Make It Last

by Megan Erickson

  “Your sandals,” he parroted.

  “The ones with the big flowers on the top,” she added.

  He gestured toward her dress and headband. “I’m thinking you can chill out on the flower theme.”

  She narrowed her eyes and stomped her right bare foot, because the left one was still swollen from her sprain when she tripped down the stairs. “Camilo!”

  “Ma!”

  “I want those sandals,” she muttered, turning back to her closet and biting her lip.

  It’d always been just them. His dad had been some drifter who’d never stuck around after his mom found out she was pregnant. So, whatever, he’d had a sperm donor. But his mom did her best to make up for his lack of a father. She worked hard—two, three jobs sometimes when he was a kid, and she loved the hell out of him.

  She’d begun to complain of pain when he was in middle school, and by high school, it’d become unbearable. Test after test revealed nothing until one doctor suspected fibromyalgia, a syndrome associated with chronic muscle pain, depression and fatigue. After numerous visits with a specialist, his mom was diagnosed with it.

  She’d been put on several medications to help battle the pain and depression. It’d been a long road to find the right balance of doses. And sometimes those still needed to be altered. Since he’d been home, her drug cocktail had changed again and they were both hoping this one would stick for a while.

  And at times like these, when his whip-smart and quick-witted mom looked lost, he wanted to punch a wall, or claw through the “fibro fog” that gripped her brain sometimes and made her brain work a little slower than normal.

  He sighed. “I think they’re in the blue container on the shelf in your closet.”

  She squinted at him, then turned to look up at the shelf. “They are?”

  “I put all your summer shoes up there last fall.”

  She frowned, then her face lightened and she turned to him with a smile. “Well, then get them down for me, will you?”

  He smiled back. “Sure, Ma.”

  Cam hauled the box down and helped her dig through it until she found the god-awful sandals with the huge pink flower on the top. She sat down on the edge of her bed, slipped them on her feet and wiggled her toes. “I forgot how much these made me happy,” she said softly.

  Cam sat down beside her and brushed his lips on his mother’s temple. “How are you feeling?”

  She had good days and bad days—when the pain was less but she was anxious and depressed. Or the pain and fatigue crippled her but yet her spirits were up. Today seemed like a better day than most. She confirmed that by saying, “I’m feeling pretty well today.”

  “Your ankle?” he asked, twisting his neck to eye her foot. The bruise seemed to be healing although he was irritated she wouldn’t wear the brace.

  She rotated her ankle a little. “It’s healing.” She reached up and placed a palm on his cheek. “Did you have a nice lunch with your friends?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s Max?” A smile touched her lips.

  Cam rolled his eyes and nudged her. “He’s got a girlfriend now. Get over your crush.”

  She laughed, her eyes sparkling. She’d always had a soft spot for the big guy.

  Her face softened and her eyes searched his, like she was expecting something. And that’s when he knew.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

  “Tell you what?” she said innocently.

  “She’s still here. In town.”

  Her eyes shuttered, and she turned away. One of the biggest battles in his life had been balancing his mom and Tate. Two strong women who butted heads and never saw eye to eye. Who both thought they knew what was best for him and went to war against each other without consulting him. He sure as hell didn’t miss that clusterfuck.

  His mom fidgeted with the fabric of her dress. “It’s been four years, I didn’t even think about it.”

  Cam raised an eyebrow. “Really.”

  Her head turned and she skewered him with those dark eyes. “Did you talk to her?”

  “Briefly.”

  She hummed under her breath and slipped her sandals off her feet.

  “Mom, what—”

  She laid a hand on his forearm. “How long do you plan to stay?”

  The change in her line of questioning caught him off guard. “What?”

  “How long before you take that job in New York?”

  The job offer in New York. His dream come true, working for a private security firm.

  But then Cam’s mom had fallen down the stairs, and he couldn’t leave her alone. Despite her insistence she was fine, he just couldn’t. He returned home after graduation and found she hadn’t been able to hold down a job and the bills were piling up. After all she’d done for him growing up, he couldn’t abandon her now.

  They’d given him the summer to decide before they found someone else to fill the job. Every time he thought about his fall deadline, a rock settled into his gut. He didn’t want to talk about it. “I don’t know. They said I could take the summer to decide and—”

  “So come fall, you’ll take the job,” she stated.

  Cam furrowed his brow. “Yeah, probably. It depends how you’re doing here—”

  “I never asked you to come home and take care of me.”

  What was going on here? And why did she keep interrupting him? “I know that, Ma, but you’re in pain and you’re not working. I couldn’t just take a job states away and leave you here all alone.”

  She was silent for a minute. “So as long as I’m okay, then you’ll take the job? The job you wouldn’t stop talking about when you got the offer? Your dream job?”

  He didn’t mean to, but a growl rumbled in his throat. “Ma—”

  She held a hand up. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have grilled you like that.”

  But she looked sad. Not sorry.

  “I want to make sure you’re still looking out for your future.”

  “I am.”

  That seemed to pacify her. “I’m going to lie down for a little, okay?” She patted his knee.

  “Yeah, you need anything?”

  She shook her head.

  He stood to leave as she scooted under her covers. “I have to leave at six to head to work,” he said.

  “Okay, have a good night,” she said, laying her head on her pillow and closing her eyes.

  He leaned down to give her another kiss. “Love you.”

  “Love you too,” she mumbled back. He walked out and closed the door behind him and then went to his own room.

  He sat down on his bed and picked at the calluses on his hands. In high school, he’d taken a career placement test to determine what he wanted to do. And he found that he loved to research and observe. Solve puzzles. He shadowed a local security firm in town that also completed investigative work for a law firm. And he was hooked. He wanted to be one of the guys behind the computer, finding inconsistencies in pay stubs or accounting records or databases. Digging up criminal histories and background checks. He knew he’d never afford school and didn’t want the loans, so he’d joined the Air National Guard. They paid his tuition, plus gave him a monthly stipend if he attended a monthly drill weekend. It’d been hard and grueling, but he’d learned discipline and a lot of other technology skills.

  His last semester of college, as part of a class, he’d spent two weeks in New York at a detective agency. He had a chance to actually do some of the things he’d always dreamed of doing, and he was hooked. The owner, Vince Marino, had taken a liking to him, and offered to interview him after graduation. They’d done a phone interview the week of finals, and Mr. Marino had offered him a job.

  He stood up and walked over to the shelves around his TV, picking through video games and books. There were novels he hadn’t read yet, but nothing sounded appealing. Nothing promised to make him forget everything in his life for a couple of hours until he had to go to a job he had no desire to be doing. But that paid th
e bills.

  He brushed a stack of CDs and they clattered to the ground. He picked them up and stacked them in his arms, but when he went to place them on the shelf, a familiar case caught his eye.

  The green and blue logo of Utope.

  Damn, he hadn’t touched the game since he left for basic. He’d thought about it though, plenty of times. He’d thought about their little pale blue house. And their dog. And the rain forest in the backyard with poison dart frogs. He snorted a laugh when he remembered how many dogs they’d gone through before they learned to erect a fence around their deadly rain forest.

  In high school, his best friend, Trevor Ames, had looked at him like he was crazy when he talked about playing Utope with Tate. It was a simulation game, where the player could create individualized avatars, build houses and communities. Trevor preferred Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. Cam liked those, too, but there was nothing like the escape of playing Utope with Tate.

  When they imagined what life they’d have, far from the soul-sucking Paradise.

  He slammed the CDs back in front, hiding Utope from his view.

  That was all gone, every dream they’d had. Vanished. But why couldn’t he get over it? He’d spent four years trying to get the taste of Tate out of his mouth but she was always there under his tongue, seeping out when he least expected it.

  He could get through this summer. He could get through dealing with seeing Tate. He was twenty-three. He had exes in college. He could deal with it.

  But as the blue and green colors of the video game burned into his retinas, he couldn’t deny that there was always something different and special about Tate Ellison.

  DEKE’S BAR WAS kind of a dive.

  Well, most places in Paradise were dives, so Deke’s was no exception. There was also no Deke. The owner of the bar was Cynthia Parker and before that it’d been her father, Richard Parker. Cam figured Richard was trying to attract the biker crowd by naming it something like Deke’s Bar, but instead it’d turned into the bar where all the kids from the local community college gravitated. Trevor, a bartender at Deke’s, said the patrons mostly played pool and sang “Sweet Caroline” and danced. Then there were Taco Tuesdays, when Cynthia had a waitress scoop ground meat out of a flowered slow cooker into soft shells, and sold them two for a dollar.

  The public area of Deke’s was one big room, with the bar along one end, then a small dance floor surrounded by tables. On a platform on the other end were a couple of pool tables and a digital jukebox.

  This was only Cam’s second day on the job as a bouncer/ID checker/heavy-lifter guy. It wasn’t what he wanted to do, but the job wasn’t hard and it paid pretty well for such a hole in the wall. Plus he got to work with Trevor.

  He’d been friends with Trevor since middle school, when they were paired up on the soccer team, Trevor with the gloves guarding the goal, Cam in front of him as the last defender.

  They’d both been sullen, pissed-off, fatherless teenagers, but as they’d learned how to communicate with each other on the field, it’d translated to off the field as well. On the field, they could read body language so well, they’d been called The Wall. No ball got past Ames and Ruiz. Hell, they’d taken Paradise to the Maryland state championship senior year.

  As much as Cam loved Max and Alec and the friends he’d made in the military, Trevor was the one person he felt he could count on the most.

  His best friend was currently wiping down the shelves behind the bar and getting it ready for when the doors opened at seven.

  Cam picked at the sleeve of his T-shirt. Max was right—it was tight and black and didn’t hide his tattoo. He’d gotten three phone numbers on napkins shoved into the front pocket—labeled Deke’s Bar—on his first day.

  In college, he would have been happy about it. But he didn’t have time to play around here at home. And now it felt especially weird, knowing that Tate was still in town.

  Why was that?

  Trevor dropped the rag into the sink behind the bar. “Wanna help me lower the chairs?”

  “Sure,” Cam said, and followed Trevor as he began picking up the chairs off the tables and placing them on the floor.

  “How’s your mom?” Trevor asked.

  Cam shrugged. “She’s all right.”

  “Yeah?” Trevor said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, I think so. Just tired a lot, but her pain seems better. The pill combination she’s on now seems to be working.”

  Trevor nodded. “That’s good.”

  While Cam had been off at college, his mom had become progressively worse. She’d hid it from him, not wanting him to drop out or transfer closer to home. Trevor went to the community college and lived in his own apartment, so he’d help out Teresa when he could. He’d been the one to finally come to Cam and let him know just how bad it’d been. Cam had dropped everything to come home, but his mom refused to let him stay. So he’d busted his ass to get out in three and a half semesters.

  “Thanks for putting in the word for me to get the job.”

  Trevor shrugged. “No big deal. It just lucked out that Roy got that factory job and had to move. He was a shitty bouncer anyway. If you slipped him in a twenty, he’d let you get in without ID.”

  Cam wrinkled his nose.

  “That was my reaction.” Trevor laughed.

  Cam owed Trevor. A lot. But he was still rankled about what happened earlier. “You know, I ate at the diner today.”

  Trev’s hands paused, then he resumed lowering the chairs from the tables onto the floor. “Oh yeah?”

  Cam leaned a hip on the table and watched as Trevor moved on to another table. “Yeah. So why didn’t you tell me she was still here?”

  Trevor took a deep breath before answering. “Because you said you didn’t want to hear about her. You said you didn’t want to hear her name again.”

  Cam ran his tongue over his teeth. “What’s she doing here?”

  Trevor spat out a dry laugh. “You don’t own this town, Cam. She’s allowed to live here. She never left.”

  An odd chill ran down Cam’s spine. “What the fuck? She went to school in—”

  “No.” Trev’s voice cut through the chill like a hot knife.” She never went to school.”

  What? Cam thought she’d gone to Tucker U. None of this made sense. “But—”

  Trev whirled on him then, his dark eyes flashing in the dim light. “Man, you don’t know what happened. All you can focus on is the fact she cheated on you. And fine, okay? Be pissed about that. But what’s going on right now with her isn’t about you. She’s got much bigger problems than something she did four years ago.” Trev’s voice was shaking by the end. And that knife burned hot in Cam’s gut, slicing muscle as it cut deeper.

  “Did you sleep with her?” He didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. That didn’t stop the words from slicing tiny cuts in his mouth on the way out.

  Trev froze with his back to Cam, then slowly turned his head, so Cam could see only his profile. “What did you just say to me?”

  Cam licked his lips. This was a bad idea to go toe to toe with Trevor. The guy had probably fifty pounds on him. But that knife was burning, burning and Cam needed the truth. “Did you get with Tate? Is that why you’re so worked up about defending her?”

  In one step, Trevor was in Cam’s face, their chests brushing, Trev’s jaw clenching. “You’re one dumb fuck.”

  “Answer the question,” Cam gritted out.

  And then Trevor laughed, that sad, ironic laugh. “This is so messed up. I thought you went to college and fucked her out of your system, but I guess not. You’re still torn up about her, aren’t you?”

  The words twisted that knife until Cam swore a limb had been cut off. “Trev—”

  Trev pushed his chest into Cam’s, sending him stumbling back a few feet. Trev turned and kept arranging the chairs. “No, I didn’t sleep with her. Ever. We’re friends. I’ve been helping her out, is all, when she needs it.”

  Trevor the
white knight. Helping all the women in Cam’s life. The knife had eased up somewhat. “Helping her with what?”

  Trev shot him a look. “You wanna know about her life, you talk to her.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Don’t act like you don’t want to.” Trev pointed a finger in Cam’s face. “This isn’t resolved. I know it and you know it. Talk to her.”

  Cam chewed on the inside of his cheek. “So if she didn’t go to school, she’s been working . . .”

  “ . . . at the diner,” Trev finished, walking toward the bar.

  Cam followed him. “Why didn’t she get a better job?”

  Trev scoffed. “What do you expect her to do? Be an accountant? An astronaut? Fuck, she has a high school degree, she has no trade education, and we live in shit-hole Paradise.”

  “Why didn’t she leave—”

  Trev slammed a glass on the bar, and Cam flinched. “I’m done with this conversation, Ruiz. I swear to God. You’re my best friend, but I’m not doing this with you. You wanna know anything else about Tate Ellison, you get it straight from the source. Get me?”

  Cam swallowed and whispered, “I get you.”

  Trev stared at him for a beat, then nodded. “Go in the back and get a couple bottles of Jack Daniel’s for the bar, will ya?”

  “Sure,” Cam said, heading toward the back room.

  “Hey,” Trev called.

  Cam stopped and turned around.

  “You get in my face again,” Trev smiled. “And I’ll knock you out. Capisce?”

  Cam chuckled. “Comprende.”

  Trev gave him a smirk and a chin lift, and Cam went to retrieve the whiskey.

  Chapter 4

  IT WAS AFTER ten when she walked in. Tight jeans, heels, and a low-cut racer-back tank top. She was with a couple of girls he didn’t recognize, and linked arms with her best friend, Vanessa. She’d been friends with Van as long as he’d known her. Van was also Trevor’s sister.

  Cam was on his break when she walked in, so Trevor took their drink orders at the bar, not bothering to check their IDs since he knew them. Cam hung out in a dark corner, drinking a glass of lukewarm water.