I've been mapping this out until the end and let me just say... It's going to be a bit of a wild ride. This is one of the tamer chapters.

It was later that afternoon- after having finished all his chores under his mother's now watchful eye- that he cornered Cam behind his flower stand and pulled him rather roughly under the table cloth, trying not to get their legs tangled as he sighed. "You're a bit behind the times."

Cam had grown irritable, as he always did when the weather began to get colder; carefully bending his neck to avoid bumping it on the table's underbelly, the older boy scoffed. "You know, I'm sure there's a better place to do this."

"Shut up. It's about Lillian."

Cam fidgeted, trying to avoid his left knee as it swung dangerously close to his jaw. A tall man himself, Cam towered over him by a few inches; at 6'3, the close quarters was, to be fair, probably impractical. But he was in a rush, and knew he had less than an hour before his mother came looking for him once again. "Am I finally going to hear what's been going on with you and her? You know, I'm not stupid. You two spend nearly everyday together, I haven't seen you properly in ages-"

"I slept with her." He paused as Cam jerked his head roughly and banged his head on the table, allowing for a moments cursing before he continued. "Twice, actually."

There was another bang and Cam's hat was now sitting lopsided on his head, a rare incredulous expression on his face. "When?"

"After the music festival. And then again the morning after."

"Please don't tell me you were drunk."

"Shut up, I was fine."

"Was she drunk?"

"No!"

"... Well, how was it then?"

He paused to think, he cheeks reddening at the smirk on Cam's face. "Amazing. And the second time was good too." He felt his ears going off. "She seemed pretty pleased too."

Cam nodded in approval, his hat catching on the table and nearly falling off his head. "Excellent. Is that why you pulled me under here? To brag about your sex life?"

He grabbed the other boy's arm as he moved to leave and jerked him down a little more fiercely than he intended to. "No. I mean, that's only half the story. I just need to talk to you in private, without anyone seeing."

Cam's eyes narrowed. He could see the gears turning in his head, and could tell he was on the verge of reaching the worst possible conclusion. "Is Lillian pregnant?"

He could feel his cheeks go off again, the temperature under the tablecloth sudden rising. "No, no. Nothing Like that. It's, er..."

But Cam had stopped paying attention, picking absentmindedly at a spot on his chin. "You know, I figured something like this was going on. You two have been spending a lot of time together. Wait until Laney finds out, she's going to skin you alive."

It was his off handed tone that distracted him, making him back track from his previous course and give the other boy a bewildered look. "Why does everyone keep saying stuff like that? Did I miss the fact that Laney and I are inherently soul mates or something?" Cam didn't reply, but rather let out an infuriating snort which only encouraged him to become slightly unhinged. "Laney actually almost walked in on us once. I had to hide behind Lillian's wardrobe."

Cam let out a snort of laughter. "That must have been lovely. Have you told your mom yet?"

"Hell no!"

"Why not?"

"You're kidding. You know how she is; she wants me to settle down as soon as possible and start properly running the ranch. If she found out she'd have us walking down the isle within a week."

Cam narrowed his eyes, another smirk playing around his mouth. "Well then you're lucky Laney didn't catch you. You know how she is, she'd be babbling about it to anyone who held still long enough... So, let me get this straight then. You two are just having sex? In secret? Nothing else?"

He could see Cam getting ahead of himself and tried his best to follow his train of thought before he could jump to any conclusions again. He fumbled a moment with his legs, trying to get them to cross neatly before he spoke. "That was the idea, yeah. Except..."

"Except what? You realize you're living every man's dream here; all the benefits, none of the commitment..."

"I don't know. I like Lillian. She's fun to be around, I feel like I can talk to her about things I haven't with anyone else. I don't... I just like her, okay? And I kind of mentioned a while back about being sick of Bluebell and about maybe getting out of here one day and she offered to watch the ranch for me while I left but... I don't know. I don't want to leave her behind. I can't imagine being anywhere without her."

He had said all this with a rather casual tone, but that didn't stop Cam from smirking at him. "So you love her, then?"

He opened his mouth to disagree but felt the reply die in his throat. Did he? How did someone even know that, having not been in love before? "Maybe?" He croaked, his voice wavering slightly at the look on Cam's face.

"Well you're not going to tell her that if you're just having sex, then-" Cam fell short at the grimace that crossed his face. "Oh, Goddess Ash. You didn't."

"No, no. Not like that... I did mention that I didn't want to leave without her."

"And what did she say?"

He scratched his temple. "She kind of told me to shut up, actually." Across from him Cam groaned, making him send a frustrated hand through his hair. "That's the problem, actually. I said all these nice things and she basically told me to fuck off, and then we go to the other village and she's making nice with some asshole named Kana who is all biceps and no brains-"

"Kana?" Cam tapped a finger against his temple. "I've heard that name before. I'm pretty sure Georgia had a run in with that guy before, Laney was telling me a while ago. Something about horse breeding..."

"Regardless," He continued, not really caring about the reasoning behind the run-in, but only the implication that Kana was an ass. "We ended up getting into the huge fight and she basically told me she wasn't my girlfriend and to stop taking things so seriously. And then, my mom kind of walked in on us and invited her to dinner tomorrow."

"So naturally, you are dreading it."

"I would dread it even if we weren't fighting, Cam." He ran a hand through his hair, making the ginger tufts stand on end. "I just know my mother's going to say something to freak her out, and Cheryl..."

"Is a brat?" Cam finished unhelpfully.

"No... She just hates Lillian. For some ridiculous reason."

At this Cam scoffed, sending him a rather dark look. "Come on Ash, she's jealous. Before Lillian came to town you used to spend every second with her; she's probably lonely. That's what's got so many people talking- nobody ever sees you anymore, and if they do Lillian is right there by your side. Cheryl just misses you. I'm your best friend and I haven't spent more than five minutes with you in weeks."

They fell into a moments silence, his head in his hands and he began to mull the whole situation over. What Cam was saying wasn't wrong; he did spend quite a bit of time with Lillian. And he guessed he was kind of blowing everything else off: his mother, his sister, his best friend, his ranch... But what was he to do? Lillian had some kind of power over him... Or maybe Cam was right, and he was in love... When he finally met his eyes, Cam shrugged at him.

"Don't know what to say about dinner though. Ever heard of the expression, 'grin and bear it?'"

"Fuck off."

I do love writing these two together, and the fact that this whole chapter took place under a table cloth makes it all the more adorable. Sorry about the length; I know it's considerable less lengthy than my other chapters, but the next one coming up more than makes up for it :)