SALT (Summer Nights)

24. Cameron

Chapter 24

Cameron

" H ey, wait up," Stormy calls as I walk out to my car to leave for the day.

I haven't had a chance to discuss pulling back on my hours with her. Reece has filled in for us here and there as needed. She had been predominately working in the concessions area, but I talked to her manager on Monday about having her move over to the team shop since I will be in less often during games. The change in hours was sprung on Stormy out of nowhere today, and I have no doubt she wants to talk about it.

"What's going on? How come you didn't tell me you were cutting your hours?"

Technically, I had planned on telling her two days ago, but she called off. Between training Reece on opening and closing procedures, visiting the site of my new lake house, and starting my own business, I've been a little preoccupied.

"We both know I'm not working this job for the money, and Reece has been filling in for us as needed over the past month. She's just going to be picking up more hours than she had." I shrug, knowing my answer wasn't really an answer but uncaring because my mind is elsewhere.

She crosses her arms. "Okay, thanks for the bullshit non-friend response. Now, what is the real reason?"

I pull open the door to my Audi and throw my bag into the back seat. "I'm starting my own business, construction on my house starts next week, and…" I trail off, not wanting to finish the sentence. Since my dinner with Everett a few nights ago, I've felt out of step, and I know why. I put everything out there, but he didn't take it. We're still us but only behind closed doors, and while I'd wait forever for him, I've found myself wanting to wait alone. Being with him has almost hurt as much as being away from him. The thought of losing him and what we have is unbearable. I know what I need and what will help. I need to visit my dad. "I have somewhere I need to be."

"Let me come with you."

"You don't even know where I'm going."

She shoves her hands in her pockets. "I think I could take a pretty good guess. Parker told me what this Saturday is. He said you like to be alone, and maybe that's true, or maybe you've just never had someone to hold your hand who understands the grief of losing a parent."

It's not because I like to be alone during this time that I choose solitude. I choose it so as not to burden anyone else with my grief. I chose it because I deserve it.

"If you want to tag along, that's fine, but I'm not returning tonight. I'm staying at the property."

"That's fine with me. You know I love it out there, and I always keep an extra outfit in my bag. You never know when you might need to get away."

Her comment is somewhat strange, but I leave it. I always have ten outfits in my trunk because my style changes with my mood, and I like to be prepared for surprise outings.

Apparently, she likes to be ready for surprise runaways. That's the Thelma and Louise shit I'm talking about.

I nod toward the door. "Get in. I'm ready to get out of here."

" Y ou ready for some company?" Stormy asks as she joins me beside my father's grave, where night has started to set in. When we got here, the sun was still up.

I've let go of the loss, but the love that remains is the hardest part. There will always be last words we never got to say, a lost ear to bend, and the loss of the only person who could ever really love you unconditionally for eternity. But I hold onto the hope that when I'm here, he's here with me, sitting next to me, listening to me pour out my heart. Every dream, confession, and apology, I lay them at his feet the same way I'd do if he were still here with me. I told my dad everything. His breathing may have ended, but his love never will. There's a scripture that keeps me coming back here., "For dust you are, and to dust you shall return." If we indeed return to the earth as ash, I know his are here. I feel him here, the same way I feel him when I'm at Salt Lake.

Stormy gently nudges my shoulder with hers. "I'm not good with sentimental, and I'm not sure how these conversations should go, so I'm just going to talk. My mother died when I was fifteen. I haven't visited her grave once, but sitting here watching you makes me think maybe I'm missing out on something. You must have really loved your dad."

"I did. He was more than just my dad. He was my best friend."

"And your mom? You haven't moved from this spot at the foot of his grave."

"Life gives us parents. Our hearts make us friends. My mother was only ever a parent, and even that feels like a stretch because parents are supposed to nurture and support their children. I'm not even sure you could say my mother did those things. However, I don't fault her for that. She had us, and I think she did her best. When I think about my mother, I see sacrifice. A woman who got pregnant before she was ready, a woman who forfeited her youth for a baby. I don't know. Every time I think about my mother, I feel like I'm making excuses for why she wasn't the mom I wanted her to be, and then I feel shitty and selfish. I mean, some children don't have any parents. Who am I to complain that mine wasn't good enough?"

"Hmm… I get that, but maybe she wasn't the woman you thought she should be because she wasn't the person you thought she was."

"I'm not sure I follow," I say as I turn to her in question.

"Forget it. I shouldn't have said that. It was a thought in the moment, one I should have kept to myself."

"Well, you can't take it back now that you said it."

She picks up a twig lying in the grass. "Remember the night we spent at your property, and you told me about your brother Kelce only being your half brother because your parents got married as soon as she found out she was pregnant?"

"Yes," I nod, recalling the day. I'm not sure I used those exact words, but it's the gist.

"Sitting here listening to you talk about your dad with such reverence and love is touching, but hearing the lack of love between you and your mother seems telling. You found out Kelce wasn't your father's blood." She shrugs before snapping her stick in half and adding, "Maybe Amelia Salt isn't your mother. Maybe she got her lie, and he got his."

"Wow," I say before turning to my mother's grave. I can't believe she just inferred that. That's bold coming from someone I barely know. I'm not sure I would divulge those thoughts to someone I've known my whole life, but she did, and now they can't be unheard. My immediate thought is, how could that even work? Lying about a man being the true father of your unborn child is one thing, but how do you hide not being the actual mother? Friends, family, acquaintances, they'd all know if you weren't rocking a baby bump. For Amelia Salt not to have been my mother, literally everyone I know would have to be lying to me, right? They'd have to be in on some big secret, and I don't believe that's true.

"I'm sorry, Cameron. I really am. I didn't mean to hurt you while you sit in front of your parents' graves, nonetheless. I wouldn't blame you if you want to leave me here and take off."

I stand from my spot and dust off my ass. I've sat with my thoughts long enough for today, and it smells like rain is coming. "I'm not upset. Are we really friends if you have to bite your tongue and watch your mouth?"

"No, but the friend card doesn't give me a free pass to be a thoughtless ass."

"Meh… there's never a good time to be a thoughtless ass. What better company to be an ass with than those that won't judge you for it. Besides, I'm not upset. I can't change the past. Even if Amelia wasn't my mother, I wouldn't trade her for the real one. I'm twenty-two. If I had another mother, she clearly doesn't want me either." I grab my purse off the ground and make sure my phone is inside before saying, "Come on. I don't want to get wet. There's a storm coming."

" I s that Everett?"

I tense as I read the message. He's not happy that I turned off my share your location feature. "He wants me to come home."

Home will always be wherever he is, but I need to take a few days for myself. I laid my heart on the line for him, and while I know he cares about me, I don't know if it will make a difference in the long run. He says he's trying, and so am I. I'm trying to give him space to listen to his heart without breaking mine. Loving me shouldn't be hard. It should be as easy as breathing.

"Let me guess, you still haven't told him about this place."

I unwrap the towel on my head and toss my phone on the bed. "Everett knows my father left this property to me, and he knows I come here. I like to camp and throw parties here in the summer. But no, he doesn't know that I have a camper here, or that I'm currently building a house." I pull open two drawers in search of my brush.

"Oh, here," Stormy says as she pulls my brush out of her bag. "I accidentally threw it in my bag the last time we were out here." She tosses the brush at me, and I start combing my hair.

"When the idea to build here came, it was after a shitty misunderstanding between me and him. It sounds lame saying it out loud, but I think I'm scared to talk about this place because the night I chose to start building, I chose me and a future I knew was certain because I was building it. To talk about it with him feels like I'm talking about a future that doesn't include him, and that's one I don't want."

Thunder rumbles in the distance, and Stormy's eyes widen. "How did you know it was going to rain?"

I shrug, tossing my brush onto the bed before grabbing a blanket. "I can smell it, but with the tournament starting tomorrow, I checked the weather for the weekend." The only reason I let Stormy tag along when I cut out early was because I knew she wasn't needed in the store first thing in the morning. Tomorrow I'll have to drop her off for work, but I won't be in. The excavators are coming around ten a.m., and I'm anxious to see the site come to life.

I hear my phone vibrate, and I snatch it off the dresser before walking into the living area to grab a spot on the other end of the couch.

Everett: How do you expect me to sleep without you?

Cameron: The same way you have the past forty-six years without me.

Everett: That's not fair.

It was a low blow. I know it couldn't be helped. I didn't exist for half of them.

Everett: How can I fix things if you won't come home and talk to me?

I don't say anything. I'm not trying to start an argument. This isn't why I left. I left to visit my dad's grave.

Everett: I'm asking you to come home, Cameron.

It's just a text, but I feel like I can hear the ache in his heart—or maybe it's just the one inside of me.

"Trouble in paradise?"

I trill my lips to try and let it go, but I can't. "Am I na?ve to think that love should be easy?"

"Absolute wrong person to ask, seeing as I've never been in love, but I did come close. I think love looks different for everyone. I think, like with everything, there are peaks and valleys. Falling in love is easy; staying in love is harder but love itself isn't just sweet. It's as bold and exciting as it is tears and devastation. At the end of the day, you trust that person to be all those things, and I think when you endure all those things together and you can still wake up every day unable to picture a life without them by your side, that's love." She grabs a bottle of water from the table behind her. "But take my words with a grain of salt. I haven't lived them." Maybe not, but I don't think she's wrong. Love isn't only flowers and rainbows. Love is raw and untamed. It spreads like a virus without regard for the person or time. The loud crinkling of her water bottle as she squeezes it in her hand draws me from my thoughts before she asks, "Are we good on the love thing?"

I shake my head and clear the fog. "Yeah, I'm sorry. It's been a heavy night."

"I mean, I knew it would be before I got into the car, so there's that, but I'm about to make it heavier. I have a confession. It's kind of a big one."

"Okay," I draw out pensively, unsure where this conversation is headed.

"I lied. I lied about a lot of things," she blurts out before blowing out a huge breath. I can tell that admission alone lifted a weight, but what the hell is she going on about?

"You lied about what exactly?" The whole conversation Everett and Moira had while I was under his desk suddenly comes to mind. I planned on asking him what she was talking about, but then Moira brought up babies, and Everett asked me out to dinner. Those topics took precedence over snooping on whatever drama Moira was having with Lauren. After all, I already knew they were enemies.

"I'm honestly not sure where to start," she says as her fingers nervously pull at the label.

"That many, huh?" I keep it lighthearted.

"Ehhh." Her response, coupled with the uncertainty marring her worried face, tells me they must be anything but light.

"Okay, well, how about we go from small to big, light to heavy, since we just left off on a heavy topic."

"Sure." She rubs her hands on her knees. "Parker and I are sleeping together, and I really like him… like really, really like him."

I can't help the smile that spreads across my face. I love that for them, or at least I think I do. After we get to the heavy, maybe I'll love it less, but so far, these lies are trending in the right direction.

"I'm not sure you can even call that a lie. A white lie, maybe. It's no secret that something was going on between the two of you, and out of anyone, I fully understand not wanting to share something so new with the world until you're sure it's worth sharing."

She gets off the couch and starts pacing the living room as a crack of thunder shakes the ground. "I've lied about pretty much everything since I've been here. Why I'm here, who I am, you name it, I lied." As I think over our conversations, I turn my attention to the threads on the fringe blanket I've been twirling between my fingers. "Lauren Rhodes isn't really my aunt. I assume Everett already told you that."

My brow furrows before my eyes flick up to hers. "Why would Everett tell me that?"

Her pacing comes to a halt. "He didn't tell you that?" My eyebrows raise in question. "Interesting," she trails off before continuing her slow pace. "So he didn't mention Moira, Evan, or any of it?"

"What are you surprised I don't already know about?"

She fidgets with her braid and mumbles, "That's kind of why I missed a few days of work this week. You've been taking fewer hours at work, and my texts go unanswered longer than they used to. I assumed you'd heard something and written me off…" She releases her braid and speaks louder. "Lauren is not my aunt. I was adopted, but that's not really a secret. If anything, it's a mincing of words. She knows we are not related in any way…" She trails off and pauses again. It's clear she's thinking through this revelation about me not knowing something she believes I should, and the fact that Everett knows and didn't tell me feels like a punch to the gut. "I lied about who I am. Lauren believes Evan Graves is my brother, which would make Moira Michaelson my aunt."

That's a super fucking loaded truth bomb, one that makes zero sense. Moira being Evan's aunt is news to me. I should be surprised, but I'm not. I've always seen a side to Moira MacBeth that the world chose to shove under the rug because of who her husband was. The fact that Evan isn't the son of a stranger dropped off on her front porch doesn't faze me. If anything, I'm surprised he's a nephew and not a secret love child, knowing how her heart never belonged to Everett. But never mind that Moira's been keeping secrets, or that Stormy lied about who she is, the better question is: Why that lie?

"That's a strange lie to tell. Why would you choose that lie?"

Her eyes slowly raise to mine. "To get close to you."

Hail starts pinging off the metal roof of my RV, as if her words weren't ominous and creepy enough. I shove down the eerie discomfort and ask, "Why?"

"Rain check?"

"Stormy, it doesn't really work that way. You have me a little creeped out," I admit as I pull my blanket around me, somewhat regretful that I turned my location sharing off on my phone. Since we've met, Stormy has been on the quieter side, but I assumed she was just one of those people who is slow to warm. Now I'm looking back at everything through a different color lens. "Have you been stalking me?" Isn't that what stalkers do? They slowly infiltrate your life and gain access to you through your friends; in this case, Parker.

"It's nothing like that, I promise. I'm going to come clean. I swear it, I just can't. Not yet."

"You realize I'm totally paranoid now. If you sleep here tonight, I will be sleeping with one eye open."

She gently reclaims her spot on the other end of the couch. "I know you have zero reason to trust me after everything I just said, and I feel terrible about that. I told you I had good intentions the last time we were here. It's always my execution that sucks." Her eyes drop to the floor.

"That doesn't really help put me at ease."

"What if I told you Parker trusted me?" Her eyes snap back to mine with a renewed sense of hope.

"Does Parker know your lies?"

"Most of them, yes."

That's actually one truth I believe. I've always felt their relationship was more than she admitted to, and because Parker and I have a history, I know he wouldn't prioritize getting his dick wet if he knew Stormy was out to get me in some way.

"Does he know why you lied?"

"Mostly."

"Are you going to continue being vague as fuck?"

"For now."

Tonight has only proven to be another shining example of why being alone has felt so appealing. Sometimes, the only person who can bring you peace is yourself.

S urprisingly, between Stormy's confessions and Everett's texts, I did manage to fall asleep last night. Storms have always had a way of lulling me to sleep. When I woke up this morning, Stormy was gone, but she left a note saying she felt terrible about last night and that Parker had picked her up. I texted Parker this morning, confirming the pickup. I know one of my flaws is that I can be too trusting. After her confessions, I didn't push her for more. I knew she wouldn't give it to me; hell, she said as much when she started divulging everything. Instead, I excused myself and went to my bedroom at the back of the RV. By the time we got home from visiting my father's grave, it was already eleven p.m., and we both had things to do today.

As I laid in bed staring up at the ceiling, I went over every conversation we'd had and got nowhere. I considered that maybe my father had a love child I didn't know about. He and my mother were never affectionate with each other. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they both had secret lovers on the side. However, nothing pieced together every time I tried to trace a line back to that theory. That left my mind to spin on the details she gave me. I'm not sure if I gave up before or after my eyes closed. All I know is when I woke up, I couldn't find it in me to put any more thought into whatever scheme she might be crafting. I'm not physically threatened by her. The only part that has me messed up is the Everett piece. I hate feeling like someone I trust with my life is keeping something important from me, but it's in that same vein that I question if it's meaningful at all because, if it were, I know he wouldn't be shy about telling me to stay away from Stormy, if not outright forbidding contact with her.

"You must be Cameron." One of the crew pulls me from my latest musing session. The sounds of the excavators downing trees easily covered his footsteps.

"Yes, Cameron Salt. You must be Orion Atsbury."

"The one and only." He crosses his arms and nods toward one of the operators. "I think you know my cousin Nash."

I do a double take and squint at the bulldozer mowing down a tree a few yards away. "Wait, that's Nash in there?"

"Yep, his dad's been trying to get him to take an interest in the family business. He thought putting him with me for the summer might give him a different perspective."

"Has it?" From the few times we've talked, he never once mentioned this type of work. However, when I asked him about school, he mentioned classes at Flight Park in Millstadt. I don't know much about heavy machinery and construction, but aviation feels worlds apart from this.

"For today he has. He was the first one in the truck this morning." I don't miss the implication, intended or not. "Anyway, I came over here to go over the clearing. Everything is pretty straightforward. We should be done clearing the north side this afternoon, but there's a yellowwood I thought you might want to see before we take it out."

"Why's that?"

"Well, yellowwood trees are somewhat rare to these parts, but aside from that, this one has some initials carved in it. It could be nothing, but maybe it is something. If I inherited land, I'd want to check it out. Could be a family carving."

"Show me," I say with a renewed sense of vigor. The wind this finding puts in my sails reassures my divided heart that this is where I'm supposed to be.