Cort smiled at his phone screen and cracked open a fresh bottle of beer. A few seconds later, it rang and he answered.

“You suck,” Cam said by way of greeting, and honest-to-God, Cort’s stomach flipped. He hadn’t been lying earlier when he said Cam’s bitchy tone, whether in text or speech, totally did it for him. Like pretty much everything that had happened since Friday night, it was fucked up but true.

“Is that any way to speak to a fellow gamer, Seaver?” Cort demanded.

Cam snorted. “I can’t believe you actually bought League of Legends and started playing.”

“Why not? My work laptop was just sitting here, and you said the game was good. You made it sound fun,” Cort returned.

Cam went silent for a moment as though he wasn’t quite sure how to take that, or how to reply. Cort felt guilt flare in his chest. And whose fault is it that everything is strained now, Cort?

Before walking into Cam’s office on Monday, he thought he’d known exactly how their meeting would go down. He’d still been shocked at how hard it had been for him to sit in that chair, watching Cam’s face veer from hope to crushing hurt because of Cort’s words. He’d been stunned by how much his own heart had ached when Cam had said, I thought you and I had something special. Obviously, I was dead wrong.

It had been one thing to plan to hurt a Seaver - one of the rich, entitled assholes Cort hated. But it had somehow become a different thing entirely to hurt Cam.

Cam had agreed to get them to St. Brigitte, and Cort knew he should be satisfied with that, but it wasn’t enough. He’d seen something in Cam’s face on Monday that made him realize once again precisely what he’d be giving up if he let Cam walk away. The guy had been scared and hopeful, and he’d wanted to trust Cort.

And just like Friday night, Cort found himself wanting to deserve that trust.

He wanted Cam to smile at him again, joke with him again, confide in him again, see the sparkle warm his light eyes again.

Sex was firmly off the table, fine. He honestly wasn’t thinking about sex right now… Or, okay, not much. He only wanted to regain what he’d thrown away. For himself, yeah, so he didn’t feel like the world’s biggest asshole, but also for Cam, because somehow, he’d come to realize Cam deserved at least that much. If he had to text or call Cam more than twenty times a day and show his ridiculously geeky, awkward side to achieve that, then so be it.

It was way outside Cort’s usual playbook, but suddenly he felt as if he needed to change up his plays.

“I keep dying embarrassingly fast, though.” Cort was kind of surprised by how much fun he’d found the game, his multiple deaths notwithstanding.

Cam cleared his throat. “Well, keep leveling up and we can play together sometime. I’ll, ah, invite you on my team.”

“Yeah?” Cort was absurdly pleased by this offer, a promise of time together even after the party this weekend. “We can do that. My Yoda you can be.”

“Well, first rule you need to remember, young Padawan, is don’t go after the big guys without your team.”

Cort snickered. “You’d be surprised at how often I get told that, badass.” Sean’s words right before Cort had been escorted out of the FBI office came to mind. “Hard to find good teammates sometimes,” he added quietly.

“Gotta give loyalty to get loyalty.”

Ouch. “What happens when one of your teammates fucks up, though? What happens when they go off and do something stupid so the other team kills you?”

“Get better teammates,” Cam said, so dryly Cort nearly laughed.

“Well, you could, but maybe it’d be better to keep the teammate you have and just, you know, trust they’ll learn their lesson and not fuck shit up again.”

Cam sighed, and Cort could hear the creak of a chair, as though maybe Cam was leaning back.

“Yeah, well. Problem is, they’d have to understand what they did wrong, Cort, and you’d have to believe they gave a shit about not doing it again. I don’t know if that’s possible.”

Ouch, again. Cam’s words cut like a razor and Cort sucked in a breath, twisting his beer bottle around on his desk.

“I don’t do apologies, usually. I do whatever I have to do to get stuff done. But, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I was on Friday night. At first it was only because I wanted to get to know you, so I could handle you more effectively, but then I started to like you.” Dear God, he sounded like a high schooler, didn’t he? He huffed. He’d rather walk on hot coals than spew this mortifying emotional garbage, but if this was what Cam needed from him, if this was what would put the spark back in Cam’s eyes then whatever. “I wasn’t thinking of you as an asset after that, I was thinking of you as an incredibly hot guy I really wanted to spend the night with.”

Cam was silent for so long after Cort spoke, Cort had to check whether the call had been disconnected. But finally, Cam sighed.

“You don’t usually do apologies and I don’t usually do second chances,” he said. “So, fine. I guess we’ll both make an exception in this case. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Cort clutched his phone for a long while after Cam disconnected, feeling as though he’d won something really important for the very first time.