He gave me a nod, slamming a hand down on my knee to help him get to his feet, reaching down to fold up his blanket and pile it next to the one Astrid had folded as well - something neither of them would have thought to do before Roderick had stayed with us.
He ran a finger down my nose, a sign of affection for him, before moving off toward his room.
I turned off the TV, the lights, staring at the tree for a long moment.
We would leave that on all through the night, wanting to see it if we got up to get a snack or head to the bathroom.
Because we all knew the tree would look different the next day, it would have the power to make us all feel a little sad, knowing it was over. So we didn't want to lose a moment of the good feeling it gave us on the actual day.
I was just finishing cleaning up the turkey pan, knowing that one in the sink would prevent me from piling all the others in there when I heard footsteps behind me.
"Done making love already?" I asked, smiling as I turned.
But it wasn't Astrid.
No.
It was Camden.
And he was standing there with a box wrapped in silly wrapping paper - Santa-hat-wearing penguins on a purple background - in his hands, his head ducked to the side a bit.
"You forgot one?" I asked, drying my hands.
His head shook.
"Were saving it for later?" I guessed, watching as he gave me a tight nod, setting the box down on the dining table, then taking a few steps back.
Weird.
He was acting weird.
And this was Cam we were talking about.
So if I thought he was acting odd, he was really being strange.
"For me?" I specified as I walked over.
Another tight nod.
"You already got me plenty," I told him, shaking my head, but reaching for the tucks at the sides under the tape, ripping the paper off.
To find a plain cardboard box with a lid beneath.
Feeling an odd wobbly sensation in my stomach, I pulled it off, finding a pile of red and green crinklies inside.
Cam was not - almost as a rule - someone who went overboard with the wrapping. For my birthday the year before, he had tossed my present in a birthday bag without any kind of tissue paper or anything.
Feeling oddly excited, I reached inside, feeling something cold, metal.
My hand closed around it, brows drawn together as I dragged it upward.
And there it was.
A Double Trigger.
The gun we needed.
The last one missing.
The one that had caused me to get my ass handed to me.
The one that had made almost a dozen men lose their lives.
The one that had brought Roderick and me together to begin with.
My brows drew together even as my head shot up, shaking my head, wanting, needing to know, but understanding that I might never know how he had pulled this off when Astrid hadn't been able to find even a hint of anyone talking about this one on legit or dark sites.
"Cam..." I said instead, shaking my head.
He gave me a look I couldn't decipher. And since I knew him as well as I did, since he communicated almost exclusively through his eyes, it bothered me that I didn't know this one.
It almost looked like something... fearful?
Yeah.
Fearful, worried, unsure.
Three looks you never usually found on Camden's face.
He swallowed hard.
And then I understood the look.
Because his mouth opened.
And words came out.
"G-g-g-g-go t-t-to h-him."
He stuttered.
He stuttered.
Jesus Christ.
All these years. Of silence. Of pleading for him to communicate with me. Of not understanding what could possibly keep him from even trying to.
And it was because he stuttered.
My free hand flew to my chest, pressing over a heart that swelled and ached at the same time.
Swelled because I could finally hear his voice, I finally understood his silence. But ached because he felt he couldn't share this with me before, that he had to hide something like that, something that never would have changed the way I viewed him.
Tears - something that had once been foreign to me, but were becoming more common for me - flooded my eyes as the gun fell from my hands and into the box.
I flew around the table, slamming into him bodily, my arms going around him so tightly it was probably cutting off all his air.
There was a pause before his arms lifted from his sides, folding around my back, squeezing me back hard.
"Thank you," I told him. "For the gun. But more for... for sharing this with me," I told him, not caring that I was getting his shirt wet with tears.
"T-t-t-time," he said, his air shuddering out of him on an exhale.
"Overdue," I agreed, giving him another tight squeeze. "We wouldn't have cared about a lisp," I added, wanting him to hear it. Because fear of our rejection was the only explanation for his.
"P-p-past s-s-s-shit," he said, shrugging it off when we both knew that if it was enough to make him mute for years, there was nothing about it to shrug over.
"I figured," I agreed, sniffling a bit, pulling away, wiping my cheeks with my sleeve. "What's your name?" I asked, the question that had been plaguing me since I met him.
"C-c-Camden."
"No.... really."
"O-only o-one t-t-t-that m-m-matters."
"Fair enough," I agreed. "All these years," I said after a second of silence. "I have thought of hundreds, thousands of things I wanted to ask you. And now I can't think of anything."
To that, his shoulder shrugged. And I realized that this wasn't some miracle, him speaking. It was a lifetime of training himself not to speak, to respond only with body language. We weren't going to go from complete silence to having long conversations in the matter of a few minutes.
And that was okay.
More than okay.
Wounds took longer to heal than get. If it took him another six years to be able to have a conversation with me, that was fine.
"I love you," I told him, voice thick with sincerity.
"L-l-love y-y-you t-too, L-Liv."
His voice was sounding scratchy, muscles atrophied from disuse.
"I won't tell Astrid," I promised. "That's for you. When you're ready."
"I thought it was part of my dreams," Astrid said, making us both jolt, not sure how we missed the scratch of her slippers on the floor.
"What?" I asked, looking over at a confused Cam.
"When I first came here," she specified. "When you guys first took me in. You remember the nightmares?"
Christ, did I remember the nightmares. They were chronic. Not just every night. Multiple times each night. So frequent that, at times, I couldn't bring myself to go in for the fourth time, praying she wouldn't hate me for not being there every single time.
"Those days are hard to forget," I admitted.
"I remember you coming in, talking to me, just babbling about anything. Your childhood. The weather. What you were going to add to your grocery list, just talking and talking until I went to sleep. But there were times when it wasn't you at my bedside. It was Cam. Singing. I thought it was a dream. That voice. But it wasn't a dream, was it?"
"N-n-no," Cam said, shaking his head, face stricken.
Astrid's reaction was the same as mine, minus the tears. She flew at him, nearly knocking the two of them to the ground as she clung to him.
"It helped so much," she choked out, making me need to slow blink even more tears out of my eyes.
I didn't care about a single goddamn present I had ever gotten in my life.
This.
This was the only gift I needed.
Not thinking, just acting on impulse, I moved across the floor, wrapping my arms around both of them.
We stayed there like that, three not touchy-feely people
- hanging on for dear life.
"Not that I don't love this," Astrid said, pulling away, taking a shaky breath. "But why now? Why tonight?"
I took a step back as well, waving a hand toward the box on the table.
Astrid moved over, looking in, head lifting slowly with a brilliant smile in Cam's direction.
"You sly fuck, you," she said, the words sounding like an accusation. "That's where you were all day yesterday."
He gave her a nod and a small smirk.
"I thought it would be me. I've been hunting like freaking crazy since he left and she fell into a black hole."
"I have not been in a black hole," I insisted, shaking my head.
"Oh, please," Astrid snorted. "You've been putting on a decently convincing act, I'll give you that. But your eyes are hollow. I wanted those dimples back, man."
"This was... that is so sweet of both of you, but just because I have the gun, doesn't mean anything is going to change."
"The gun is an excuse to go visit Navesink Bank. Go drop in. Say it bothers you to have anything hanging over your head like this. That you're just settling your debts. And if something comes from that, okay. If not, at least you know."
"He left, Astrid," I reasoned.
"Yeah, and you practically pushed him out the door," she told me, snorting. "Maybe if you saw each other again, you could hash it out. Or maybe you will show up to find he is not interested at all. But at least there is some closure there. And you will have squared up with Reign. He sounds like he took this well, but it's always good to have all the contacts you can. He'd be a good one in the future. It is an all-around smart thing to do. So... you're going to do it. Case closed. I'll go pack you a bag. Cam will go get the car out of the garage."
"I'm not going anywhere tonight," I told them.
"Why not?" she asked.
"It's Christmas!" I insisted, snorting.
"Oh, please. Christmas is over."
"It's late. I haven't slept."
"And you wouldn't sleep if you stayed here anyway. You know I'm right. you'd just lay there until the sun comes up anyway. Might as well get a move on."
"Astrid, be reasona..."
"G-g-go," Camden insisted, voice firm the way I imagined it when he gave me the stern stare every now and again.
"There. It's settled. You go take a shower. I will pack your bag. Hop to!"
When I didn't immediately move to comply, Astrid physically pushed me down the hall, proving that her martial arts classes were giving her some serious upper body strength.
"Liv," she said, voice more serious than usual as she pushed me into the bathroom. "You have done a great job of taking care of everyone else, always putting things you want second. And I am thankful for that. We both know I wouldn't be as halfway to normal as I am now if it wasn't for all the sacrifices you have made. And that Cam would never have grown comfortable enough to get to the point that he could let us know he has a lisp. And we love you for all you've done. But we're okay now. It's time for you to go after what you want. And you want Roderick. Whether you want to admit that yet or not. So... at least try."
I paused for a moment, taking a deep breath.
She was right.
I wanted Roderick.
And I did want the debt off my back.
And I would like to know things for sure, no matter which way it might go.
"Okay," I agreed.
"Okay?"
"Yeah. I'll go."
"Tonight," she specified.
"Yes, tonight."
"After you shower. Do your lady-scaping."
I snorted at that, shaking my head.
"Yes, all that. Now go."
Alone, I turned on the water, stripping out of my clothes, not entirely sure how I felt, or how I was supposed to feel.
Overwhelmed covered it.
Not just because of the unexpected road trip.
But because of Cam, because he could speak even if it was uncomfortable for him. Because of the fact that when Astrid had needed him most, he had forced away his own issues, and had done what he thought she needed. Because he had gone out of his way - and it was way out of his way since neither me nor Astrid had been able to do it - to track down the gun, go get it for me. Because he wanted me to go see Roderick.
Because he - and Astrid - had seen that he had given me a hint of something I had never known before.
Real happiness.
Comfort.
Maybe even the hints, the very new first twinges of something akin to love.
And they wanted me to know more of it if that was possible.
Even, as Astrid had suggested, it meant we had to retire, get new gigs.
But that was getting ahead of ourselves.
I showered, dressed, took my bag from Astrid, took the keys from Cam, tucked the gun back into the box, told my people I loved them.
Then set my sights on Navesink Bank.
ELEVEN
Roderick
Christmas was Christmas.
Which meant that it didn't matter if you were feeling shitty, you plastered a smile on your face, you put on the goddamn Santa hat when your sister handed it to you, and you pretended.
Because that was just what you did.
And, make no mistake, I felt shitty.
And not just because of the relentless, inventive, taste-of-my-own-medicine type ragging I had been taking from the guys since the moment I walked in the door.
Fucking Pagan even took the opportunity to really dig in while he pulled my stitches out.
There was no escaping it.
But that was what I had been expecting. Especially now that I came back with only two of the guns we needed.
In fact, it had nothing at all to do with the men.
No.
It had everything to do with the woman I had walked away from. Without a fight.
Sure, I had my orders from Reign. And, yeah, my mother would have raised all kinds of hell if I didn't make it home for Christmas, but I had made the choice to leave. Even with business unfinished. Even with far too much unsaid between us.
She'd pushed though.
I had used that as a justification.
She had practically pushed me out the door.
Not because she'd wanted me to leave.
I knew that like I knew it was going to hurt to go.
She'd just been trying to make it easier to let me go, despite the fact that we both knew something had happened between us, something that neither of us had experienced before.
I'd known a lot of women in my life. I wasn't ashamed of that, that I had enjoyed the company of what was likely more than my fair share of the fairer sex. Some I had just spent the night with, others a weekend, others still were casual buddies who called up when they needed some no-strings-attached fun for which I was happy to oblige them.
Not every woman in my life was transient. I had spent time with some of them before.
But not a single one got to me the way Liv had. And almost from the jump. It was more than simple attraction - hormones and chemicals, familiar friends of mine.
It was deeper.
Because we had delved deeper; we had given each other all the ugly details of our lives. We had lived and worked side-by-side, gotten to know each other's rhythms, likes and dislikes, good and bad habits.
We'd - essentially - been in a mini relationship. And then it had been ripped away before we got a chance to explore it.
All I had been able to think about since walking out of that loft was her. Her absence was all around me. I couldn't walk around the compound without running into a happy couple. Only Roan and Virgin were single. And Roan was usually off in the glass room. As for Virgin, well, since Sugar shacked up with Peyton, he had spent more of his time out on the town or in his room.
So it very much felt like I was on my own around the holidays with happy couples all around me.
I couldn't help but think how well Liv would fit in with the girls club, how she would b
e able to trade barbs with the guys. I imagined her in my bed, her scent on my sheets, being able to come back to her after a long drop. Or maybe even being able to bring her with me since she was in the profession as well.
And as I packed up all the presents for my family, I couldn't help but think about what it would be like to have her with me there, to see her interact with my sisters - knowing how well she and Astrid got along - and bonding with my mother, trying not to get flustered with me when everyone demanded to know when we were going to get married or have babies.
"Alright, what's her name?" Mia - the oldest of my sisters, though she was only older than Zoe by a whopping three minutes, asked, coming up to my side with a mug of coquito for me, leaning against the wall beside me.
"What?"
"Oh, you might be able to fool Ana and Elisa and Leala, but Zoe and I know better," she told me, taking a sip of her drink.
"When'd you get so wise, huh?" I asked, unable to see her as anything other than a knotty-haired grade-schooler who used to paint my nails when I was sleeping then scream and cry when I took it off before I went to school.
"I know that look, Roderick. I felt it myself last year."
"That mother fucker didn't deserve you," I insisted, feeling a churning anger well up inside.
It was hard, at times, being the elder brother to five women steadily in dating age. All of who had inherited the beauty our mother had been known for when she was young. It wasn't my place to tell them not to date, to threaten the guys when they used to come around the house. Unless, of course, the fucks stepped out of line like when Zoe came home one night in high school telling us that her shithead boyfriend was grabbing at her even when she told him to stop. In that case, I went ahead and handled the situation. But, as a whole, I understood that I needed to respect their right to make their own decisions - even if I could see from a mile away that a guy was going nowhere fast - and simply be there for them if things eventually went downhill.
Which was what had needed to happen about six months before when Mia found out that the guy she'd been madly, stupidly, blindly in love with had knocked up some other chick while she was with him.
"No," she agreed, nodding. "He didn't. I see that now. But back then, I was enamored. And that is the look you have right now. I don't think our sisters have been quite that head-over yet - Zoe aside - so they can't see it like we do. So... what is her name?"
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