Dissonance (21 page)

He took a deep breath and glanced at Galen, who watched him with an expression of quiet concern but didn’t press him and didn’t make any move to stop him. Cam liked that about Galen. No bullshit. Just patience.

“I loved my father. I didn’t see a lot of him growing up because he was so busy. But I remember wanting to be like him.” Cam smiled in spite of himself. “He seemed so in control. He understood things. I watched him work a few times… just sat in his office, pretending to read a book. But really I was watching him. I tried to talk like him. Move like him. Stand tall like he always did.” His father hadn’t fidgeted. Hadn’t paced. “And when he died, I was so lost. He was so young. He wasn’t supposed to die.”

“How old was he?” Galen asked.

“Forty-six. Sudden cardiac arrest. I know because I looked it up when the doctors said that. It’s a heart attack, but with no symptoms. No pain.” Cam laughed. “I told myself I’d grow up to be a doctor so nobody like him would ever have to die again.” He shook his head at the memory. “My mother told me that was a nice sentiment, but I knew she knew it’d never happen.

“Duncan was there for me. He was a few years younger than my father. I remember wondering if he and my mother would get married and then he’d be my dad. Take his place. I wanted that. I looked up to him like I looked up to my father. He took me places. The theater. Riding. To the cinema. I remember being really happy. Happier, even, than when my dad was alive.” Even now, he felt guilty about that, as if he’d betrayed his father’s memory.

“But there were times I couldn’t remember from back then. Whole months that disappeared. Later on, when I was older, I wondered about it when I looked at some of the things I’d kept. Souvenirs from places I’d been that I couldn’t remember ever going to. That sort of thing. And the photos….” Cam rubbed his lips with his fingers and fought the wave of nausea that always came when he tried to remember. “After a while I just said ‘fuck it’ and let it go.

“But then the dreams started right around the time we met. The other night… when you found me in the bathroom…. When I realized they weren’t dreams, something fell into place. Made me remember everything.” He started to shake, and Galen was suddenly there, holding him as he shook like a kid. A fucking kid.

“He…. I…. I liked it. When he touched me the first time. I felt something. Needed? I don’t know. Something. I missed my dad so much. It was just a hug. No, more than that, but not… not really
wrong
.”

“Cam.” No recriminations. No judgment. Just his name. His fucking
name.
And he was losing it. Crying. What the fuck was wrong with him that he’d do that not once but
twice
now?

Galen held him tighter. Galen felt so good. Made
Cam
feel so good.

“It started out like that, and I told myself it was good, because I loved the man. But then it was suddenly more, and he was touching me in other places. And I knew it was wrong, but it felt all right. By the end of that week…. Shit. I don’t know if I can even say it. It hurt, but he told me it was all right. It was supposed to hurt the first time. I believed him too. He was the only one who’d ever spent time with me. Cared about me. So I didn’t say anything then. I didn’t say anything when it happened more and more often. In the gardener’s shed. In the boathouse. In my room. Wherever. I didn’t stop it.”

“You blame yourself for that?” Cam heard no judgment in Galen’s voice.

“I should have stopped it.”

“You were a kid. He took advantage of you. Hurt you. He’s sick, Cam. Twisted kind of sick.”

Cam shook his head. “I’m the sick one. If I really hated it, I would have stopped it.”

“Would you tell me that if I said the same thing?” Galen asked as he turned Cam’s face gently toward him. “Can you honestly say that you’d tell me I was sick?”

Cam looked into Galen’s eyes and knew he couldn’t. What the hell did that mean?

Galen smiled at him—a smile that revealed depth Galen hid well. Unassuming, quiet Galen. Galen, whose heart was big enough to embrace the world. Cam didn’t even care that the thought felt overly romantic and sappy.

“You blame yourself for too much, Cam. Maybe you deserve blame for some things, but what happened to you when you were a boy wasn’t your fault.”

Cam wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Galen was still holding him gently by the shoulders and watching him.
He’s worried about me.
The knowledge that Galen genuinely cared what happened to him made Cam feel uneasy. Other than David and Alex, and maybe Aiden—Lord knew he didn’t deserve any of them as friends—there wasn’t anyone he was sure genuinely did.

“Sorry,” Cam said, incredibly embarrassed. His eyes were undoubtedly red, and his nose was stopped up. He sniffled. Galen reached over to the piano and handed him a tissue. Cam blew his nose.

“Don’t apologize.” Galen tilted his head to one side, then added, “I know you still don’t believe it—that you didn’t do anything wrong. But what I said… you get that, right?”

Cam nodded. He did get it, even if he wasn’t ready to let go of his self-hatred.

“Let me get you some more tea,” Galen said, clearly pleased to have gotten Cam to admit he understood.

“Tea, right.” Cam barely registered the offer. “Sorry,” he repeated as his face warmed. What a fucking mess he was! He still didn’t understand why Galen was being so kind to him.

“Be right back. Why don’t you sit on the couch and relax. I’ll just be a couple of minutes.”

“Right. Thank you.” Cam sat down, leaned against the back of the couch, and pulled a multicolored crocheted afghan over himself.

C
AM
AWOKE
to the sound of the piano. He didn’t know the piece, but he was pretty sure it was Mozart judging by the sweet melody and the deceptively simple harmonies. He opened his eyes and realized the sun had long since set. How long had he been sleeping? Four hours, maybe five?

“Feeling better?” Galen asked as he continued to play.

“Yes. Thank you.” Cam had always marveled at musicians who could play and talk at the same time. He’d barely been able to manage two hands, let alone multitasking like speaking or singing while playing.
Probably why he teaches music and you don’t.

Cam stretched and got up from the couch, then sat down beside Galen as he continued to play. Cam loved being this close to the music; he’d barely played in the past ten years, but he always seemed to seek out musicians, whether as friends or, in Aiden’s case, lovers. He’d loved to hear Aiden sing in the old Edwardian house they’d shared, loved the way his voice soared to the high ceilings and the house resonated as though it were singing along with him.

Galen’s long fingers flew over the keys, and he wore an expression of calm focus. The tiny lines around his eyes seemed more pronounced as the corners of his mouth edged upward in a gentle smile. For the first time, Cam noticed the flecks of gold in his eyes.

This thought inevitably led to another. Galen was so fucking attractive.
No.
The last thing he needed now was another relationship to fuck up. He was so wrapped up in his internal dialogue that he didn’t realize Galen had stopped playing and was watching him.

“Thinking about something?” Galen asked.

Thinking how much I want to kiss you right now.
A few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But now he felt distinctly torn. He longed for Galen to hold him again as he’d done before. Something about how he felt in Galen’s arms—safe, content—made the memories fade into the background. But in addition to that need and the craving for Galen’s touch, he feared that if he gave in to his body, he’d be setting himself up again. He’d fuck things up like he’d done with Aiden. Then he’d lose the warm feeling. And he needed that right now. He needed it so fucking badly.

“Just thinking about how much I owe you for taking me in.” Not a lie, but not the entire truth. Better that way.

Galen shook his head. “I enjoy the company. And Max has already adopted you.”

Cam laughed when he realized Max had curled up beside him again, his body pressed against Cam’s foot.

“Animals always seem to gravitate to the people most allergic to them.”

That night Galen slept beside Cam again. This time Cam didn’t hesitate—he settled onto Galen’s chest and held on to him. Galen leaned in and kissed Cam’s head. Cam sighed and closed his eyes. He fell asleep to the steady beat of Galen’s heart.

C
AM
SLEPT
so soundly, he barely registered Galen leaving for work the next day. Fridays, Galen only worked mornings at the school. And although Cam had objected, Galen told Cam he was planning on spending the evening with him instead of playing in the subway in Manhattan.

When the library opened at 9:00 a.m. on Friday, Cam was one of the first to arrive. He couldn’t stand it anymore. He’d take a chance and check his e-mail. He didn’t know what he hoped to find when he did, and he certainly didn’t expect the e-mail from Dan Bryce from Raice’s accounting department, sent the day before.

Cameron
—

I’m in New York, providing assistance to the FBI on Raice’s offshore accounts. I hear they’ve got a warrant for your arrest. I’m very sorry. I think I have some information that may help you, but I don’t want to risk sending it over the Internet.

Call me. I’m staying at the Colonial Hotel in Midtown. I’m free tomorrow until about 11:00.

-Dan

Hopeful for the first time in weeks, Cam nearly ran all the way back to Galen’s house. Now, as the clock on the mantel chimed the half hour, he powered up his phone.

“Dan?”

“Cameron. I worried you wouldn’t call.” Dan sounded nervous and exhausted.

“I’m so glad you contacted me,” Cam said quickly. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Duncan wouldn’t take my calls, and I knew you’d be able to help.”

“This whole thing is crazy. The FBI’s saying the accounts are in your name. They’ve been to the Raice Corp. office twice in the last week, looking through documents. Demanding access to our computer logs. People here are nervous.”

“I didn’t do anything, Dan,” Cam said. “I didn’t know anything about the Cayman account before the FBI investigation.”

“I know.”

Cam relaxed at those words. “But Duncan—”

“Duncan’s been tied up with the HMRC and the police every day for the past week. He says they’re looking at Sherrington Holdings, trying to decide whether the Cayman accounts are connected in any way.”

“What are we talking about here, Dan?” Cam tapped his foot against the wood floor as he spoke, then tried to stop himself and relax.
Breathe in, breathe out.

“Relatively small transfers, for the most part—all under the reporting limit. Deposited into another Cayman account, then into the account in your name in even smaller amounts.”

“And Raice?” Cam pretty much knew what Dan would say next.

“Their records show you’ve been investing in the company from the Cayman account. Small purchases of stock. It’s been going on for about four years, best I can tell. Then it just stopped.”

Four years?
Right about the time we purchased the company.

“Stopped?” Cam asked. “When?”

“Beginning of August of this year. I’m not sure why. Maybe someone got wind of it? The first we heard about an internal audit was around that time.”

August? That was when the board had told him they were going to scrutinize his accounts, require approval on his allowance.
Bloody hell.
“I don’t know,” he told Dan. The last thing he needed was to give Dan any reason to doubt his innocence. Dan wouldn’t know about his allowance—Duncan had gotten the board to agree to keep quiet about it. At the time Cam had been relieved. Bad enough that they were treating him like a child and putting him on a budget. But now….

“Can we meet?” Dan asked. “I’ve got some spreadsheets I’d like to show you.”

“W
HAT
DO
you think?” Cam asked Galen after he’d told him about Dan.

Galen frowned and shook his head. “Sounds risky. And very convenient.”

Cam had expected that response. He’d thought the same thing himself. “But…,” he pressed.

“But if it’s on the up-and-up, it’s probably worth the risk.”

Cam chuckled and shook his head.

“What’s so funny?” Galen asked with the hint of a grin.

“You.” Cam smiled broadly. “Every time I think I know what to expect from you, you surprise me.”

“Good.” Galen sat a bit straighter, and Cam understood this pleased him.

“You like surprising people, don’t you?”

Galen shrugged. “Maybe. At some point in my life, I decided I would be whatever I wanted to be, not what people expected of me.”

“Sounds very Zen.”

“You’ve really been reading that book, haven’t you?” Galen asked.

“Maybe.” Cam hesitated, then asked, “Would you teach me how to meditate?”

Galen stared at him for a minute, and Cam half expected him to laugh. Galen didn’t, and in retrospect, Cam thought he should have known better. “I… I’d love to,” Galen said. “Would you like to join me in the morning?”