Chapter 10 #2
"That's..." He swallows hard. "That's a small thing."
"Small things add up. Memory gaps, emotional volatility, decision-making impairment—these aren't character flaws, they're symptoms."
I want to reach for him, to offer comfort, but something in his posture tells me he wouldn't welcome it right now. He looks like a man drowning in his own head.
"Look, I get that you want to help someone who's in trouble.
Your protective instincts were always stronger than your common sense.
" There's affection in Dr. Wilder's voice now, the kind that only comes from years of loving someone despite their flaws.
"But you're not equipped to handle a dangerous situation right now. "
"She needs me," Cam says quietly, and the simple certainty in those words makes my chest tight.
"And she needs you healthy. Not heroic."
The conversation continues—clinical questions about sleep patterns, headaches, cognitive exercises. I listen to Cam answer with clipped precision, each response revealing more about his condition than he probably realizes.
He's been downplaying it. The memory issues, the confusion, the way he sometimes loses track of conversations mid-sentence. I've seen it, made mental notes, quietly compensated without thinking about what it costs him to live in that fog.
When he finally hangs up, the silence stretches between us like a chasm.
How do I tell him that staying with me might be hurting his recovery?
"He's worried about you," I say finally. "About the PCS symptoms. About you being here with me instead of focusing on getting better."
Cam's jaw tightens. "And?"
"And he thinks you should come home to Dallas. For more tests. A comprehensive evaluation."
"Absolutely not." His response is immediate, definitive. "I'm not leaving you to deal with this alone."
"Cam—"
"No." He frames my face with his hands, forcing me to meet his gaze. "Whatever he said, whatever he thinks is best—I'm not going anywhere."
"What if he's right? What if staying here is hurting your recovery?"
Something flickers in his eyes—uncertainty, maybe even fear. But when he speaks, his voice is steady.
"Then that's my choice to make. My risk to take."
"Is it, though? When your judgment might be compromised?"
The words are out before I can stop them, and I immediately want to take them back. Cam drops his hands, stepping away from me like I've slapped him.
"My judgment," he repeats slowly. "Is that what you think? That I'm too brain-damaged to know what I want?"
"That's not what I meant—"
"Isn't it?" His voice is quiet, dangerous. "My family thinks I'm too impaired to make my own decisions. And apparently, so do you."
"I think you're willing to sacrifice your health for someone you've known less than a month."
The words come out sharper than I intend, defensive and frightened.
"I think you're so used to being the protector that you can't see when you're the one who needs protecting."
We stare at each other across my small kitchen.
"You want me to leave," he says finally. It's not a question.
"I want you to get better."
"That's not what I asked." His eyes search mine, looking for something I'm not sure I can give him. "Do you want me to leave?"
The honest answer sits in my throat like a stone. No. No, I want you to stay. I want you to keep making Korean corn dogs in my kitchen and remembering my favorite things and looking at me like I hung the moon. I want you to stay and fight for me and damn the consequences.
But Erik's voice echoes in my head: Keep him safe. Even if that means letting him go.
"I want what's best for you," I say instead.
"Come on, Tara!" The exasperation cuts through the morning air like a blade. "That's a politician's answer. I asked what you want. Not what you think is best or right or responsible. What do you want?"
My hands shake as I reach for my coffee mug, needing something to hold onto. "It doesn't matter what I want."
"It's the only thing that matters."
"No, it's not!" The words explode out of me, surprising us both. "Your health matters. Your future matters. Your family matters. You have people who love you, Cam. People who need you healthy and whole and safe."
"And what about what I need?"
"You need to get better."
"I need you."
The simple declaration hits me like a physical blow. I set down my mug with shaking hands, coffee sloshing over the rim.
"You can't need me. I’m nobody’s safe harbor. Plus, you barely know me."
"I know enough. You’re mine.” His voice carries absolute certainty.
“You’re my anchor when my brain can’t find shore.”
He steps closer, and I can see the gold flecks in his brown eyes, the scar on his temple from his last concussion.
"Cam—"
"I know you're the strongest person I've ever met, and you're terrified of letting anyone see you be weak.
I know you ran from a billion-dollar empire because you'd rather be free than comfortable.
I know you taste like vanilla and possibilities, and when you smile—really smile, not the customer service version—it feels like winning the Stanley Cup and Olympic gold while my halmeoni feeds me her best kimchi. "
Tears blur my vision. "You're making this harder than it has to be."
"Good. It should be hard. Easy things don't matter."
"Your family worries," I say softly.
He doesn't look at me. "So does your father. Just in different ways."
The parallel hits like a punch. Both of us running from families who love us but can't let us breathe. His family sees him as fragile, a patient in need of protection. Mine sees me as an asset to be controlled and deployed.
Different cages. Same desperation to be seen as more than our circumstances.
"He's not wrong about the PCS," I say carefully.
"Don't." His voice is sharp. "Don't you start that again."
"I'm not starting anything. I'm stating a fact." I shift to face him fully, pulling the robe around me like armor. "You forget things. Important things. Sometimes you repeat yourself or lose track of where you are in a conversation."
He flinches like I slapped him.
"But you know what you don't forget?" I reach for his hand, relieved when he doesn't pull away. "You don't forget how to make someone feel safe. You don't forget how to read a room or protect the people you care about. You don't forget the things that matter."
"Memory exercises," he says bitterly. "Cognitive pacing. Rest and routine. Great, I sound like a geriatric patient."
"You sound like someone who's healing."
The kitchen feels too sharp, too crowded with everything we just threw at each other.
Cam exhales hard, bare chest rising and falling, then threads his fingers through mine. He tugs me toward the living room, boxer shorts slung low on his hips. My robe flares as I follow, the belt cinched tight against skin that still remembers his hands.
The couch sighs under our weight, cushions pulling us closer than pride should allow. For a moment we just breathe, my thigh brushing his, the heat of his skin bleeding through cotton.
"I don’t like fighting with you," he says finally, his voice rough.
"Then stop fighting," I whisper back.
He cups my face and kisses me deep—hungry, unapologetic, tasting like surrender and possession all at once. The robe slips at my shoulder; his hand steadies it, then me. My fingers grab the waistband of his shorts, pulling him closer, as if we could kiss the argument out of existence.
I was stroking him through his shorts when his phone buzzes on the coffee table. The screen lights with the photo of a beautiful Korean woman with warm eyes and Cam’s smile.
I pull back just enough to breathe, lips swollen, robe askew. "Your mom?"
He nods, reluctant, thumb still stroking my cheek. "She’ll want to meet you."
"Then answer it."
He swipes to accept, and suddenly I'm looking at Hana Wilder—elegant, concerned, and clearly running on maternal worry and caffeine.
"Cameron-ah," she says, switching effortlessly to Korean. Her voice is soft but carries the kind of warmth that could melt glaciers.
He responds in the same language, his voice gentling in a way that makes my heart squeeze. I don't understand the words, but I understand the love—the worry wrapped in affection, the questions cushioned with care.
She notices me in the frame and switches back to English. "And you must be Tara. I've heard so much about you."
"From Levi, I'm guessing," I say, acutely aware of my post-kiss hair and the robe I'm clutching.
"From my son's voice when he mentions you." Her smile is knowing. "It changes when he says your name."
Heat floods my cheeks. Cam shifts beside me, probably mortified that his mother is analyzing his vocal patterns for romantic attachment.
"Eomma," he says, a gentle warning.
"What? I'm just saying hello to the woman who's clearly making my son happy." She studies me through the screen with the shrewd gaze of a mother who's learned to read between lines. "Though I hear you're both dealing with some difficulties."
"Nothing I can't handle," Cam says.
"Together," I correct, meeting his eyes. "Nothing we can't handle together."
Hana's smile softens. "Good. Because he thinks he has to carry the world alone sometimes. His father's influence—all that Danish stoicism and clinical discipline. They forget that asking for help isn't the same as admitting defeat."
"My mom worries," Cam explains to me, and his fingers find mine on the cushion.. "She thinks my humor is just a bandage over a wound."
It's a raw confession, mirroring my own use of sharp wit as armor. The vulnerability in his voice makes me want to wrap him up and protect him from every doubt that's ever lived in his head.
"Sometimes it is," Hana says gently. "But that doesn't make it wrong. Healing happens differently for everyone."
After she hangs up with promises to visit soon and threats to cook enough food to feed half of Cedar Falls, Cam and I sit in comfortable silence.
"She's going to love you," he says eventually.
"How can you tell?"
"She didn't switch to full Korean, which is what she does when she disapproves of something. And she smiled with her eyes, not just her mouth."
I file away these details, adding them to my ever-growing catalog of Cam Wilder truths. His mother's approval matters to him. His father's medical opinion carries weight even when it stings. His brother's concern feels like judgment even when it's rooted in love.
"Can I tell you something?" I ask.
He nods.
"I've spent three years avoiding my family because I was sick of being controlled, manipulated, used all my life. But watching you with yours..." I struggle for the right words. "Sometimes love looks like worry. Sometimes care looks like interference. It doesn't make it wrong."
He doesn't respond immediately, but his thumb traces circles on my palm.
"Your dad isn't trying to make you feel broken," I continue. "He's trying to keep you safe. There's a difference."
"Doesn't feel different when you're the one being told to sit down, shut up, and let the adults handle things."
I get that. Oh, how I get that.
"What if we handled things together?" I ask. "Not just the danger stuff, but the healing stuff too. Your recovery, my family drama—what if we stopped trying to carry it all alone?"
He turns to study my face, searching for something. "You'd do that? Stick around for the messy parts?"
"Cam." I cup his face in my hands, making sure he sees me clearly. "I've already seen you forget my name. I've watched you struggle to remember conversations we had an hour ago. I've seen you frustrated and vulnerable and human."
His breath catches.
"And I'm still here. Still choosing you.”
I wait for my words to sink in for him.
And that’s when I realize it myself—I’m falling for the man who makes Korean corn dogs to prove he's more than anyone's pet, who recruits teenage spies at diners, who looks at me like I hung the moon even when his brain is playing tricks on him.
When he kisses me, it tastes like gratitude, possession, hope and the promise of showing up—really showing up—for each other.
Two people who found each other in the middle of running away, who decided to stop and fight for something real instead.
My phone buzzes again. A text this time.
Unknown number.
Come home, little cousin. Time to stop playing pretend.
Attached is a photo of Cam and me walking into the grocery store, both of us laughing at something he said. But that's not what makes my knees weak.
It's the fact that the photo was taken from inside the store.
He was already here. Watching. Waiting.
"What is it?" Cam asks, immediately alert to the change in my demeanor.
I hand him the phone with numb fingers, watching his expression shift from confusion to fury as he reads the message.
"Pathetic Coward." he spits, his entire body going tense. "He's been here. In town."
"The man Janet saw at the bakery. The one offering money for information." My voice sounds detached, clinical. "It could be him."
Cam is already moving, grabbing his jeans from the bedroom floor, pulling them on with sharp, efficient movements.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"Calling Chief Alvarez. Then I'm calling Levi." He yanks a t-shirt over his head, transforming from sated lover to dangerous protector in seconds. “No more games.”
"Cam, wait—"
“No waiting." His tone is flat steel. “We put this on record. Your cousin doesn’t get to stalk and scare you without consequence. And I’m locking this place down with a security system before nightfall.”
He grabs his phone, already dialing, and I watch him pace my living room like a caged predator. When Alvarez answers, his voice is crisp, professional.
“Chief, it's Cam Wilder. We need to talk. Now... Yes, it's about Tara... We have proof that someone's been stalking her.”
His voice transforms—no jokes, no charm, just lethal focus. This is the man who's taken hits from guys who could bench-press small cars. Watching him “take charge” is stupidly attractive.
I sink onto my couch, still in my robe, and watch the man I'm falling in love with mobilize to protect me. His broad shoulders fill the space, his voice calm and authoritative as he explains the situation to the police chief.
Erik’s question still echoes. Do I love Cam?
I’m in—heart, skin, every breath. Love isn’t up for debate. I already do. Completely, irrevocably, terrifyingly.
What comes next is figuring out how to keep it safe. Because Erik is right—Cam will step in front of anything headed my way.