Chapter 41 Camden
FORTY-ONE
CAMDEN
Aiden: Who’s ready for another wager?
Brooks: I’m out. I’m not playing games with you. I either end up with a pierced dick or watching Playboy hump the ground.
Daniel: My wife was controlling my dick. How many times do I have to say this?
War: I’d really like to know nothing about your dick, Playboy. Lep, what’s the wager?
Aiden: How long until the Iceman puts a ring on Sav’s hand.
Brooks: Lennox totally stole your phone
Aiden: Did not!
War: Hahahaha. One thousand percent.
Daniel: Okay, new rule! Wives can’t be in the group chat. We need a modicum of privacy, girls.
Aiden: Still me.
Me: Don’t worry, you’ll all know the minute I pop the question.
Aiden: Hear that, fellas??
Brooks: Sara! Aiden just walked into practice, and he said you said you needed to borrow his phone.
Aiden: Oops. New number, who dis?
I chuckle as I click out of the chat and send a quick text to Sav.
Me: Baby girl, better check your messages. It seems the girls are taking bets about when I’m going to propose. If you want to win, I can give you the inside scoop.
I add a wink emoji and shove my phone into my pocket.
In the other is the ring I just picked up.
I want to ask her before my sister comes to town.
For so long, I haven’t been able to celebrate the big moments in my life with my family.
Cora was gone when I was drafted into the NHL.
She missed the Stanley Cups and the celebrations.
But now that we’ve rebuilt our relationship, I want to celebrate with my sister after I pop the question to Savannah.
And since Savannah has made it clear that she isn’t close to her parents, I’m doing something a little unconventional.
I’m headed to her old apartment building to ask Rosalie and Nick for their blessing and to convince them to help me with the proposal.
And the Donovans. The people in that building are her chosen family.
Along with Josie, Addie, and Sutton. They’ll be my next call.
I want to show Savannah that the people she cares about care about her in return.
And that we’ll always choose her. That she’s our family.
And what better way than by throwing a big engagement party?
And tonight is the night. I’m going to ask while I make Rosalie’s meatballs for her.
I’ve planned a simple night with my girl.
One of thousands of nights together we’ll have if she agrees to forever.
Not that I’m worried she’ll say no. For the first time in my life, I’m confident that someone will choose me.
I feel like I’m floating as I navigate through Savannah’s old neighborhood.
I’ve even started looking at facilities in Boston that could handle my mother’s care.
My sister deserves to choose where she wants to live, but she loves Boston, so I have an inkling that if we can get Mom here, Cora will be ecstatic.
And I want them both here. I hope that one day I’ll have a child of my own, and I don’t want my family to miss out on any time with them.
My relationship with my mother will always be complicated, but Cora and I are in a good place, and I’ll do anything to continue to foster our relationship.
As I jog up the steps to the building, I smile at the snowman that’s fallen over.
I’ve just reached the door when it swings open, so I step back, making room for the person heading out, bracing myself for a conversation with one of the Donovan kids.
They’re adorable, but Piper is the only one who speaks clearly enough for me to understand.
Rather than Rosalie or Nick or one of the Donovans, an unfamiliar woman with platinum blond hair steps out, gripping her chest in surprise. “Oh. You scared me.”
“Sorry about that.” I take another step back, hands in my pockets—one cupped around the ring box—and give her a cordial smile. “After you.”
She narrows her brown eyes, the lines on her forehead creasing severely. “Camden?”
I frown. I don’t recognize her. Yeah, fans still spot me sometimes, but the way she said my first name only, as if she knows me, makes me hesitate.
With another quick scan of her face, I confirm that I don’t recognize her.
A fan, then. So I offer the kind of easy smile I save for situations like this. “Yes, that’d be me. Hockey fan?”
She coughs out a laugh. “Oh my god. What are the chances? I was just telling my daughter about you, and here you are.” She throws herself into my arms, squealing. “I can’t believe how long it’s been.”
I cup her upper arms and push her back. “I’m sorry, I, uh—” I study her again. I guess maybe she looks a little familiar. But she honestly looks like dozens of blondes I’ve met over the years.
Shit. My stomach drops. Because the longer she looks at me, her eyes full of excitement, the more obvious it is that we probably fucked at some point, and she apparently thought it meant more than I did.
“You seriously don’t recognize me?” Her shoulders sag, her tone chiding.
I shake my head and give her an apologetic frown. “I’m sorry.”
“Tara Brewer,” she says with a tight smile.
My already uneasy stomach pitches. Fuck. It’s been years. Probably fifteen since I saw her that last time in that bar. What the fuck is she doing outside Savannah’s old apartment? Unease slithers through my veins and anger sets in. “Are you stalking me?”
She jolts back, her eyes going wide. “What? No. I was just visiting my daughter.”
I glance over her shoulder at the building. Erin is her daughter?
“What are you doing here?” She squints at me, like she’s considering that I’m the one following her. Fuck no. I’d be happy if I never saw this woman again.
“My girlfriend lives here,” I grumble. I guess that’s not true anymore. And thank fuck. I don’t want Savannah anywhere near here. Poor Erin. I can’t believe she was raised by this sorry excuse for a woman.
She peers back, surveying the building. “Really?” Then, wearing a flirty smile that causes bile to climb up my throat, she says, “I was hoping I’d run into you while I was here. Do you have some time? I’d love to grab a drink and catch up.”
I scowl. “You are the last person I’d ever want to catch up with.”
“Camden, don’t be like that.” She takes a step closer to me, her lashes fluttering.
My skin crawls. I hate this woman. It fucking guts me that I’ve allowed her to control so much of my life. That her betrayal kept me from trusting anyone—until Savannah.
Though I can’t help but see the silver lining and focus on that instead.
Had she not betrayed me, I might have married her.
And even if I saw sense and didn’t, then without her betrayal, I wouldn’t have been so broken and I probably would have met another woman and settled down, and that means I wouldn’t have Savannah.
I wouldn’t have found the true definition of happiness, and I wouldn’t be ready to propose.
If the only way to get here was to live life as a shell of a man for almost three decades, then so be it. I’d do it all over again.
“Take care of yourself, Tara.” I turn on my heel and head back to my car. I can talk to Rosalie and Nick another time. Right now I want to get home to my girl. We don’t need perfect to be happy. I just need her.
“If you change your mind,” Tara calls, “I’ll be staying here with Savannah for the next week or so.”
A bark of a laugh rips its way out of me. Like I’d ever change my mind. I’m halfway to my car when the rest of her comment registers, and I whip around. “Did you say Savannah?”
She gives me another one of those fake flirty smiles and saunters toward me. “Yeah, my daughter Savannah. She lives here.”
It’s like a punch to the gut. Like being hit by a train. And as the pieces fall into place, my world crumbles around me.
How’s your relationship with your dad?
Nonexistent.
I can work with that.
I didn’t know you were from Vegas.
I don’t really…
Her mother is a piece of work and her father never wanted to be one.
Memory after memory pummels me, stealing my breath and all my strength. I bend at the waist and suck in air, my chest burning. No fucking way.
“Camden.” Tara sounds like she’s in a tunnel. I can’t make out a word she’s saying. None of them matter anyway.
Because Savannah, my Savannah, is Tara’s daughter. The woman I was about to propose to is the daughter of my ex-girlfriend. The daughter, that for a moment in time, she tried to play off as mine.
The nausea wins out when reality sinks in, and my stomach lurches violently, and then I lose my breakfast all over the goddamn street.
How the fuck did she do it to me again? She ruined everything.