Family Camp (Daddy Dearest, #1)(60)
His dad was quiet for a moment while Travis collected himself. When he spoke, his tone was all business. “So. This is a pickle, huh? With the Padres?”
“Yeah. And…and with Geo.” God, even saying his name made Travis ache.
“I’m sorry some asshole violated your trust here. I, well, I had a bit of a meltdown at breakfast, and afterward a woman and her son left. Tore outta here in her car like a bat outta hell. I suppose she was the one who took those pictures. Name was Jeanine Smith. It was her first year at camp. Do you know her?”
“No.” Travis could recall a few women he’d never met before taking his photo from a distance, watching him frequently. But that wasn’t unusual.
“Cindy said Jeanine had asked her some questions about you. She thought it was possible this lady was sent to the camp just to try to dig up some dirt. It’s no secret you’re a counselor here every year.”
Travis let out a bark of a laugh. “Well, if she was sent to spy on me, she got more than she bargained for.”
“I suppose. Another fellow here is a lawyer, and he didn’t think we’d have much luck getting a cease-and-desist on the use of those photos. Since our campers pay, we’re sort of like a hotel, he said, so we can’t claim private property, at least not in places like the field or the beach.”
“It’s okay, Dad. The cat’s out of the bag, anyway.”
“I guess it is.” James didn’t sound happy about it. He could be bullish when it came to defending his family. “I wish this was a non-issue for you, son, but I know it won’t be with your team or with the dang media. So tell me. What can I do to help?”
And suddenly, Travis thought that maybe it was going to be okay. No matter what, Travis still had his family. He had savings in the bank, a house he owned outright, and his family behind him. He’d survive.
And maybe, if he was lucky, he’d get the chance to do much more than that.
Travis cleared his throat and sat up straighter in the driver seat. “What I could really use, Dad, is your advice. I just saw Marcia, and she laid out a couple of options.”
“Well, all right. Now we’re getting down to it. Let’s hear ’em.”
Chapter 29
The drive home with the kids was relatively drama free. Lucy didn’t disappear again at the rest stop, thank God. She stuck close by Geo, willingly holding his hand while they were inside, which made Geo realize how much progress they’d made in just one short week at camp.
Jayden, too, was much less hostile. Yeah, he complained about how long the drive was, and pleaded for junk food at the stops they made, but that was normal kid stuff. The sneering Jayden didn’t make an appearance. He was a little subdued though.
Travis, and the whole camp experience, had affected them all. Geo perhaps the most. But he couldn’t allow himself to think about that. He couldn’t analyze it or dwell on it, not on the road, not while he was pulling together dinner or getting the kids settled down with a movie back at home.
He didn’t break until he was doing their laundry, the kids asleep in their own beds. He picked up a T-shirt from his bag—a thin, cornflower blue one that he’d worn to Parent Party night because he always received compliments on the color.
He’d made out with Travis in that shirt. The fabric had been crushed up against Travis’s bare chest. Travis’s hands had made their way under the material, been splayed between that shirt and Geo’s back.
Travis’s hands.
Geo brought the shirt to his nose, closed his eyes and inhaled. He could smell Travis on the cloth—a bit of sunscreen, sweat, woodsmoke, the sweet musky smell of Travis himself.
Geo started crying. It wasn’t a big, ugly cry. He didn’t have the energy. He was just fucking sad. He’d fallen in love with Travis Mayhew a little bit, and who could blame him? It had been ages since Geo had dated anyone he’d liked half as much. Or never.
It had been easy to fall into a fantasy of a life with the two of them—four of them—together. Especially that last day, at the family relay. A fucking dream, that would be, Beaver Cleaver meets La Cage aux Folles.
But that wasn’t real. In the real world, Travis had a high-powered, high-pressure job, one where being gay was taboo. In the real world, he and Travis were just a couple of guys who’d gotten off together, and maybe even been simpatico on some level.
On all levels.
Okay, yes, they were simpatico. But that wasn’t enough. Not pitted against time and distance and money and pressure and fame and two lifestyles as different as caviar and buffalo wings.
What a tragedy that something so wonderful had turned so sour, that it had seriously fucked with Travis’s life. It would have been hard enough to say goodbye to that sweet, closed-up, addictive, tender-hearted, defensive-walled, secretly needy, sexy-as-fuck man. But to lose him and know that Travis had to face a shit-storm over it? Ugh.
So Geo wept a little into the shirt. Because he was just really fucking sad.
And then he realized he was covering up Travis’s scent, so he stopped. And if he tucked the dirty T-shirt into a drawer, well, no one had to know but him.
On Sunday, Geo took the kids to the zoo because he needed to get out in the sunshine and to do something he didn’t have to think about too hard. Both kids were a little underwhelmed. Lucy played with her dolls as they walked, disengaging from them, but at least she laughed at the elephants and lemurs. Jayden watched the animals curiously, but he hardly spoke until they stopped for lunch at the jungle-themed cafeteria.