SALT (Summer Nights)

Prologue

CAMERON

" Y ou can't be in here. Get out!"

"What are you talking about?" I say as I stand crouched over in a tent in nothing but my soaked bikini.

"It's not appropriate for you to be half naked in a tent with me."

The fact that he noticed I'm half naked makes my heart happy. My entire body hums with excitement. Fucking finally he's noticed I'm not a child anymore. I'm twenty-one. I'm an adult. A woman—one who has zero plans of leaving this tent.

"Well, seeing as how this is my tent, I won't be leaving. I came in here to get dressed."

"Fuck…" He groans as he rolls over on my air mattress, throwing his arm over his eyes. What the hell is going on with him? I've never seen him like this. Everett Callahan is the epitome of poise, always self-assured with complete control over his expressions and whatever emotions lurk behind his molten dark eyes. But right now, he's something else.

"So, you're not here to deliver my annual roses?" I quip back.

Every year since my eighth birthday, it's always been roses. That was the year my father moved our family from the East Coast to the middle of nowhere here in Illinois. My father threw the party together at the last minute, inviting his friends instead of mine since I didn't have any, seeing as how we'd just moved here. Most of the guests brought typical gifts for a young girl, Barbies, Easy Bake Ovens, craft supplies, but not Everett. Everett brought me roses. In his defense, he came alone. His wife Moira didn't accompany him to the party that year, and when my father mocked the gift, he shrugged and said, "I have a son, not a daughter."

Maybe it was his looks. The man turns heads everywhere he goes with his expertly tousled jet-black hair, strong jaw, and broad physique. He's an Adonis, and most would say he's as cold as one too. I couldn't tell you if it was the gift or the man who beguiled me; all I know is that from that day forward, I was smitten.

"The roses are the least of our concern right now. You can't be in here, Cameron. Leave now!" He bites out, his tone laced with something more than just annoyance.

"I told you this is my tent. I need to get dressed. Why are you in here anyway?"

He rolls from side to side. "The letter."

"The letter? What letter, Everett?" I ask as I check the floor next to the air mattress to see if perhaps this mysterious letter fell off the side. He shifts, and then I see it. Sticking out of the back of his suit pants is a white envelope with handwriting I'd know anywhere because it's not just anyone's writing. It's my dad's, and right now, Everett has a piece of him that I don't.

I quickly reach across the bed and snatch it out of his pocket before he can argue that it's not mine, even though my name is clearly scrolled across the front.

"It arrived today, but Cameron, don't read it. Not here, not now. Just get your bag and get out. Change in my car if you must…" His voice trails off before he brings his legs up and practically curls himself into a ball as much as a man his size reasonably can. Everett might be forty-six, but he doesn't look it. He runs every morning and hits the gym in the evenings. The man is in better shape than men half his age, but you wouldn't know it right now. I stare at the envelope and contemplate my next move. Whatever is in this envelope contains some of my father's last words. While I'm curious to know what they say, its contents can't change the past, words can't bring him back, and right now is monumental. I'm collecting a moment with someone who is real. Someone who holds the power to make me happy, someone who has the potential to be my future if he'd only allow himself to get out of his own way.

I shimmy around the mattress that takes up the entirety of my tent and grab my duffle bag for a change of clothes. His eyes aren't even open anyway, and the way he's currently cradling his head, even if they were, he wouldn't see me. I don't bother trying to be quiet about unzipping my bag in search of my summer dress. He shouldn't be in my tent if he doesn't want to be around me. We share a house. I don't see what the problem is. It's not like I'm going to climb onto the mattress with him, even though it's precisely what I'd like to do.

"Cameron," he warns in that sharp, absolute tone the rest of the world gets from the man behind the suit. It's one I rarely get. I wouldn't say he thaws, but for me, he bends.

I can't help the taunt that quickly falls from my lips. "They're just boobs, Everett. Don't look if it bothers you." I untie my bikini top, and it easily falls. "We're both adults–"

He hastily tries to sit up, making it to his elbows before he spits out, "You're a fucking kid, Cameron. You can't be in here with me. You live under my roof. We do not change in front of each other, we have separate wings of the house, and we most definitely don't sleep together. You're my best friend's little girl. I practically raised you. You are not an adult, not in any way that matters to me." The last word is barely uttered before he falls back onto the air mattress breathless, his chest heaving as he struggles to pull air into his lungs.

"Too late. It's done," I say as I pull my dress into place and slip off my wet bottoms. I bite my tongue to prevent the words I want to say from spilling from my mouth. The ones I gave him were enough of a taunt to throw back. Anything more would only bolster his claims that I'm indeed not a grown woman. The average person heard a reason to leave. I heard a reason to stay. His words might have told me to get lost, but they also said he's noticed me, and more than that, I now know sharing this small space with me makes him nervous, which means I make him nervous. The older I've gotten, the more aware I've become of his imposing silences. He's always careful with his words, more comfortable saying nothing at all than words he'd regret. But what most haven't learned, I've mastered. His silence oftentimes speaks louder than his words. Plus, I'm not leaving this tent when something is clearly wrong with him. With my dry clothes on, I sit beside him and reach for his wrist. "Everett, what's going on? Are you okay?"

He snaps his arm back. "Don't touch me, Cameron. I'm fine. I'll be better once you leave."

I roll my lips and shove down the disappointment that comes from how easily he's able to dismiss me. Admittedly, I want someone I shouldn't want, someone most would say I can't have, but I've never been one to follow the rules. Nothing fun happens when you color inside the lines. So, what if he's twice my age and was my dad's best friend? Depending on who you are, that can be interpreted as one of two things: forbidden or a challenge. I'm a girl who sees the latter as true.

"Fine. Since you won't let me help you, I'll just go get someone else." I move to get off the mattress, confident that the last thing the stony-faced Everett Callahan wants is anyone to see him in this state.

It's not until my fingers graze the zipper that I question his overall disdain for the situation. I would have bet my entire trust fund that Everett would rather have me stay in this tent than allow another person to see him like this.

He mutters a few words I can't make out before saying, "Wait, I'm sorry. Don't leave me." My heart instantly skips a beat. Those were the last words I was expecting him to say. I was ready for another round of barbed commentary as I fought to stand my ground and not leave this tent. After all, it's my birthday, and not only did the gods grant me my birthday wish and Everett Callahan actually attended my party, but they threw him in my tent, on my fucking mattress. But his words are ones I know didn't come easily, or maybe they did. Maybe in whatever fucked-up hell he's currently living, he's unable to keep his mask in place. "I just need to lay here for a minute, and then I'll leave. I'll leave as soon as the world stops spinning, and I can feel my legs."

Holy shit. Not only did Everett Callahan show up to my twenty-first birthday at Salt Lake, but he must've eaten one of the pot brownies. What the hell? I sit back down on the air mattress, and the movement immediately makes him brace like he's falling. "Cameron…" he groans my name again.

"Did you eat one of those brownies on the picnic table?" He moans a little louder, and I have my answer. I invited some guys from the baseball fields where I work during the summer, and they invited people who also invited people, and this small gathering blew up way more than I planned. There were only supposed to be ten of us, and the next thing I knew, there were almost a hundred people here. No one in my immediate circle smokes, but I'm not a stranger to weed in all of its forms. I'm in college. I've tried a lot of things, but edibles? Edibles are something I steer clear of. You can't regulate the high, and they're usually slow release, which means Everett isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and I can't say I'm mad about that. "I'm going to take your non-response as a yes."

"Please don't sit on the bed. This is already bad enough," he says, clutching my pillow before covering his head.

"I'm sure you missed it since you decided to enter a stranger's tent to begin with, but there isn't exactly any place else for me to sit, and I'm not leaving. What would happen if you threw up and choked on it because you're too fucked up to help yourself? You can't even sit up."

"I'm not going to throw up, Cameron. Just stop talking and stay on your side and don't touch me." I lie down beside him, careful not to touch him. I'm perfectly fine with taking things slow. Tonight has already answered every birthday wish I have had since I turned seventeen. I feel like I've waited a lifetime for this. Everett and I are in the same bed and that's something I've fantasized about since I started having sexual thoughts. He shifts beside me, pulling me from my reflections, and I hear him mutter into the pillow, "Just stop spinning… Please stop spinning."

His world is spinning out of control while mine is falling into place. Best birthday ever.

I don't know how long we lay there. Time felt like it had ceased to exist. Everett's state of inebriation was not ideal, but his proximity was everything. With each groan and subtle shift throughout the night, his body inched closer to mine throughout the night, and I got my fill. As his inky dark eyes, which I've sworn countless times were plucked straight from the night sky, flicked between open and closed, I studied the rigid lines of his immaculate beard and counted every freckle. There aren't many. Only two. One is tiny and rests right below his left eye. When his lids are closed the thickness of his long lashes hide it away from the world. The other is small, but if one were ever to wish herself a freckle, it would be the one that sits to the left of his impeccable cupid's bow, one I've dreamt of pressing my lips to countless times. When his body finally went still, and his labored breathing stabilized. Slowly, I removed the pillow he had pulled over his face to drown out the noise outside the tent and shield himself from me. His slip was an anomaly. Everett Callahan is refined, never caught with a hair out of place. The Callahan name is respected and revered because he made it so. But sometimes, it's our imperfections that make us perfect.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, his face faded out, and my dreams moved in. The reality of him was replaced with a fantasy, one that felt too real. It was the best dream I'd ever had because, in my dream state, his warmth enveloped me. We weren't two strangers in the night. We were lovers. He pulled me against his front. His big, warm hand rested on my stomach, and his nose nuzzled into my neck. I was his. A treasure he didn't want to let go of, or at least I thought I was, until the firm hand that caressed my skin bit into my hip and the warmth that had engulfed me was replaced with cold. It could have been the cruel end to a dream I wished would last forever, the kind we never want to end but always do that woke me, or maybe it wasn't a dream at all. As I sit in my empty tent, I'm programmed to believe that the former is true until I hear a car starting up in the distance. It wasn't a dream.

Left with the deafening silence of his absence, I should feel dejected, but I don't. Instead, I pull his pillow to my front and lie back down with a smile. Everett Callahan touched me. He touched me once, and I will see to it that he does it again. Last night, I saw something else as I stared at his chiseled face, watching him sleep. I saw a man and not the untouchable God I've made him out to be. Men are flawed, even Everett Callahan, and now that I know he's not immune to weakness, I plan to be the hellion ready to exploit it.

But first, I have a letter I need to read.