Chapter 32
Camila
Hess’s family is loud.
The good kind of loud.
The kind I used to witness as a child, the few times Carly allowed me to visit her house.
I ached for that kind of chaos when I was little. The kids-laughing, pots-clanging-in-the-kitchen, siblings-teasing-each-other-across-the-living-room kind of house that makes it feel like a home.
I sit on the porch swing, taking it all in.
Bart and Anita hover around the grill, bickering over dinner.
He insists the steaks need more seasoning, and she tells him he already put too much garlic on them.
He pulls her to him, giving her an indecent kiss while everyone groans.
And for added effect, he pats her butt while Anita swats at him, pretending to be annoyed.
It’s the kind of marriage I’ve only seen in movies or sitcoms. Until this moment, I honestly didn’t believe it existed in real life.
I can see now why Hess believes in it. He has no reason not to.
And then there’s Hess, the favorite uncle, constantly surrounded by nieces and nephews.
They climb him like he’s a jungle gym, tugging at his arms, screaming with giggles when he swings them high into the air.
His grin is huge, unguarded, and I can’t look away.
He’s so natural with them, patient and playful, the kind of man who’ll be an amazing dad someday, the kind of dad I envied growing up.
My chest tightens unexpectedly, the thought pressing into a part of me I usually keep locked away.
“Okay, I have to go play with Camila now,” Hess says as he breaks away from the kids.
“Noooo!” one of them whines.
“I have to.” He gestures to me. “Look at her. She’s so sad.”
On cue, I force a dramatic frown. The kids must buy it, because they run off, leaving him free to join me on the porch swing.
He casually sits, draping his arm over the back cushion, fingers dangling onto my shoulder.
At first, it’s just a graze, but he shifts so he can tickle my skin, skimming his fingers up under my capsleeve.
Goosebumps race down my arm, and I have to fight hard to keep from scratching them away.
His siblings waste no time turning their attention on Hess, circling him like hyenas.
“Look at our little brother, all grown up and married.” There’s so much teasing in Rhett’s voice that I don’t freak out inside by what he said.
“Yeah, it’s about time you got hitched,” Noah says. “But you couldn’t do it the normal way, could ya?”
Dane grins. “Had to go arranged-marriage style just to keep up with the rest of us.”
Ashley smiles, stoking the fire with her own words. “Only Hess would turn marriage into a side hustle.”
The way his siblings joke is easy, fun, and playful in a way I can’t remember ever having with Selena.
My sister and I don’t tease each other like this.
We never have. I was too busy raising her, too busy being the responsible one, while she got to just be.
Sitting here, I can’t help but wish it had been different.
“What can I say?” Hess smirks back, unfazed by their verbal assault. “Women are literally paying me to marry them.” With that, his hands clasp around my shoulder, pulling me to him, exploding the side of my body with warmth. He glances at me with a wink. “But don’t worry, I gave her a good deal.”
“I don’t know.” I keep my expression even. “I’m realizing that no amount of money is worth being married to you.”
The porch erupts in laughter, and I can’t help but grin.
Rhett looks at Dane and Noah. “I like her. I think she’ll fit right in.”
Fit in.
I’ve never fit into a family before. And when you can’t have something, you swear it off forever, tell yourself the idea of a family is a lie society tries to sell you so you can bear the pain of not having one.
But this family. This house. This warmth.
It’s everything I used to dream about as a little girl, before life taught me not to.
And sitting here now, I feel that dangerous tug again, the longing I’ve worked so hard to get rid of my entire life.
“Okay.” Anita steps in, looking at Noah, Rhett, Ashley, and Dane. “Could you four at least try to make your brother look good in front of Camila so she’ll want to stick around a little longer than just this weekend?”
My eyes drop as guilt pools inside my stomach—exactly what I was worried about from Hess’s mom.
“Thanks, Mom, but I don’t need their help. I can convince Camila on my own.”
“No, you can’t.” Rhett’s face is even for a second before he splits into laughter.
“The judge may have ordered Camila to act like she likes me, but I have the skills to woo my wife.”
I turn to him with lifted brows. “Woo your wife?”
“That’s right.” The smugness in his smile is wildly attractive.
Dane leans forward with a grin. “If that’s true, prove it. Give your wife a kiss.”
The porch erupts. Rhett whistles, Ashley claps her hands like she’s starting a game, and Noah eggs on the few kids nearby until they’re chanting in sing-song voices, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
Beside me, Hess shifts on the swing, his arm still stretched along the backrest, fingers just barely brushing my shoulder. Every tickle of contact makes my skin hum, but now the attention of the entire family has turned that hum into a full-on buzz under my skin.
“We’ll do it.” Ashley leans over and plants an exaggerated kiss on her husband’s mouth. Noah pulls his wife into a slow one that gets plenty of “oohs” and “ahhs” from the kids.
Rhett holds his hands out. “I would kiss Janelle if she weren’t upstairs feeding the baby.”
Dane’s eyes lock on us. “Come on, Hess. Let’s see it.”
I glance toward Anita, silently begging her to intervene, but she just shakes her head, half amused, as if she’d like to see a kiss too.
There’s no one to save us. If anything, the chanting gets louder.
My heart thuds, hard and uneven, and when I finally look at Hess, he’s already looking at me.
For a long, suspended moment, neither of us moves.
Then his brows tick upward, a silent warning in his eyes before dipping toward me.
It’s tentative, cautious, just a brush of lips. A “fine, there, happy?” kind of kiss.
But everyone starts to boo, and we both know we need to give more if we want the heckling to stop. His lips linger, soft and warm, and his fingers close around my shoulder like he’s anchoring himself there. My body betrays me. I lean in, tilt toward him, giving more to the moment.
His other hand cups my cheek softly as the kiss deepens into something that unfurls heat through my body. I react, placing my hand on his shoulder, instinctively pulling him to me.
It’s supposed to be awkward.
For show.
But it isn’t.
Our lips slowly move together, charged with attraction like sparks catching fire. I forget that we’re on the porch, forget the family around us, forget everything except him…until I hear them.
“Oh my gosh, you two!” Noah barks. “Get a room!”
We pull apart, breathless and flushed.
The porch bursts into laughter, whistles, and applause.
“Camila, you’re in trouble,” Rhett says.
You’re telling me.
Dane stands and claps Hess on the back so hard the swing jerks. “We'd better stop the joking there. Things need to stay PG. Kids are running around, for cryin’ out loud.”
My cheeks burn, but I can’t tell if it’s from embarrassment or from the kiss.
Hess
We’re standing on opposite sides of the bed, tugging pillows off, pulling the blankets back in unison, and I literally feel like Camila and I have been married for fifty years.
The small, mundane actions that make up a lifetime with someone.
That’s what I want. And recently, I’ve been feeling that it’s what I want with Camila.
So, despite the charged air between us, despite her shorter-than-short pajamas and slouchy off-the-shoulder top that always seems to slip down, I’m keeping my hands to myself.
I want something real. Something lasting.
Not gratification for one night only.
“Sorry about my family earlier. They don’t have boundaries. But tomorrow will be different. They’ll back off.”
“Don’t apologize. I thought it was funny how they teased you. I always wanted to grow up in a family like that.” She pauses, her fingers brushing the quilt as she meets my gaze. “I used to get so mad as a kid that I didn’t have a family.”
“You have a family.”
“I had a mom who worked all the time or who was off trying to find her next husband. I wanted loud family dinners where the food wasn’t cooked in the microwave or eaten in front of the television.” A sad smile plays across her lips. “I wanted what you have.”
The honesty in her voice knots something in my chest. “You can still have that.” I want to say with me. You can still have that with me. But it’s better if Camila figures that out on her own than have me say it to her.
She has to want it as much as I do.
She shakes her head, masking her vulnerability. “I don’t even care about that anymore. Just a childish dream I got over.”
Before I can say something, Camila climbs into her side of the bed, leans over, and turns off the lamp, plunging the room into complete darkness. I do the same, lying there stiff as a board, clinging to my side of the mattress. I never said having boundaries was easy.
After a beat, she whispers, “About that kiss earlier—”
“Can we please not talk about the kiss right now?”
There’s silence, then she lets out a little giggle.
My head turns, but I can only see her outline. “You’re laughing?” But my words just make things funnier. I reach one arm out, tickling her side. Her body writhes and coils, trying to get away from me as she laughs.
And then—CRACK.
The mattress dips violently inward like a soggy pancake as the slats underneath give way. We both roll helplessly into the middle, our bodies colliding, legs tangling. She yelps, and I curse under my breath.
“I think we broke the bed,” she says.
“Wait ‘til my brothers find out about this.”
And then we both lose it with laughter, giggling as we fight against gravity.
“Screw it,” I finally say, succumbing to the broken bed. I roll my body over hers, feeling the last rumbles of her laughter against my chest.
She smiles up at me through the moonlit darkness. Beautiful and soft.
The corner of my mouth curls. “I think now is a good time to talk about that kiss.”
“Yeah, I bet,” she snickers, playfully hitting my shoulder.
Gently, my fingers caress her cheek then brush her hair back from her face. I feel the lift of her chest below me as she sucks in a deep breath. There’s a deep ache in my chest, a feeling that I want this forever.
It could be so perfect. We could be perfect.
“C’mon.” I shift our bodies, rolling us so that I’m on my back with Camila at my side, giving her room to rest her head on my chest. I lift my arm, letting her cuddle into me before I wrap it around her shoulder.
I’m overcome by the smell of citrus and honey from her hair, and I even close my eyes as I breathe it in.
Thankfully, Camila doesn’t know I did that.
“You comfortable enough?”
Her head nods under my chin. “You?”
Too comfortable, but I go for the generic answer that won’t freak her out. “Yep.”
Silence falls over us, and eventually, exhaustion wins.
Pure. Peaceful. Perfect.