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)
For the first time in a while, I wished I still smoked. At least it would give me something to do besides wonder what the fuck was going on in her head. She was the only person I could never read at all. I didn’t even bother trying now.
“Okay,” Cami said, addressing her entwined fingers. “I need to tell you why I left four years ago.”
I raised my eyebrows. “It wasn’t actually an ecovillage in Turin?”
She shook her head.
It had always sounded strange to me, but then, Cami herself was something of an enigma. Not to mention, we’d only been together about six months before she took off for wherever the hell she went.
“So, what was it? Another guy?” I kept my voice neutral. It had been four years. Too long to get pissed off about now.
Cami looked back up at me, and there was a strange glint of humor in her eyes. “Not another guy,” she said slowly.
My eyebrows climbed higher.
“Not what you’re thinking,” she laughed, then nerves suffused her voice again and she looked back down. “I’m sorry. I’m dragging this out, aren’t I?”
I didn’t say anything. The back of my neck was starting to prickle. A warning sign. But of what, I wasn’t sure. I studied her, trying my best not to snap impatiently, yes, you fucking are, so come out with it already.
“The morning before I left, I was sick. Do you remember?” Cami’s dark eyes searched my face. I got the feeling the question meant something big, but damned if I could figure out what. I searched my memory, dredging up everything I’d suppressed when she disappeared.
“Yes,” I said when the memory finally crystallized. “You had to cancel our plans that night.”
“Right,” she said slowly. “The thing is, I wasn’t really sick. I was–”
The prickling spread down my spine. A premonition whispered the word before she could.
Pregnant.
“--pregnant.”
A fuzzy roaring filled my brain. I stared at her wordlessly.
She stared back, her gaze intent as she searched for my reaction. I was famous for my blank stare though. A master at inscrutability. Her brow crinkled when she could find none.
“Did you hear what I said?” Cami asked, her own voice taking on an edge now. She sat up straighter and crossed her arms.
“I heard you.” I knew I was speaking, but I couldn’t even hear my own voice over the static in my head. Pregnant. She had been pregnant.
“Well? Say something.”
I wondered if Cami too was remembering how many times we’d had versions of this exact conversation in our six months together. Did you hear me? Well then say something. Cami, an open book, never got used to how close I kept my cards to my vest. It was just one of the reasons we never would have worked out long term. In my position, every emotion she felt would be broadcast across her face. A viewer would know instantly whether I was happy or sad or pissed or what.
But the thing was, I didn’t know yet. It was still sinking in.
I walked past Cami to the window and stared out at the city. “You have a daughter,” I surmised, based on how she’d responded when I asked if it was another guy. When she didn’t say anything, I turned around.
“Her name is Emma. She turned three a few months ago.” Cami’s chin was up proudly, her eyes daring me to ask the obvious question.
I didn’t need to though. I knew that if Cami had a child who was three, it was mine. I’d been her first. As the silence stretched on, Cami’s nerves stretched with it. Then snapped. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” she finally cried in exasperation. “I tell you that you have a daughter, and you stand there like a stone wall.”
Cami had gotten mad at me plenty of times in the past for not showing her what I was thinking. This was the only time it pissed me off though. She’d dropped into my office after four years of silence to tell me I had a daughter who had celebrated three birthdays without me, and she wanted a fucking reaction. For the first time in a long time, I allowed my neutral mask to slip. Let the anger show.
Cami’s own anger quailed. She started to say something, but I cut her off. “I will talk about my daughter soon, and with lawyers present, but first I need to know what the hell brings you back now, Cami?”
4
CAMI
I’d never seen Landon angry. Outside of the bedroom, I hadn’t seen him express much strong emotion at all. He was always so cool, so level-headed. He’d made a career out of anticipating all the bad things that someone could do to another person and circumventing them, and he had absolute faith that he could keep bad things from happening to himself and the people he cared about. It had felt wonderfully safe to be with him, and yet thrillingly dangerous at the same time. Like I had a pet tiger that only let me close.