I blamed it on our past being blasted at me, but for a second he’d just been Cam again in my mind, the same guy who used to take great pleasure in calling me out on all my poor-little-rich-girl melodramas. He hadn’t been a bestselling author whose ego I needed to tiptoe around.
The silence screamed as he stared at me a long moment, his expression caught somewhere between speculative and offended. Even if I didn’t dare look, I knew everyone else on set was breathlessly awaiting his reaction just as I was.
Except I swear I sensed a little disappointment from them when Cam’s laughter lit up the room twice as loud as mine had.
It was the slightest tilt I needed to spiral back into my own amusement, and soon we were clutching at each other, bent at the waist, spilling over with laughter together.
“Excuse me!” Our display was pushing the boundaries of Georgia’s southern belle upbringing, as she kicked up her volume and glared in our direction.
Several times we got it under control only to ruin a perfectly good take. No one was even bothering to hide their annoyance by the time Georgia dismissed us from set for the day.
With our heads hung in shame, and still tittering with unwelcomed giggles, we had just started our walk back to Cam’s parking spot when I felt heat on the back of my neck and looked back over my shoulder to find Declan Davies’ penetrating stare watching our every move. I quickly broke eye contact, disliking the intensity he was using to study us.
This was the most at ease I’d felt with Cam since I’d been in California. It seemed that what we’d been missing all along was what we’d been so good at in the past; laughter. This was our moment, and it had nothing to do with their stupid, little movie, or Madeline, or Georgia, and especially not Declan Davies. I put them all out of my mind, and resolved to enjoy it like it deserved to be enjoyed.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated with sincerity and a smile. Our giggles had trailed off, but the good humor of the situation hadn’t left us, even as we drove back to Cam’s home. “This has all just been really…surreal.”
“It’s ridiculous is what it is!” He agreed as his dimples bloomed. “I can’t believe we both haven’t had a breakdown already. Maybe we should have a long time ago. I feel so much better now…I’ve missed you so much, Ads.”
My fossilizing heart fluttered like it hadn’t done in years at the way he was looking at me. I was seventeen all over again, falling into intrigue with the boy who was an exquisite contradiction.
“Sometimes I forget we started out so normal.” I half-grinned in return, as I made the confession. “Actually I constantly amaze myself with my ability to purposefully not remember anything to do with our relationship.”
He frowned at my comment, and the stormy look that darkened his eyes into the color of mud puddles reappeared. It hadn’t been my intention at all, and, freshly free of the ice that had been stiffening our interactions, I had no qualms about questioning him.
“Not everything was bad, you know,” he felt the same new freedom that I did, not needing my prompt, speaking with gentle intensity that added somberness to the mood, without completely killing it. “I hate the way things turned out just as much as you do. Seeing all this through your eyes makes me see how disgusting it is. It’s like I’ve profited off the same thing that ruined your life…I just wish the way things turned out didn’t have to ruin the way you felt about me.”
“That’s what’s been bothering you this whole time?” I should have seen it. It felt obvious now, thinking of all the clues I’d been too self-absorbed to pick up on. “I don’t fault you for what you’ve achieved, Cam. I’m so proud of you…The way I feel about you is far from ruined. I’ve never blamed you for anything that happened. I can’t think about it – can’t let myself remember – because if I started, I’d never be able to stop. I’d be paralyzed, forever wallowing in all the things that I can’t change.”
“Why does it have to be remembering the bad? We were family. It was me and you against the world. Don’t you want to get to have those good feelings to hold onto?”
“It was just too big to try and separate. I clumped it all together, shoved it in a drawer, and do everything in my power to never go near it.” I shrugged. It was the truth. I wasn’t proud of it, but it was how I’d gotten out of bed every day for the past three years.
My assurance had nudged him away from the storm behind his eyes, and now he pouted with trepidation.
“What if I could show you that it doesn’t have to hurt to remember everything?”
His mind was made up, I could already tell.
All I could do was agree very, very cautiously.
Six hours later, we were secluded on Cam’s king size bed and ignoring the sun that set outside his closed curtains. I’d reluctantly been lured into his room, away from the safety of my distance, and with the help of three bottles of wine, we’d partaken in our old favorite pastime…mocking 80’s horror movies.
“Okay,” I sighed dramatically as the credits rolled after a truly horrendous monster thriller about leprechauns. “I’ll hand it to you, this was a really good idea.”
“I told you.” His chest puffed out proudly, and he slunk off the fluffy comforter to switch DVD’s. I’d let him talk me into transitioning generations to try a recent flick called Jennifer’s Body next (which he described as ‘highly underrated’). “We used to do this all the time when we lived in the loft, and you don’t seem to be wallowing in misery to me.”
The grey sweatpants he’d changed into slung low off his hips as we walked to the large flat screen, and I quickly wiped away the dribble of wine I’d spilled down my chin at the sight. I resolutely pushed the glass away from me on the bedside table, positive it was the cause of my libidos sudden, gallant return. I didn’t know how much it was going to help, since I’d already finished a bottle by myself, but I had to do something to coil my need to jump on him.
“Well it wasn’t exactly like this.” I pointed out, trying to clear my head.
He looked intrigued as he finished with the DVD player and returned to sprawl across his side of the bed. The thin white t-shirt he was wearing rode up his abdomen, and my eyes glued to the exposed skin. The scar he’d gotten from getting his appendix removed as a child remained, and I remembered tracing the disfigured line of skin so many times as I lazily undressed him.
I shivered and yanked my gaze to safer territory.
“We never used to drink.” I told him, a distracted ramble running along with my words. “Besides the fact that I was only eighteen when I moved in, I was also pregnant. We actually never dated when I wasn’t pregnant if you do the math.”
He hummed thoughtfully.
“I guess I never thought of it that way. You were still so tiny when I came with Thomas for the summer. It’s hard to think of you as being pregnant even then.”
“Ballerina body.” I replied instinctively. Months had gone by without my realizing my condition. My cycles had never been regular, so it hadn’t been strange to me at all to skip periods, and maybe in the back of my mind I knew something was wrong, but I’d always felt defensive about how long it took me to discover my pregnancy. I mean, I should’ve known. It was my own body. I should have realized.
Distracted by my thoughts, I froze with surprise when Cam reached to lay a hand on my stomach like it was the most natural thing in the world. I was paralyzed as he raised my UNC sweatshirt and his cool hand made contact with the same skin that had once swelled with child.
My thoughts nosedived into filthy territory. The blunt tips of his fingers traced up my ribs lightly.
“You hated getting bigger. I remember how you fretted over every pound, but your body was just as sexy. It was a different kind of sexy, curving in places that had always been toned before, but I wanted to touch you all the time.” He breathed into my ear, his body moving slowly closer.
I felt hot all over. There wasn’t enough air in the room, as I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself. I wanted to strip off my
sweatshirt the rest of the way and go add a parka all at the same time, as emotions and temptations battled it out inside my head.
“You did touch me all the time,” I tried to sound matter of fact, but every word came out coated with honey.
Fingers ghosted down to trail over the elastic band of my shorts, and I grabbed his hand to stop him, sure I’d explode if I didn’t.
“…I miss touching you,” he said softly.
My gaze snapped up to meet his, and we only paused a moment before our lips melded together in a slow, rediscovering kiss. Gone were the hurried, rushed movements of our past. These were touches of two people who’d gone to the edges of each other’s souls and back. Our mouths moved and our bodies felt, but the emotions were old and numbed, making the experience unique in itself.
It still felt good. I barely realized my clothes were being removed until I was naked. I wanted it to be like riding a bike, and in a way it was. I still remembered the motions and technical thrill of the building momentum between us, but it was lacking the fullness of my heart that used to swell with emotion like it might burst.
“We should sleep.” I told him breathlessly, pulling away.
In the end, it was the foreign detachment marking the experience that stopped me.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have started that.” I detected the tiniest ounce of relief in his reply, and I knew all of this was just as hard for him as it was for me. We were in the same boat, just trying to figure it all out.
With the wine weighing on my mind, I kissed him one last time on the cheek before rolling over and closing my eyes to sleep.
+++
Click ClickClickClick
Vigorous little ticks woke me from my slumber, and I had no way to tell how much time had passed during my deep sleep, except for the sun that rained in an opened window as it rose in the sky.
I sat up, squinting against the light, and swiftly pulled the sheet up with me, realizing my exposed state.
“Cam?” I asked his back. He was sitting in front of his desk hunched over a laptop. “What are you doing?”
Glancing over his shoulder at me with a familiar grin, he snapped his computer shut. He swiveled around fully to face me, and tossed his wire rimmed reading glasses on the desk behind him.
“Good. You’re up.”
“How long have you been awake?” My voice was still hoarse from sleep.
Fully dressed in dark jeans and a dress shirt, Cam looked like he’d been alert for hours even though I knew it couldn’t be long after sunrise.
“I never went to sleep. You know how I’ve been struggling with writer’s block? Well, last night after you passed out, I sat down at my computer and banged out the rest of my rough draft for the next book.” He was talking excitedly, his words running into one another as they raced to the finish line. “I already emailed it to my publisher in New York, and they want me to fly out as soon as possible to talk with my editor. They’ve been putting pressure on me for months to finish it, but I just couldn’t make anything sound right, then BAM Adley Adair is back in my life, and it flows out of me like a waterfall…I think that might qualify you as a muse.”
“I don’t like that sound of that one bit.” I told him scowling. Tucking his white sheet closer around my naked body, I sat Indian style in his bed. “This new book better not even have a character’s whose name starts with an ‘A’. I’ve retired from my book starring days.”
He chuckled. At least one of us found the situation amusing.
“Have no fear. I’ve been talked into the ever profitable Sci-Fi genre. This book is galaxies away from The Girl in the Yellow Dress…literally.”
“What do they mean ‘as soon as possible’?” The pucker of my sour face only increased as he became more excited.
He stood up, moving to stand beside a bulky piece of luggage I hadn’t noticed before.
“In this business, it’s all about striking while the iron’s hot. Well that’s what they tell me anyway. They think it would do wonders for sales to release the new book around the same time The Girl in the Yellow Dress hits theaters…Which means I need to be in New York like yesterday.”
“You can’t leave now!” I was aghast. He was the whole reason I was in this position in the first place! He couldn’t just leave. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” He scolded me with a smile, which only made it worse. I wasn’t in the mood to be charmed. “It won’t be for forever. I’ll be back before the end of the summer. It’s actually really great that you’re here, Addy. There’s no way I could go if you weren’t.”
Uh oh, nicknames were not a good sign. My eyes narrowed at him suspiciously.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s just like what happened yesterday on set. No one else would call me out about the script. I need someone here I trust and who knows the information, so that I don’t end up with my name stamped on a pile of garbage.”
“I did not agree to that.”
I could barely bring myself to watch the scenes half the time. Surely, he couldn’t expect this out of me too?
He leveled his pretty, brown eyes at me, fitting his lips with a pout that should only ever be appropriate on a four-year-old.
“It’ll come with a pay raise. I’ll make sure you get my writer’s salary without ever having to put pen to paper. All you have to do is report back to me if something is awry. If even the smallest little thing doesn’t feel right, I want to know about it. You’d be getting a lot more money for barely anything more than you’re doing now.”
And there it was again…money. The real reason I’d been talked into this stunt. College wasn’t cheap, and pretty soon I was going to have to take loans out that would probably follow me around for the rest of my life.
I thought of Madeline and how she never let anything stand in her way. She was willing do to whatever it took to achieve more out of life, and so was I…even if it meant sacrificing my pride, and possibly my mental stability.
So in a stunning turn of events, I took a page out of Madeline Little’s book and agreed.
“You are amazing, Adley Adair.” He told me, leaping across the room to give me a slobbery kiss on the cheek.
“I know.”
And then Cam was gone, and I couldn’t even say it was the first time I’d ever watched him go.
I was wide awake even though I didn’t have to be on set for hours, so I took my time in Cam’s shower, using all six showerheads to massage my tense body. Once I was dressed, fed, and appropriately bored, I ventured into new parts of the house. While Cam was there, it had seemed presumptuous to grant myself a tour, but now that he was gone, I took my time wandering through all the extra nooks and crannies that were hidden throughout the rather immense home.
It was nothing like the loft in North Carolina that he’d owned since he was sixteen and had gotten emancipated from the state. When he’d started at Duke and moved into a dorm with Thomas, he hadn’t sold the loft, instead, renting it out while he was away. We’d moved back into the loft together when I showed up on his doorstep, finally ready to admit I was already five months pregnant.
The loft had been simple, clean, small, but not cramped. It was one open room, and only furnished with the necessities. He was so proud of the space that he’d worked to pay for with his own money, and his love showed in the personal and eclectic décor.
This mansion, cut from the same cloth as every other house on the street, was the opposite of personal. It could have easily been one of those model houses they show you when you’re thinking about buying in a subdivision.
I ended up in the library. My eyes followed the four walls, filled from floor to ceiling with books, as I finally found something of Cam. It was obvious that even his massive book collection couldn’t fill all of the library’s space, and between his worn and tattered scavenged copies of the classics, there were newer editions marked by the perfect spines and untarnished colors.
&nb
sp; On the table in the center of the room, a pristine copy of The Girl in the Yellow Dress screamed up at me. I was drawn to the book, and for the first time ever, I reached out to pick it up. It was lighter than I’d thought it’d be for something weighed down by all of my demons.
I watched my hands open the novel, as if they were acting without my consent, and I cringed at the ugly crack that came from the previously unopened book’s spine. Curiosity spurred me forward as my eyes ran over the first words.
To the girl in the yellow dress,
I remember the first time I saw you. You were incomparably beautiful – the perfect nose, perfect eyes, perfect pouting pink lips – but even your perfection could not justify what made you truly exquisite.
I coveted you instantly in your shining yellow dress-
I closed the book with a resolute snap. I don’t even remember owning a yellow dress. The color had never done anything for my complexion.
I’d read enough to know that whatever was in that book didn’t tell the whole story. It couldn’t possibly. It might be filled with all my dirty little secrets and shames, but it didn’t tell the truth. I knew it because the truth was not beautiful nor was it exquisite. It was pain, and misery, and more loss than one could hope to perceive.
I left the library, and hurried downstairs and out of the house. It suddenly felt suffocating, and the truth of my current situation was something not even I could ignore.
I was living alone in the house that Cam had built on the carcass of our past. I’d never felt so lonely in my life.
Chapter Five
Declan
The morning still smelled fresh as I rolled down the window of the limousine to stare at the petite blonde girl currently sitting on the curb outside of C.A. Peterson’s sizable home.
“Need a ride, little orphan Annie?” She looked pathetic. It almost dissuaded my desire to ruffle her feathers…almost.
“That’s pretty insensitive considering my situation,” she shot back climbing gruffly to her feet. “What are you doing here?”
Someone I Used to Know Page 6
