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“Cam?”
“Hmm?”
“Did you see me change out of my clothes by the jacuzzi?”
Cameron blushes, looking away from her. They’re in her family’s sunroom, listening to the radio and flipping through magazines.
“You did, right? You saw me? I thought you were catatonic.” Cameron nods, smiling a bit when he sees the relaxed look on Sloane’s face that says she’s not mad, but she’s also not finished with him yet.
“It’s okay. I’m not embarrassed. We’ve been friends long enough, and I could hardly blame you for noticing.”
Cameron finally exhales on a little laugh, starting to relax. “I, uh…I mean I was breaking down, that was no joke. But I guess, yeah, once I saw you both, it’s not like I could look away.”
This piques something in Sloane. “Both? As in, Ferris too?”
Cameron tenses once again, tries and fails to sound casual. “I mean, yeah, you know, you both changed in the same spot so it’s not like—I mean, anyway, it wouldn’t be the first time. Or whatever.”
Sloane chooses her words carefully; this was clearly stirring up something in Cameron and she didn’t want to push him. “Of course. But maybe this time was…different? Not seeing but, watching?”
Cameron coughs dryly, shifting in his seat and blushing redder than before. His arm wraps around his own neck, looking for somewhere to hide his face. “Sloane. I don’t know what you think—”
“Cameron, wait, please.” She sat on the couch next to him and touched his elbow with just her fingertips. “I’m only asking because I’m your friend, and I want to understand. If I’m wrong, tell me. But if I’m not…” Cameron still can’t look at her, but his shoulders are slowly retreating from his ears.
“If I’m not, then you should know that Ferris wouldn’t be embarrassed either, the same as me. He wouldn’t care and neither would I.”
Cameron is silent, then lets out a heavy breath he had been holding. Sloan uses her other hand to guide his hands back down into his lap, and she smooths down the back of his neck to his shoulder.
“And again, could I really blame you? He’s beyond gorgeous.”
At this Cameron finally cracks a smile, still a bit melancholic. Sloane pulls him into her and wraps her arms around him, leans him into her side and kisses him lightly behind his ear.
“Thank you,” is all he can say, voice tight and small.
“No reason to thank me,” Sloane replies, almost firmly. “You’re my best friend, Cam. That’s all that matters. Understood?”
Cameron’s eyes flutter shut and he gets goosebumps down his spine. He finally relaxes, the full weight of his lanky frame releasing against Sloane’s side. She holds him like this for a long while, breathing slowly with him.
~
A few weeks go by, and Sloane is putting things together. Ever since her talk with Cameron, she’s been seeing his dynamic with Ferris through new eyes. Fer’s cheekiness masking his vulnerability, Cam’s adoration overpowering his self respect. How Ferris takes and takes and takes, giving back just enough to inspire hope of change.
She’s with Ferris in his bedroom, pretending to read while she stews about this. He’s shuffling through some tapes at his desk; they’d been quiet for the past few minutes, just enjoying the radio and sounds from his open window.
“You’re too mean to him.”
Ferris pauses and sets the tapes down. He turns to her. “What?”
“You’re too mean to him,” Sloane says again, all casual and matter of fact. She’s sitting up on his bed against the headboard with arms crossed across her chest. She’s not smiling.
“Who, Cameron?” Ferris asks, wrinkling his eyebrows.
Sloane just drops her head to the side, exasperated.“No, your mailman. Of course Cameron.”
Ferris’s mouth hangs open for a moment. Sloane didn’t suffer fools, but it wasn’t often she had to. Hearing her serious voice always took him off his guard, disabled his above-it-all shtick, especially if it was concerning his best friend.
“I don’t…” he started, gaze darting around the floor looking for words. “Did I do something?”
“It’s everything. Teasing him, using him,” Sloane said firmly. Now that she was finally speaking up about it she felt even more strongly that she needed to say it. Cameron was such a dear friend to her, and these observations were becoming too much to bear. “He’d give you the world and you know it and you use it against him, in a way you’d never do with me.”
Ferris gapes his mouth like a fish.
“I know you love him, Ferris. I know you don’t mean to be cruel but—”
“Cruel?” Ferris sputters.
“Yes, cruel. You don’t know what it does to him. You’re starting to lead him on and I had to say something.”
Several emotions work their way through Ferris’s head simultaneously at that. Few things can leave him speechless, let alone this paralyzed by his thoughts. He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head in an attempt to clear them out.
“Lead him on? How do I—”
“‘Oh Cam, babe, would you pleeease come and rub my back? Sloane’s delicate fingers just can’t get this knot out.’” Sloane mocks Ferris’s saccharine tone, his big puppy-eyed pout that gets him everything he wants. “‘Cammie, could you warm up my feet? They’re sooo cold and the blanket is soooo far away. By the way, can I see your homework?’”
Ferris’s face goes red; he can’t deny that those are nearly direct quotes. “But that’s—that’s not teasing!”
“It isn’t? How?”
“Because…because I meant it?”
Sloane starts to smile. “Okay. So what, you just need to feel his hands on you that badly, then?”
Ferris starts coughing, choking on his own spit or his surprise or—something. Sloane’s smile grows and her eyes narrow. “Ohhh, yes. I see now.”
“Wha-a?” Ferris rasps, his mind reeling.
“Come here,” Sloane says softly, easing up on him just a touch. He joins her on his bed, lets her guide him down so she’s spooning him from behind. Her elbow hangs over his shoulder and she strokes his hair, scratching slow and firm with her long nails while he shivers.
“You don’t even realize how bad you want it, huh?” she asks in a near whisper. “You always get to be the tease, make him the flustered one, take the attention off yourself. You’re so sly you can’t even see when you’re fooling yourself.”
Ferris’s shivers turn into little gasps at Sloane’s words. He registers just how turned on he is, tingling head to toe; when did that happen?
“He does have such nice, strong hands, doesn’t he? That nice firm grip when he holds your hand, like you know he won’t let go. Bit bigger than yours. Longer fingers.”
“F-fffuck,” spits out Ferris, verging on a whine. He’s desperately grinding back against Sloane, starved for friction. She grabs his wrists, drawn up over his head where he’s hiding his face from how embarrassed and aroused he is.
“Promise me you’ll talk to him.”
“Yes,” Ferris pants.
“Because he deserves better.”
“Yes.”
“And you do too. But especially him.”
“Yes, yes, oh my god—” Ferris trails off into desperately high moan as Sloane roughly palms him through his pants, making him come immediately.
Ferris sees stars for a few moments, braces himself against the mattress and slowly catches his breath while Sloane scrapes her nails down the back of his neck, proud and possessive. Eventually, he wrenches himself around to face her.
“What was—how did you—I mean…what was that?” he manages.
“Was it okay with you?”
“Well,” he pauses briefly. “Yeah. Yeah, clearly it was. So then…it’s okay with you? Would it be? You actually want me to…”
“I only want what you want, if I’m correct about how badly it is you want it. Which…” her eyes run down to the wet spot on his sweats and back up, “I think I am.”
He smiles, but it’s still a little anxious. “And me wanting that…doesn’t change us?”
She cups his face in her palms and gently smooths his eyebrows apart.
“Fer, Cameron and I have had to share your attention since middle school. You and I both love him dearly. I don’t see much that actually could change.”
She’s quiet as he nods and looks down, still thinking. Then she adds, “I mean, unless you’re too chicken.”
Ribbing almost always works, lights a little fire under him and makes him himself again. He throws his arms around her and kisses her deeply, grinning wildly and nipping at her all the while.