Forever & Almost Always

Ebb and Flow

"Are you going to tell him?" Matt asks. Cameron called him after getting his last text.

"I should. I should have done it right when I got back. I'm just not proud of it, you know?" Cameron says.

"Well when you do tell him, make sure he knows that I only lied because I wanted him to hear it from you. Okay?" Matt says nervously. The guilt from lying to Nash has been rising ever since he left.

"Yeah. I'll tell him eventually. Not now though. It's too soon," Cameron tells him. "He should be home any second so I'm gonna let you go."

"Alright. Good luck man. I'll see you around," Matt says and hangs up the phone.

Cameron heads into the living room and sits down on the couch. He deletes the text from Chris and deletes the text messages to and from Matt. He tries to act cool when he hears the door open and sees Nash walk in.

"Hey baby," he says and stands up. He walks over to Nash and gives him a quick kiss. "Where were you?"

"Oh I just had to go to Matt's house for a sec to drop something off," Nash lies. Cameron doesn't question further because then the topic of Matt's lie will come up and he's not ready to talk about that yet. "You stayed pretty late at the studio."

"Yeah Shawn kept wanting to redo one of his songs, says it just wasn't sounding right," Cameron says and shrugs his shoulders. He walks into the kitchen and opens the fridge. "There is like no food," he says and laughs.

"Yeah wanna just order some Chinese or something?" Nash asks.

"That sounds good," Cameron says and closes the fridge.

They quickly eat their dinner and then head to bed, tired from the jet lag.

The next week goes by pretty smoothly. Nash going through the thousands of pictures that were taken during the shoot and Cameron working with Shawn on the album, as well as getting things ready for the concert at Taylor's club.

Cameron has yet to tell Nash the truth about the text and he plans on waiting until after the concert to do so. He doesn't want the added stress.

Finally the day comes around for the concert at Taylor's club, Tay-C's. Cameron has been working nonstop the last few days trying to get everything set up and putting out plenty of advertising to make sure people actually come to the show.

Shawn spends the day trying to stay focused. This is the first time he's putting on an actual show and he can't help but feel slightly nervous.

He's sitting in the back room of the club and it's almost an hour before they are going to open the doors and about two hours before he performs. Cameron walks into the room and can see the nervous look on his face.

"How are you doing?" Cameron asks him.

"Nervous," Shawn says and chuckles. "I'm never nervous..for like anything. Music is the only thing I'm confident about."

"You're just nervous because it's official now. You're a signed artist that is putting out an album soon. It's all becoming real right before your eyes, Shawn. Not many people get to live their dream, and you're doing yours before you're old enough to legally drink," Cameron says and laughs.

"Yeah. You're right," he says to him. "I'm also worried that I'll forget the words to my songs."

"Well no one has heard these songs besides you and me, so if you forget a line just wing it or something," Cameron says and laughs again.

Shawn laughs with him and smiles. "Thanks, Cameron," he says. "I owe all of this to you."

"I should be thanking you," Cameron says, returning the smile. "Someone would have noticed you and signed you eventually. You're my big break just as much as I'm your big break, Shawn. We're in this together."