Chapter 6 #2
And the sound of her pleasure, raw and unfiltered, pulls me right over the cliff with her. I come hard, buried deep inside her, my face pressed into the curve of her neck, and for a few blinding seconds the entire world lights up and I hold onto this woman for dear life.
We lie there afterward, both of us trying to catch our breath. The fire across the room has burned down to embers. I’m sure our untouched dinner is getting cold under its silver cloches.
And I couldn’t care less.
"So," she says after a while, her head on my chest, running her fingers over my abs. "On a scale of one to ten…"
"Eleven. Minimum."
"I was going to say twelve, but I didn't want to seem easy."
I laugh into her hair and pull her closer. We talk for a while in that lazy, intimate way that only happens when every wall is down and you're both too blissed out to filter.
Eventually, our stomachs gang up on us. She laughs when mine growls loud enough to qualify as a sound effect. We throw on the lodge robes—hers swallows her, mine barely covers my thighs—and sit at the table.
The salmon is lukewarm and the risotto has congealed slightly and I'm positive it's the best meal I've ever had.
"This is nice," she says, spearing a roasted carrot.
"This is everything," I correct her, and she blushes, and I think: Yeah. I could do this with her for the rest of my life.
The next morning, I wake up to sunlight pouring through the cabin windows and the warm weight of Camille pressed against my side. Her face is tucked into the hollow of my shoulder, her hair a dark, gorgeous mess across the pillow, and one of her legs is on top of the covers, bare and beautiful.
I don't move. This right here is what I've been missing. Not just the sex, although the sex was earth-shattering and I'll be replaying it until I'm dead.
It's the waking-up with someone part.
She stirs, stretches, and gives me the sleepiest, most devastating smile ever.
"Morning, trouble," I say, my voice rough with sleep.
"Morning." She traces a fingertip along my jaw.
She kisses me softly. It starts as a hello and then deepens into something more, her hand sliding across my chest, her body pressing closer. I try to play it cool for about three seconds before she pushes me onto my back and climbs over me, and any pretense of chill evaporates like morning mist.
"I want some time to play with you, now," she says, with this sly, gorgeous look on her face, and proceeds to kiss her way down my body with the kind of determination that has me gripping the sheets inside of thirty seconds.
She traces the muscles of my stomach with her lips. She nips at my hip bone and I jolt. She runs her tongue along the V-line below my abs, and I make a noise that no self-respecting man should admit to, but fuck it.
"You're sensitive here," she murmurs against my skin, sounding entirely too pleased with herself.
“Maybe,” I reply, and she nips me again, and I gasp.
Then she wraps her hand around my cock…hard since I woke up…and I groan.
Her mouth follows, and my brain implodes.
I'm not quiet. I can't be. Every ounce of composure I've ever possessed is gone.
I'm babbling—half-words, her name, fuck repeated again and again, my hands alternating between fisting the sheets and tangling in her hair.
She does something with her tongue that makes my spine tingle and my body arcs off the bed.
"Oh god—Camille—there—you're going to kill me and I'll be so happy…"
She pulls back just enough to look at me with a wicked grin. "So dramatic."
"Baby, you have my dick in your mouth and your tongue is magical, I'm allowed to be dramatic—oh fuck—"
She takes me deeper, her hand working what she can’t fit in her mouth, and the combination of the visual and the sensation and the realization that this is the woman I fell for through a screen who is now absolutely destroying me in person is almost too much.
My hips thrust up and she pins them down with her forearms, which is somehow the hottest display of authority I've ever experienced.
"I'm close—Cam—I'm so close, if you don't want me to—"
She hums around me and the vibration nearly ends it all right there.
I look down at her and she looks up at me with those dark eyes, her lips stretched around me, and I can’t stop it. I come with a roar that probably wakes up others at the retreat, my hand cradling the back of her head, my entire body jerking and trembling.
She sucks me bone dry, cleaning me up with her tongue in a way that has my sensitive cock twitching and me huffing and fighting not to get hard again.
She climbs back up my body and settles against my chest with the most smug expression I've ever seen on another human being. I'd be annoyed if I weren't so completely in love with her.
"I think you woke up the bears on the mountain," she says.
"Worth it. The bears can deal."
We spend the rest of the weekend in a bubble. We make love two more times on Saturday—once in the shower and once on the rug in front of the fireplace because the mood struck and the bed felt too far away.
Sunday morning we hike one of the trails behind the lodge, and Camille is a better hiker than I expected. She tells me she used to run track in high school and still has the legs for it. She's not wrong. I spend half the hike behind her pretending to admire the scenery.
We eat dinner at the lodge's communal table that night with a few of the other couples, and it's surreal to be around people who understand the whole anonymous-to-in-person pipeline.
There's a couple from Missoula who connected over a shared obsession with ghost-hunting, and a pair of ranchers who met on the platform since they were both too stubborn to try regular dating apps.
Normal people. Happy people. People who took a weird leap and landed somewhere wonderful.
Camille holds my hand under the table the whole time, and I keep catching her looking at me with that expression that I know too well: I can't believe you're real.
As we pack that afternoon, it feels like the beginning of something new. Every few minutes I glance over at her just to confirm she's still there and not a hallucination brought on by too much happiness.
She catches me every time and grins.
"You know we have to tell them," she says, folding some shorts.
She doesn't need to say who. There are only two people in the world whose reaction to this news could register on the Richter scale.
"We could ease into it," I suggest. "Casually."
She gives me a look. "Beth will figure it out in four seconds if we try to play it cool. She's like a romance-detecting missile when it comes to me these days."
"Fair point." I think for a second. "What if we just show up? Together? At Aiden's place? I’ll text him that I need to talk. Then—hey, surprise."
"That's extraordinarily wicked." She pauses. "I love it."
I pull out my phone and text Aiden.
Hey. I need to talk to you and Beth. It’s important. Can I swing by in about an hour?
His reply comes in less than a minute.
Everything ok??
Yeah. Just need to tell you something in person.
Bro, you're freaking me out. Beth is already spiraling. Just tell me.
In person. One hour.
You're the worst.
Camille and I finish packing and load our cars, and after another lingering kiss, agree to meet at Aiden's apartment.
When I pull up, I can see Aiden and Beth through the front window…Beth is pacing and Aiden is sitting on the couch looking as if he's trying to talk her off a ledge.
As soon as Camille pulls up, we both walk up to the door, I grab Camille's hand.
She squeezes it. "Ready?"
"Not even slightly."
Aiden opens the door before we knock and his face cycles through about six emotions. Confusion. Recognition. A glance down at our linked hands. Back up to my face. Over to Camille. Back to the hands.
"What the—"
Beth appears behind him, takes one look at us standing on the porch holding hands, and her jaw drops so far I'm worried she broke it.
"Hi," Camille says, with the calm of a woman who has clearly rehearsed this. "So, funny story."
“WHAT IS GOING ON?” Beth says, and it's a seismic event.
"Can we come in?" I ask. "This requires sitting down."
Beth hustles us is and we sit. Then tell them.
Not the full version—absolutely not the full version; some things are between me and Camille and the anonymous messaging system of a dating website—but the broad strokes.
How we both signed up for Mountain Mates. We matched anonymously. We talked for weeks without knowing who the other person was. We went to the retreat and discovered we'd been falling for each other while they'd been trying to set us up the whole time.
Beth finally lets out a scream so high-pitched that Aiden flinches and I'm pretty sure a dog barks somewhere in the neighborhood.
"I KNEW IT," she shrieks, grabbing Camille's arm. "I knew you two would be perfect together! I've been saying it for MONTHS!"
Aiden, meanwhile, is sitting back in his chair with his arms crossed, staring at me with the most insufferably smug expression I've ever seen on a human face. He doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to.
"Don't," I warn him.
"I didn't say anything."
"You're thinking it."
"I'm thinking a lot of things." He grins. "But mostly I'm thinking…I told you so."
"There it is."
He stands up, crosses the room, and hugs me. "I'm happy for you, brother," he says quietly.
Then Beth demands to know every detail, and Camille gives her a very curated, very PG version of our online conversations while I sit next to Aiden and he shakes his head at me with a grin that won't quit.
The next morning, Aiden shows up at the station, points at me in front of the entire crew, and says, "I told you so." Then he takes a victory lap…a literal lap around the apparatus bay, while the guys cheer.
I want to be annoyed, but I'm too happy. Jasper asks if this means I'll stop complaining about everyone being in love. Perry says it's about damn time. Even the Captain gives me a nod, which from him is basically a standing ovation.
For a few days, it's perfect.
Texts all day. I make her my mom's enchiladas at my place and she brings boxed wine that's so bad I nearly pour it down the drain. But when she kisses me, the wine somehow tastes a hell of a lot better.
Then I meet Simon.
Camille says she’s talked to him about me. Been honest about dating me and he hasn’t been pleased about it. But I can understand that. It’s going to take time.
I come by to pick Camille up for our second date. She opens the door and she looks amazing in a sundress, earrings, and her hair down the way I adore it.
But behind her, in the living room, there's a boy sitting on the couch with the energy of a pressure cooker about to blow.
Simon wasn't supposed to be home, but Camille texted that Javi dropped him off early—some change of plans, because apparently Javi's schedule can be unreliable. Simon’s friend was coming over to get him and they were going to the movies.
Camille introduces us. "Simon, this is Chevy. He's a firefighter with Aiden, Beth’s boyfriend."
Simon glares at me as if I'm a threat…cold eyes, clenched jaw, and a hostility so sharp I can feel it from across the room.
"Hey, man. Nice to meet you. Your mom tells me you're into basketball?"
His gaze cuts to Camille, then back to me, and his voice is flat: "She shouldn't be telling you anything about me."
The words land like a sucker punch. Camille's face flushes. She starts to say something—"Simon, that's not—" but he's already looking at his phone, conversation over. Dismissed by a seventh grader.
I play it cool. I smile, and pivot to small talk with Camille while she grabs her purse.
But as we walk to my truck, she's apologizing—"I'm so sorry, he's not usually—" and I stop her with a hand on her arm.
"Hey. Don't worry. He doesn't know me yet."
“But he still needs to be respectful. He knows his manners.” She looks gutted, and I pull her into a hug in the driveway.
The date is great, but something lodged in my ribs during that exchange with Simon, and I can't shake it.
Because I was Simon. I was that kid at twelve years old, angry at a world that felt like it was rearranging itself without my permission.
I remember watching my mom come home from her second job and thinking: If another man shows up trying to be my dad, I'll burn the house down.
Nobody came. Mami never let anyone close enough.
But the impulse, the crazed protectiveness, the terror of one more person leaving—I know exactly what that boy is feeling.
And I walked into his house disguised as the thing he fears most: some random guy who might make his mom happy for a little while and then leave.
Things escalate over the next few days. Camille tries to manage both of us, but Simon digs in. He won't speak to her about me. He won't be in the room if my name comes up.
And then, he detonates.
Camille calls me at 10 p.m. on a Wednesday, and she's crying so hard I can barely understand her.
"He said…” she hiccups. "He said if I want to date some random dude, I can do it without him. He’s going to live with Javi. Full-time."
The words hit me like a beam through a floor.
"Cam—"
"Maybe we need to slow down. Maybe this was too fast. I can't do this to him, Chevy. He's my son."
I close my eyes. "I know."
"I'm sorry. I don't know what to do."
After we hang up, I sit on my couch, the TV on, but I’m not paying attention.
My worst fear is staring me in the face: I'm the complication. I’m the variable that makes her life harder…the man who showed up and brought in a mess instead of comfort.
My father's voice (or what I've imagined it sounds like) whispers from somewhere deep: Just leave. It's easier for everyone if you just go.
I call it the coward's arithmetic—subtract yourself from the equation and the problem solves itself.
And for a full, ugly minute, I consider it.
I could text her something noble about giving her space. I could pull back and let her focus on Simon and tell myself it's the selfless move. I could disappear the way Torres men do. Maybe it is genetic, maybe the leaving is in the blood, maybe I was kidding myself to think I could be different.
Then I think about what Cursive&Caffeine wrote to me weeks ago, late at night, in the dark, with all her armor down: That I'll always be the one taking care of everyone else, and no one will ever take care of me.
And what I said back: Then let me take care of you.
I'm not my father. My father ran. He saw a hard thing and he chose the door. That's not me. That was never me.
I followed Aiden across the state for a fresh start.
I run into burning buildings for strangers.
I call my mom every Sunday because she deserves someone who shows up, and so does Camille, and so does that angry, terrified kid who's testing the one thing he's most afraid of losing—the people who love him enough to stick around.
I pull out my phone.
I type five words and hit send.
I'm not going anywhere, Camille. We'll figure this out together.