13. Ivy
IVY
TWO DAYS LATER
T he sound of Cam’s motorcycle pulling up outside rumbles through the front window, and I drag my attention from the television and glance at the clock.
Nearly ten p.m.
What the hell is he doing here?
In the past few days, since our trip to Max’s, we’ve fallen back into the same routine—him coming during the day while I’m at work and leaving to go to his meeting before I get home.
Which means I haven’t seen him.
And that’s probably for the best.
Because Camden Usher is so much more than he appears.
The man should be dangerous for a dozen different reasons.
Should be kept at arm’s length.
He’s hiding secrets.
He warned me away from him.
Yet, he’s also the one who has somehow made me laugh again with simple stories and memories, who has ensured I’m eating by leaving me my favorite dinners every night, who brought me back from the brink of that abyss when he told me those words that Drew said.
When he insisted I believe them.
I glance at the still unopened box on the mantle, still hearing Cam’s assertion replay over and over in my head.
“You were it for him.”
That statement quieted one beast but left another roaring.
Then why did he lie?
I’ll probably never know.
This gaping hole in my chest will never fill.
But at least Cam was able to give me that one little piece of comfort .
And maybe that’s why he’s here tonight—because he needs some.
I pad over to the window and peek between the blinds. Cam sits on the unlit porch with his back to the door, a cigarette dangling from his lips, the orange glow floating in front of his face.
He hasn’t knocked. Hasn’t made any move to come to the door and let me know he’s here. Exactly like that first night.
If I don’t go out, will he just leave?
I watch him for a few moments, taking a long drag off his cigarette and letting the smoke float out into the night air, but he doesn’t seem inclined to move from that spot.
Almost like he’s waiting for me.
Unsteady steps bring me to the door. I unlock it and open it, but he doesn’t even turn to look at me as I pull it closed behind me and settle down on the step next to him in nothing but my sleep shorts and a loose tank-top.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be up.” His voice comes rough, uneasy, like he’s carefully choosing his words, and that’s somehow difficult for him in this moment. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“I don’t sleep much, as you know.”
Cam finally glances over at me, and there’s a hesitant look in his eyes that sends a little shiver through me. Whatever reason he has for coming here at this time of night, he isn’t sure I’m going to like it.
“What’s wrong?”
He shakes his head. “Why does something have to be wrong for me to be here?”
I snort and rest my elbows on my knees, letting my hands dangle between them as I stare out at the empty street lit only by a few streetlamps farther down the road, leaving us plunged in almost total darkness. “Because you’re usually long gone by now, and I haven’t seen you in days.”
He nods and takes a long drag off his cigarette.
Some of the tension eases from his body as he slowly exhales the smoke into the night air.
“Those things will kill you, you know.”
A little snort accompanies his sad smile as he looks at it between his fingers. “This is the least of my vices.” His eyes cut over to mine again. “I smoke so I don’t put worse things in my body.”
I cringe at his statement, suddenly imagining any number of horrible things he might have done when he was still using. “Your brother would tell you to quit.”
He takes a long pull from the cigarette and releases the smoke in a long, steady stream. “He told me a lot of things. Doesn’t mean I always took his advice.”
“Is that why you two weren’t talking?”
Those brilliant blue eyes, darkened by the night and the demons Cam seems to carry with him, lock on me. “Drew and I had a lot of differences of opinion about how I lived my life.”
It’s the closest thing I’ve received to an answer about their rift. An opening in Cam’s steel walls where his relationship with Drew is concerned. And I don’t know when I’ll ever get another one. If I don’t press him now, I may never get what I need.
“Did he know you were using?”
He swallows uncomfortably and takes another drag off the cigarette, blowing the smoke away from me. “I’m sure he suspected.”
Drew would have noticed something like that.
Even with Cam living in London and them not seeing each other frequently, Drew would have known.
He would have picked up on the little things Cam wasn’t saying.
Changes no one else might have picked up would have been glaringly obvious to his brother, especially with his medical training.
His warning that his brother was dangerous makes much more sense if he knew what was happening and understood that Cam was out of control.
And Drew wouldn’t have let it just go on.
It wasn’t in his nature to let someone struggle on their own.
He would have bent over backward to try to get through to Cam and get him help. And that certainly could have caused a massive rift if Cam wasn’t ready and willing to accept it.
“Is that what you fought about?”
Cam glances over at me again, his clenched jaw ticcing wildly. “You’re really not going to let this go, are you?”
I shake my head. “Should I? You were the most important people in each other’s lives, and that got broken somehow. I’m just trying to understand it. Understand him better. Understand you better.”
The hurricane spiraling in his eyes intensifies, the center focused squarely on me. “You don’t want to know me, Ivy. It’s better that you don’t.”
His warning hangs in the air between us, permeating it and making it somehow harder to breathe. The warm night breeze raises goosebumps on my skin that only seem to tingle more the longer he holds my gaze.
That’s three warnings I’ve received now. One from Drew before he died, and two from Cam in less than a week. Yet, the thought of letting him walk away without knowing more, without understanding this man sitting beside me, makes my gut twist violently.
But he’s still here, still sitting beside me.
“Did you come here for a reason, Cam?”
He nods gently, barely moving his head. “I’ve been here almost every day.”
“I know.”
“And every day I see that unopened box sitting on your mantle…”
My back stiffens, my breath catching.
He takes another drag of his cigarette that has almost reached his fingers. “I know what’s in there, Ivy. What I don’t understand is why you haven’t done anything with him yet.”
With him…
It’s impossible for me to think of it being Drew.
To acknowledge that an entire person with such a big personality and beautiful heart can somehow be burned down to just one tiny little canister of ashes.
But that’s the reality of it that I haven’t wanted to face, even though weeks have passed since I received that delivery and Cam came into my life with it.
Tears start to pool in my eyes, and I swallow against that sob that seems to want to crawl up my throat. “I’m not sure what to do with it, to be honest.”
His throat works, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he gulps in a way that suggests he’s struggling the same way I am with this topic. “Do you plan to keep him on your mantle forever?”
I shake my head. “No. That’s not what he wanted.”
Cam nods. “I know.”
“Do you?”
He bobs his head again. “He wanted the same thing I did. For the people we love and leave behind to celebrate our lives. Not make monuments to us or spend their days and nights obsessively staring at an empty vessel that isn’t us anymore.”
His words slice through me violently, like he’s taken a scalpel and flayed me open with it. Stripped me bare by saying almost exactly the same thing Drew once did.
The tear starts to trickle down my cheek.
More smoke curls from his lips. “I want you to come somewhere with me.”
“Now?”
He nods.
“Where?
With his gaze locked on mine, he inclines his head vaguely east. “To the shore.”
“The shore?” An image of the beautiful sandy beach Drew and I spent so much time on flashes through my mind. The bright sun. Warm skin. Drew’s arms around me. Drew down on one knee… “But it’s closed. It’s the middle of the night.”
Cam nods deliberately. “Which is why I came now.”
“I don’t understand.”
He takes another drag off his cigarette and then drops the butt and grinds the toe of his boot into it, resting his arms on his knees. “There’s only one place in this world he’d want to spend eternity.”
Oh.
“You want to go spread his ashes in the water.”
He nods cautiously. “I think it’s the perfect place, but I’m pretty sure it’s also illegal. Hence…” He motions to the dark around us. “A night mission.”
I watch for any signs of humor that would suggest he’s joking. “You’re serious.”
But Cam just nods again.
“Wow, you really don’t give a shit, do you?”
A single black brow rises. “About what?”
“The law?”
He smirks. “I thought that would have been obvious by now.”
I release an agitated sigh and run my hands through my hair, squeezing my eyes closed as I consider his suggestion.
Silence hangs over us, broken by a few crickets singing in the grass and the gentle swaying of the branches and rustling of the leaves on the trees that line the street.
“The longer you let him sit there, the harder it’s going to be to finally let go.”
I open my eyes and look over at him.
See the tension in his body.
The unshed tears shimmering in his eyes.
“Ivy, I’m not saying it’s time to move on, because that’s impossible.
But those ashes sitting up there in that box are not Drew.
” Cam places a hand over his chest. “He’s here .
” He reaches over and presses it against mine, the warmth of his touch seeping through my shirt and warming me from the inside out. “He’s here. ”
And he’s right.
About that box.
I haven’t even been able to open it.