Eight pairs of eyes pivoted between us.
Ineverput my mess on the table. But the room was a little too warm, and the memory was still crawling under my skin.
“Break. Five minutes.”
Everyone broke into small groups, and from the tilt of heads, sideways glances, and muttered words, I knew I was the subject of their conversations.
Fuck.
Max stood in front of me, in my face. “Tell me what’s going on,” he said in a low voice.
“Nothing’s going on.”
“You’re lying.” He folded his arms. “You haven’t been right all evening. Iknowyou, Theo. Do you think I can’t see when something’s wrong?”
My pulse skittered. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Bullshit.” Max lowered his voice even more. “You walked in here looking like you hadn’t slept. You’re jumpy. You’ve dropped pitch twice. And this—” He gestured vaguely at my whole body. “—isn’t stress. This is something else.”
I clenched my jaw. “I’m fine.”
“That the same ‘fine’ you were the night Cameron walked into the leather bar?”
I inhaled sharply.
Max nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
“And where is he, by the way?”
I swallowed. “He had a class. But he said he’d drop in after?—”
The studio door opened, and Cameron stepped inside, his hair damp from drizzle, his cheeks flushed from walking fast, his sketchbook under his arm.
He looked?—
Happy.
Cameron was glowing in a way that only someone who’d had a good night’s sleep and a better night before that could glow.
My breath caught so sharply I felt it.
Cameron gave the room a shy wave, and the group waved back, amid calls and cheers.
“We wondered where you were,” Liam said with a grin.
Julian let out a low whistle. “Someone’shaving a good day.”
“Look at his face,” Finnley muttered. “Who did that to him?”
Max didn’t look at Cameron—he looked at me.
I swallowed hard.
Cameron’s gaze found mine, like a magnet drawn to metal, and that slow, blooming smile lit up his face. It was warm, private…
Knowing.