemed that Gabriel had skirted that particular faux pas.
A waiter arrived at Cam’s side and whispered something, and in turn Cam looked over toward a man who looked like he’d rather be anywhere than being gripped hard by a widely smiling Philippa. That must be the prospective groom, Luke.
Luke disentangled himself and came over to Chloe’s side, and they hugged briefly.
“Ready?” Luke asked.
“Let’s go,” Chloe said.
The waiter opened the large doors, and Chloe and her fiancé had their first look at the ballroom decorated for their engagement party.
Her inhalation of wonder was exactly what Gabriel had wanted to do when he’d seen the room; it really was pretty spectacular, and even better from this entrance spot, because the first thing your eyes went to was a raised dais dripping with flowers, where he guessed the future bride and groom would be sitting. Cam smiled broadly at hearing his sister’s pleasure, and Gabriel could read the man’s happiness that what he’d done for his sister had worked.
Had Cam been nervous?
Gabriel went through a few versions of his origin story. At first it was that they’d met recently through the hotel, with no embellishment, and most people were happy with that. Then it got more serious and Gabriel had to think on his feet. Turned out going back to his own real story and embellishing it sparingly was enough to make him sound authentic. No, his parents were both dead. Yes, that was terribly sad. No, he’d moved away from home a long time ago. Yes, he had a touch of Latino heritage. Yes, he’d been born near Laredo. Yes, he worked in sales.
All that was true. Even the sales part. He just assumed that everyone would react a little differently if they realized what he was selling was his body.
Finally he’d covered everyone in the entire state of Texas, or at least so it seemed.
The last couple they’d talked to, some loudmouthed, big-hatted, in-your-face Texan dude who’d introduced himself as Josiah Harrold, and his wife, Dilys, whose skin appeared to be stretched to the extreme, had been the icing on the whole cake.
“Does he know what you look like?” they’d asked Gabriel, almost as one person, which had been freaky.
Right in front of Cam. Right with Cam standing there holding Gabriel’s hand.
Gabriel hadn’t hesitated, because Cam hadn’t answered, so he’d made a show of leaning into Cam and smiling down at him.
“You don’t need to see everything to know how you feel,” he’d murmured, feeling Cam stiffen next to him.
Mr. Texas and his wife had wandered away after that.
“What was that?” Cam hissed under his breath.
“What?”
“How you feel? What the hell was that?”
“An answer to a question that you weren’t going to reply to,” Gabriel said.
“Well, stop it,” Cam said. His voice was so low that Gabriel had to lean in to hear him. “Stop implying we feel things for each other. This is one fucking night.”
Oh wow, Cam was really stressed, and it was Gabriel’s job to help him out with that.
“Okay,” he said. “My bad,” he added, but he didn’t let go of Cam’s hand.
At least they were having dinner now, and the table they were at was family with extras. He was sitting next to a woman in her seventies with startlingly white hair and a propensity for patting his hand.
“How is Cameron?” she asked Gabriel with a little pat. Her voice was certainly loud enough for Cam to hear, and really she could be asking him directly. Her name was Poppy Stafford, and given that she wasn’t on or near the top table, she was likely some kind of great-cousin or something. Who knew? He’d given up trying to follow everything a long time ago.
Gabriel nudged Cameron to indicate that Poppy was asking about him, but Cam was chatting to a teenager sitting on the other side of them and didn’t even acknowledge the nudge. So that left Gabriel to answer the old lady’s question.
“He’s doing great,” Gabriel said, then channeled his inner Cam and concentrated on his starter, a mix of lettuce with chicken. At least he thought it was chicken.
“Such a waste,” Poppy continued, her voice even louder. “Don’t you think?” she added, and Gabriel gave her a sideways glance.
“Sorry?” he asked, not sure he’d heard her right. He expected some comment about how all the good ones were gay; after all, she couldn’t have failed to understand that Gabriel was there as Cam’s partner tonight. She looked right at him with shrewd, focused eyes.
“Young Cameron,” she began, and pointed right at him. “A waste. Such a shame.”
That got Gabriel’s back up. What did she mean by saying that in her loud voice? He’d observed a lot of that tonight. People nodding sadly as they spoke to Cam, tripping over their words like they didn’t know what to say. Gabriel had even noticed a teenager talking at Cam, slowly and loudly, like being blind meant he couldn’t hear or understand and the kid equated blindness with being dim. Cam had never flinched once. He clearly had the patience of a saint.
But then it got worse. The door to the ballroom opened and a couple walked in, heading for their table and taking the two seats that had been inexplicably empty.
“Evening, everyone,” a dark-haired man announced dramatically to the table. “My apologies, the traffic was awful.” He sat right opposite Gabriel, and his eyes landed right on where Gabriel and Cam were holding hands on the table.
“Hi, Cam.” The slim, delicate-looking woman came toward Cam and kissed him first. “Sorry,” she murmured, then took her seat next to the dark-haired man.
“Gabriel, this is my other sister, Sophie, and her husband, Mitchell.”
Mitchell stood again and extended his hand across the table, and Gabriel momentarily released his hold of Cam’s hand to lean over him to shake Mitchell’s. Everything was so formal and stilted.
“I was just saying how much of a shame it is,” Poppy said, sounding eager to expand on her comments with the new addition to the audience. “About his eyesight.”
Cam stiffened next to him, and Gabriel took his hand again, this time under the table, squeezing it tight.
“Poppy—” Sophie began, then subsided when Mitchell frowned at her.
“When you and Mitchell have babies, they may be able to do a scan and you could make a decision about whether you want it,” Poppy said, and Sophie went from flushed pink to scarlet. A hush fell over the table. “You know, if it’s going to be blind.”
What the fuck? Was this woman senile? That had to be the only explanation. If she was, then may
be a lot of people here tonight were impaired in the same way. Gabriel couldn’t believe half of the shit Cam had endured. From the outright rude, who’d talked to him and not to Cam, to the over-interested, who’d touched him and used words like ‘such a shame’ and ‘sorry’. Like Cam was something to be pitied.
Gabriel concluded several things at once. Nobody here tonight had any idea how to talk to Cam. Poppy was an aged bitch. Cam’s sister Sophie was either pregnant or planning on it, because she was clutching her stomach. She also looked wary and startled when Mitchell leaned over to whisper in her ear.
He’d imagined that any sister of Cam’s, half-sibling or not, would be different. Vivacious, maybe. But she was on edge and looked like she didn’t want to be there. Gabriel watched them as they ate their meal. She didn’t say much, and when she did speak, Mitchell was there, talking over her or belittling her. Of course, he was going for the good ol’ boy effect, but all he was doing was making his wife sink lower in her chair.
And Gabriel knew exactly what was happening. It was exactly what Stefan did to him. But why did she put up with it? She probably had enough money to get a new husband and be a lot happier than she was now.
“And of course, having my beautiful wife there with me made everyone stare.” Mitchell finished off a story about a business trip and pressed a kiss to Sophie’s head, and she beamed up at him like he’d bestowed the best gift ever.
She would never want to leave him, not while he gave her rewards after making her feel like shit. Should he make a comment to Cam? Was it his place to point out that his sister was being treated that way? He’d bet Cam didn’t even know; so much of any abuse was in touches and facial expressions. He closed his eyes briefly and listened to Mitchell wax lyrical about a little business that his gorgeous wife was starting. He sounded proud, but under it all there was a thread of possessiveness.
I only know that because I hear it all the time.
Next to him, Cam was trying not to be pissed, but every line of him was taut with tension. It didn’t help when Poppy carried on with her line of inappropriate comments.
“The balloons are beautiful shades of blue and gold, you know,” she said, then leaned around Gabriel. “Do you remember blue?” she asked Cam.
Sophie looked wretched but said nothing. Mitchell snorted a laugh. He appeared to love drama, as he sat forward to wait for Cam’s response.
Fuck it. Stefan would be mad at him, but Gabriel wasn’t sitting there like an excuse for an idiot, and Cam shouldn’t either.
“Cameron’s vision loss is due to a one-in-a-million chance,” he said, without any idea whether that was true. “He loves the color blue, which is the same as his gorgeous eyes. Sophie, it was nice to meet you, and congratulations on the pregnancy by the way. Poppy, we’re very happy as a couple, thank you, and nothing stops us.” She opened her mouth to say something, but Gabriel plunged ahead. “Also, planning for our Everest climb is well underway.” Everest? Where was this shit coming from? “Isn’t this event wonderful?”
Gabriel looked around the table at each person. Mitchell’s mouth was hanging open, Sophie was cringing, and finally his gaze landed on Poppy, who looked a little shocked.
“Wonderful,” she murmured.
For a few seconds the silence remained, then Poppy turned to Sophie and began to chat to her. Mitchell excused himself and headed for the top table, entering into some back slapping and hugs with Sebastian. A much different welcome to the son-in-law than the one Sebastian had shared with his biological son, Cam.
Strange, confusing family.
“Everest?” Cam said dryly, his voice only loud enough for Gabriel to hear.
“It was the first mountain I could think of,” Gabriel admitted.
Education for him had stopped young, but he had Google, and hell, everyone knew Mount Everest.
“And my gorgeous blue eyes?”
“They are very blue and very gorgeous.”
Cam spoke low to him again. “Is Sophie pregnant? She didn’t tell me.” He sounded disappointed. “But if you can tell, then she must be at least three months.”
“No, flat as a pancake,” Gabriel said. “But she has an incredibly expressive face, and she clutched her belly when Poppy made an ass of her old self. But that could have been a defensive move because her husband is all up in her face.”
Cam shook his head. “What do you mean?”
“He’s a judgmental prick,” Gabriel muttered, then coughed. “Sorry.”
“Like I said, family is off limits to you.”
Gabriel couldn’t let it alone, he didn’t like the look of the way Cam’s sister seemed so quiet and subservient. “What do you think of Mitchell?”
Gabriel had to ask, and he stared right at Cam, hoping to pick up some change in his expression.
“Sophie seems happy with him,” he said. And that was all he was going to say about that, apparently.
“Where did he go? Mitchell, I mean.” The way that Cam said “Mitchell”, with a note of derision, added to Gabriel’s initial suspicion that he and Cam weren’t close. Was anyone close in this crazy, mixed-up, who-is-related-to-whom family?
“Talking to your dad.”
Cam huffed and picked up his water glass. “Now that I’d like to see,” he murmured. “I bet it’s all hugs and back-slaps and let’s-take-over-the-universe-together over there.”
“Pretty much.” Gabriel sipped at his own water.
All that wine and champagne, and both of them were staying sober. He could manage that, but given the underlying mess of angst going on in the Stafford family, he thought it would be good for Cam to have a drink.
“So you don’t get on with your dad?” Gabriel leaned in so he could talk low and hear the answer, and it crossed his mind that to anyone watching they would look like they were having a tender moment.
“We have differing opinions on my sight and my sexual orientation—”
“He’s an asshole, then,” Gabriel snapped, then nearly bit his lip. Somehow that visceral reaction had just slipped out, and the tightness in his chest at the rudeness of it was very real. He needed to be paid tonight, because otherwise how would he explain to Stefan what had happened? So he really needed to cool his jets.
But Cam didn’t throw him out; he simply turned fully in his chair so he could face Gabriel. “What did you just say?”
“Sorry,” Gabriel offered immediately.
“No, carry on, please.” That could have sounded different, like Cam was patronizing him, but actually it was a genuine request. “What did you just say to me?”
Gabriel swallowed, and hesitated to find the right answer.
“I just meant…we’re at a family event, they’re all unable to talk to you or look at you…hell, only a handful of people approach you normally, and your dad is the worst of all.”
“And your point is?”
“Doesn’t it piss you off?” Gabriel couldn’t understand how Cam could sit there and keep his temper.
Cam looked straight at him, completely focused on the right point, and not for the first time Gabriel found himself fascinated by Cam’s sapphire eyes.
“Can you pass me the wine?” Cam said finally.
Gabriel fought his initial instinct to pour wine for Cam, and instead passed him the nearest bottle of red. “Is red okay?”
Cam took the bottle, and Gabriel watched fascinated as Cam reached for his glass and filled it with wine. He balanced the bottle in his hand, and Gabriel noticed a subtle heft of it, probably testing for how much was in there and where the balancing point was. Cam used his other hand to hold the glass steady just off the table’s surface. Everything about the way Cam worked was a matter of balance and center.
He took a healthy swallow of wine, and another, and another, then refilled the glass.
“Yes, of course it pisses me off,” he murmured.
Cam looked nothing like his dad; he had a lot of his mom in him, and he didn’t have the seemingly permanent expression
of disapproval that marked Sebastian’s face.
“Son, a word,” Sebastian said from behind them.
Gabriel turned, and Mitchell was there as well, looking smug and arrogant. This wasn’t good. He leaned close to Cam and whispered, “Mitchell is with him.”
“I’m done here,” Cam said, picked up the rest of the bottle of wine and the glass, and stood up. “Let’s go,” he said, and Gabriel scrambled to stand, taking the nearly full glass from him and offering his arm.
As quickly as he could, he led Cam through the maze of tables and to the door they’d come in through, and from there to the elevators. Only when they were inside with the doors closing on an irate-looking Sebastian heading toward them could Gabriel finally relax a little.
Cam stood against the opposite side of the car, the bottle of wine hugged to his chest and his expression strangely impassive.
The elevator came to a stop on the top floor and Cam strode out, Gabriel behind him, trailing him to his apartment.
Then they went inside, and finally they were alone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cam had never once given his father the satisfaction of backing down or walking away. That was what the bastard wanted. For the son he perceived as weak in so many ways to step aside. Didn’t matter that the Dallas Stafford Royal was the best performing of the Stafford hotels, didn’t matter that the life Cam had been born into had been his training ground.
Nope. All Sebastian Stafford saw was that Cam was damaged goods. Gay, blind, useless.
And he never, ever let it get to him.
Only, he’d always dealt with it on his own. He’d never taken a date or a friend to a family event, not even ex-from-hell Adam, the bastard who’d fucked him over. So it didn’t matter what people said to him. Didn’t affect him to be told that people were sorry for him, or that tragedy was a terribly tragic thing in an awfully, tragically blind kind of way. Pity was shitty to keep having to take at these things, but it was okay. No one else heard their shit. No one else judged him.
But tonight this stranger in his life had heard it all, and judged him, and Cam was ashamed.
