“Yeah, well, so am I.” He turned his attention to the stage where a disheveled band in skinny jeans was setting up. “To make things even more complicated, we have a son together.”
Okay, now that was surprising. He had a son? I felt a weird emotion slink past me. Disappointment? Jealousy? I couldn’t pick it out, except that it was negative.
“How old is he?” I asked.
“Three and a quarter,” he said with a smile. “His name is Ben.”
“I like that name.”
His eyes flushed with pride and his smile broadened. “Thanks. She’s got full custody and she seems to still hate my guts for whatever reason, so I don’t see him as much as I would like to. But at least I send more than enough child support each month. I write him letters too. She can’t say I’m a deadbeat dad.”
A wave of shame washed over my spine at the mention of child support. I pretended it wasn’t there.
“Well, look at you, Camden McQueen. You’re divorced and have a child. I think you’ve reached adulthood.” I raised my glass in the air. “I’d say that deserves a toast.”
He tipped his head to me and we clinked our glasses. After we nearly downed them, he slapped the table with his palms and said, “You want to see him?”
“Who? Your son?”
He moved over and brought his knee up on the bench. He rolled up his pant leg until I saw the smiling face of a beautiful boy etched permanently on his calf in black ink. It was an extremely lifelike tattoo, with expressive eyes and intricate shading.
“Did you do that?” I asked incredulously.
He nodded.
“Upside down like that?”
He rolled the pant leg back down and resumed sitting normally. “I just worked from the picture upside down.” As if that was so easy.
“Well, you’re amazing,” I told him. I know I was gushing a bit, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t wrap my head around how talented my old friend was, how anyone that I knew could go on to make such beautiful art. Everyone I knew tended to be as shifty as I was.
After we had breached the seemingly harder topic in Camden’s life, the rest of our conversation was a breeze. In fact, we were so engrossed with each other, talking about our favorite music and travel spots, that we didn’t see his band until they were standing in front of us.
“Hey, man,” a guy said from the head of the table.
We looked up, and in one smooth move, Camden slipped his arm around my shoulder and squeezed me closer to him. I knew what that said: she’s mine, buddies. Back off.
I didn’t know how I felt about that. Part of me wanted him to like me; after all, I needed to get close to him to at least get inside his shop and house again to figure out how I was going to pull off the robbery. The other part of me—the moral one—didn’t want him to fall too hard. I didn’t want to break his heart again. And I guess there was a third part. One that wanted him to like me because I was starting to like him. One that loved the fact that he put his arm around me in a possessive way.
Oh boy.
“Guys, this is Ellie,” Camden said, nodding at me.
I gave them a flirtatious smile while checking them out. The one who spoke was a beanpole shaped man-boy with shoulder-length red hair and a 70s mustache that looked ridiculously out of place on his baby face. The second guy was broad-shouldered and stocky with a toothy grin, paint-splattered jeans and a grey wife beater that showed off his tats. The third was wearing sunglasses, with black hair smoothed into a tight ponytail, a long black leather jacket coating his thin form. From his tight-lipped smile and air of superiority, I guessed he was the singer. From the Matrix.
Everyone except snooty Neo said hello in that “someone’s getting lucky tonight” way and squeezed into the booth with us. Snooty Neo left to get a pitcher of beer, while I learned mustache man-boy was called Randy and Pete was the wife beater. I didn’t remember Neo’s name, which was fine because I preferred my name for him anyway.
We talked for about an hour, all the way until it was time for them to set up. By then the joint was hopping with people and I was getting tipsy. Two bands had already screamed their way through mediocrity and I couldn’t wait to see what Kettle Black was really made of. The Cramps had a way of brightening up any scene.
The whole time we sat there, Camden kept his arm around me. Occasionally it would drift down to my waist where he would thumb the hem of my shirt. Once, he brushed it against my bare skin and I had to keep my body from shivering at his touch. Even with all the people around us, the smoke that lay in sheets in the air, and the loud music that rattled my teeth, it felt like we were the only two people alive.
“Well we better go get ready,” he said to me as they slid out of the booth. Thank god, I had to piss like a racehorse.
I followed him out and he grabbed my hand to help me up, giving it a quick squeeze.
“Will you try and watch from the front?” he asked. Fuck his dimples and his boyish charm. How could I say no to that?