The room spun. The star at the middle of me cooled, regained form, settled. I stared over Cam’s shoulder at the ceiling, my breath coming in short, hard bursts.
He rolled off me, his arm still behind me and pulling me to curl beside him. His other hand was in my hair and he kissed me, my lips, my cheeks, my eyes.
When we got our breath back he said, a stunned look on his face, “Whatever that was—”
“Was amazing,” I said.
“I had no idea.”
“I’m an excellent lay,” I said.
He scoffed. “I’m pretty sure that was mostly me.”
“You are ruining everything.”
Cam chuckled. “Fine. I’ll share credit for this one. It was amazing and you were at least thirty percent responsible for how good it was.”
“Get out of my apartment.” I pointed to the door.
He seemed reluctant to move. “Do you think now would be a good time to talk about that kiss at the end of last semester?”
I felt an almost undeniable urge to fuck with Cam. Just a little. “It was all right.” I felt laughter building in my chest.
“All right? That was a great kiss. I am a superb kisser, and I gave that one a solid eighty-five percent effort.”
I turned to him, looked into his eyes.
“What does this mean?”
His lips brushed mine. “It means that, as best friends go, you are a solid mile ahead of Eric now. It’ll be pretty tough for him to catch up with you.”
“That’s not—”
“I know,” he said. His voice deepened, slowed. “What it means is—” he paused, as if unsure what to say. “It means you’re mine.” I felt a stinging in my eyes. “Or, if that’s too possessive for you, I’m all yours.”
I put my palm to his cheek. “I’m yours,” I said. The words felt good in my mouth.
A Maiden, Obviously Lost
Aimee
God, I hate this.
My fingers pluck at the leather seats of the Mercedes. After the window had been smashed in, both front seats had to be reupholstered, and the new leather is soft and supple. It would feel nice, except I can’t stop thinking about where we’re going and why.
“Are you sure, Cam?” I ask for maybe the third time in the last half hour.
“I’m sure.”
“I mean, are you really fucking sure?”
He blows out an exasperated breath. “Yes, Aimee, I’m really fucking sure that we have to do this.”
“Remind me why, again.” I’m getting on his nerves, I can tell, but I can’t seem to quiet my own thoughts or shut my own mouth.
“Do I have to?”
I sigh. “No.”
I know the reasons why. Because Cam’s father is tired of funding his son’s play-all-day, play-all-night lifestyle and wants to see that Cam is an investment with a future. That’s how he sees his own son. As an investment. And Jason Simons is going to cut Cam completely out of the family finances and business if he doesn’t show him that he’s started taking life seriously.
And maybe he’s right. I’ve known Cam for his whole life, and if there’s one thing he doesn’t do, it’s take life seriously. He doesn’t take himself seriously. He doesn’t take his father’s natural gas business seriously.
These are all reasons, probably, that I love—loved—Cam. But from the standpoint of a business tycoon, Cam’s frivolity probably seems a bit excessive.
And so Jason wants proof that Cam has grown up. For some reason, his criterion for “being grown up” is showing up with a fiance to present to the family. Only that’s not the word Cam insists his father uses. He wants Cam to be “betrothed.” So old fashioned.
Or he’s on his own. Out on his ear. Beyond the gates, where there be wolves, or some shit like that.
“I don’t like it,” I say again.
“I know you don’t. You’ve made it very clear.” His lips are pressed to a thin line.
“You know I wouldn’t do this for anybody else.”
Cam barks a laugh. “You mean you wouldn’t be doing this for someone that didn’t give you seventy-five grand to do it.” He looks sidelong at me. “And rebuild your apartment.”
I think about that for a moment. “No. I wouldn’t do it for anybody else. Not even for the money.”
This doesn’t fit in Cam’s worldview, not entirely, so he says, “Bullshit.”
I feel my face heating up. “Kiss my ass then. Keep your money. I’ll still go to your stupid damn reunion&emdash;”
“It’s just a party,” he interrupts.
“Your what-the-fuck-ever, but you keep the money. I need it, but I’ll get it somewhere else.”
He glances over at me, taking his eyes entirely off the road. “Are you serious?”
He needs to stop staring at me. After all this time apart his eyes on me like this put a tingle across my skin that I should not be feeling. I have a sudden impulse, an old tenderness, and I reach out and touch the side of his face. He starts to smile, but then I turn his head back to the road. “Of course I’m serious. Now watch where you’re going.”
Cam starts to laugh. “You still love me.” Infuriating bastard.
I shake my head. “Not like that. Not like you seem to want me to.” But sitting next to him, riding up to Bartlesville to see his family, looking at the side of his face as he drives...it seems right. It feels good.
He’s quiet for a while, and then says, “You don’t have to do this.”
“Of course I do. I said I would.”
“Nah. I can find somebody else. Hire an actor, or something. OU is full of those guys, and this would be the only paying gig most of them will ever get. You can still have the money, though.”
The thought of Cam going to this event with someone else pretending to be his fiance—pretending to be me—makes my throat hurt. My eyes sting, just a little, and I tell myself it’s allergies. Spring is on the way, after all, in four months or so. This is foreshadowing, maybe.
“No. We have a deal.”
Cam reaches out, touches the back of my hand. Just a quick graze of the fingers that traces across the skin, pausing on the unfamiliar cool of the platinum band and embarrassingly large diamond on my ring finger. The most expensive piece of costume jewelry ever. “See? You can’t fool me. You love me.”
I fix my eyes on the road ahead of us, ignoring the wonderful, invisible scorch marks Cam’s touch left on my skin. “Just drive the car, fool.”
Cam
My parents’ house is what you would expect of Oklahoma fossil fuel money. On the edge of Bartlesville, a half mile northeast of the nearest subdivision. The road narrows to two lanes of grainy blacktop and the woods on the right thin and give way to fields. Then to a carefully manicured greensward, separated from the rougher fields by a four foot high split-pole fence. The fence stretches on as far as you can see, until the road curves to the left and the fence is obscured by more trees. The fence marks the edge of my father’s property. The house sits smack in the middle of all this, a deceptively subdued ranch home that seems to be a normal size house from the road.
Of course, the road is a long way from the house. Perception changes as you get closer.
In truth, the original house that my grandfather built out here after his return from the WWII is just a seed kernel that formed the basis for my father’s expansion projects. While Grandpa had been a successful businessman, he son was a wildly successful one, shrewd and aggressive. And where Grandpa had lived modestly, never showing off his growing wealth, Dad was rich, and he wanted the world to know it. Which is why the pole fencing gives way to a set of massive wrought-iron gates, each with a four-foot “S” worked into the center of them. The gates, themselves, are dwarfed by the two massive stone pillars—edifices, really—that hold them erect.
I punch in the code and the gates swing inward on silent hinges.
“We’re here,” I say, more to hear myself talk than anything.
“Well, we will be in anoth
er fifteen minutes,” Aimee murmurs.
I shrug. It’s true. It’s a long driveway. Where once it had been a straight shot from the road to the house, Dad re-engineered it so that it sweeps across the front of the hill and approaches the house from the side, where he had built a seven-car garage. The driveway is designed to showcase, for the visitor, a good seventy-five percent of the Simons property, impressing dignitaries, business associates, and business associates’ mistresses with the grand scope of my father’s holdings. The lawn seems to sweep on forever. It is interrupted by the occasional copse of pine trees, or of birch. None of the trees are wild, and all are attended by independent sprinkler systems programmed to deliver just the right amount of water for each species. A low cubic hedge row flanks the driveway from the road until the final approach to the garage. On the other side of the hedge row are intermittent patches of flowers and shrubs, each patch showcasing a marble statue at it center. There are statues of angels, mostly looking beatific but a couple leveling some fairly judgmental stares at whoever is coming up the drive, as if to say, “I see you, and don’t think you can sneak out of here with any of the silverware.” One statue is of a maiden, obviously lost, her skirt clutched in both hands and casting around for something on the ground as if she’s dislodged a contact lens.
“Those things always creep me out,” Aimee says. Of course they do. They’re goddamn creepy, and they make you feel as if you’re driving into the setting of a gothic romance novel.
It seems to take forever to get to the house. I take the driveway slow, because I don’t want the gravel to pop up and chip the Mercedes’ paint. The smell of wood smoke comes through the vents and I smile a bit at the nostalgia of the big main fireplace roaring. Think about sitting in front of it with Aimee, snuggled up on the big overstuffed sectional. Indulge myself, just for a moment, with a brief fantasy that we’re here alone, that she had not seen me for the irresponsible lout that I am and that nothing had changed between us, that she is only half-in that dress she’s wearing…
The hedge row opens out suddenly and the driveway turns into a moon-shaped parking area that leaves room for a dozen cars while keeping the center open for the family to get one of the vehicles out of the garage whenever we want. But when the weather’s nice and we’re expecting guests, Dad insists that all the vehicles be parked outside so that anybody curious enough to look can see what half a million dollars of rolling iron looks like.
His Dodge dually pickup is here, parked in pride of place right in front of the center garage doors. Mom’s Escalade is next to it, and next to that is my brother, Eli’s, red Hummer. All freshly washed, chrome shining. To one side is a late-model Camaro and a Chevy pickup that’s at least fifteen years old. The Chevies almost certainly belong to my aunt Chloe and her husband Garth, who live in North Carolina. They can’t stand to be in the same vehicle with one another for any length of time, so when they return to Oklahoma they always drive separately.
“Eric’s here,” Aimee points at my roommate’s maroon Prius half-hidden behind Uncle Garth’s truck. On the back is a bumper sticker that reads, “OKCMetro Jiu Jitsu.”
It’s not entirely surprising that Eric is here. After all, he’s been my best friend for almost as long as Aimee has been...also my best friend. Our individual planets all fell into a mutual orbit before we even recognized the concept of gravity. But what does surprise me is that I didn’t invite him. I already had my plus-one.
Aimee must have noticed the puzzled look on my face because she says, “I called him.”
I feel my jaw drop open, and rather than sit feeling stupid with a gaping mouth, I say, “Why?”
She shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “Because I have no idea what to expect.” Her brown eyes are locked onto mine and I am pinned in place. I feel my mouth go dry. She looks so vulnerable in this moment that it wouldn’t matter to me if she’d invited those bikers from the bar. Aimee can do absolutely whatever she wants and it’s okay with me.
“Besides, this house has so many rooms I doubt your mom would even notice an extra person or two.”
I nod. “That’s true.”
“Which is why…” she pauses, biting her lip.
“What?”
“I invited someone else, too.”
“Pray tell.”
“Marie.”
“No way.” She might as well have invited the bikers. “She hates me.”
Aimee makes a face. “She doesn’t hate you. She’s just not attracted to you.”
I pull up behind Eric’s Prius and park.
“That’s the same as hating me.”
Aimee laughs, and the sound is warm and open. It might be the first time she’s laughed this way around me since she dumped me. “Nope. It just means she has some common sense.”
“That stings.”
She shakes her head. “Your skin is way too thick for that.”
Two unexpected guests. Eric and Marie. There’s an opportunity here. I smile to myself.
“You know Marie really hates Eric,” I say. “Like, she would geld him, given the opportunity.”
She purses her lips. “I hadn’t thought of that.” She digs in her purse for her phone. “I should call her, tell her to go back home.”
I put a hand on her forearm. “Nonsense.” This could be fun. Or at least distracting. “The more the merrier. There’s room for all, here at Casa de Simons.”
She sighs, obviously torn, obviously wanting as much emotional support as she can gather. Finally she says, “How do I look?”
I glance at her, then turn fully to her and look longer, taking her in. It’s not the first time I’ve looked at her today, of course. But maybe it’s the first time I’ve allowed myself to actually look at her. Aimee stuns me. Stuns me. Like I’ve been hit with a taser. Even after all this time, years of friendship, months of dating, months of estrangement, looking at her knocks the words out of my mouth. The interior of the car is dark, but her hair seems to glow around her like a halo. Her dark eyes draw me in and I feel myself floating. Or sinking. Or both. Like I’m not even in my own body any longer, but somewhere in that space between us. Her lips, just touched with a light red lipstick, quirk into a small smile.
“That bad, huh?”
I try to find my voice. “You, uh&emdash;”
Her eyes soften, and she shifts her shoulders just slightly, a fraction of an inch toward me. Her lips part just a little.
“You don’t look half bad.”
What the fuck is wrong with you? This, of course, is my brain speaking to me&emdash;screaming at me, more like. You don’t look half bad? I thought you’re supposed to be the playboy with all the right moves! Say something else, moron!
But the moment has passed. Aimee’s face is now carefully blank and she is digging in her purse for something. “I guess that’s going to have to be good enough,” she says. The interior lights come on as she opens the door. “Let’s go re-meet your family.”
I should get out of the car. She’s getting out of the car, so I should get out of the car. But I realize my hands are gripping the steering wheel as if they’re trying to choke it. They’d be glad to choke something, that’s certain. Maybe their owner.
You’re a moron, my brain reminds me.
It’s not like I disagree. I nod, and force my fingers to release the wheel.
Everybody But You Two
Fall Semester, Last Year
Cam
The thing is that I’m only maybe a half-step shy of being a moron. I mean, I’m smart enough. I learn quick—when I want to. I have a quick wit. But when it comes to emotions, I just…
I don’t like them.
That’s not right.
I don’t trust them. At least not my own. Because I know me, and I know I have deep, deep tendencies to be selfish and—this might not be a flattering stretch—perhaps a touch narcissistic. And possibly manipulative. And so most of the time I figure the way I “feel” about something is probably just my subconscious working ve
ry subtly to confirm for me that the things I want are good and honorable. Righteous, even.
It’s one of the reasons I keep Eric around. He does what he can to keep me on the path of “doing the right thing.” Well, near the path. At least where I can see the path from where I stand.
Most of the time.
After the weekend we spent in Chicago, Aimee didn’t waste any time using emotion language to throw me into a deep panic. I flew back to Oklahoma after a weekend in which, frankly, we didn’t leave her apartment for more than a few minutes at a time to get food. It seemed that my plane had no more than touched down in Tulsa when my phone buzzed in my pocket. Not a text. She called me, which neither of us really cares to do.
“I love you,” she said before I even said, “Hello.” I had just stood up to retrieve my bag from the overhead bin, and she said that and all the strength went out of my legs and I sat back down. Maybe she sensed that I didn’t have words that could possibly match the ones she had just jammed into my brain, so she went on. “I miss you, and I want to be naked with you again, right now.”
I managed to catch my breath and catch up with the conversation. “That could be awkward here on the plane,” I said, feeling myself smile.
“We might wind up in jail, but it would be worth it.”
I glanced up the aisle, where people were beginning to file out the door. Deciding I could trust my legs again, I stood up and got my bag down, holding the phone with my shoulder. I tried emoting, because I knew Aimee would like that. “I can’t wait to see you again.”
A woman next to me in the aisle quirked a knowing smile at me. She was pretty and I thought about winking, but decided that my days of winking at pretty women who weren’t Aimee might be over. Or at least on hold. So I smiled instead.
“I fly into OKC in a week. Pick me up at Will Rogers?”
“I’ll be there with bells on.” I walked down the plane, eager to be in the terminal where I could walk freely instead of nudging up against someone else’s back on a crowded plane.
All Yours: A Second Chance Romance Page 7
