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“John,” Cam said, looking at the house. He could hear the nervousness in his own voice as the automatic gate, decorated with a massive Christmas wreath, rolled shut behind them. “You could have warned me.” He kept his foot on the brake, the Mustang barely crawling up the tree-lined drive.
“Warned you about what?”
“I didn’t know you came from…” Cam nodded toward the gleaming white building. It looked more like an embassy than a house, except it was on an estate, with a barn big enough for its own indoor riding ring, a field with jumps set up, rolling hills ending in trees. There were garlands of greenery with red ribbons climbing up the pillars holding up the front porch and another massive wreath on the door. “This,” Cam finished. John quirked an eyebrow at him. “This kind of money.”
John’s face went blank. “Don’t worry. I know they taught you what fork to use at the Academy.”
“Meeting your brother shouldn’t be like a state dinner.”
That made John laugh, a quiet version of his full donkey bray. “You have no idea.”
That caught Cam. He knew John hadn’t been close to his family in years. He stopped the car and looked at John. “How long has it been?”
John sighed slightly. “I was back for my father’s funeral. You may recall that was a shit show.”
“Replicators,” Cam said. “I remember.” He’d been off world, only getting the full story later. He still didn’t get why John hadn’t called in all of the SGC.
“It’d been a lot of years before that since I’d been—.” John clamped his jaw on what should have been the word home , and Cam knew not to push the point.
Cam ventured, “This must have been a nice place to grow up.”
“This was just summers. Part of the summer.” John cleared his throat. “When we weren’t at the place in France.”
Cam’s stomach tightened. John’s family wasn’t just rich, they were truly wealthy. “Let me guess. Cannes.”
John made a face that was part smirk, part sneer, part embarrassment. “Nothing so common. Saint-Paul-de-Vence,” John said, with what sounded to Cam like a perfect French accent. He hadn’t even known John could speak French.
“Damn,” Cam said, looking out over the fields. They looked so manicured, especially by comparison to his parents’ farm in Kansas, the red barn last painted when Cam did it his fourteenth summer. It couldn’t compare to the pristine white barn with festive wreaths hung under every window. “At least we got horses in common, but I’m guessing you rode English.”
“Hunters, yeah.”
That explained why John had given him mixed signals back at the farm. He’d taken John home for Christmas before coming here for New Year’s, and when they went out to the barn, Cam could see John knew how to interact with horses, but didn’t really get the Western tack. John hadn’t volunteered anything, and Cam, as usual, had just decided not to ask. John clammed up if anyone asked about his past before the Academy.
Cam swallowed and looked back at the house. Quite a past. “So…”
“It’s just a house,” John said. “And I’m throwing you under the bus. I’m telling Dave not to expect us to dress for dinner because you didn’t pack a suit.”
“Dress for dinner?”
“Oh, yeah,” John said. “Family dinners required a jacket and tie.”
“You have got to be kidding me?” Cam’s family had required you wash your face and hands, and maybe change out of barn clothes if you’d been working with the livestock. “Formal dinners every night?”
“Mostly. If Dad was home. When it was just Mom we ate in the kitchen with the cook.”
“Cook,” Cam repeated, wrapping his head around the idea of full-time kitchen help, of not having your mom put you to peeling potatoes. John had done fine with that job at the farm, though, so he must have learned it somewhere.
John looked embarrassed. “Yeah. When you’re a kid it seems normal. It wasn’t until I joined the Air Force out of high school that I understood… That, you know, other people’s normal lives in sitcoms was closer to what everyone else…” He waved a hand, indicating everything that wasn’t just this house, this one of many houses.
Cam thought for a minute. “And you think I can’t handle it?” John didn’t say anything. “You mean you never brought me home not because you were worried about the whole gay thing but because you thought I might be intimidated with the whole money thing?”
John shrugged with a twist to his mouth. Oh, Cam thought. Intimidated or worried that Cam only wanted him because he was rich.
They sat there for a moment. Cam saw a curtain twitch by the door, then the door opened and someone stepped out. He had gray hair and was wearing a fleece with a logo and chinos.
“That can’t be Dave.”
John glanced toward the door and snorted, but he sounded embarrassed when he said, “That’s Johnston. He’s the house manager.”
Can had seen enough British costume dramas. “He’s a goddamn butler, isn’t he?”
John twisted his head with a half shrug. “More than that, really, but kind of.” He sounded embarrassed.
He had an idea. “John,” Cam said, and waited until John turned to look at him. “Do you want me to play the Kansas boy?”
“Maybe a little?” Cam put the car back in gear and pulled up to the door where the butler was waiting, parked it, and popped the trunk from inside. John put a hand on his arm before he opened the door. “Just be yourself.”
“Mixed messages,” Cam muttered, but he got out of the car and put on a big smile. “Howdy,” he said to Johnston, who was coming down the steps. The man might be wearing a fleece rather than tails, but Cam guessed he had just as strong ideas of what was proper behavior as any costume-drama character. Too bad. Cam walked over, trotting up the steps with his hand extended. The man took it and blinked, allowing Cam to give him a hearty shake. “Cam Mitchell. Glad to meet you.”
“Johnston,” the man said. “Gary.” He added and blinked as if in surprise at himself for offering a first name.
“Nice to meet you, Gary,” Cam said, dropping the hand, and turning toward the car where John was getting out. Cam clapped him on the back before jogging toward the car, and in no way was he going to call him Johnston. “Just let me know where to put these,” he called over his shoulder, and then took his and John’s duffel bags out of the trunk, slinging the strap of John’s over his shoulder and grabbing his own by the handle.
John had walked straight to the steps, and Cam figured he’d expected Johnston—no, Gary—to bring in the bags. “Good to see you, Johnston,” John said, something in his tone cementing Cam’s impression that John was actually used to having servants.
Oh yeah, Cam was totally planning to fuck with this situation. He closed the trunk of the Mustang and walked up the steps, catching the tail end of what had been a quiet exchange.
“I can have a guest room made up,” Gary was saying softly.
“No need,” Cam said, a cheeky wink at John. “We can bunk together.”
He ignored Gary reaching for the bags and walked past them through the open door, not waiting to see their expressions. As his eyes adjusted, he almost dropped the bags. Embassy, indeed. The place looked like what fancy country inns were trying to be. Not that Cam had been to many of those, but he’d had a girlfriend that liked B&Bs in stately homes, so he’d seen a couple and found them over done. Not this place. It wasn’t the White House, which Cam had been to, but it was pretty damn impressive in that restrained and tasteful way Cam had learned to associate with old money. Even so, the Christmas tree in the entryway had to be ten feet tall, all done in silver bows and red balls.
He had no idea which way to go. Looking around he saw there was yet another tree, this time blue and gold, in a parlor off to the right. He slapped his good-old-boy smile back on his face and turned to watch John and Gary come in the door. “Guess I should let you lead the way.”
“Can I help with the bags?” Gary said, reaching for Cam’s duffel.
“I’ll get it,” John said, and took Cam’s bag and slung the strap over his shoulder. “Thanks, Johnston. We’ll take it from here.”
“Would you like some refreshment after your drive?” Gary said, and Cam could tell the man was just trying hard to do his job, not quite sure what to do with Cam.
“Iced tea’d be great,” he said. He wanted to say they’d just raid the fridge after they got settled, but he took pity on the man.
John nodded, and Gary said, “Very good. I’ll have it on the back porch by the time you get settled.”
“Thanks,” Cam said and turned to John. “Lead the way.”
“Thank you, Johnston,” John said, and shot Cam a look he couldn’t quite interpret, an odd mix of John’s familiar sardonic and formal expressions, and started up the ornate central staircase. Cam almost felt like a different skin was settling on John, draping over him as he walked through the oh-so-tasteful environment.
Cam could feel his feet sinking into the thick rug, a Persian carpet running down the hall. John opened a door to a room with a four-poster bed, an area with a desk, a dresser. If John had left at 18 to join the Air Force as enlisted, Cam would have expected his bedroom to reflect a high schooler’s taste. Then he remembered John saying it was just one of the houses. He looked around for something personal and saw a cabinet with trophies in it, some cups, one of a hand holding what was maybe lighting that forked on both sides. There were some with jumping horses, and hanging medals neatly arranged. Trophies for riding, and other things. He thought he saw a pistol on a medal.
He dropped John’s duffel on the bed next to where John had put his. John was rummaging in the closet and came out with something like one of those luggage stands from a hotel, but made of dark hardwood and embroidered webbing. “You can use this one,” he said.
“Who has a luggage stand in his closet?” Cam said, ignoring the fact that it looked like fine furniture. He didn’t feel right putting his road-weary duffel on it.
John snorted and moved Cam’s bag. “I have two,” he says and turns to pull out a second, matched stand. He plopped his own his duffel on it like the stand didn’t probably cost more than the entire contents of his bag. Maybe. Maybe Cam should look closer at John’s civvies.
“Was it like this when you were a kid?” Cam asked.
John unzipped his bag, pulling out a polo shirt and reaching back to the closet for an empty hanger, shrugging one shoulder in a silent answer. John hung the shirt and turned his back to Cam as he put it away. In fact, he hadn’t really looked at Cam since they’d stepped in the front door.
Something about the line of John’s back, the tension, made something hollow out in Cam’s chest. He wasn’t sure how to read this, and he thought back over their relationship. John had grown up with this kind of wealth, knew how to move in it, but he didn’t seem to like it much. Cam knew the man was comfortable on an aging couch with pizza and beer, certainly more comfortable than he seemed here. All this time Cam had been thinking that John was worried about coming out to his family, but Cam was pretty sure now that there were two kinds of coming out happening—John out to his family as gay, and out to Cam as rich. Cam had only really expected the first one.
Cam lay down in the bed, keeping his shoes off the cover. He wasn’t born in a barn after all, even if he’d grown up in one. He propped his head up on his folded arms and watched John unpack, movements stiff, like he was waiting for something. Time to break the tension, then.
“So, you ever have sex in this room?”
John froze, turned frowning at Cam. “No?”
“Sounds like a question. Wanna turn that into a yes?” He waggled his eyebrows. He wasn’t particularly turned on by the idea of sex in John’s teen bedroom, but he wanted to get John out of whatever emotional pit he was digging for himself. And if Cam was right, John was walling off into a self-protection that Cam didn’t want to let settle in.
“Not…no,” John said after a pause. And Cam knew something was wrong because John didn’t even give him a performative eye roll.. “Johnston’s probably waiting for us out on the back porch,” John said, zipping his duffel.
“How ‘bout after?” Cam asked, levering himself up off the bed and putting a hand on John’s stiff arm. He wanted to turn him, kiss him, but John wouldn’t accept it right now. “Or you can show me the first place you kissed a boy. My money says it was the stables.”
The tips of John’s ears turned bright red so fast that Cam had to stifle a laugh.
John turned toward the door and Cam let his hand drop, following him out into the plush hallway. “Oh yeah,” he said. “After the iced tea on the porch, I’m definitely gonna want the grand tour. All around the world of this little fiefdom.” Cam drawled out the old slang for blow job.
The flush crept up John’s neck from under his shirt, but he didn’t break stride. Cam leaned in and whispered behind John’s ear. “Barn was your first place for that, too, I bet. Replay’d be kind of fun.”
John stopped at that, just shy of the top of the stairs, and looked over his shoulder at Cam. Cam grinned, putting a little bit of leer into it, but John’s face was shut down, only the red ears giving away anything beyond the military bearing John had suddenly put on on top of the tension he’d been carrying. But he didn’t say anything. His look was impassive, not quelling, but it pulled Cam up short. John turned and went down the staircase fast enough that Cam had to work a bit to keep up and follow him through rooms he barely noticed to a large back porch.
It was big enough to have multiple seating areas, all matched in tone but with different styles. Johnston was standing by a grouping in the corner, and John led the way. This set seemed a bit more masculine, fewer of the throw pillows, with wooden chairs with broad cushions. A tray with a pitcher of tea, two empty glasses and an ice bucket was on the central table. Cam also noticed a sugar bowl. Fancy.
“May I serve?” Johnston asked.
Cam stifled a cringe. That seemed a bit too much, having what amounted to a waiter on your own back porch. John said, “I’ve got it, thank you.”
Johnston nodded and left as they sat down. John served, and it wasn’t just a matter of pouring from the pitcher. He asked Cam how much ice and if he wanted sugar, and it reminded him of his cousins playing tea party when they were kids. Cam played along, thinking suddenly about John getting etiquette lessons, contrasting this polite-for-guests mask with John in sweats, watching a game, beer in hand, or asleep on the couch with a line of drool. Suddenly Cam realized he’d never seen John absently scratch his balls. Some lessons didn’t go away, he guessed.
Cam took the glass John finally handed him and waited while John fixed his own, adding a lemon wheel. Cam looked out over the grounds—no way could he call it the back yard—seeing the huge barn and other outbuildings. His family spread wasn’t any smaller, but it was homey, functional, maybe a little shabby at the edges. John had seemed pretty comfortable at Cam’s home, as easy with Cam’s parents as John ever was about anything. Here he was in his own home and suddenly all this formality dropped over him like armor.
“Cheers,” he said when John finally picked up his glass. They saluted each other and sipped.
“Beautiful place,” Cam said, gesturing with his glass. The tea was good and he took another drink.
“My mother did the landscape design,” John said. “It was a hobby of hers.”
“She was good at it.” There was a moment of silence and it wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t warm. “So no one actually lives here from your family?”
“Dad retired here, but since he died, Dave’s been trying to decide whether to sell it or give it to me.”
“Give?” Cam asked. Even for wealthy people, it seemed like a lot.
“Dad wrote me out of the will a couple of times. The last time was before I got sent to Antarctica.” John put down his glass, untasted. “He usually got over whatever it was and reversed it within a few years, but he hadn’t gotten around to it.” He picked up his glass and sipped, but it seemed only like wanting something to do with his hands. “Maybe Dave feels guilty, but that doesn’t seem likely. Probably a good tax deal for him.”
Cam put his own glass down, took John’s from him, and leaned in to take John’s hands. “We don’t have to be here.”
John didn’t say anything for a long time, and finally swallowed and took a breath. “We’re at that point, aren’t we?” he said, glancing briefly at Cam and then down to their hands.
Cam’s chest tightened, wondering if John was going where Cam thought he might be going. But he said, “If we were normal, we would have been at meet the family years ago.”
“As friends,” John said, pulling his hands away and leaning back.
Cam stayed leaning forward. “DADT is history.”
“Old habits,” John said, looking out over the grounds.
Cam leaned back in his seat. “Yeah, I can tell,” he said, meaning more than staying in the closet to keep their military careers. John must have caught some of that because he looked at Cam with an eyebrow cocked. Cam shrugged. “We walk in here and you turn into little lord of the manor. You can’t tell me you weren’t a hellion.”
John shook his head. “That was Dave. Apparently when I enlisted, he straightened up. Turns out it was all show, maybe because he was younger and maybe mad I’d inherit the business. But I didn’t want that. And when Dad wrote me out of the will the first time, Dave had a reason to play the game.”
It was one of the longest things John had ever said to Cam that didn’t involve sports. “So you were the model son until suddenly you weren’t?”
“Something like that.” John shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
Cam treasured the insight, but he knew John well enough not to keep pushing. It explained a lot about John at the Academy, coming in as a Prior Enlisted but without the rougher edges of the usual Airman. John had made it through their Doolie summer hardly ever breaking bearing, and the rest of their first academic year he started to relax, but he never had talked about his past, not even telling stories from his enlisted years. He’d intrigued Cam back then, and there was a good bit of lust and solo shower sessions featuring John’s mouth in his imagination, but that was even before DADT. A hint of gay could get you bounced out on your ear. He’d never shown it and certainly never seen it from John. That had come a lot later.
John was looking out over the grounds, apparently having used up his stock of words for the moment, so Cam let himself just look, contrasting his Academy classmate—so beautiful, a few years older than those who’d come right out of high school, like Cam had done—with the more weathered man before him. Oh, John still had that beauty, maybe more, and a grace that was different from everyone else. Cam thought about those riding trophies in John’s bedroom, so he asked about them, easing them away from anything painful, he hoped, but not a complete left turn in the conversation. “So you rode competitively before the Air Force?”
“Pentathalon.”
“What’s that?”
“Riding, shooting, swimming, cross country, and fencing.”
“Huh,” Cam said. It explained the grace. He didn’t know much about fencing, but he’d seen it. Between jumping horses, pistols and swords, John’s balance and eye developed young. “No wonder you made the pistol team as a Doolie.”
“Good to shake off the rust,” John said. “It had been a while.”
“Yeah, they don’t give you much to shoot at as an E1. Speaking of rust,” Cam said, “what about riding?”
“We did that at your place,” John said, but his eyes moved to the barn.
“Sure, Western saddle. People say that’s like being on a sofa after English.” John made an equivocal noise. Cam really wanted to shake him out of whatever this tense formality was. “At least show me the barn?”
“Sure,” John said, taking a long drink from his glass and standing. He led Cam down the steps and across the perfect lawn on a smooth stone walkway to the entrance to the pristine, white barn.
It wasn’t like what Cam thought of as a barn, a place to store things out of the weather, for animals to shelter. This was nicer than some of the places he’d lived when deployed. The floor was a thick, soft rubber instead of bare boards. It still smelled of horses and hay, but had none of the must or manure smell that usually came along with animals. “So when I used to ask if you were born in a barn when you left your skivvies in the bathroom, I was kind of off the mark here.”
John’s answer was a hum. A couple of horse heads poked out of their stalls, curious. Cam remembered how John had been with the horses back at his place, not really answering when Cam asked if he’d ridden much before. He’d let Cam tack them both and seemed a little awkward, but comfortable with the animals. Now he knew John just hadn’t been used to Western. He watched John reach into a bucket and pull out a peppermint, offering it flat on his hand to a chestnut that looked about 17 or18 hands, some gray around the mouth. Not a young horse, but a beauty. John lost some of his tension as he petted the big head, mouth moving as if he was crooning to the horse, too softly for Cam to hear.
Following an impulse, Cam walked up to John, making noise purposefully on the soft, rubber flooring so John would know he was there. He reached around John’s middle and put his chin on John’s shoulder, hugging him from behind. “This was your happy place, huh?”
John leaned back into Cam’s embrace, one hand still scritching between the horse’s ears. “Riding Duke here. That was the best.”
Cam nuzzled into John’s neck, half expecting John to lean away, but tilted his head toward Cam. “Would I win that bet about your first kiss?” Cam asked, his lips on John’s neck.
John huffed a laugh. “Yeah. Not here, though. But a stable, yeah.”
“Wanna tell me about it?”
“Not much to tell.” John started to go stiff again, and Cam let him go.
“Duke,” he said, dropping the subject. “Fine looking horse.”
“Great jumper,” John said. “Best money could buy,” he added, like he was quoting something he didn’t like.
“Pentathalon doesn’t sound cheap,” Cam said.
“And not everyone can get fencing lessons,” John said.
“Think it all served you in the Air Force, though,” Cam said.
“Flying,” John said with a skeptical eyebrow.
“Shooting’s obvious, but moving in three dimensions on a jumping horse isn’t something everyone learns.”
“Huh,” John said, still petting the horse. “Never thought about it that way. Fencing was good for learning not to over-react. Just take the point off line so they can’t touch you.”
“Kind of explains how you fly,” Cam said. He looked at the horse in the stall. It was a beauty, glistening coat and clean, powerful lines. Elegant, really, especially compared to the saddle horses at his parent’s place.
And wasn’t that him and John? Cam could see it now, John a thoroughbred to Cam’s part-quarter horse mutt. John with fancy manners he’d had to unlearn and Cam getting all that officer and gentleman stuff at the Academy. He’d learned more about John since coming through that fancy gate at the end of the drive than during their four years at the Academy, occasional shared postings, and the last few years of a very long-distance relationship.
“You know,” Cam said, sparking off that last thought and looking at John. “You and me. I didn’t see that coming.”
John smirked, almost normal. “That’s usually my line.”
“I’d kind of thought you might be gay, and then you married Nancy.”
“You saw how well that worked.” John kept his attention on the horse.
Cam shifted to lean against the post by the stall door. “Why’d you marry her?”
John’s mouth twitched. “Old habits? It seemed like something Dad expected. She wanted it.”
“Did you love her?” Cam asked, holding his breath as soon as the words came out. This kind of conversation was Sheppard Kryptonite.
As Cam expected, John’s face shut down. He backed away from the horse and took another peppermint out of the bucket, walking past Cam to a stall where a gray head looked out, blowing out hay breath and hope. Next to Cam’s head, Duke snorted and turned back into the stall. Cam followed John, taking up his position again leaning on the post by the door, this time on the opposite side. He bit down on apologizing for asking, and let the sounds of the little gray’s big teeth crunching candy fill the air.
Eventually John said, “Kind of. I liked her fine. I was deployed a lot. She didn’t like it.”
“We’re making distance work.”
“We’re both—“ John gestured between them. Cam figured he meant that they were both military, not that they were both gay. “That was the second time I got written out of the will. When we split up.”
“What’s that like?” Cam asked. “You have this,” he said, gesturing around the perfect barn, “then you don’t.”
John said. “I didn’t earn it.” He shrugged with one shoulder, petting the gray. “Walked out at 18, joined up, and never expected to be back.”
“Why’d you bring me here?” At that John froze hard enough that the gray pulled back its head. Cam added softly, “It’s just that you don’t seem to want to be here.”
John took a visible breath, crooned something to the horse, which brought its head back down for more attention.
John eventually turned away from the horse, which huffed in displeasure and butted John’s shoulder, but John led Cam to the end of the stalls, to the indoor riding ring. He stood for a moment, looking out at it, memories replaying, near as Cam could tell. John kicked at the sand and sawdust that made up the floor of the ring, this at least more normal than the fancy rubber near the stalls. Dust rose in the air, catching the light from high windows and making Cam’s nose itch. There were lights in the ceiling, but they were off, leaving the ring in shadows
“Dave and I,” John said, then stopped. Cam held his peace. “I told him about you. When we talked after Dad died. He asked to meet you.”
That surprised Cam, and it made his stomach tighten. “I’d’a been there if I could.” Cam had been off world, and by the time Cam found out about John losing the dad he never talked about and then fighting replicators as a rotten cherry on top, John was back on Atlantis. Cam snaked his arm around John’s waist, pulling against his stiffened frame. “C’mon, relax,” he said. “If I can talk to the President, I can handle dinner with your brother.” He kissed John’s cheek. “And if you told him about me, we can risk a little PDA.”
“Not exactly public,” John said, but Cam knew the mild bickering meant that things were going to be okay.
“Well even more reason to relax. C’mere,” he said, and turned John into his arms. “You didn’t look down on my folks and where I came from.”
“Of course not,” John said, pulling back and looking mildly offended.
“So afford me the same flexibility and I promise I won’t embarrass you.”
Cam was surprised that it was John who leaned in to kiss. “Never,” he said, so firmly that Cam couldn’t help but smile. It was about as close as John Sheppard could get to a declaration of love.
“Me neither.” As soon as he said it, he wondered if it wasn’t just like John to make him answer in the negative. He always turned things on their heads. “This all doesn’t make any difference, you know,” Cam said, a tilt to his head to take in the pristine stables and everything else. “Just explains some of your puzzles.”
“Gonna get bored with me now?” John asked, sliding a hand up Cam’s arm to rest on his neck, fingers brushing Cam’s short hair.
“Never,” Cam said, as firmly as John.
“Me neither.”
Somehow Cam suspected that they were going to say Never and Me neither pretty much for the rest of their lives. Cam pulled John in for a hug, waiting the few seconds it always took John to relax into an embrace. Cam figured a barn like this, a house like that, the place in France, and God knew how many other houses—these weren’t places that lent themselves to warmth. And John craved warmth, but all this explained how hard it seemed for John to let himself accept it.
“Thanks for not freaking out,” John mumbled into Cam’s neck.
“I take it others have?”
“Or wanted it,” John said, confirming Cam’s earlier thought.
“I’m good,” Cam said, meaning it. Money was nice, but he couldn’t imagine life in a place this manicured. He pulled back to kiss John. The mood needed a shift. “You’re the only thing I want in the place. Now tell the truth, first time to kiss a boy was in this barn, wasn’t it?”
John blushed. “Not this one. At a competition. First for other things, too.”
“I’m getting ideas,” Cam said, sliding his hand down to John’s ass and squeezing gently.
“Not now,” John said, pulling away, but the flush rose further. “Dave and family should get here any time. Then I have to disappoint him by not dressing for dinner. Still throwing you under the bus on that one.”
Cam smirked. “Not a chance, Sheppard. I packed a jacket and tie.”
John swatted at him, but froze when they heard a voice calling John’s name. John moved away from Cam to walk toward the big barn door. The bright sun outside put the person in silhouette, and Cam squinted to adjust from the dim indoor ring. John was already halfway down the stalls.
The voice from the door said, “You made it! Johnston told me I’d find you here.”
When John reached him, they shook hands. “Good to see you, Dave.”
Cam took a breath, suddenly nervous, not sure what John needed or wanted from him. The handshake, instead of a hug, brought back home how different John’s upbringing had been from Cam’s. What was the family protocol for coming out to your brother? All the confidence he’d had about bringing the Kansas boy to the manor when he’d walked into the door of the big house evaporated.
“Cam,” John called. Cam could here that small note of trepidation in John’s voice. This was the moment, and he would follow John’s lead.
“Howdy,” he said as he walked toward them, the country slipping out before he could stop it. He walked up and took a place equal distance from both John and his brother, making the third point of a triangle.
John reached out to him, and Cam glanced at his hand for a second in surprise before reaching out to take it. John tugged him in to stand close, shoulders touching and their hands still clasped. John’s voice sounded resolute. “Dave, I want you to meet my partner, Colonel Cameron Mitchell.”
Dave’s eyes flew wide, like he hadn’t known what to expect, but only for a moment, his face settling into an expression of understanding. “Oh,” he said. He blinked and extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, Colonel Mitchell.”
Cam had to let go of John’s hand to shake Dave’s, and the contact was firm and confident, the very best of a businessman’s welcome. “Just Cam, please,” Cam said. When he pulled his hand back, John took it again. Cam could feel the tension in John, but he was keeping them close together.
Dave smiled again, looking at John and not Cam, his eyebrows moving slightly as if he were working out a puzzle. He turned back to Cam and put a hand on his arm, squeezing slightly. Something in his voice changed, and Dave sounded genuine as he said, “Welcome to the family.”
Cam felt John unwind, the bunched muscles in his shoulder softening and his body relaxing toward Cam. He squeezed Cam’s hand. “Yeah. Good,” was all John said, but the words filled Cam up as they leaned into each other.