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Sheppard leaned over the pool table, lining up a shot, and Cam circled the table so that he wouldn’t be presented with Sheppard’s ass. The man didn’t exactly fill out a pair of chinos, skinny as he was, but the stretch of fabric showed tight glutes that Cam really shouldn’t be staring at, especially not in a bar that was half Alabama locals and half Air Force. Cam fixed his eyes on the blue-flecked cue ball in Sheppard’s sights, catching the slide of the cue on Sheppard’s hand out of the corner of his eye. Cam leaned on his own stick and swallowed back a spark as Sheppard took the shot, the clack barely rising above the noise of the bar. He could hear Bryce-from-Buffalo, a classmate of theirs in Squadron Officer's School at Maxwell, arguing about changing the channel to a hockey game. And wasn’t that a cliché for an upstate New York boy?
Just as cliché as carefully not looking at Sheppard as he stood up from the shot, all four of them around the pool table watching the 9 ball rolling into a corner pocket. The shot left nothing good on the table. Sheppard’s mouth twisted as he looked for anything that might work.
“Three in the corner,” John said, but Cam looked at the angles. It wasn’t likely to work, but he was going to make sure their opponents didn’t have anything easy.
It was a friendly game, sort of. There was only one table in the bar, so they’d bought their way in to a game of doubles. They two guys who’d been monopolizing the table looked like rednecks out of central casting, one heavy with a plaid shirt, the other skinnier than Sheppard with a Carhartt barn jacket over a Roll Tide T-shirt. The twenties in contention sat tucked under an empty glass on a shelf, soaking up the condensation left from an evening’s worth of beer.
John stood up from his shot and turned toward the skinny one, grinning sorry-not-sorry as the man grumbled. He ambled over toward Cam, snagging his beer from the shelf and swinging the bottle between his fingers in a way that caught Cam’s eye and damn it started the spark again. Cam cleared his throat and gestured at the table with his cue. “Nice spot you put them in.”
A corner of Sheppard's mouth turned up. “There’s money on the line.” He turned up his bottle to drink and Cam caught the movement of his throat out of the corner of his eye, refusing to let himself look at it.
A bunch of folks from the SOS were in those first stages of getting to know each other. Sheppard was interesting in class, mostly quiet, but when he did speak up he usually had an original take. When pushed, Sheppard had said, “Sometimes I see things a little differently.”
Cam was curious about that difference, that creativity, and once they were at the bar and he spotted the table, he figured pool would be a way in. But to get in they had to win the table.
“Two ball in the side pocket,” said the skinny guy. He took the best shot he could try for, hopeless as it was, knocking the 2 close to the side pocket, but a good 5 inches away from the rail. Really, the available vectors were just not in his favor. His shot left the balls in a jumble, and Cam circled the table to see what he could find. Money was on the line, after all.
He spotted it, and thanked his stars for all the physics classes he’d taken. “Three in the side, seven in the corner,” he said, pointing across the table.
“No way y’gonna make that,” said the skinny guy.
“Maybe not,” Cam agreed. It was an awkward lean, but he managed it, calibrating the force on the cue ball as best he could. The three ball dropped in the side after bouncing off the seven, and Cam stood up as the seven rolled toward the corner pocket, slowing until it stopped, an inch away from a perfect drop.
“Damn,” said the skinny guy, drawing out the word. “Almost made it.”
Cam stood up and looked at Sheppard, caught him looking Cam's way, briefly worrying his lower lip. As soon as their glances met, he grinned a bit too casually. “Nice one,” he said.
And that’s when Cam caught on. He wasn’t the only one looking. Well, damn. He took in a deep breath before he could catch himself, beer and chalk dust and French fry oil. He let it out with a shake of his head at the table, as if it was all just a comment on how close he’d gotten. Sheppard’s answering grin had a sly edge. “Next time.”
Now came the tricky part. Confirmation.
They played out the game under the watchful eye of the two locals, punctuated by Bryce-from-Buffalo having loud opinions about the Sabers. At least, Cam suddenly felt like they were being watched. If he and Sheppard had caught each other, it was possible the locals had noticed, too. Better, always, to act like someone might notice. Now they were both pointedly keeping their eyes on the table, but Cam only faked being invested in the game, money or not.
When the bigger guy dropped the 8 ball, Cam wasn’t sad to lose. He’d been hoping to win the table for a one-on-one game with Sheppard, but by this point not watching him lean over was getting to be ridiculous.
The guy in plaid picked their damp twenties up from the shelf. “Well, we got you this time. ’Nother game?”
Sheppard swung his beer bottle between his fingers again, but it was empty. “Nah,” he said. “I can’t keep losing to you two. Gonna head out.”
Cam looked at his beer, still half full. “See you back at the dorms?”
Sheppard nodded and walked out. Cam trailed after him, stopping to talk with Bryce-from-Buffalo. He let the man slap his back, disparage the SOS, talk smack about the Islanders, who he categorically hated for reasons Cam figured had only in-state rivalry to blame. It took him about 15 minutes to extract himself. He got into his car and leaned his head back for a minute.
He hadn’t imagined it. Sheppard had been looking, but the combination of DADT, dorm life, and being in Alabama didn’t add up to actually hooking up.
He drove himself back to base, a beer and two pool games short of where he’d hoped to be, but not really wanting to stop somewhere random. Another night. It wasn’t like there wasn’t studying to do.
When he got out of his car, he heard a door open down the parking lot and glanced up. The slender silhouette topped by that stupid hair made it pretty clear it was Sheppard. Cam closed the door and leaned on his car. Yep, the looks and been real enough for Sheppard to wait in the parking lot. He ambled over and leaned on Cam’s Mustang a careful two feet away. Cam had to say something, and he damn sure couldn’t start with, You waited for me? He landed on, “Can’t believe you drive a Corolla. Kinda tame.”
Sheppard looked in his eyes, and then away. “Flies under the radar.” And didn’t that have more than one meaning. Sheppard reached back and patted the trunk of the Mustang, “Unlike this baby.”
“Ever drive one?” Cam put a tiny emphasis on drive.
“I do like fast things.” Sheppard reached out and patted the driver’s door with his other hand, the one between them, and left his hand there, outstretched, which as far as Cam was concerned was a damn declaration.
He exhaled slowly and spun the keys around his finger. “Want to take her for a spin?”
Sheppard reached across Cam to stop the spin, grabbing his hand as he slid the keyring off, a flirty smile, of all things, crossing his face. Sheppard tossed keys once. “Let’s go.”
Cam walked around to the passenger door. Let’s go, indeed.