Chapter 5
CAMILLE
I'm standing in my bedroom in my underwear seriously considering canceling.
I’ve never been the woman to try too hard to impress a man. I figured if he wasn’t attracted to me in a T-shirt and yoga pants then it just wasn’t meant to be.
But this situation is completely different in so many ways…
My bed looks like a clothing bomb went off.
There's a romper crumpled near the pillows that I loved for ten seconds before deciding it wasn’t me; a pair of jeans and a top that screamed wrong obvious to anyone with eyes; a skirt-and-sweater combo that made me look as if I was going to a parent-teacher conference, which is not the vibe I’m going for at all.
I'm currently holding up option four: a fitted olive-green dress that hits mid-thigh, with a neckline that shows off my assets without looking too thirsty.
It's a dress I bought a few months ago shopping with Beth, just because I liked how it made me feel.
The sad part is I haven’t found a reason to wear it yet.
Well, today’s the day, Cam.
I put it on, look in the mirror, and immediately want to take it off again. It’s attractive. That's the problem. It’s just that I look like a woman who wants a man to look at her, and that thought alone makes my stomach flip.
Yeah, I know I’ve got issues.
My phone vibrates on the nightstand and I lunge for it. Maybe he’s canceling!
Wild@Heart: On my way to the retreat. Nervous as hell. If I pass out when I see you, just step over my body and enjoy the appetizers until I come to.
I laugh, and it reminds me exactly why I’m doing this.
I want to meet this man.
Cursive&Caffeine: If I'm not there when you arrive, it's because I fled the country.
Wild@Heart: Mexico?
Cursive&Caffeine: More likely Costa Rica.
Wild@Heart: Nice. But seriously, please don’t.
Cursive&Caffeine: I won’t.
I stare at myself one more time.
I’m wearing my hair down—I almost never wear it down, but tonight feels like just the occasion.
I’ve also donned a little mascara, lipstick, and the dangly earrings my mom gave me for my thirtieth birthday.
It’s me. The version I forgot existed somewhere between diapers and divorce papers and the daily grind.
Simon's at Javi's for the weekend. He practically sprinted to his dad's car when Javi picked him up, which stung before I reminded myself that his absence is the only reason I'm able to do this.
I told Beth I needed a solo weekend to decompress. "A mental health retreat," I said, which isn't technically a lie. My mental health is very much involved.
Beth gave me a look…similar to the one I used to give her. She’s gotten so ballsy since Aiden came into the picture. I can’t say I don’t like it though.
But I'll deal with that later. Right now, I have bigger problems. In about an hour and a half, I'm going to be face-to-face with the man who talked me out of my clothes via text message and made me climax on a phone call and who I have frighteningly deep feelings for.
And I don't even know what he looks like.
The drive to the lodge takes just over an hour, and I spend every minute of it in a war with myself. The rational part of my brain—the teacher, the mother, the woman who is organized to a T—is calmly listing all the reasons this could go to hell.
He could be disappointed.
I could be disappointed.
The chemistry might fizzle into nothingness.
This whole beautiful thing we've built could shatter the second reality walks in.
The other part of my brain—the part that's been slowly waking up over the past few weeks, stretching and blinking in the light—just whispers: But what if it’s absolutely amazing?!
The lodge is stunning. It’s nestled into the mountainside as if it grew there, all timber and stone and enormous windows reflecting the late-afternoon sky. The parking lot is scattered with cars, and I can see other couples milling around the entrance, some nervous and some already holding hands.
These are real people who fell for strangers, the same as me.
I sit in my car with the engine off. I’m afraid my heart is going to fly out of my chest.
I could leave. I could text him some excuse…Simon got sick, work emergency, alien abduction…and drive home and crawl into the bath with a book and pretend this never happened. Go back to being safe and lonely and fine.
But I think about his voice on the phone. How he calls me trouble like the word was made for me. And I think about the way he told me he'd take care of me, and how much I wanted to believe him.
I grab my purse, get out of the car, and walk inside on legs that feel as if they're made of cooked spaghetti.
The retreat coordinator is a cheerful woman named Janis with a clipboard and the energy of someone who's witnessed a lot of love stories unfold in this lobby.
She checks me in, explains the format—private reveal rooms for each matched couple, followed by dinner in individual cabins—and points me down a hallway lined with doors, each with a small card holder outside.
“Good luck,” she says, as I walk off to find my room. A few doors down I see a card that reads: Cursive&Caffeine + Wild@Heart.
Seeing our names together in print makes it feel all too real.
I push open the door. The room is small and cozy. There’s a loveseat, a window overlooking the pines, soft lighting. It’s intimate without being claustrophobic.
I'm supposed to wait here and they’ll direct him to come to me.
I sit on the loveseat. Stand up. Sit back down. Cross my legs. Uncross them. Smooth my dress. Check my phone. Put it away. Pick it back up.
God, I can’t do this. I’m going to climb the walls soon.
I'm a thirty-two-year-old woman who manages a class of wild little kids every day without flinching, and right now I'm trembling like a Chihuahua in a thunderstorm.
Then I hear footsteps in the hall. They slow outside the door.
My breathing stops.
There’s a knock. Two gentle raps, followed by a voice muffled through the wood. "Hey, trouble. You ready for this?"
My heart launches into my throat. I press my hand flat against my chest hoping I can physically hold it in place.
"That depends," I say back, trying not to shake. "Are you?"
A low laugh comes from the other side. "As ready as I’ll ever be.”
I swallow and roll my shoulders. "Then come in."
The handle turns and the door swings open.
And standing there—filling the doorframe with broad shoulders and an expression of complete, slack-jawed shock—is Chevy Torres.
Aiden's best friend. The firefighter Beth has been trying to set me up with for months.
The man I've seen in exactly three photos on Beth's phone, each time thinking yeah, okay, he's absurdly hot.
The man whose schedule never aligned with mine, whose introduction the universe kept blocking at every possible turn.
Because the universe, apparently, had other plans.
He's even more attractive in person. Over six feet tall with dark wavy hair that's slightly messy in a way that looks effortless, warm brown skin, and a jaw that could win awards.
He's wearing a dark blue button-down rolled to his forearms, and I can see the tattoo on the inside of one…
his mother's initials. He told me about it.
This impossibly beautiful man is the same person who listened to me cry about my son and made me laugh until my ribs hurt and described undressing me with such excruciating tenderness that I fell apart in my own bed.
And I’m positive Aiden or Beth has shown him photos of me, too, since they were relentless about setting us up.
We stare at each other and the silence is enormous.
"Camille?" His voice cracks on the second syllable, and hearing it—that voice, his voice, the one that wrecked me on the phone—come out of this face nearly short-circuits my brain.
"Chevy?" I whisper.
There’s another beat of stunned silence.
His eyes are wide, scanning my face as if he's trying to reconcile two realities at once.
I know the feeling. My brain is doing the same thing, overlaying every message, every late-night confession, every whispered word onto the man standing in front of me.
And it fits. God help me, it fits perfectly.
Then the panic hits.
He isn't a stranger. This is someone connected to my actual life…Beth's boyfriend's best friend.
If this goes wrong, it doesn't just disappear into the internet void.
It explodes across my entire social circle.
Beth will know. Aiden will know. Every barbecue, every group hangout, every casual dinner will be contaminated by the awkwardness of I sexted your best friend and then it didn't work out.
The spiral kicks in fast and vicious: This was a mistake. He's going to see the tired, overwhelmed, hasn't-slept-properly-in-a-week version of you and realize you're not the woman he built in his head. That you’re not worth it.
He must see my thoughts on my face…how I shift from shock to something closer to flight.
“This is insane!” he exclaims, then laughs.
Not at me. At the cosmic, ridiculous absurdity of it all. It's a warm, full-body laugh that crinkles his eyes and transforms his whole face from magazine-cover handsome to something infinitely better.
"So you're the woman Aiden's been trying to set me up with for months," he says, shaking his head in disbelief, "and I've been falling in love with you online the entire time?"
The way he says falling in love with you, so easily and confidently, as if it's just a fact he's stating, cracks through my defenses like a rock through thin ice.
"We could've skipped the monthly subscription and saved the money," I say.
He grins. The grin I can now match to the voice that's been living in my ear for weeks. "Oh lord, Beth is going to lose it."
"Beth can never know the details."
"Agreed. Aiden either. He'll be insufferable."
"He'll say he told you so."
"Every day. For the rest of my life."
We're both smiling now, these big, stupid smiles, and the panic is still there but it's losing ground to something stronger.