Chapter 8
Eight
Leif
I freeze when I see her.
She looks beautiful. Surprised.
Fucking guilty.
“Leif.” Mom gives my shoulder a nudge.
I stand from the table as Cami and her mother approach.
“I’ve known Cheryl for years,” Mom reminds me, as if I’m eight and need more of an incentive to not embarrass her. Or myself.
But—out of all the women my mom has befriended in her life, she was planning to introduce me to…my wife?
I need a shot of tequila.
“Stella!” Cheryl beams, opening her arms to pull Mom into a hug.
Over their heads, I glare at Cami.
Her eyes are wide, her lips parted, and she looks like she’s about to pass out. But I can’t shake my anger. I tried to get in touch with her. I called, I texted, hell, I even searched for her on U of M’s social media handles.
Which, after extensive hours of research, I’ve concluded she doesn’t have. Tell me that’s not a red flag? A recent graduate of U of M, in a sorority, with no socials?
I narrow my eyes and she swipes her tongue over her bottom lip, nervous.
“This is my son, Leif,” Mom introduces me to Cheryl.
I smile warmly and embrace my mother-in-law. “It’s great to meet you, Cheryl.”
Cheryl introduces Stella to me and Mom. Mom hugs Stella in greeting and I follow.
I lean closer, letting her light floral perfume wash over me. Her hair smells like coconuts and her skin is warm where I press my thumb into her bare shoulder.
“Leif.” My name on her lips is a whisper. A warning and a plea.
“Where’s your ring?” I mutter, too low for our mothers to hear. I flash her the one she fashioned me out of little rubber bands. Yep, I haven’t taken it off because even though she disappeared, I made vows.
When I accepted her proposal for marriage, I believed she was giving me stakes . I trusted that she saw me for me and understood things on a level no one else cared to see. And then, she fucking disappeared, and I haven’t been able to chill out since.
So much for being laid-back. Cami gave me exactly what I asked for and yet, I didn’t anticipate this version of it at all.
She stiffens at the question, and I pull away before our mothers pick up on the strange vibe between us.
The four of us sit down at the table.
I rub my hands together and quirk an eyebrow at Cami.
This just got interesting.
Our server comes by before the awkwardness has the opportunity to properly settle over our table. The server eyes me for a long moment, no doubt trying to place me, and I hide behind my menu before she can call me out. Now is not the time for Cami to learn I play hockey for the Thunderbolts.
Mom and Cheryl each order a glass of wine so I ask for a beer.
Cami—cool, confident, carefree Cami—looks like she wants to vomit. She’s sitting on her hands and her shoulders are bunched around her ears.
If I was really meeting her for the first time, I’d think she was nervous around new people. But I know better. I’ve seen her in action, dancing in clubs. I held her hand when she got a tattoo. I’ve heard the sweet moans that fall from her lips when she comes.
Shit. I drop my eyes to the table as Cami says, “I’ll take a margarita, thanks.”
“A margarita?” Cheryl questions—like everyone else at the table didn’t toss out an alcoholic beverage.
How else are we supposed to endure this lunch-turned-drinks-turned-shitshow?
“How are you settling in, Cami?” Mom interjects, smoothing things over the way she’s apt to do. Either that or shaking everything upside down like a snow globe and watching where the pieces land.
I frown. Is this what she did to King and Jakob and Jensen? Oh, shit. Realization dawns as horror sweeps through me. I glare at my mother’s profile.
She was setting me up with Cami—for real. Not just as a, “hey I’d appreciate it if you’d occasionally check in on my friend’s kid since she just moved to town” way. But a, “I’m desperate for all my children to find love and settle down so I’m going to orchestrate for you to fall in love with this stranger.”
And then, that stranger is already my fucking wife.
I choke on my laughter and slap myself on the chest. Cami gives me a look.
Dammit, we’ll have to tell them. The moms will need to know the truth so that Cami and I have a chance to work through this like adults without our mothers trying to play matchmaker behind the scenes.
I push away from the table abruptly and all eyes swing in my direction.
“Leif?” Mom questions. Her smile is tight. Ha! I guess I did need that silent, not so subtle, warning about not embarrassing her.
“Sorry.” I clear my throat and point toward the bar. “I need a water and it looks like our server needs a hand.”
“I’ll, uh, I’ll help,” Cami volunteers, standing too.
Her mother gives her a look she ignores and the two of us relocate to the bar, making sure to round it so we’re out of our mothers’ lines of vision.
“What the hell is going on?” Cami hisses, some of her spunk returning.
It’s such a relief to see that I don’t call her on it. Besides, we don’t have time. “Our mothers are setting us up.”
“Well, yeah.” She tosses a hand in the air. “I got that part. My mom’s been doing this for the past few months, ever since—” she cuts herself off and shakes her head.
Ever since what? I want to ask but I don’t.
Instead, I offer, “Yeah, my mom’s been on a rampage as well. She’s spent the last year bouncing between my brothers’ places, setting them up and screwing with their lives.”
Cami works a swallow. “Did it work?”
I consider her question. Think about King and Rory, Jake and Gardenia, Jensen and Bailey. “I guess so. But I’m not like my brothers. And besides?—”
“We’re already married.”
“That.” I flag down a bartender. “Can we get two shots of tequila?”
“Tequila?” Cami looks horrified. She leans to the left and quickly straightens. “Our mothers are right there.”
I shrug. “My mom will expect this from me.”
“My mom…” Confusion crosses her expression.
“What?”
“My mom will too,” she admits, disappointed.
My eyebrows tug together as I try to understand the dynamic between Cami and her mother. It’s complicated, that’s for sure.
I flip my chin at her wrist and the watch she’s wearing. “She know about the tattoo?”
Cami snorts. “Not yet.” She looks at me, her blue eyes turning softer. Honest. “I was ignoring you.”
I snort. “No shit.”
“I was scared,” she admits, biting the corner of her mouth. “But, honestly, I was going to call you tomorrow after my mom left. It’s…” She pauses to shake her head. “I can’t do this with you with her…here.”
“I get that, babe. I do.” The tension between Cami and her mom is obvious to strangers. “But we gotta come clean.”
Her eyes slam into mine and I watch terror swirl in her irises.
Damn. What the hell went down between her and her family? I reach for her hand and press my thumb into her wristband. A gentle reminder of the ink hiding beneath—a wave. Weren’t we supposed to ride the wave of life?
Yes, I get how fucking corny it is. But we were drunk. Case in point—we hit up the chapel right afterwards.
“All you can do is crest and coast,” I murmur, recalling words my grandfather, my dad’s dad from Norway, told me when I was a little kid.
“What?” Cami asks.
The bartender places down our tequila shots and I toss some bills on the bar.
Taking my shot glass, I turn to her. “Getting married was your idea.”
“I know,” she hisses, her cheeks turning red. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Proposing to me? I confessed a fucking secret—something no one knows about me—and you gave me the gift I was asking for and then bounced.”
She closes her eyes and exhales. When she opens them, I note the regret rounding out her irises and it makes me feel worse.
“Don’t you dare pity me,” I snap.
Cami sighs. “I’m not. I’m…relating.”
“To what?”
“To you.” She throws a hand in my direction. “I didn’t want you to wake up and be disappointed that you legally tied yourself to me.”
“Why the hell would I be disappointed?” I bite out, my frustration swirling with my confusion. Right now, I don’t feel calm or chill. I feel nervous and a little out of control.
Dammit.
“Because, Leif, I…I make mistakes.”
“Everyone does! We’re human.” Wait a second. “I thought you didn’t do regrets?”
“I don’t regret marrying you,” she admits, soothing my main concern. “But I don’t know how to navigate this next part.”
I shake my head and gesture toward the table our mothers are seated at. “Neither do I. My mom is on a mission and it looks like yours is too.” I hold up my hand when Cami starts to explain. “It doesn’t matter what the reasons are. But if we have any chance of working this out”—I gesture between us—“then we need to come clean. Our moms will give us some space if they know the truth.”
“That we know each other from Vegas?”
Oh, God. I shake my head. “That we’re married,” I remind her. My brothers and friends would die of laughter if they could see me now. Standing here, trying to convince this beautiful woman that a marriage with me is worth a shot.
“Wait…” She pauses to toss back her tequila shot. “I need another,” she tells the bartender.
Snorting, I take my shot as well and smack my lips together. I shake my head when the bartender gestures at my glass. “I’m fine with one, thanks.”
Cami rolls her eyes. “So, you want to…stay married?”
I shrug.
“Why?” She nearly vibrates with frustration. Confusion. Fear. “Why the hell wouldn’t you want an annulment? We have a shot, you know. I looked into it.”
“Oh, did you? Extensively, I bet with your move across the country and your vanishing act.”
Cami laughs—surprising the hell out of me. The musical sound relaxes me some and I find myself grinning back.
“Fine. I barely looked at the requirements, but I thought you’d want to end this as quickly as possible.”
“I’m not most guys, remember?” I say gently. “Cam, I admitted to you that I want stakes. That I want more. That deep down, I want the type of marriage, the type of family and home, that my parents built.”
“I know,” she murmurs.
“Yeah, I may be known as the chill, laid-back dude, but I don’t shirk my commitments. I’ve never been the type of guy who makes promises and breaks them. I made vows to you, Cami. I’m not okay with a divorce when we didn’t even try to make it work.” I pause, searching her face for any expression that will clue me in to her thoughts.
Even though it’s insane that we married without knowing each other for more than a handful of hours, it felt right. Hell, when I confessed my secret, and she offered me a solution—offered me her —I thought she was granting me a gift.
“This is my first time on my own,” she murmurs. “Truly on my own.”
“Okay.”
“I never had the chance to figure things out for myself and now…” she trails off, lifting her arm in my direction and letting it fall.
“I’d never hold you back from your dreams,” I say softly. “I don’t care if you’re an accountant or not. I’d support you if you want to do drawing or a more creative profession.”
Her eyes snap to mine and widen. She blinks, as if seeing me in a new light. “Leif,” she whispers.
I shuffle forward half a step. “Cam, my mom is here, staying with me, to set me up and see me settled. Your mom obviously wanted you to meet me.”
“My mom just wants me to have a traditional life,” she clarifies.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s not what I want!” She grips the second shot glass and tosses it back.
I grin. But isn’t she hot when she’s stressed? Unraveling in all the right ways. “What do you want, Cam?”
She freezes. Those blue eyes snap to mine and hold. “I want…” she sighs. “I want to start my life. On my own terms. Not as someone’s wife. But as me, Cami Coleman.”
I reach out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Cami Coleman. I like her full name.
“I’m not in love with you, Leif,” she continues.
“That’s fair. I’m not in love with you either,” I admit. What I don’t say is I’ve never been this twisted up over—this affected by—a woman. “You don’t know me. Yet.” I tuck a hand in the pocket of my jeans. Shrug. “I’m very lovable.”
She snorts. “What if we give this a fair shot and it…doesn’t work?”
“Then, we get divorced,” I agree. “But do you really want to dissolve everything without a fair chance? We’re obviously attracted to each other.” I brush my fingertips over her lips, and she nearly shudders. “Our families won’t oppose it.” I tilt my head toward our mothers who are probably wondering what the hell happened to us. “And we could at least see what this spark between us is. ‘Cause there’s something here, Cam. I’ve never done a serious relationship thing—my first attempt can’t crash and burn.”
She blinks and her eyes clear. She watches me for a long moment. Tilts back again to check on our mothers. “Fine.” She pushes her hair behind her ears. “Fine, we’ll…give this a chance.”
I smile. “Good.”
“Being with you will help get my mom off my back too,” she adds. “She’ll feel better about my move here and give me some space. This arrangement, while temporary, is…also a convenient distraction for my mom.”
I can’t fault her for her honesty…but I hope this “arrangement” becomes more than just a temporary convenience. “Another item for the pro column.”
Cami nods and then her eyes swings to mine, wide and worried. “Ah, your mom is coming!”
I grin. God, isn’t she great?
She shakes out her wrists and practically prances from one foot to the next. I chuckle and reach for her. Then, I pull her into my frame, drop my mouth to hers, and kiss her hard. I swallow her worries and prove that we can give this a real chance.
A promising start.