Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67675 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67675 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
It wasn’t for any other reason.
At least, that was what I kept telling myself. I had a feeling Con would call it bullshit, but he didn’t understand. This thing with Lily had actually worked out for him. Against all odds, they’d figured it out. Not everyone got that lucky. Sometimes it was just too complicated to get resolved with some simplistic happily ever after ending.
I noticed that when we were all four sitting down, grouped around the fire table, Cami watched Con and Lily with avid interest. She wasn’t just listening to what they were saying, she was fascinated by them. I wondered if it was because they’d made it work even though their age difference was even bigger than mine and hers.
“How did you two meet?” she asked casually.
Con and Lily looked at each other. “It’s a long story,” Con said slowly.
“It’s not that long actually,” Lily said, equally slowly. “It’s just…complicated.”
Cami waited hopefully.
“Well, it was basically one big HR violation,” Con said. “She was an intern at The Walker Agency, and then she was my temporary executive assistant.”
“It sounds worse than it was,” Lily said, her cheeks flushing pink as she told Cami the whole story.
I already knew the story. I’d lived it with Con, seen him fight it, seen him cave. I’d never told him so, but I’d expected it to be a fiasco. Lily was almost exactly the same age that Cami had been when we first got together, and I wanted to tell him to look at how that had turned out. When I saw him falling in love with her, I hadn’t been happy for him. She was too young, like Cami had been. I was sure that one day, without warning, she’d be gone, just like Cami.
She had run, but he’d gone after her.
Looking at Cami now, glowing in the firelight, her dark eyes shining with the romance of Lily’s story, I wondered what would have happened if I’d gone after her. If I’d gone to an ecovillage in Turin and realized that was bullshit. Tracked her down. I could have done it. I had the resources. What had stopped me?
My pride, for one.
A sense of inevitability, for another. I’d told her all along it could never work. Would never work. I blamed Cami for fulfilling my prophecy that I’d make a lousy father, but I was the one who had put that thought in her head in the first place. How many times had I told her I didn’t want a family? How many times had I told her – without coming right out and saying it – that I didn’t need her. That if she left, I wouldn’t come after her?
Regret tasted bitter, rising up in my throat like bile. I’d been so sure I knew best, but Con and Lily had proved me wrong. And now Cami was back, proving me wrong again.
I did need her.
It was starting to scare me how much.
20
CAMI
I had so much fun with Lily and Con that I almost didn’t want the night to end. It had been so long since I’d just sat around with friends and laughed. But then, it had been even longer since I’d sat next to a man and wanted him so badly that it didn’t matter how much fun I was having, I wanted to get away. Get him alone.
As she had been for the last three years, Emma was the deciding factor for when the night ended. She had been happily watching Bluey inside when all of a sudden, she was outside, eyes red rimmed, lower lip thrust out in a pout. She wanted ice cream. She’d seen a pint through Con and Lily’s glass refrigerator door. She wanted it now.
“Oh, this looks familiar,” Con said as she began working herself up into a tantrum.
“Halley and the donut meltdown,” Landon agreed, and they both traded grim looks, like buddies remembering a particularly gruesome war story.
“She doesn’t usually do this.” I gathered Emma up into my arms, a little perplexed. She didn’t even like ice cream that much.
“Halley’s tantrums reached new levels when she turned four,” Con said. “Peaked before her fifth birthday, but she stayed dramatic.”
Landon took Emma from me and murmured something into her ear I couldn’t make out. Something that made her quiet down and cheer up. Something that I suspected was a bribe. I couldn’t even pretend to be disapproving though. Not when I saw her arms wrap more tightly around his neck and her cranky, screwed up face soften. I thanked Con and Lily for dinner and told them I hoped they meant it when they said to come back anytime.
“Of course,” Lily said immediately. “With the baby, I don’t get out much, and Halley is one of my only friends in the area.”
“With the stalker, I don’t get out much either,” I said, and she laughed.