4. Cammi
Chapter Four
CAMMI
The little toddler in my lap yanked at my hair, letting out a squeal when her fingers curled tightly around a clump of it.
“Easy now,” I said as I lightly gripped her hand, distracting her with a giant stuffed giraffe.
My friend’s daughter, Iris, grabbed the giraffe before clambering off my knees where I was seated on the floor. Susie Winters looked over with a grin. “That’s why my hair is always up,” she said, gesturing to her brown curls pulled up high in a ponytail.
“Hazards of having a toddler, I suppose,” I replied as I uncurled my legs and stood from the floor. I crossed the room to sit at the table where Susie was tapping away on her laptop.
Susie was a good friend. We’d grown up together in Diamond Creek. Lately, it seemed as if her life was moving at hyper speed, while my life felt stuck as I spun my wheels and went nowhere.
“What are you working on?” I asked as I smoothed my hand over my hair.
Susie reflexively looked over toward her daughter. Iris was sitting on the floor, the giraffe now discarded at her hips as she played with some wooden blocks. Glancing back toward me, Susie replied, “Accounting. That’s all I ever do. Today, I’m actually doing the books for Jared and his brothers. Quarterly reports are coming next month, and I like to have everything lined up early. I have to nag most of my clients.”
“I bet you don’t have to nag Jared,” I teased lightly.
As if conjured by our discussion, Susie’s husband came through the front door. “Hey ladies,” he called. Jared Winters pushed the sunglasses up on his head, striding quickly across the room to give Susie a kiss. It was brief, but his lips lingered, and I felt myself looking away as if I were accidentally interrupting an intimate moment.
Jared was on the move, aiming for Iris and asking, “How’s it going, Cammi?” He lifted their daughter into his arms. She squealed, patting his cheek with her small hand. “Hey, you.” He gave her an exaggerated kiss on her cheek, and she curled her hand around the collar of his black T-shirt.
“Doing okay,” I replied as he returned to stand beside the table. “Good grief, she looks so much like you.”
Jared had rich green eyes and dark hair. He was classically handsome and could give off an intimidating vibe, mostly because he could come off on the stern and broody side. Iris shared his green eyes and glossy dark hair.
“I know, right?” Susie said with a grin. “No worries about who’s the father.”
Jared slid his eyes sideways. “As if there ever was.”
Susie rolled her own eyes. “Don’t get cocky.”
I laughed, trying to ignore the twinge of jealousy I felt. I wasn’t jealous specifically of Jared, and I adored Susie, but I wanted my own family, and that wasn’t looking like a possibility anytime in the near future. I had epically bad luck with men and was still recovering from my last disaster.
“Jay down for a nap?” Jared asked.
Susie nodded. “Yup. He crashed not long after Cammi got here.” She lifted the baby monitor from where it sat on the table by her elbow. “We’ll hear when he wakes up.” Iris was their oldest child at two, and they also had a one-year old boy named after Jared who they called Jay.
When his daughter wiggled to be let down, Jared eased her to the floor and she toddled off to play with her blocks again. “How are the books looking?” he asked.
“Perfect. Because I do them,” Susie replied with a sly grin.
Jared chuckled. “Another reason in the long list of reasons why I love you. I’m only here for a few minutes. I forgot the battery died in one of our boats, so I need to grab one out of the garage. Pizza for dinner? I can pick it up on the way home.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Jared gave Susie another kiss, waved to me, and then he hurried off into the garage to fetch the battery.
I looked over at Susie. “It’s hard to believe you could hardly stand that man at one point.”
Her smile was wide.” I know, right? He still drives me a little nuts. He’s such a perfectionist.”
“The way you are with numbers, you should understand,” I chided her gently.
Her brown eyes twinkled as she looked over at me. “True. Plus, having kids has chilled him out. You can only keep the house so clean.”
I looked around, feeling another pinch in my heart, an almost stinging sensation over my breastbone. I ran my knuckles over it, quickly dropping my hand as soon as I realized what I was doing. I was jealous of a messy living room with toys scattered on the floor. I wanted this kind of disorder in my life, the loving mess of a family.
“Are you okay?” Susie asked, her voice bright.
Of course she noticed I was feeling melancholy. She knew me too well. Good friends were wonderful, but sometimes you wanted to hide from how much they saw through you.
“I’m fine,” I replied with a light shrug. I took a sip of the water I’d left on the table earlier, hoping Susie didn’t press.
I should’ve known better. She always pressed. She had the kind of personality that charged ahead, no matter what it was. “You’re not fine.” She closed her laptop, giving me her full attention. “What’s up?”
My nose itched, and I rubbed my knuckles over it, masking my nervousness and discomfort. “I don’t know. I feel like life is leaving me behind,” I finally said.
Susie looked at me quietly for a moment before asking, “You’re not still worried about what happened, are you? There’s no way you could’ve known.”
I bit my bottom lip, dread coating the insides of my stomach. My last attempt at a relationship had exploded in my face. When the man I thought was fine turned out to have an entire family in another town, and his wife showed up at my coffee truck with the kids in tow to rub it in my face that I was nothing more than a stupid cheater, well, it messed with my head in a big way. That had been months and months ago, but it still stung.
“I should’ve known,” I protested.
“How? If you had somebody do a background check on him, it wouldn’t have mattered. He gave you a fake name, so even doing a random online search wouldn’t have helped. Sweetie, you can’t go through life blaming yourself for not knowing he was lying. That’s just crazy. It’s a miserable way to live.”
“Maybe. I thought I was falling in love with someone, but it turned out he had another whole family. I feel so stupid and awful.”
“He hasn’t called you again, has he?” she asked, her tone low.
Susie was a fiercely protective friend and would probably beat this guy up if given the chance. I loved that about her, but sometimes, it was a bit much.
“No. I’ve blocked him from every channel possible and changed my number. I just feel awful. I’m not that kind of person. I’m not an affair person.”
“And everybody who matters knows that. He lied to you too. I hope for his wife’s sake that she figures the whole story out at some point.” She paused, tilting her head to the side as she regarded me. “You know what?”
“What?”
“We need to have a girls’ night out. It’s been months. Life has been so busy, we haven’t made the time. How about tomorrow?”
“What if I have plans?” I countered, simply to be difficult.
Susie glared at me as she reached for her phone on the table.
“I’m sending a group text. You do not have plans. Well, now you do. With us.”
“Where are we going?”
“You pick. The lodge restaurant, or Sally’s.”
I pretended to think about it for a minute. “The lodge. I want the yummy cider.”
Her grin was wide. “Perfect. I’ll drive, so you can get sloshed.”
“If it doesn’t work for tomorrow, let’s make sure to make it happen soon,” I said as I stood from the table. The group text she’d just sent to some of our friends flashed on my phone screen. I did want to spend time with friends, but I still felt glum and wanted to shake the feeling loose.
Susie followed me to the door, her eyes worried. “I feel like you’re not bouncing back from this, Cammi. I don’t know what to do. You’re like a car I can’t jump-start.”
“I’m a car?” I returned, exasperated at the comparison.
“Obviously you’re not a car, but you get my point.”
I looked at my friend’s familiar face—her wide brown eyes and her freckled cheeks. Her bubbly personality was blended with a strength and occasionally overwhelming staunch support that made her an incredible friend. “I’ll make it through this. I’m not hung up on him. I just need to stop wishing for something I don’t have,” I assured her.
“It’s been over six months,” she said softly. “You haven’t gone on a single date. Tess even tried to set you up with that guy she met in Anchorage.”
I rolled my eyes. “He was totally not my type. I can’t do the salesman thing.”
“Don’t judge,” Susie protested. “Tess met him because he’s a great fundraiser. He was helping her with that fundraiser for the hospital, and they made a ton of money.
“Okay, okay,” I muttered. “It’s not the salesman thing. It’s just there was absolutely no oomph.”
“Oomph?”
“You know what I mean. Even when you hated Jared, the room practically caught on fire when the two of you were together. There was zero chemistry for me with that guy. I’m not going to waste my time if I can’t even imagine kissing a guy. I need to feel something.”
She sighed. “Fair enough. We’ll plan when we all get together.”
“I’m not a group project,” I warned. I glanced at my watch. “Look, I have to go. I need to pick up some supplies for the coffee truck tomorrow morning. Amy’s covering this afternoon, but I also need to get there and help her close up.”
“Aren’t you about due to close for the season soon?” she asked, referring to the fact I closed my coffee truck for a few months every winter.
I nodded. “Soon, but you know I never have a set date. Business is slowing, but it’s still steady.”
Susie pulled me in for one of her fierce hugs and waved me off.