Page 71 of Merry & Bright

“Ah,” he said carefully. “But you don’t send them to Cam McMorrow at Glen Croe Adventures.” He felt a weird pang in his gut as he said that, acknowledging explicitly for the first time the feeling that had been dogging him for months now, the feeling of being on the outside. Still a stranger in Inverbechie after ten months of living here.

Rob looked a bit sick. “Listen, Cam, no one sat down and decided to exclude you. It’s just that no one thought toincludeyou either.”

Cam had been lounging back on the sofa but that felt wrong now. He shifted and sat up straight. “It’s fine. I get it.”

I’m okay.

“No, Cam, you really don’t—”

“I think I do,” he interrupted firmly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “When I started selling coffee and stuff, I was just thinking about making a little bit of extra income but—well, what I did was a pretty big no-no round here, wasn’t it? I trespassed on your territory and—”

“No, Cam! I couldn’t carelesswhat you sell at the boatshed!” Rob exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “Okay, so Val called the Council—like I said, she went overboard but she was just being loyal to me. As for what happened after you and I argued, well, that was down to me not wanting to apologise. Me not wanting to—” He broke off.

“To what?”

Rob looked away before he answered. “I don’t know... Maybe to let myself get to know you properly.”

Cam stared at him, flabbergasted by that. “Why not?” he demanded, hurt beyond all reason.

“Because you’re—” Rob made a sort of helpless gesture in Cam’s direction.

“I’m what?”

“Young,” Rob mumbled. “Hot. Out of my league.”

For a second, Cam just stared at Rob, astonished. Then he laughed. The laugh was prompted by surprise more than anything else but Rob’s face blazed with mortification at the sound and he scrambled to his feet, cheeks burning, ready to walk away.

“Rob, wait—” Cam grabbed his arm before he could put any distance between them and pulled him back, making him overbalance and fall back onto the sofa with an“Ooomf!”

And then Cam was leaning over him, staring down at his startled face, at those wide, silver-bright eyes and their fringe of coal-black lashes.

“You’rehot,” he said softly. “And I’m most definitelynotout of your league.”

“Yeah?” Rob breathed.

“Oh yeah,” Cam replied, and lowered his head to kiss him.