One Small Step

by M. A. Binfield

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Cam?” Ryan’s voice brought her back. For a second, she had been somewhere else, in Iris’s arms, on the dance floor, feeling the touch of Iris’s hands on the back of her neck. “Can I have decaf? I don’t wanna be up all night with the caffeine.” Ryan was on the couch, talking to her over his shoulder, flicking through channels with the remote.

  Cam had reached for Iris and Iris had responded, her eyes full of desire. She hadn’t dared to think Iris felt that way about her, but her actions said she wanted Cam, and Cam had wanted…what? Her hands had wanted to touch Iris, her mouth had wanted to taste her, her body making it clear, even now, hours later, that it would have betrayed her, betrayed Ryan, given the chance. They were both drunk. Cam was still feeling the effects of the alcohol even now. Was it really as simple as that? Alcohol, dancing, their close friendship, conspiring to trick them both into doing something stupid they both knew was wrong.

  She put on the coffee and crossed the room to stand behind the couch. Ryan had found a real life cops documentary to watch. She tried not to be annoyed by it, reaching down and running her fingers through his hair, scratching his neck softly. He reached a hand back and stroked her fingers and, without thinking, she crouched down to scatter kisses across the back of his neck, in the hollow behind his ear lobe, remembering what a sensitive spot it was for him. He turned and gave her a quizzical look. She knew why. She never initiated sex, was never usually this bold. She leaned in to kiss him properly, her mouth hungry for contact. He kissed her back, his hand in her hair, pulling her into the kiss. She could taste the wine he had drunk, feel the slight stubble on his cheeks. He pulled her over the side of the couch and into his lap. They kept kissing. His tongue was in her mouth, he grazed his hands across her breasts as he reached behind her for the zip on her dress. She could feel him growing hard underneath her. She willed herself to want this, to give herself up to it. It was something they both needed.

  Cam closed her eyes as they kissed, but it was the wrong thing to do. When she opened them again moments later, the eyes looking back at her were a pale blue, not dark, not dark as she had expected, as she had wanted. She felt the shock like a physical jolt in her body. She put her hands on his chest, no longer wanting to do this, knowing she was doing it for all the wrong reasons.

  “I’m sorry, Ryan,” she stammered, tears in her eyes. “I don’t feel well. I need to—” He let his arms drop, and she moved quickly, climbing out of his lap and heading quickly for the stairs, hearing his curse of frustration as she left the room. She locked the bathroom door behind her, sat on the toilet in the house she shared with her fiancé, and she sobbed.

  She had lost herself. She knew Iris was cool, funny, sweet. She had become a really good friend, and Cam had to face up to the fact that she also wanted her more than she had ever wanted anyone.

  She leaned back, stiffening as her bare back touched the cold porcelain of the toilet tank. Her mind played her a movie—Iris waking up next to her, blinking her way out of sleep, Iris across the table as she suffered telling her the story of what happened with Amanda, Iris doubled over with laughter at how bad Cam was at pool, and finally, Iris’s mouth. Cam tracing her lips with her thumb, her only thought being how damn much she wanted to kiss them. She had a fiancé who wanted to take her home to get married, but she had fallen for Iris, and the whole thing made her feel completely dismantled. She closed her eyes and cried more quiet tears.

  * * *

  Iris woke to find the light in her bedroom still on, and looking down, found that she had slept in her clothes. Her alarm clock told her it was only four a.m., but her mind felt wide-awake as soon as she opened her eyes. Thoughts and memories associated with the previous evening collided with each other as they darted around her mind. Dancing with Priti, seeing Gemma, arguing with Ryan, until her brain finally settled on remembering her dance with Cam. A feeling similar to butterflies accompanied the recollection, except these butterflies didn’t stay in her stomach; they fluttered uninvited between her legs, the arousal unwelcome.

  She went to the kitchen, knowing that if she didn’t eat something, and drink some more water, she’d feel dreadful, and she wanted, needed, to be clearheaded about the evening, about the dance, to be sure she’d remembered it properly. Iris drank a pint of water without pausing, filled her glass, and crossed to the dining room table. She picked up her phone. She had both a missed call and a text message from Cam sent at one thirty a.m. Iris opened the text.

  Tried calling. Wanted to talk. Probably best that you’re not answering. Of course it is. And my voice mail should be deleted without being listened to. Please do that. Really, Iris, please do that for me. Thanks.

  Iris read and reread the text. It contained none of the answers she was looking for about what happened tonight. She guessed that Cam would simply apologize, blame the drink, tell Iris she got carried away, and say she didn’t mean anything by it. Maybe with the added hope that they could forget all about it and still be friends.

  It was the right thing to say and the right thing to do. Trouble was, Iris couldn’t just forget about it. She was deluding herself to think her feelings for Cam were manageable. And she had fallen asleep feeling even more shame than she had expected thanks to Ryan’s humiliating comments at the end of the evening.

  She’d made herself go back to the dinner table and pretended to be okay for what seemed like the longest thirty minutes of her life before feigning tiredness and leaving. A thirty minutes in which she sat and suffered as Ryan claimed Cam, putting his arms around her, touching her needlessly, showing Cam more affection in that short time slot than he had done all evening.

  And Cam let him. She drank coffee and looked blankly across the table, avoiding Iris’s eyes and avoiding all conversation. Her only reaction came as Iris stood and put on her coat, announcing her departure. Cam looked at her then, her gaze impossible to read.

  Hazel wrapped Iris in a hug and Casey followed suit, and then Iris nodded to the rest of the table and slipped away without saying any kind of good-bye to Cam. And it didn’t seem as if Cam even noticed.

  Iris put the kettle on to make some tea and popped some bread into the toaster. Sleep wouldn’t come now, she was sure of that. She decided to try to embrace the early hour and do some writing.

  As the kettle began to boil and Iris fished in a drawer for some painkillers, she thought about the voice mail. If Cam had called intending to explain away what had happened when they danced, to blame it on the drink somehow, why had she asked Iris to delete the voice mail without listening to it? It made no sense. She would surely want Iris to hear it, to hear the excuses.

  She felt the increased pulsing of her heart in her chest. Perhaps Cam had been drunk enough to say something else, something that Iris did need to hear. She wanted to do the right thing, to delete the voice mail as Cam had asked her to, but she also wanted to know what it was that Cam had said that she didn’t want her to hear.

  The toaster popped and Iris added a thick layer of peanut butter to the dry toast. Her own hangover cure, tried and tested too many times. Iris sat at the table to eat it, absentmindedly turning her phone over and over. Iris read the text again. Cam definitely did not want her to listen to the voice mail and Iris knew she should respect that. Maybe there would be a chance for them to talk about what happened on the dance floor, openly and soberly, so the message would become irrelevant. And if there wasn’t, would she regret not knowing? Iris couldn’t answer her own question.

  She dialed the mailbox and, when prompted, selected the Delete all Messages option. She might never know what was on Cam’s mind that night. It didn’t really matter. If her heart was going to survive how she was feeling about Cam, she needed to never let it happen again. Cam was engaged and had a fiancé who’d reminded Iris of the fact, and, right now, Iris felt like a hurt fool. Someone Cam had picked up to play with in the dark and put down as soon as the lights came on.

  And unless she could stop wantin
g Cam, she couldn’t even see a way for them to be friends. That was the thing that made Iris’s breath snag in her chest, bringing tears to her eyes.

  She logged on to her laptop, deciding to try to write the pain away. She had several unfinished poems sitting on the desktop. She scanned the document names quickly recognizing with a sharp stab that most of them were about Cam in one way or another. She clicked on one called “Green” and started to read back what she had already written. It made her think of Cam’s eyes; it was supposed to. She had written of the green of the trees, the leaves and the grass and how falling in love would mean reminders of her everywhere. Iris closed the document, wanting to delete it. Wanting to delete them all, knowing that writing about Cam wouldn’t help at all.

  She had ignored every one of her instincts and brushed Hazel’s warnings aside, but had to accept that if the song had been thirty seconds longer, they would have kissed. The kiss wasn’t the problem; they could have explained that away with the drink and been sheepish for a few days. The problem was how much Iris wanted it. She knew they couldn’t come back from that. She could only think of a future where they kept their distance. She held her arms across her body tightly, physically holding herself together. It didn’t matter whether they had kissed. She had fallen for Cam, and she couldn’t just dismiss the dance by pretending she’d been too drunk to know what she was doing. Iris wasn’t the kind of person to lie to herself. They could try to talk about it, but Iris had to accept that staying away from Cam was the only way to save herself—and to save Cam—from further hurt.

  Chapter Twenty

  Oliver fiddled with his camera and adjusted and readjusted his tripod. Cam had been stupidly nervous about asking everyone to pose for the photos, playing down the importance of the article and minimizing her role in pulling it together, but of course, her teammates had loved the idea of a starring role in the Cottoms magazine.

  When Cam had finally plucked up the courage to pitch the idea of an article about the football team to Janie in Communications, she’d loved the idea and Cam had been excited to hear her say, in her thick Scottish accent, that she’d even put them on the cover if the team actually won the league.

  “We’ll need photos to go with the article of course. Color and professionally done. It’d be up to you, but I think it’d be great to have one of you girls in your footie kit.” Cam loved the way she rolled her r’s. “And one of you looking all smart in your office finery next to it. Och, I love the idea of this.” She had given Cam a deadline and a word limit and rung off wishing her luck.

  For a few days, Cam had fretted about how to get the photos taken and what it might cost, but Oliver was her savior. He’d overheard her talking to Megan and offered to step in, explaining that his dad ran a photography studio that he’d worked in every summer.

  Cam had persuaded him to bring his gear to the match to capture the team in their kit. It was a picture that Janie would love, the professional women of Cottoms muddied and sweating after the exertions of a game. Their easy victory meant no one minded the delay in getting to the pub afterward.

  They were top of the table with a game to go and needed only to avoid a heavy defeat in the last game to seal the championship. The atmosphere in the changing room had been boisterous to say the least, and Oliver had looked ready to bolt for the door on several occasions, especially when Hazel had suggested he get a shot of everyone in the shower, teasingly heading over in that direction with Vicki. Eventually, though, they behaved themselves long enough for him to get some great photos.

  Everyone had agreed to reassemble for more photos this morning. Cam had asked them to come in their smartest office wear so the contrast with their sweaty sporting selves was more noticeable, and Megan, unable not to assume the role of team captain even when they weren’t anywhere near a soccer pitch, was helping Oliver arrange the women, using a copy of one of the photos from the changing room to replicate the arrangement of the group.

  It was a great idea, and Cam felt sure Janie would love it. They’d moved the kitchen tables to one side of the room and Oliver had them either sitting on chairs, standing, or leaning on the wall of the dining area looking serious and professional, just like the kind of lawyers you’d trust with your life.

  “I don’t want to sit down. I’ll look better standing,” Jess whined.

  “You can’t, you sat down yesterday and we need the photos to match,” Megan said.

  Cam looked at her watch. There was still no sign of Iris. She felt a bite of anxiety, the memories of Friday evening pushing through constantly. She had remembered the dance more times than she cared to admit, but now her memory was full of Iris, sitting at the table afterward, looking lost and embarrassed. Cam had been unable to look at her, unable to handle the fact that she had almost kissed her, had very badly wanted to kiss her, while her fiancé was in the same fucking room. And then Iris had rushed off home without Cam managing to say anything, without any kind of good-bye.

  The fact that the only contact they’d had since was an awkward hello as Iris arrived late for the match on Sunday made her worry that Iris had listened to her voice mail message and was running a mile in the opposite direction. Cam didn’t blame her. After everything Iris had been through with Amanda, she was hardly likely to be anything but pissed that Cam had told her she was developing feelings for her. She could blame the drink, but that wouldn’t be the truth. She’d called because it was something she had wanted to acknowledge, wanted Iris to know, before she’d got sober enough to be scared about saying it.

  Iris had texted her Sunday morning to say she couldn’t pick Cam up for the match as she had “things to do” and she had avoided the pub afterward, going home immediately after the photos had been taken.

  It was obvious Iris was avoiding her, but they needed to talk. She needed to apologize, to try to explain how she was feeling and convince Iris that she could manage her feelings and still be her friend.

  “I think we’re ready, Cam.” Oliver was speaking to her.

  “Sure, yeah, okay. I guess so. I mean we’re missing someone, but I guess we should carry on.” As Cam spoke, the door opened and Iris stepped in. She was greeted with a chorus of comments and catcalls from everyone.

  “Late I know, sorry, guys.”

  Cam felt time slow down. Iris had clearly taken Cam’s request seriously when she had asked them all to dress as smartly as possible for the shoot. She was wearing an expensive-looking, fitted suit in bottle green and a geometrically patterned shirt that added an edge to her outfit. Her hair, so often beautifully unruly, looked as if it had been styled, and in the hollow of her neck, she wore a silver moon-shaped pendant on a fine chain. Cam felt her breath catch in her throat. Iris moved into the group. Hazel made space for her to sit next to her as she had done yesterday, and Oliver gestured for Cam to take up her allocated spot.

  He settled himself before taking multiple photos, asking people to adjust their posture or lift their head. They whined and whistled at him for taking too many, but the atmosphere was excitable, and when Oliver had finished, they gathered around his camera trying to look at the photos he had taken, full of chatter about how stupid they’d all feel if they lost the championship and the article didn’t make it into the magazine.

  Cam hadn’t dared tell them they might be on the cover. That would be one more surprise if Janie made good on her promise. She moved across to Oliver, pulling him to one side.

  “Thanks, Oliver, you’ve been awesome. Let me know when I can buy you lunch.”

  “It’s just nice to be able to do something to help. And I can’t wait to see Liam’s face when he sees the magazine.”

  “Yeah, that’ll be something else you’ll have to photograph for us,” Cam said as Oliver began packing up his equipment.

  Iris was talking to Hazel, her body language tense and her gestures betraying a degree of frustration. A couple of paralegals came into the kitchen from the main office, carrying platters of sandwiches, snacks, and cakes th
at they set out on the counter next to the coffee machine.

  “Leftover from an execs meeting that just finished. Mr. Cottom said to leave them here for whoever wants them,” the man said as he and his colleague disappeared as quickly as they had come.

  A cheer went up and Cam headed across to the group, now hovering over the sandwiches and cakes. Iris popped some cake into her mouth, and Cam couldn’t help but smile. She picked up a small triangular sandwich, not really hungry but wanting to join in. Her head was aching—too little sleep over the weekend—and she rubbed her temples.

  “Hey, not still hung over surely?” Jess said.

  “Erm, no, of course not, just a bit tired.”

  “You sure? You seemed pretty out of it on Friday. Switching to coffee is a dead giveaway that someone can’t hold their drink.” Jess sounded a little snarky, and Cam could feel the eyes of the group on her. She couldn’t think of a response. Jess was playing mind games as usual. She caught sight of Iris leaning against the wall near the door, watching her curiously. She still said nothing.

  “Diane and I went to a club after, but I was still up and out for my usual run on Saturday morning. Maybe Ryan needs to find himself someone with a bit more stamina.” She paused. “He’s a good laugh. We’re gonna miss him when you guys go back to the States.” Cam knew that every word was chosen to create trouble. Jess was calling Cam a lightweight and simultaneously suggesting Ryan deserved better. All in a few friendly sentences. She was good—pure poison—but good at it.

  “Well, I’m never drinking and dancing again,” Hazel said. “I think I was close to maiming Casey at various points.”

  Cam finally found some words. “Me neither. Friday night’s a complete blur. I don’t think I’ve been that drunk in quite a while. Talk about making a fool of myself. Next time I’ll stick to soda water.” Out of the corner of her eye, Cam caught Iris’s sudden movement, as she turned her back on the group and left the room hurriedly. Cam went after her, not caring if it looked obvious. Iris was ahead of her in the long corridor that led to the main office.