Red Ruby Of My Life - Bleed Your Love Out In The Hot Night (chapter 5) - C.W.
“Dominic has a big mouth.” she says by way of greeting. There’s no judgment in her tone, just a simple statement of fact.
I let out a watery laugh, the sound pathetic even to my own ears. “That’s the understatement of the century.”
Cowboy!Cameron Winter x farmhand!reader, Sam Revaz x reader part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4
childhood friends to lovers, roommates, angst, pet names, jealous reader, jealous Cameron, obliviously in love with each other, accidental manipulation (using other people to make each other jealous), cheating (sorry sammy love you),
nonsense disclaimer: this is RPF, don't like? don't read!
wc: 2,570
The next morning, consciousness returns to me in waves, First is the warmth, a heavy and solid weight pinning me to the mattress. Then the scent, familiar and comforting. Laundry detergent from his bedsheets, morning breath, and the faint clean smell of his skin on mine. My eyes flutter open to the familiar landscape of his bedroom, the morning light filtering through the blinds in soft stripes. His arm is thrown over my waist, his face buried in the crook of my neck, breathing deep and even. I turn my head to look at his soft sleep riddled face, he’s even cute when drooling on the pillow. For a single moment, no one exists but us. No Sam, no complicated history. Just us, tangled together, finally slotting myself into a place I’ve been trying to fit into for years.
And then, like a tidal wave, the reality of what I’ve done crashes over me. My stomach twists itself into a nauseating rope of knots. Sam’s face flashes in my mind, His patient smile, his gentle hands, the way he looked at me last night when he said he wasn't fragile. A wave of shame so profound it feels physical washes over me, I cheated. I’m the kind of person that cheats.
I carefully, painstakingly, extract myself from Cam’s embrace. His limbs heavy with sleep. He stirs, murmuring something unintelligible, waking only slightly. I grab my discarded pajamas from the floor, my movements slow and heavy.
He lifts his head up off the pillow, eyes full of sleep as he squints at me. “Come back to bed…” He looks so cute, I hate to leave him but I already promised Emily that I would meet her for coffee.
I run my hand over his head, messing up his hair a little. “Em’s waiting for me, I gotta go. I’ll bring you back a treat or something.” I lean down, pressing a kiss to his forehead, before going to my room to change.
The drive to the coffee shop feels longer than usual. Every car that passes feels like a witness to my shameful crime. My hands are shaking so bad, I practically have to white knuckle the steering wheel to keep the car steering straight.
When I push open the door I see her immediately. Emily’s in our usual corner booth, two steaming mugs already on the table, her expression unreadable as she watches me approach. I slide into the booth, the vinyl sticking to my bare legs, and wrap my hands around the warm ceramic mug.
“Dominic has a big mouth.” she says by way of greeting. There’s no judgment in her tone, just a simple statement of fact.
I let out a watery laugh, the sound pathetic even to my own ears. “That’s the understatement of the century.”
She takes a sip of her latte, her eyes never leaving mine. “So. You and Cameron. Finally.”
The word ‘finally’ hangs in the air between us, laden with years of unspoken history. It’s the permission I didn’t know I needed. The entire story comes pouring out of me then. I tell her about the movie night, the tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. I describe the argument in the barn, every hurtful word, every raw confession. I tell her about the kiss on the couch, soft and tentative at first, then desperate and hungry. I leave out the most intimate details of what followed, but I don’t hide the truth of it. I tell her how it felt, like coming home after being lost for a very long time. And then I tell her about the guilt, the crushing weight of it that settled in the moment Dominic’s voice cut through the house.
“I feel like the worst person in the world,” I finish, my voice cracking. “Sam is… he’s so good, Em. He’s kind and patient and he didn’t deserve this. He deserves someone who can give him their whole heart, not someone who’s using him as a distraction from the person they’ve actually been in love with for half their life.”
Emily reaches across the table and puts her hand over mine. “You’re not the worst person in the world, Kip. You’re just human. You got caught between your head and your heart, and your heart finally won.” She pauses, her gaze softening. “But you know what you have to do, right?”
I nod miserably, a tear escaping and tracing a path down my cheek. “I have to tell him.”
“Exactly,” she says, giving my hand a firm squeeze. “You owe him that. The truth. No matter how much it hurts.” She leans back, studying me. “I think you’re underestimating him. I think he’ll handle it better than you expect.”
“How can you say that?” I ask, my voice rising with frustration. “I cheated on him with his best friend! His best friend, Em! There’s no coming back from that.”
“Because Sam’s not stupid,” she says, her tone gentle but firm. “He’s observant. He’s seen the way you and Cameron look at each other for years. He’s seen the history between you, the way you can communicate with just a glance. I think he knew he was stepping into something complicated. The real question isn’t whether Sam will be okay, it’s whether you were ever honest with yourself about what you were doing with him in the first place.”
Her words land like a punch to the gut. She’s right. I wasn’t just dating Sam. I was hiding behind him. I was using his warmth and affection as a shield to keep from acknowledging the cold, hard truth of my feelings for Cameron. I was trying to prove to myself that I could move on, that I could want someone else, when all I was really doing was putting Sam in the middle of my own emotional mess.
That evening, I meet Sam at a small park near his place. The sun is setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple, but all I can feel is the cold dread pooling in my stomach. My hands are shaking so badly that I stuff them into my pockets. He’s sitting on a bench overlooking a small pond, and when he sees me, he stands up, his usual warm smile faltering when he sees the look on my face.
“Hey,” he says, his voice cautious. “What’s wrong?”
I can’t look at him. I focus on a loose thread on the hem of my shirt. “Sam, I am so, so sorry.” My voice is barely a whisper. “Something happened last night. After you left…”
I force myself to meet his eyes, and the concern I see there makes it a thousand times worse. I take a deep, shuddering breath and just say it. “Cameron and I, we, something happened between us. I crossed a line with him, Sam. A line I never should have crossed while I was with you. I betrayed your trust, and there is no excuse for my actions. I am so sorry.”
I brace myself for the inevitable storm. For anger, for yelling, for him to call me every horrible name I deserve to be called. For him to turn and walk away without another word. Instead, he just looks at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he lets out a long, slow breath and drops his gaze to the ground, kicking at a loose pebble with the toe of his sneaker. When he finally looks back up at me, the anger I expected isn’t there. There’s just a deep, profound sadness.
“I know,” he says, his voice quiet.
My entire world tilts on its axis. “You… you know? How?”
He runs a hand through his hair, a gesture of frustration I’ve seen before. “Cameron called me this morning. He told me everything.” He looks at me, and his eyes are so full of understanding it makes my chest ache. “He said he had to. That it wasn’t fair to me, and it wasn’t fair to you to let me walk in here blind.”
I’m stunned into silence. I came here prepared to confess, to grovel, to face his wrath. I never, ever considered this. The guilt I’ve been carrying all day suddenly feels heavier, not because of what I did, but because Cameron had to carry the burden of telling his best friend. Because he took that on himself.
“Sam, I…” I start, but the words get caught in my throat. “I’m so sorry. I was going to tell you. I came here to tell you.”
“I know you were,” he says, his voice gentle. “That’s why I agreed to meet you instead of just letting it go. I knew you would do the right thing.” He pauses, kicking at a loose pebble with the toe of his sneaker. “It hurts, Kip. It really, really does. But hearing it from him, it put things into perspective. He wasn’t gloating or happy. He sounded terrified of losing me, but even more terrified of losing you. He sounded like a man who’s been in love with his best friend for a decade and finally did something about it.”
Tears are streaming down my face now, hot and unstoppable. “That’s not fair to you. You’re so wonderful, and you deserve someone who can give you all of that. Someone who can look at you the way you deserve to be looked at.”
Sam reaches out and, despite everything, gently squeezes my trembling hand. “Hey, I meant what I said. I’m not fragile. We had a good time, and I don’t regret getting to know you. But I’m not going to be the reason you two finally stop dancing around each other. I’m not going to stand in the middle of something that’s been building for years.” He manages a small, sad smile. “Just do me a favor, okay? Tell Cameron to stop being such a moody bastard around me for a while. We’ll get past it eventually. He’s my best friend.”
The kindness in his gesture is my undoing. I throw my arms around him, burying my face in his shoulder and sobbing. “Thank you,” I whisper against his shirt, the fabric damp with my tears. “I’m so, so sorry, Sam.”
He pats my back awkwardly, his other hand coming up to rest on my head. “Yeah, yeah.I pull back, wiping at my eyes with the back of my hand, feeling a strange mix of profound relief and lingering sadness. “I don’t know how you can be so… okay with this.”
Sam gives a wry, humorless chuckle. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not ‘okay.’ I’m pretty pissed off, and my ego is bruised, and I’m going to need a few days, maybe weeks, of not seeing either of your faces. But I’m not devastated. I think part of me knew I was temporary from the beginning, I was just kind of hoping I was wrong.” He shrugs, a gesture of resignation that’s far too mature for the situation.
His honesty is a balm. It’s not the clean break I feared, but it’s real, and it’s respectful, and it’s so incredibly Sam. “I really am sorry for hurting you.”
“I know,” he says, his voice softening. “And I appreciate that. Now go on. Get out of here. I think I hear a moody bastard waiting for you.”
I manage a small, genuine smile. “He is pretty moody, isn’t he?”
“The moodiest,” Sam agrees, a flicker of his old warmth returning to his eyes. “But he’s a good one. Don’t let him fuck it up.”
“I won’t,” I promise, and I mean it with every fiber of my being.
I walk away from the bench, my steps feeling lighter than they have all day. I don’t look back. The sun has finally dipped below the horizon, and the world is bathed in the soft, ethereal glow of twilight. It feels like an ending, but also, undeniably, a beginning.
When I get back to the house, the lights are on. I find Cameron in the kitchen, pacing a small groove into the linoleum floor. He looks up the second I walk in, his eyes wide with a anxiety so palpable it fills the entire room.
“How’d it go?” he asks immediately, his voice tight. “Is he… is he okay? Does he hate me?”
I walk over and without a word, wrap my arms around his waist, burying my face in his chest. He smells like home, like safety, like the future I was too scared to reach for. “He’s amazing,” I say, my voice muffled by his shirt. “He’s a better person than I am.”
Cameron’s body, which had been rigid with tension, relaxes slightly against mine. He wraps his arms around me, holding me tight. “He’s not mad?”
“He’s mad,” I correct, pulling back just enough to look up at him. “But not at you. Not really. He’s hurt, and he has every right to be. But he understands. He said he always knew, on some level.” I reach up and cup his cheek, my thumb stroking his jaw. “He also said that you called him. That you told him everything this morning.”
Cameron flinches, his gaze dropping. “I had to. I couldn’t let you carry that alone, and I couldn’t let him hear it from anyone else. It was my responsibility, too.”
Tears prick my eyes again, but this time they’re not born of guilt. “You took that from me. You protected me, even from yourself.”
“I’d do anything for you, Kip,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “You have to know that. I have for years.”
“I know,” I whisper. “I think I’m finally starting to.”
He leans down then, and the kiss is different from the ones from last night. Last night was desperate, a dam breaking after years of drought. This one is gentle, tentative, full of promise and the quiet certainty of a new dawn.
When we pull apart, he rests his forehead against mine. “So what now?” he asks, his voice barely a whisper.
“Now,” I say, a real smile spreading across my face for the first time all day, “We figure out how to do this right. No more hiding. No more pretending. Just… us.”
The front door swings open and Dominic walks in, stopping dead in his tracks when he sees us standing there, wrapped in each other’s arms in the middle of the kitchen. He looks from my tear-streaked but smiling face to Cameron’s relieved expression.
“Oh good, you told him,” he says, completely unfazed by the emotional intensity of the moment. He tosses his keys onto the counter with a loud clatter. “Now can we please order pizza? All this drama is making me hungry. And don’t you dare get pineapple on it, Cameron, I’m still not over that phase you went through in college.”
Cameron and I both laugh, the sound breaking the last of the tension that’s been hanging in the air. I look at Dominic, at his complete lack of filter and his unwavering, if chaotic, loyalty, and I realize that despite the messiness, the hurt, and the complications, everything is exactly as it should be. We’re a family, in our own weird, dysfunctional way. And for the first time, I feel like I’m finally, truly home.
A/N: surprise update after a month whos excited
sorry this took so long i had no clue where to go with it if im being completely honest
anyways this is done now so i will be getting to those requests im so sorry
also finals are done so stuff will get pisted faster because im doing nothing besides working until summermester starts in like a month or so
k love you bye kisses xxxxxxxx
tag list: @serenavanderboots @byanyothernames @takenforamodernage @getout-getunder @thoroughfaregirl
