The Summer I Loved You

by J. L. Lora

  Dogs were out to fuck…his day up.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  After they got over the shock of the interruption, they went to get food and sat on one of the checker tables.

  "I can’t believe how people just bend over backwards to do things for you here," she said, taking a small sip of her wine, which was poured into a discreet to-go cup.

  "Four championships,” he held up four fingers. “New Yorkers like winning. Oh, I spoke to Mrs. Arenas today," he said, picking up a fry from her plate and dipping it into ketchup.

  "Yes, she called me." And gave me an earful.

  He leaned toward her, placing half a fry on her lips. "She hates me."

  Adrianna closed her mouth around it, wrapping around his fingers as well. His lips parted and he shot her a warning look.

  She chewed her food and lowered her lashes. Unable to stop herself, she leaned forward and crooked her finger for him to come closer. She reached behind his head and pulled him to her, brushing her mouth against his in a soft, slow kiss charged with all the warmth this evening brought into her heart. She nipped at his lower lip and ran her tongue over it, making him groan.

  "She doesn't hate you. You didn't know."

  Cam shook his head. "You didn't see her face. She’s always looks at me like she knows everything before I say it. It's disturbing. She missed a successful career with the FBI. She noticed I was hung-over."

  "Yes, she did…" Adrianna pressed her lips together to keep from laughing.

  "She never thought I was good enough for you," he grumbled.

  "If it makes you feel better, she didn't think anyone in Acacia was." This time, Adrianna did laugh at the way he glared at her. "She knew about us the whole time."

  "Were we that obvious?" he asked.

  "Well, she didn't know you spent the nights over or, and I quote, ‘I would have taken him out on the field behind his family’s property for a little Smith & Wesson lesson.’"

  Cam swallowed hard. "I told you she hates me."

  Adrianna drew circles with her finger on the table. "She's worried about Bron and me…and your parents."

  Cam's eyes sharpened at the mention of Marilyn and Walter. "They won't be in our lives."

  She looked away from him for a few seconds. They needed to talk about Walter and Marilyn. They had to stop putting it off. But, the hurt was hanging over his eyes and she just couldn’t bring more pain to him. She moved to sit on the bench next to him and placed a kiss on his lips. It could wait.

  "Let's not talk about them. We have so much more ground to cover."

  "Oh, yeah." Gone was the pained look in his eyes and his voice dropped to a seductive whisper. "Like…"

  "Tell me when you painted your Faceless Angel Queen."

  He chuckled, "Oh, you want to hear about how much I missed you and how I painted you even when I didn't want to."

  She smiled and nodded, tucking her face in the crook of his neck.

  His arms around her, he kissed her forehead. "Did you know that was you from the beginning?"

  "No, but Bron did. She was about four and we were having a movie night with Lauren. We saw the painting in an art magazine she had brought that day. Bron asked to look through it and when she came to the painting she turned to me and said, ‘It's you, Mama.’"

  "She recognized you right away?" he asked.

  "That's your daughter, the art connoisseur! We checked who the artist was and there was your name."

  "It is you." There was something sad in his voice. "I asked my agent to sell it quickly and cheaply because I couldn't look at it all the time. The new owner had it featured in that magazine. I'll have to find it now."

  Adrianna pulled back and looked at him. "I have a pretty good idea where it is."

  He frowned.

  "It's in my storage safe. I wanted to buy her a copy, since she liked it so much. I saw the original was on sale, so I bought it through an art dealer."

  "You…bought it…"

  "I planned to tell her about you some day and when that day came, I wanted her to know that what her parents had was real. That painting proves it."

  •••

  They’d walked back into the house when Lux told them to go see Bron because she had a surprise for Adri. Cam let out a low groan as they made it up the stairs and she giggled. His mind had been on seduction and hers too. Their evening at the park had been beautiful and though she kept her expectations low, just having him near took her mind places and made her so wet.

  The whole evening of closeness, eating from each other’s hands, talking about how deep their feelings for each other still were. It all conspired to set her body on fire. She couldn’t wait until they were alone. She was going to devour him tonight.

  Adrianna barely walked through the bedroom door, took one look at her daughter, and her feet became rooted. The Oh. My. God. was at the tip of her lips and it was only sheer willpower that kept her tongue plastered to the roof of her mouth. There was just so much color, so much tulle, so much volume, so much contrast.

  “Daddy took me shopping for tomorrow’s show. What do you think, Mom? Isn’t this the coolest dress you’ve ever seen?”

  Except, they had not gotten a dress. It was…well…something you let a child choose all on her own.

  Bron was a fantasy vision. From the sparkly combat boots to the tapered pants and printed T-shirt with the Faceless Angel print, to the detached, purple long-sleeved jacket with a sweep train that stretched a foot behind her. The inside lined in pink tulle made Bron look like a butterfly-ringmaster-steampunk-book cover.

  She twirled around, showing Adri the detail work over the back of the jacket.

  But her princesa was happy. Her beautiful little face glowed as it was meant to. A princess on her own terms. Adri wouldn’t have chosen the outfit for her but all that mattered was that look, the confidence, her daughter reflected. She’d choose that look on her child’s face. Always.

  “You’re beautiful, Princesa,” Adrianna said. Tears clogged her throat, the knot expanding along with the blinding smile on her daughter’s lips.

  Where had time gone? It was just yesterday Bronwyn was looking up to her from the crook of her arm while Adri nursed her. Right now, she looked like a teenager, choosing her own party dresses.

  “It’s a vintage jacket. The lady put the poofy inside stuff while Daddy and me went for ice cream.”

  Adri turned to Cam. He stood there with a small smile on his face. He had taken Bron shopping after being hungover and the happiness was there, clinging to every part of him too. He’d been a jock. This is not the type of stuff most men enjoyed. But there was pride, shining in his eyes like he’d been to heaven and back.

  “It was all Bron’s idea. She knew exactly what she wanted,” Cam said as if it was no big deal. As if he took little girls shopping all the time.

  “Daddy also helped me pick a Day-After-Mother’s-Day present for Aunt Lo. She’s going to love it!”

  Another wave washed over her chest and Adrianna smiled so hard it threatened to break her cheeks. “He did? Your dad was a hero today.”

  She had to stop staring at him. She was two seconds from jumping on him and there was a very eager, very smiley little girl in the room.

  “Bron, why don’t you let me help you out of the jacket and then we can hang your new dress. I want you to take a shower and go to bed. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.

  “Okay.”

  When her daughter slipped out of the room, Adri closed the distance between her and Cam and took his face in her hands. She brushed small kisses on his lips, pausing in between, letting all the emotion swirling inside her drive her mouth and her fingers. Her heart threatened to burst inside her chest. She lay her head against his shoulder.

  “Thank you. That was really sweet of you. She’s so happy with the dress and it’s so her.”

  "It was fun. She has so many ideas about what she wants. The seamstress
was impressed,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

  “How did you know where to go?”

  He cleared his throat. “Chase knows the woman.”

  “I bet.” Adrianna laughed.

  He shrugged. “Anyway, why did Bron buy Lauren an after-Mother’s-Day gift? I asked her and she smiled and said she just does. That it’s between her and Lauren."

  “It’s our tradition. We each get Lo something special on that day.” She stepped out of his arms and grabbed Bron’s jacket and put it back on the hanger.

  “Why?” The baffled look in his face was adorable.

  “Lauren is my and Bron’s warrior. She was with me when I found out I was pregnant. We freaked out and cried for hours. She was there to hold my hand then. We made ourselves sick many nights, eating our hearts away. I think she gained sympathy weight during my pregnancy."

  "I’m glad she was there for you." Cam said, and she didn’t miss the hints of sadness in his voice.

  Adrianna held on to his hand. “It was more than that. She left Acacia with me for Baltimore. We had a small apartment on the edge of Pigtown. The area was rough but it was all we could afford. Lauren was another parent. She watched Bron when I had to work. I didn’t have money for babysitters and we were going to school. It wasn’t easy…”

  She looked away. She didn’t want to make him feel bad.

  His fingers wrapped around her chin and he pulled her face to look at him. “Don’t stop. I need to know this.”

  “I remember this one night, Lauren went out on a date and I was alone trying to study. I had exams but Bron wouldn’t stop crying. The walls were closing in on me with baby wails echoing and bouncing off them. She called me to ask me to turn off her curling iron, which she’d left on. I tried to pretend everything was okay but not even fifteen minutes later, she strolled through the door. She went to Bron’s room, brought out warm clothes and dressed her. She told me to go take a twenty-minute hot shower, wash my hair and take a nap. She’d wake me so I could finish my homework.”

  “She cancelled her date for you and Bron.” He shook his head like he couldn’t believe it.

  Adri smiled. “Nope. She made the guy take her and Bron to the Columbia Mall. They walked around with Bron in her stroller for hours.”

  “And her date went for that?”

  She laughed. “You obviously need a refresher course on Lauren. Actually, it bought him some extra time. She didn’t dump him as quick as she normally would have because he’d been so nice.”

  “No wonder she talks so much about Lauren.”

  “Oh, yeah. I was so jealous one day when she was five and she told me Lauren was her best friend.”

  “Oh,” Cam said. “What did you tell her?”

  Adri shrugged. “Lauren’s my bestie and she needed to get her own best friend elsewhere, or there would be problems.”

  Cam gave her a deep, hearty laugh. “So, you would fight your five-year-old?

  “Hey, we’ve shared the same body. We shared the same room. I love her more than anyone but as I once had to tell your sister: step off my best friend.” She couldn’t help laughing.

  “Well, I’m throwing my hat in. I’m fighting the two of you to become Lauren’s bestie. She took care of my girls when I wasn’t around. It’s meant to be.”

  Adri’s heart skipped a beat. His girls. That’s what she and Bron were.

  She cleared her throat, pushing away the emotion. “You don’t have a chance,” she teased.

  He shot her that playful smile that ten years ago always led to them both shedding their clothes. “Not only do I have a chance. I have an edge.”

  Her hands bunched around his shirt and she pulled him to her, crushing her mouth to his. There was something different about tonight. Lazy walks in the park, talks about their lives, his bonding with Bron, and now his appreciation for her best friend.

  His arms went about her and she lost herself in his sandalwood and citrus scent, in him. His hard body pressed against hers, his hard-on against her lower belly. She needed him to take her clothes off and brush his talented fingers all over her skin. She needed his cock pressing inside her. Her core flexed and released, remembering what it was like to feel him. She never forgot. God knows she tried. She pulled him closer, needing the friction of his chest against her nipples.

  The bathroom door flung open. Adrianna’s heart gave a cold thump against her ribs. They sprang apart, panting, and she was sure the same look of half horror Cam was sporting was written all over her face.

  “You guys are not going to do that in front of my friends, are you?” Bron asked, not looking shocked but more like the annoyed teenager she was bound to become.

  How long had they been kissing? They needed to be more careful. “Your dad was waiting to say good night to you too.”

  Bron went to hug her dad. “See you tomorrow. You’re staying with me. Right, Mom?”

  Her stomach plummeted but there was no way she could say no. Not without explaining way too many things. “Yes, I am.”

  She didn’t miss the light of disappointment dimming in his eyes but maybe it was better this way. They needed a little space and she needed to digest the day and everything she was feeling. She wasn’t a teenager. She couldn’t afford to act on hormones and feelings alone.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Cam was going out of his mind. He was in the middle of an interview with Barron Lyons, the head writer of Giaconda, a European art magazine. The man was doing a piece on tonight's exhibit. The review could open new doors for him outside the United States. But Cam's heart was about a hundred feet from it. Along with his gaze, it strayed beyond the man in front of him to Adrianna, who chatted with Chase.

  Both were standing in front of a painting of the lake in Acacia Falls. It was one of the few older pieces on display and one of his first. Chase turned to look at Cam and then back to Adrianna and whispered something. Her eyes widened and she covered her mouth. His brother pointed back at a spot in the painting and said something else and she giggled.

  The smile brought a new glow to her face. She was unaware of how beautiful she was and of his gaze that was glued to all of her.

  The wine-colored dress fell above the knee. It was sleeveless, with a V neck mesh cut in the top front exposing the silhouette of her cleavage in a barely-there-teasing way that drew Cam’s gaze. From her strappy heels to her long neck, she was a walking magnet. He would rather be alone with her, kissing that glossy pink lipstick from her mouth and weaving that teasing ponytail around his hand.

  He couldn’t chase the images of everything he wanted to do to her. They weren’t teenagers anymore. His sexual repertoire had improved and the way she’d kissed him last night told him she was as ready as he was for the next step. He couldn’t wait to bury his face between her legs. The scent of teenage Adrianna still made him wake up in long night sweats. He was dying to know if she still tasted the same.

  He couldn’t wait to head back to Maryland with her and Bron. She still had doubts but he’d erase those by showing her he was there for her. They could put the past behind them and start working on their new life. He was desperate to put that nagging thought in the back of his mind. Something that whispered that this happiness wouldn't last.

  "I find my heart bursts with pride tonight."

  As if he’d summoned his worst fear, his body went rigid at the sound of his mother's voice behind him. Tonight, Victoria’s voice rang with her polite-company cadence. That voice carried none of the acerbic or vindictive cuts she reserved for the moments she couldn’t get her way.

  Cameron didn't turn right away. He took a deep breath and assured himself he had nothing to fear. She’d be on her best behavior or he’d have security escort her out like he promised over the phone. He’d already banned Walter from the show. There was no way he’d allow him to be here on his big night. He would do the same to his mother, if necessary. But her stipend was on the line. No way she would ri
sk it.

  "Mrs. Blake." The reporter beamed, oblivious to Cam's reaction. "What a pleasure to see you. I was hoping I could talk to you and get a few quotes for my piece tomorrow."

  "Of course, Barron. I'm sure we'll have time before the end of the evening. I want to catch up with my son first," Victoria said.

  She didn’t know squat about art but Victoria, like Walter, made it her priority to know what members of the media would be there. It was something they exploited at their whim. His mother especially loved seeing the family featured in the social pages.

  The reporter smiled and excused himself. As soon as he was out of ear shot, Cam pounced.

  "Mother, you came?" he asked.

  "You're my son, Cameron. Where else would a mother be but supporting her child on his triumphant night?" she answered.

  "It's funny you should say that because you deprived me of mine for all her life," Cam spat at her.

  She waved a dismissive hand. "I came here in peace, Cameron. No need to bring up that child where people can hear."

  "Bronwyn, my child," Cam corrected.

  Victoria chuckled, "You've always been obsessive and susceptible, Cameron. You were taken with the Hayes girl since the first time you saw her at the Smiths. All of Acacia knew. She was with Tommy one minute and then suddenly she went to Walter out of nowhere, saying she was having your child. Were we supposed to disrupt your blossoming career for a child that we were both completely sure wasn't yours?"

  His pulse leaped, violent enough to almost make him stagger. Cam gritted his teeth and summoned patience. "You should have told me about her or let me find out on my own. Instead, you acted like Adrianna had gone back to Tommy."

  "If we had told you, you would have run back and married the girl without even stopping to question the child's paternity. You left town because of her. This would have brought you back and tied you to someone below your status. No Cy Young awards, no MVPs, no world championships. You would have been a minimum wage husband and father, when you were almost still a child yourself. We watched out for you."