Staying For You

by Van Wyk, Jennifer

  “Helen. Are you okay?”

  “No. I’m really not.”

  “Want to talk about it?” Perhaps another time when I’m not entirely distracted because I need to be somewhere else?

  “I lived here. For about three weeks, I lived here thinking that the man I was sleeping next to was someone else entirely. I didn’t know where he lived for months and then suddenly he wanted me here. All the time. Said that things were finally looking up for us and we could be together. That he was going to take care of me. See. My dad? He was around but, not really. He cared more about making sure that everyone saw how much money he made and the power he had. My mom liked her drinks because she knew that when Dad was traveling, he wasn’t just working. He was…” She points to herself and that’s when her face transforms again, this time in a crushing disappointment of herself that’s damn near heartbreaking to witness. “This is who he sought after every single time he was on the road for work. Every. Single. Time.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because he’s a moron and doesn’t understand how the Cloud works. Which, quite frankly, not many people do, but I’m a tech-geek so it’s my thing. And he didn’t realize when he was taking pictures and selfies that they were transferring to all of our phones.”

  I suck in a breath, wondering what kind of pictures a girl had to see of her father in order for her to turn into something she’s not.

  “So Scott made you promises?”

  “He did. Everything was going to be great. We were going to have the baby. I was going to go to school so I could stop, you know, being a stripper. Which he kept telling me he didn’t care if that’s what I did for a living because that’s how he fell in love with me. Watching me.” My gosh he’s gross. “He was smooth, Camilla. So smooth I didn’t even see it coming.”

  “See what coming, honey?”

  “The hits.”

  I gasp. He never, not once in our entire decade of time together, laid a hand on me. “He hit you?” I whisper sinisterly. What the hell has gotten into him?

  Quietly sitting on the couch, she stops fidgeting for a few moments then she takes on another look. This one of determination. I have no idea just how many disguises she’s using to hide what’s going on underneath. Biting her lower lip that’s trembling, she pulls out something from her purse and starts wiping on her face. Wipe after wipe, I watch in awe as the more she rids her face of makeup, the more that’s revealed. A bruised left cheek that looks like it took one heck of a wallup. A spot next to her lip that looks like it had a cut in it as well as a small cut on her right cheek. There’s darkness and a little bit of yellow around her right eye as well, as if she had a black eye there recently.

  I gasp, covering my mouth with my hand but immediately stand up and move next to her.

  “He did this?”

  “He did.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  With dejection in her voice, she says, “Look at me, Camilla. It might be 2019 but people still believe what they want to believe.”

  “First of all, call me Cami. Second of all, that’s bullshit and I’m sorry, but it’s an excuse.” Tears flood her eyes, rushing down her sweet face that confirms what I was guessing about her age. “Did he tell you that?”

  Helen looks away, staring at the mantel in my living room. “When I first got here, he told me these pictures were of his sister. Then the truth came out that you weren’t his sister, but you were his wife but only because your friends showed up. He told me you were the crazy one.”

  “Helen, did he tell you that the police wouldn’t believe you?”

  “Not only him,” she whispers with a trembling lip.

  “Your father?” I guess and she only nods to confirm, looking down at her lap. “What a piece of shit,” I say out loud what I’m thinking. Probably not appropriate but entirely accurate.

  She shrugs. It’s her dad and I can tell there’s a love there even if he is a jerk.

  “I’m so sorry we broke into your home, Cami. The police, they came to the door and we looked like freaking idiots because we had on these headlamps. I mean, really, what the heck was I thinking? He told me he wanted to have a romantic night without the lights on but that we needed to be safe. The police asked what we were doing and he just kept lying about the power being out. The cop looked at him, leaned over, and flipped a switch. There we stood with our freaking headlamps beaming in his direction looking like a couple fools.”

  I can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of my throat because the picture she paints is pretty funny to imagine. I can just see Scott’s dumb expression and hear him fumbling for excuses. What did I ever see in him?

  “It all kind of kept clicking together. So, after the police escorted us out of here, we went to a cheap hotel. I started asking him questions, he didn’t like that, and then this happened.” She touches her cheek and I breathe deeply. What a jackass. What type of man did he become? I don’t remember ever feeling unsafe around him. Not in the sense that he would physically abuse me, anyway.

  “Do you have a safe place to stay?” I ask, but I have a feeling I already know the answer to that question. She doesn’t answer, just shakes her head.

  “Where have you been sleeping? Where were you before you met Scott?”

  “Right now, I’ve been sleeping in my car. Before that, I was with some friends. But as soon as I moved out, they moved someone else into my room and they said I couldn’t sleep on the couch. I still work at the club but I don’t make enough for an apartment and food.”

  My phone rings and I look to it, see it’s Olivia calling. “I’m sorry, Helen, I need to take this.” She nods and asks to use the restroom and I tell her I’ll be here when she gets out.

  “Olivia?”

  “What’s going on? Who was at the door?”

  “You’re never going to believe it. Let’s just say, it’s been a crazy fifteen minutes.”

  “Is everything alright?”

  I look in the direction where Helen disappeared to. She lived here for a few weeks so she knew where the bathroom was. Someone I met only a few minutes ago knows her way around my house as if it’s her own. “I think so.”

  “Did you make a decision? Are you coming up here?”

  “Does he want me to?”

  The phone is silent for a few beats and then… “Cami?” His voice. My gosh I missed his voice. It’s deep and husky and raspy. I immediately start crying because when I left there, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be brave enough to hear his voice again.

  “It’s me.”

  “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

  I never listened to any of the voice mails he left me. Didn’t read through his texts. I have no idea if he said those words earlier, but it’s the first time I hear them and they break my heart. “Me, too.”

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for. I said things I didn’t mean. Your letter, everything you said was right.” He coughs lightly then continues. “I was protecting myself from nothing because I was acting as if I had a right to be nervous or scared. I didn’t, though. And I’m so sorry you received what you did from me. You’re none of what I said. You were everything. Still are.”

  I let his words settle in. You were everything. Still are.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I will be.”

  “Can I come see you?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Owen

  “Yes,” I answer immediately. Just hearing her voice makes some of the pain go away. I haven’t heard her voice aside from the message on her voice mail since we got into a fight and I acted like a royal dick to her.

  She giggles. “You sure?”

  “Positive. If I could drive down to you instead, I would.”

  “You’d leave the resort for me?” she asks. Her voice is full of vulnerability but also teasing. I missed it. So damn much some of the pain comes back. This time in my heart. I lay my head back on the hospital pillow and hold my sister’s pho
ne to my ear with my right arm, the one not injured. As soon as I grabbed the phone from her, Ethan led her out of the room. She also fought him a bit because she’s nosey and worried about me.

  “Yeah, sweetheart. I’d come to Tennessee for you. I need you.”

  She sucks in a breath and I wonder if she’s biting her lower lip or fidgeting the way she does so often when she’s nervous or worried about something.

  “Your sister said she’d let me know where you are.”

  “I know I said I want you here but I feel bad making you buy a plane ticket and fly back up here, especially since you just got home, right?”

  “And I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it.”

  I grin and feel my breath come in a little easier than it had been.

  “I’ll check some flights, see when I can get there and let you know. Are you going to be in the hospital long?”

  “A couple more days for sure. They’re keeping me under watch because of the concussion,” I grumble. I hate being here. I hate that it took me being injured and laid up in a hospital bed to realize the extent of the mistake I had made. And I really hate the way we ended things — especially the part of it ending. She’s quiet for a few seconds before I hear her sniffling. “Sweetheart,” I murmur. Hearing her cry is harder especially when I can’t be there to hold her.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine. You just scared me.”

  “Cami.”

  “Yes?”

  There’s so much I want to say but not when I’m lying in bed in a hospital room and not able to see her face.

  “I really am so very sorry. Please, please know that. The last week that you’ve been gone? It was hell. And before that?”

  “Before that?” she prompts when I don’t continue.

  “It was damn near perfect. The time we spent together, I didn’t want it to end.”

  “Now you’re just showing off. I’m supposed to be the writer here,” she whispers and it makes me grin. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Thank you.”

  She doesn’t accept my apology but they always say actions speak louder than words and her coming to the hospital speaks volumes.

  * * *

  “How are you this morning?” Nurse Autumn asks as she flutters around the room, opening my blinds, setting down my breakfast of hospital scrambled eggs and toast, and checking my vitals. She’s been here the last three mornings and if all goes well, this is the last time I’ll ever look into her eyes that are so dark they’re almost black. Autumn has spent a little extra time in my room. But I suspect that’s because Brody’s been here and from what she tells me, her kids are taking too long giving her grandbabies to cuddle and spoil.

  “Great.” I smile wide. I am, too. Not only am I feeling better, headache not so prevalent and my double vision mostly gone, today Cami arrives.

  “Your girl still coming today?”

  “Now, Autumn, I told you she isn’t my girl.”

  “Yet. You said she isn’t yours yet.” She smiles and writes down the numbers from my blood pressure and pulse.

  “I have to do a little groveling and magic first.”

  “Typical man,” she scoffs, shaking her head at me playfully. “You’re stuck with me again today. We had someone call in otherwise I would have been off. Think you can handle that?”

  “I think so. But are you sure you didn’t just swap days so you could get a look at Cami?”

  Her eyes widen and she whaps me with the back of her hand lightly. “You are such a stinker. I would never do such a thing.”

  “Mm hmm. Right,” I tease.

  She rolls her eyes and gives me a look that I’m pretty sure they must pull all moms aside when they first become a mom and give them lessons on how to create it. The mom look. It’s universally known to bring a grown man to his knees.

  “I’ll be watching for her. What time do you expect her to arrive?”

  “Probably shortly after one. You ordered the candlelight dinner for us tonight, right? Have the rose petals to lay out on the floor and bed? Maybe put on some Barry White and chill a bottle of champagne.”

  She snickers and shakes her head as she walks out the door, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  And my thoughts are all over the place, especially when Sawyer, the police detective who first came to my room to ask me questions regarding my fall, strides into my room shortly before lunch. My sister was here already but I sent her and Ethan to the resort. When Cami arrives in her rental car, I want time alone with her and Olivia hanging onto our every word would give us the opposite.

  Sawyer’s a well-built guy with a buzz cut, broad shoulders and biceps that intimidate me, but he seems like a genuinely nice person. He’s also made it clear that he does not, in any way, shape, or form, like Scott Moore.

  After I gave him my account of the events that led to me falling down the stairs, Sawyer did some searching, as is typical for his career. What he discovered made me a little sick. Once Scott discovered where Cami had been, he started digging around to find out everything he could on me. His internet search was extensive, but at the time, it wasn’t clear as to how he found out that Cami and I had been together as anything more than simply guest and tenant.

  “How goes it, man? How’s the head? The leg?” he asks in his deep voice. He has dark skin and black hair and when he reaches out a hand to clamp on my shoulder and the other to shake my hand, I accept both and add in a smile.

  “Pretty good. You?”

  “Good here. Got some news you’ll be interested in.”

  “Hit me with it.”

  He takes a seat in the chair next to my bed and leans over, elbows resting on his knees and hands laced together. “Our guy’s a dick.”

  “Figured as much.” I sit up, thankful that I can at least be in regular clothes and not in the hospital gown. If I hadn’t had the concussion, I would have been out of the hospital already. But considering the severity of it and the fact that I was knocked out for a good while, I had to stay in this place under observation.

  To say that I’m ready to be out of here would be an understatement.

  “Not just a dick. A supreme dick.”

  That gets my attention.

  His deep brown eyes assess me before he admits, “He’s been working his ass off trying to ruin your girl’s career. Not only that, he got some barely-of-age girl pregnant and from what I hear, he’s been a special kind of dick about that, too. Up front was good with her. Made her feel like she was his one and only. Her co-workers explained things a bit differently. What this girl’s not seeing or hearing behind the scenes, what he’s up to when she’s not looking. Spoke with the local guys in your girl’s town, he’s a special kind of dick there, too. A real piece of work, this one. No one believes his tangents, of course, because he is who he is and has proven himself to be that way but yeah, we need your girl out of there and away from this guy because my thoughts on this aren’t good.”

  “And what are your thoughts?”

  “Considering that his pregnant girl’s co-workers said she came in to work a week ago bruised up and making excuses then she was found sleeping in her fucking car, my thoughts are about where you can expect them to be.”

  “What the fuck? He hit her? Was that shit happening to Cami, too?”

  “Can’t say yes or no, there. Haven’t talked with her yet but you can bet, when she gets here, I’ll be doing just that.”

  “Fuck me.”

  “That’s about it. But, I should let you know.”

  “What?” I growl.

  This time he grins, bright white teeth beaming at me against his dark skin. “We got ‘im.”

  “No shit?”

  After I was taken to the hospital, Scott went missing. When David noticed that Scott had gone missing, he went looking for him. Found me instead. Called an ambulance. Sent a few of his crew out to look for Scott. No one could find him in town. He’d just shown up that day and said he was there to work. David said he could
have a job if he proved himself. No numbers were exchanged, nothing. It was a mistake on David’s part that he feels bad about. Thing is, though, Scott was there whether he was pretending to work or not. He would have done exactly what he did no matter what. It’s no one’s fault… aside from Scott’s.

  “No shit. He’s at the station, then?”

  “He is.” He nods. “Raising all sorts of hell and screaming that he’ll sue us and we were harassing him.”

  “Harassing him?”

  He gives me a crooked grin. “Because we were looking for him. Apparently when you’re a suspect, if you’re looked for, that means you’re being harassed.”

  “So he’s not only a special kind of dick, he’s a special kind of dumbass, too.”

  “Correct.”

  “Great.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  He leans back, lifts a leg and rests the ankle on his knee.

  “So what now?”

  “We have your official statement. We don’t have proof aside from his fingerprints all over your home, which my guess is enough considering his behavior once we got him and some of the shit he spewed probably not even realizing he was spewing it. And we have the statements from his pregnant girl’s co-workers regarding her showing up looking all kinds of banged up and so there’s some repeated violent behavior. We just have to get in touch with her, see if her story lines up, and we’ll be okay. But, we might have him right now, but we still need your girl away from him. Way I see it, if he can, he’ll turn this around on her and that shit ain’t cool and you know what I mean by this without me saying it.”

  “She’s supposed to be here soon,” I remind him.

  “And this is a good thing. She needs to know, though. Everything. Because my guess is she doesn’t have a clue as to what kind of man she was living with.”

  “What do you mean by that?” The hair on the back of my neck prickles and I feel the heat building up inside me as my anger already threatens to bubble over.