Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Cam sketched a silent question between his raised brows.
“Remember when Aunt Kris used to give us these?” She handed him a jar.
“To catch fireflies.” Cam smiled, twisting the hole-punched lid off and laying it on the table. “You always caught twice as many as me and Walsh.”
“That’s because I knew the secret.”
“Which was?” His eyes followed her body rising from her seat.
“Let them come to you.”
She held out her jar and waited for a firefly to come near and then swiveled the jar to capture it. She replaced the lid and turned to Cam, giving him a now you try look.
For the next few minutes they both tried, wandering past the patio border and down to the river where the bugs clustered into small clumps of flitting light. They may have been seventeen years older, but to Jo’s ears, their laughs sounded the same as when they were kids. Careless. Light. Free. Breaking through the night, accompanied only by the sound of the restive river, falling asleep for the night.
Jo flung herself onto the grassy bank, carefully placing her jar on the ground beside her. With the fireflies flaring against the glass, it was like a living lamp. Between her jar and Cam’s, she could just make out the outline of his face, much more relaxed than before. She hated to steal that, but there was actually a point to all of this.
“You remember what Aunt Kris told us about the fireflies?”
Cam stretched out beside her on his side, elbow bent and head propped in his hand.
“No, enlighten me,” he said with a straight face.
“Was that a pun?”
“I can be clever.” He raised her hands to his lips, drawing her pinky finger into his mouth.
She stared at her finger in his mouth. Desire built sweet and taut between them. She hated to squelch it but pulled her hand away.
“She said the light was how they communicated with one another.”
She watched the masonry of his changing expression, saw him build a wall brick by brick until his face showed nothing of what he was thinking. But she knew.
He sat up, facing the river, elbows on his knees and the jar of light at his back. She couldn’t see his face anymore and wondered if that would help or hurt this conversation.
“That’s what I want for us, Cam.” She scooted up beside him, bringing her jar with her to provide a little light. “Your past, your secrets, your hurts—you’re storing them all in the dark, and they’re having their way with you every night. I think the light will make it better.”
Cam drove his fingers through his hair, cupping his forehead in his hands and aiming his eyes toward the ground. Jo cleared her throat and prayed her plan would work. Time would tell if this was a brilliant move or a bumbling mess.
“I’d like to go first.” Jo wrapped her arms around her bare knees. “We both know your past was harder than mine. Darker than mine, so I won’t try to compare battle scars.”
Cam snorted, the only indication he still heard her.
“But I will share some of the most embarrassing, pitiful moments of my life to even the playing field some.”
Cam’s body was stiff and still. Not a smile. Not a twitch. Not a shift of his feet. Maybe he had gills under his T-shirt because he didn’t even seem to be breathing. Jo figured this first one would relieve some of the tension at least.
“Low point number one. This one is kind of funny, even to me, and I am the butt of this joke.” She poked a finger in his face. “No big butt jokes. This is not the time.”
Despite the somber expression on Cam’s face, his lips twitched just the way she had hoped.
“I was in high school and refused to go all the way with my first boyfriend.”
“Mark Ballow.” Cam turned his head, giving her his undivided attention. “I hated that guy.”
“So did Walsh. So did Daddy. So did Aunt Kris.” Jo chuckled and plucked at a patch of grass. “That’s probably why I stayed with him as long as I did.”
“Walsh and I wanted to end him several times.”
“I remember. I can’t believe I ever had a date, as protective as you guys were.”
“Yeah, well, hopefully it spared you a few broken hearts.”
“Oh, they weren’t the ones breaking my heart.”
Cam winced, mouth wry.
“Point taken. Go on. Give me the low point.”
“Sadist.” She reached over to kiss behind his ear. “Well, he wanted to go all the way, and I didn’t, so we compromised.”
“Compromised how?”
“We agreed on a blow job. My first, in fact.”
Cam turned his body to face her fully for the first time, more in the light than he had been since they’d sat by the river.
“You blew Mark Ballow? I would have choked him if Walsh didn’t scalp him first.”