A new face started coming into the bar. Cam cleverly deduced he was new to town, mostly because he carried an umbrella. No one from Skagit owned one of those things. The minute you opened it up, it would either stop raining or the wind would turn it inside out. A raincoat was the better solution.
Tonight was the second or third time Cam had seen him. He was sitting by himself at the end of the bar nursing a light beer, also the sign of a newbie. Cam had seen Jason card him at the door, so he had to be at least twenty-one, but he didn’t look it. Dark hair, a slightly darker skin tone than Cam’s own, a classic profile that could be featured on any Greek statue. He had nice eyes too; Cam didn’t know what color they were, but he smiled with them.
It was the lull between happy hours, so Cam wandered down to the end of the bar to chat.
“Can I get you another? Or something different?” Cam motioned toward new guy’s mostly empty bottle of beer with the label half peeled off.
He tipped the bottle, peering at it. Cam always wondered why people did that. Was tipping the bottle going to somehow make a difference? Help them decide?
“Yeah.” He squinted past Cam to where the taps were. “What do you recommend?”
Cam ended up pouring him a local pale ale. After setting it on the bar, Cam gave in to his curiosity.
“New to Skagit?”
“Yeah.” He looked rueful. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only to a lifelong resident. I’m Cam, by the way.” He offered his hand.
“Jake.” They shook.
“So, are you a student?” Fall quarter had just started at the local university.
“Kind of. I mean, I moved out here to finish up my undergrad and see if I can get residency for the graduate program in fisheries.”
“Nice. What do you think of Skagit?”
Jake snorted. “It’s a lot different from the East Coast.” He leaned across the bar. “Is everybody here a health nut? And,” giving Cam a closer look, “blond?”
Cam laughed. “What are you talking about?”
“Everyone is blond! Look around! In New York, hardly anybody is blond, and if they are, it probably came from a bottle. So I’m wondering.”
“Truthfully, there’re a lot of Scandinavian genes in Skagit, but not everybody’s blond.”
“Okay, yeah.” Jake waved dismissively. “What about… I mean, I can’t help it, but why does everyone look like they dressed in the dark from Grandma’s church donation bag? Back home, when we go out, we dress for it.”
This would explain why the first time Cam had seen Jake he’d been wearing khaki slacks and a blazer over a button-down shirt. The last couple times, at least, he’d been in jeans and a button-down.
Cam was sucked into an enjoyable working conversation. While he made drinks for the waitstaff and customers who came up to the bar, he and Jake dissected the cultural differences between the two coasts and how different Jake found Skagit. Cam had always wanted to visit the Big Apple, but life and everything had gotten in the way. Maybe someday.
Jake left before closing. Cam wondered if Jake knew the Loft was mostly a gay bar. He hadn’t been looking around much at customers or behind Cam where he could watch the men who were dancing together—at least that Cam had noticed. It was hard to miss the rainbow decal on the back bar, though. He shrugged. Didn’t matter.
Mostly Jake had been interested in talking to Cam and learning about Skagit. Cam had the weird feeling he might have made a friend. It wasn’t as if he was lonely or had no friends but, he thought as he wiped the bar down one final time before beginning to stack the stools on top of it, neither Jake, Rod, nor Travis knew his history. They didn’t look at him and remember sick Cam, sad Cam, or homeless Cam.
And yeah, Cam had gotten past that terrible time, was moving on, building a life for himself without asking for help, but it stung when he saw people from his old life who turned and acted as if they didn’t know him. Or Karl, who screamed obscenities.
His old life. He smacked a stool onto the bar. Life before he’d learned that love was in fact conditional, that love was earned and only given if you acted as expected. Life was good if you embodied your parents’ beliefs no matter how much they chafed against your own skin, forcing you to be someone you weren’t—couldn’t be. He lifted another stool and banged it down.
“Hey, Camy, you all right? Those stools do something to you?”
Cam jerked around to find one of the kitchen staff, Marcus, regarding him with concern.
“What?”
“You were slamming those innocent stools down kind of forcefully.”
“Oh, sorry. I got to thinking about something, I guess.” He tried tossing Marcus a reassuring grin but felt maybe he’d missed the mark when Marcus raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“Thinking about my sperm and egg donors.”
“Ahh, gotcha.”
Yeah, just about everyone who worked at the Loft had a story of some kind about a shitty family member. Cam didn’t know Marcus’s, but his understanding nod was enough.
Marcus helped Cam put up the rest of the stools and then the chairs. The night janitors would do the rest. He turned off the sound system and lights, then let Marcus and himself out the front.
“See ya later.” Marcus gave Cam a half wave before striding quickly up the street. Cam watched, thinking that he lived in a studio close by or maybe shared a house; Cam didn’t know for certain. Turning the other direction, Cam headed for the entrance to his apartment building.
Later, Cam tried to parse what had warned him. A slight shuffle or change in the sound of the late night; he didn’t know and was never able to place it. But if he hadn’t sensed something, he would very likely be dead.
His raised forearm absorbed the brunt of the heavy blow. There was a stomach-churning crack, and Cam staggered backward, trying to cradle his arm, falling sideways into the façade of his building. His head smacked against the bricks, and he blinked, seeing stars. The next blow caught him across the top of the shoulder, and Cam rolled away from his assailant to land awkwardly against the plate-glass window of the bar.
He must have hit it hard enough to trigger the motion sensor Sterling had spent a couple grand installing. The next thing he knew, alarms were screaming and his assailant was pounding up the street. Cam could hear his heavy breathing getting fainter the farther away he ran, until the rasping sound disappeared entirely.
The EMTs made Cam go to the ER because of the brick wall. No, he didn’t have any immediate family; no, he didn’t have any fucking insurance. Yes, just like every other time he had racked up hospital bills, he would be financially responsible.
“Look, I’m his fucking boss. Ask him if he wants to see me.”
Sterling Bailey’s voice didn’t so much drift back to the small, curtained-off area in the ER where Cam was waiting as roll like thunder. A few minutes later, an entirely uncowed nurse stuck his head around the curtain.
“There’s someone who would like to see you.”
“It’s fine, send him back.” At this point Cam had enough pain reliever in his system that he wouldn’t care who saw him even if he was stark naked. Well, he drew the line at his parents, but they wouldn’t come anyway.
“Knock knock, are you decent?” Sterling waited a beat before slipping past the flimsy curtain.
“What are you doing here?”
Sterling looked offended. “Checking up on my employee, and friend, who was injured in the course of a robbery.”
“I don’t know if it was a robbery. They didn’t ask for money.” He was pretty sure they hadn’t wanted money.
“You told the EMTs you didn’t see who it was. But since the alarm went off and I was called in by SkPD, I am calling it an attempt.”
He’d told the EMTs he hadn’t seen the assailant, and he hadn’t. At least not face-to-face. But he’d recognized the voice, the weird limping run, and the person’s potato-like shape. The voice, which had called him “faggot” a million times, since he was a kid.
Sterling probably suspected a member of the uber-conservative church of Thou Shalt Not (insert offending action) was behind the attack. It wouldn’t be the first time Cam had drawn their attention; they seemed to have a real problem with him. Of all the people Cam knew, Sterling understood Cam’s life the best. Before his dad was sent to jail for a very long time, Sterling’s parents had been faithful members of the same church Cam’s parents attended.
“The way I see it, you have a choice. You can stay here for observation, or you can come home with me. Evan and I will keep an eye on you.”
“I’d like to point out that’s two choices, either or. There’s also a third: I could go home.”
Sterling narrowed his eyes, and Cam hid a smirk. His head throbbed, but it was far away, on the other side of whatever they’d given him for the pain in his arm. The X-ray had come back showing no fracture, but the attending doc had warned him there was deep bruising. Cam didn’t think he had a concussion, although a few extra precautions wouldn’t hurt.
All in all, for having taken a beating, Cam felt pretty lucky.
“I’m supposed to talk to the police.”
“We’ll arrange it so that happens at my place. That way, most likely, you’ll only have to tell it once.”
Fine. Being at Sterling’s wouldn’t be the worst thing. Cam didn’t think he wanted to climb the stairs to his place or deal with the noise. Or be by himself.
Hours later, his arm in a soft wrap, stumbling from pain medication and sheer exhaustion, Cam settled in on the couch in Sterling and Evan’s tiny living room. It was far past dawn; the day had long since woken up and was drinking a second cup of coffee. Tired didn’t begin to describe how he felt.
Sterling tucked a pillow behind Cam’s head before covering him with a blanket. “Don’t worry, I’ve got your shift tonight covered. Either I’ll take it or we’ll do a guest bartender thing. Evan’s waking up now; he’ll keep an eye on you until he has to head up to campus.”
Goddammit, Cam hadn’t gotten around to worrying about missing his shift… and losing money.
When the police stopped by that afternoon, Cam was feeling slightly better physically. After sleeping for a few hours and taking another ibuprofen for his headache, he self-diagnosed. From experience, he was certain he didn’t have a concussion.
He didn’t have anything to tell the handsome officer with his little notepad that he hadn’t already told the EMTs the night before, but he dutifully went over the details again.
Evan Weir left for campus an hour or so before the cop arrived, but Sterling stayed, listening while Cam recounted the incident. Cam avoided Sterling’s all-too-knowing scrutiny after the front door shut behind the SkPD representative.
Sterling flipped the business card the cop had left between his thumb and forefinger. “Really? Nothing? Cam, if this was one of the vigilante church posse again…”
“Look, it’s just not worth it.”
Sterling interrupted him. “Cam, if they are starting shit again it is totally worth it. You are worth it. I know you don’t want to rock the boat with them, but I hate that they hurt you.”
The two of them had had this discussion before. Years ago, when Cam had first shown up and begged a job from Sterling, he’d recently been on the wrong end of a beating. It was beyond ironic to Cam that after everything his family went through when he’d been diagnosed with an unusual but treatable form of leukemia, he was disposable when he told them he was gay.
First his dad had beaten the shit out of him, then he’d been told he was no longer welcome. Cam had been eighteen—barely—with nowhere to go. No job, no money, no life experience, no resources.
That time he’d told the doctors he’d been in a bicycling accident and signed his own name, accepting the emergency room charges. Then he’d gone out and applied for every help-wanted ad he saw, but no one would hire a kid with no experience. He’d ended up on the streets for a few scary months, and then he’d ended up back in the ER because he caught a bad case of the flu.
“I know.” Cam sighed. “I do. But.” A little piece of him that had been very strong up until this point gave way, and Cam felt unwanted emotion welling up. He tried shutting his eyes against it. Maybe it was because he was tired or because he ached; he’d never cried about this before. “I don’t ever want to see them again or have anything to do with them. Even if it means that every once in a while I get the tar beaten out of me.” Cam whispered the last few words around the lump in his throat. He covered his face with his good hand, hoping Sterling hadn’t noticed.
The couch cushion next to him dipped. Fuck. Cam turned his head the other way. Sterling draped a heavy arm across Cam’s shoulders, pulling him close in a brotherly hug. Cam caved, gingerly laying his head on Sterling’s shoulder.
“I know, dude. Believe me, I know. When you’re ready, I will be here to stand by you. And I won’t stop reminding you how much power you give them by not saying anything. I know it’s hard and not what you want to hear. But you can’t be the only one they target. That’s not the way these kind of people think.”
“I know.” He did know. What he wanted to know was why it had to be him who had the bullseye painted on his back.