I keep my eyes on her so she can see the truth in them and watch the worry slowly disappear from her face.
“Are you mad at Jason for telling me?” she asks softly.
“I was at first, but I’m not anymore. It needed to be said. I’m just sorry I wasn’t the one to tell you. I had every intention of explaining things to you, but when I got here, everything with Stratford just happened so fast and I didn’t get a chance.”
The sounds of the fire crackling, frogs croaking from the nearby pond, and crickets chirping all around us fill the silence between us as I watch Cameron get her thoughts in order.
“It’s okay. You can ask me anything. Whatever you want to know,” I tell her.
She thinks for a few seconds, then rests the side of her head against the back of her chair as she looks over at me.
“I know it’s selfish of me, but I almost don’t want to know. I hate thinking about you like that. I hate knowing you were struggling when you came home. And I hate that I got so mad at you and didn’t even stop to think about why you didn’t come here right when you got home. This is what I do for a living, and I failed one of the most important people in my life,” she whispers.
“You didn’t fail anyone, Cameron, especially me. I failed. It’s all on me, not you. I didn’t know how to deal when I got home. I just wanted the pain to go away, and alcohol was the only thing that worked. Until it didn’t. Until the pain still worked its way under my skin and into my head and not even being drunk twenty-four/seven could make it go away,” I explain.
“What made you stop?”
You. Knowing I needed to go to you and I could never let you see me like that.
I can feel Aiden’s letter in my back pocket, tucked securely away where I still carry it around everywhere I go. I wish I could pull the letter out and show it to her, but there are too many things written in there that I can’t explain to her right now.
“It was a mixture of things, but seeing the look on Jason’s face every time he came home and found me drunk or passed out was what finally made me get my head out of my ass. He made a comment about losing me, just like we lost our mom, and it woke me the fuck up. I never wanted to be like her. I didn’t want to turn into someone who was so weak that they stopped caring about everything in their life,” I explain.
“I’m proud of you. I can’t even imagine how hard it must have been. How hard it still is.”
“I’ve had a lot of help. I went to an in-patient, ninety-day rehab facility that dried me out. And I still go back every week for meetings. I made some good friends there. Other people I can talk to if things get hard or I feel like I’m struggling.”
Cameron leans forward and places her hands on top of mine, which are still resting on her legs.
“You can always talk to me. I know things are a little weird right now with everything going on here at the camp and with us, but I am always here if you need someone. Promise me you won’t push me away again. I can’t go another four years without you…”
She trails off, looking quickly away from me to fiddle with a loose thread on her jean shorts, and her words start fucking with my head.
I want them to mean something else, which is completely ridiculous. I want to stop feeling so confused and tied up in knots when I’m with this woman, but I don’t know if that will ever be possible.
Chapter 21
Cameron
The sound of shouting pulls me out of a dead sleep and has me jerking up in bed. My heart is beating out of my chest as I glance over at the clock on my nightstand and realize it’s three in the morning. Taking a few deep breaths to slow down my heart, I remain completely still, listening for another sound and wondering if I imagined it or it was part of whatever dream I’d been having.
After a few minutes of silence and realizing it must have been in my head, I start to lie back down when another shout from the living room has me flinging off the covers and racing out of the room, not even bothering to throw on something over the tank top and underwear I wore to bed.
Everett has been sleeping on the living room couch in the guest house ever since the day after Stratford arrived. To say it’s been a challenge is putting it mildly. It’s not like we spend a lot of time here alone since our days are long, and by the time we come back here, we’re too exhausted to do anything other than go to our respective beds, face-plant on them, and pass out for the night. But I’m just not used to sharing my space with someone else, and having it be Everett is even worse. He’s constantly walking around every morning in a pair of jogging pants that hang low on his hips, without wearing a shirt. Since the last time I mentioned how he needed to put on a damn shirt, he got entirely too much pleasure out of teasing me, I’ve had to keep my mouth shut and pretend like it doesn’t bother me. I also have to pretend like it doesn’t bother me that I can smell him in every room of my house, and everywhere I turn, I see something of his. A pair of jeans crumpled up on the bathroom floor, his wallet and keys on the kitchen counter, a shirt flung over the back of the couch that I will never admit to anyone I brought up to my face and smelled while he was taking a shower…He’s invaded my space and he’s invaded my senses and it’s slowly driving me insane.
As I round the corner of the hallway that leads into the living room, the light from the full moon shining through the huge picture window right above the couch silhouettes his form on the couch. His body thrashes and jerks around on the cushions, his limbs getting twisted around the thin sheet he covered up with.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I tried to save her!” Everett shouts as I slide across the hardwood floor and drop down to my knee next to the couch.
Even with just a sliver of moonlight shining through the window, I can see the agony on his face as he throws his head back onto his pillow, a soft, pain-filled keening sound coming from him now that breaks my heart.
“Everett, wake up,” I say softly, not wanting to scare him awake from this nightmare that he’s having.
His head shakes back and forth and his eyes remain squeezed closed as he battles with whatever demons are in his mind.
“I did everything I could…I did everything…”
Lifting myself up from the floor, I quickly perch next to him on the couch, leaning over his chest as I softly run my fingers through his hair and down the side of his face, the scruff on his cheeks tickling my palm.
“Shhh, it’s okay, Everett. Wake up. It’s okay, I’m here,” I whisper quietly as I continue touching him and trying to bring him back to me.
All of a sudden, his eyes fly open and my hand stills on his cheek, our faces inches apart since I’m still leaning over him.
His chest rises and falls rapidly and he pants, blinking his eyes into focus as he continues looking up at me.
I don’t move, I don’t make a sound, I just start running my palm softly over his cheek again, whispering quietly to him to ground him and remind him where he is and who I am. I’ve counseled enough vets and listened to their spouses talk about waking them up from PTSD dreams, and I saw my mother do this with my father enough over the years that I know what to do in theory. I’ve never experienced it myself before, and having to witness it happening to Everett is enough to crack my heart wide open.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” he finally says, his voice raspy with sleep and from shouting, his face still clouded with sadness from the remnants of whatever he was dreaming about.
“It’s fine. Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?”
He closes his eyes for a few seconds and takes a couple of deep breaths. When he opens his eyes again, he shakes his head no.
“I’m good now.”
I want to ask him more. I want to ask him what he was dreaming about and how often he has these dreams, but I don’t want to push him.
As I drop my hand from his cheek and start to pull away, his hand darts out and wraps around my wrist.
“Stay with me? Just for a little while.”
Now I know why he didn
’t want me to see him when he came home after Aiden died and struggled with drinking. Seeing him like this, so torn apart and full of misery, makes me want to cry like a baby, curse God, and do everything I can to make it better.
As he pulls back the sheet, I twist around and slide onto the couch next to him, pushing my body back against his, wishing I would have taken the time to throw on leggings and a sweatshirt, or maybe even a suit of armor. Being pressed back against Everett’s strong, muscular body when I’m only wearing a tank top and he’s only wearing a pair of sweatpants and I can feel every contour of his naked chest against my back makes me forget that we’re just friends.
Everett silently throws the sheet back over both of us and his arms come around my waist, holding me tightly to him.
He nestles his face into the back of my neck, and a few minutes later, I feel the even sounds of his breathing as it puffs against my neck and his chest moves slowly up and down against my back. I mentally will away the goose bumps that I feel all over my body.
Not only has Everett invaded my home, he’s quickly starting to invade my heart again, and that scares the hell out of me. As soon as I feel like I’ve taken ten steps forward, he does something that takes me a million steps back. Back into the past, back where I let him hurt me and break me apart, piece by piece. If I’m not careful, he’ll shatter me all over again.
* * *
“Thank you so much for doing this last minute. You have no idea how much it means to me. Okay. Thanks again. See you next week.”
Hanging up the phone in my office, I let out a huge sigh of relief and lean back in my chair, wanting nothing more than to take a nap.
For once, I didn’t spend last night restlessly tossing and turning because of worries about the camp. I spent it with my eyes wide open, staring off into the darkness of my living room, doing everything I could not to move in Everett’s arms. I told myself it was because he was finally sleeping peacefully after the nightmare he had and I didn’t want to interrupt that, but it’s a lie. I didn’t want to move because I was afraid to leave the warm confines of his arms and the feel of his body pressed up against mine. I was afraid to close my eyes because I didn’t want to wake up and find out it had been a dream, or watch him pull back and pretend like it hadn’t happened. That he hadn’t needed me and he hadn’t held me so tightly all night long, like he couldn’t bear to let me go.
They were stupid thoughts to have, making me feel like that young, foolish girl who wanted nothing more than for the boy she loved to love her back. We’re becoming friends again, and that’s all I want. It’s all I can afford and I need to stop letting my thoughts get away from me.
No sooner do I close my eyes and start to enjoy some peace and quiet, when Amelia rushes into my office, smacking a pile of papers in front of me.
“Updated menu from the caterers you need to sign, updated decorations order that you need to initial, contract from the band you need to sign and initial, and a copy of the linens order, which you don’t have to do anything with but make sure it’s correct.”
Leaning forward, I grab a pen from next to the stack of papers and start flipping through them.
“You’re insane, have I told you that lately? I can’t believe you decided to change almost everything about the charity dinner a week before the damn thing,” Amelia states, sitting down in the chair across from me.
For as long as I can remember, this charity dinner has always had the same theme—white and classy. White linens, white decorations, white table service, soft jazz music.
“I know. But I just felt like this year needed to be different. It could be our last dinner, and if it is, I want to go out with a bang,” I tell her, signing the last piece of paper and sliding them across the desk to her so she can fax them over to the appropriate companies.
“And it has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation you had with Everett last week. Uh-huh. Sure,” she laughs.
Not only did I tell Amelia about the conversation Everett and I had out by the fire, I also came clean with her about a few other things. Namely, the fact that I didn’t just have a “crush” on Everett when I was younger. I told her how desperately in love with him I’d been, I told her about all the wishes I’d made over the years, and I told her how confused I’d been feeling now that he’s home. She was shocked, to say the least. She’d been Team Aiden ever since the first day she met him, and now she’s suddenly changing her allegiance, much to my annoyance.
So maybe I decided to change a few things up with the charity dinner after we talked out at the fire pit. Whatever. It’s not insane to want to do something special for your friend who just came home and who you haven’t seen in four years.
“Shit. It’s totally insane,” I groan, resting my elbows on the desk and my head in my hands. “Like I don’t already have enough on my plate right now, I had to go and change everything we’ve ever done for this dinner. It’s crazy. I’m crazy. I have officially lost my mind.”
Everett has been back in my life for one week. Seven days were all it took for me to completely lose myself in him. Again.
“You aren’t crazy,” Amelia reassures me.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. How is that not exactly what I’m doing? He walks back into my life after four years and suddenly I’m a teenager again, wishing on stars and hoping he’ll love me back. Why is everything so easy with him, and so confusing at the same time?” I complain.
“How is it confusing? You’re learning to trust him again. He’s opening up to you. You’re rebuilding your friendship, and going by what I’ve seen the last week, it’s going amazingly well.”
“And that’s the problem. He’s been gone for so long and he’s missed so much. We’re two different people than we were years ago, but it feels like no time has passed. He just fits. He fits into my life, he fits into this camp…” I trail off.
“Still don’t see the problem.”
“He shouldn’t fit! That’s the problem!” I argue. “And it makes me angry that he does. It pisses me off that I spent all of this time trying to move on, and in one week, he messes all of that up. In one week and a handful of apologies, I’m right back where I started. Wanting something I’ll never have.”
And in one week, I’ve spent more time analyzing every touch he’s given me, every look he’s thrown my way, and every move he’s made around me, until he’s the only thing that occupies my thoughts.
“I think the problem is that you only tried to move on, Cam. You tried with Aiden and you tried with Grady, but you never actually succeeded. And what makes you think you’ll never have what you want? What makes you think if you marched your ass over to the stables right now where he is, and told him everything you just said to me, that he wouldn’t prove you wrong?” she asks.
And that’s just another thing to add to my list of distractions. So many what-ifs that my head is spinning.
What if I told him how I’ve felt since I was thirteen years old?
What if I told him I couldn’t erase those feelings, no matter how hard I tried or how much distance he put between us?
What if all those touches and looks I’ve been overanalyzing actually meant something other than being just for show?
I’m so afraid to ruin the fragile ground we’ve started to build into being friends again.
What if I tell him and he thinks it’s a joke?
What if I tell him and he walks away again?
What if I tell him and it ruins everything we’ve started to rebuild?
“You need a distraction,” Amelia states, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Have you not been listening to a word I said? I’m already distracted enough.”
She scoffs and rolls her eyes at me.
“I’m talking about a fun distraction. Use this fake marriage to Everett to your advantage. You don’t want to spill the beans to him? Fine. Turn up the heat a little and see how he hand
les it.”
“I’m not screwing things up by making him uncomfortable,” I argue, even though the idea of things getting hot with Everett makes my brain take a nosedive right into the gutter.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that night we spent by the fire and his hands on my legs, wondering what I would have done if he slid them up higher. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this morning, when I finally managed to fall asleep for an hour, and woke up when Everett did, stretching behind me. How I scrambled off the couch, wondering how awkward things were going to be, and they weren’t awkward in the least. He smiled at me, apologized again for waking me up last night, and casually got up from the couch and put on a pot of coffee. I wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t gotten off the couch, and just rolled over to face him, hooking my leg over his hip and snuggling up against him.
“I can almost guarantee you that man will not be the least bit uncomfortable with anything you do to him. I’ve seen the way he looks at you and the way he touches you,” she informs me.
“You’ve seen the way he fake looks at me and fake touches me when Stratford is around,” I remind her, keeping my mouth shut about the many times I’ve caught him looking at me when Stratford wasn’t around and how natural it felt to have him hold me last night.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” she laughs, pushing herself up from the desk. “I’m going to fax these over and then I’ll meet you out at the dance studio.”
She pauses by the door when she sees the look of confusion on my face.
“We’re meeting out there with Stratford to go over some of the new physical activity ideas we have for fully utilizing the dance studio, remember? Everett is taking him around the stables now until we get there.”
I groan and shake my head.
“See? Too many distractions already. I’m not adding another one by turning up any stupid heat,” I tell her, standing up from the desk and moving around to the front of it to follow her out of the room.