13. Cameron
My entire body was buzzing.
I’d assumed my night out with Felicity was going to be enjoyable—maybe a little combative, but fun, the way things always were with her. But it had turned out even better than I’d imagined, both personally and professionally. The Veritique alerts on my phone were sounding off nonstop on my way up to my penthouse, and I’d peeked at one of the photos of us. As expected, it was perfect. Between the dim lighting, the lavender haze of flowers in the window, and the cinematic way we were framed as we kissed, the photo looked like an art director had composed it. I chuckled to myself. If these people swooning over our show at the restaurant could’ve seen our kiss just now by her door, they’d keel over.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d stopped it so abruptly. It sure felt like she was enjoying it and like she wanted more just as badly as I did. Was I misreading her? Had I taken our flirtation too far?
I was so wrapped up trying to balance my stammering heartbeat with the reality of what had happened with the kiss that I almost ignored the unknown number buzzing through on my phone right as I got to my door. Cautiously, I answered.
“Hello?”
“Is this Cameron O’Connor?” the brusque voice asked.
“It is.” An uneasy sensation flooded through me. Late hour. Unknown number. This scenario felt too familiar.
“Hey, this is Officer David Jackson at Tenth Precinct. We’ve got a Tyler Boyd here for drunk and disorderly conduct. He said you might be willing to come down and bail him out. Is that true?”
My shoulders slumped, and I let out a slow sigh. Again, Tyler?
“Yeah, yeah, I can do that. I’ll be down shortly,” I replied quickly, taking stock of the fact that I had a very eager dog whimpering on the other side of my door. Before I could head to the precinct, I’d need to get Boris out for a quick walk, since I’d been gone all night. Tyler could suffer for a little while longer in the drunk tank. He deserved it.
I disconnected the call and unlocked my door, which ramped up the intensity of the happy whining on the other side.
“Hey, bud,” I said as I entered, dropping to my knees to greet Boris. He was more excited to see me than normal. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
I knew everything about my dog, so even a minor deviation in his behavior caught my attention. Tonight, he was almost frantic. He greeted me quickly then pawed the door, his signal that he badly needed a potty break.
“Okay, let’s go,” I said, grabbing the leash.
As we walked down the sidewalk, I checked the security logs for my place and discovered Tyler hadn’t shown up to walk Boris. So that meant he’d been out of commission for most of the day, which also meant he’d probably started drinking in the morning. He got wasted enough that he’d missed taking care of Boris? That was normally unthinkable. What the hell was going on with him?
I fumed, angry enough to consider leaving Tyler in jail overnight. What the actual fuck, Ty?
“Sorry, bud,” I murmured to Boris. I hated thinking of him holding it all day. But then again, I wouldn’t blame him if he’d had an accident.
I wanted to strangle Tyler.
Once back at my place, I looked around for any puddles and piles, only to discover a package of honey cough drops on the floor with empty wrappers scattered near it.
“Boris, what did you do?” I sighed.
He danced in place beside me, like he was proud of his foraging.
I quickly checked the ingredient list, then cross-checked it online to make sure it wasn’t poisonous. While the lozenges weren’t toxic, Boris was almost guaranteed to have an upset stomach after eating so many of them. I hated leaving him alone again without the chance to be able to go out when he needed to. Normally, I’d call my assistant and tell him to come over to look after Boris while I was out, but Daniel was off visiting relatives. Then it occurred to me that I had another option to keep Boris comfortable—a certain woman who was probably getting ready for bed a few floors below me.
I dialed before I could second guess myself.
“Hi,” Felicity said. The sound of her voice was enough to calm me down a notch. “Holy crap, the coverage is next level already. Have you seen the napkin wiping photos? They’re almost as good as the kiss!”
“Yeah, it’s great, but that’s not why I’m calling,” I said quickly. “I need to ask a favor.”
I outlined what had happened, and Felicity offered to come up before I’d even officially asked her. My doorbell rang five minutes later.
“Hey, where’s my canine patient?” She walked past me and into my penthouse. “Wow, nice place.”
She’d changed into soft black leggings that clung to her ass in a way that made me want to stare and a worn t-shirt. She’d washed away the makeup and washed the product out of her hair, which was still damp and pulled back in a low ponytail. She’d looked devastating at the restaurant, but this naturally gorgeous version was just as heart-stopping.
I cursed Tyler yet again for having to leave her.
After I’d explained the mechanics of where everything was, how to reach his vet just in case, and how to walk Boris, I finally paused to take a breath.
“Hey,” Felicity said softly, walking over to me with Boris right behind her. “I’ve got this. We’re a team, remember? Boris is going to be fine, I swear. Go get Tyler and I’ll take care of everything here.”
“I know you will,” I said gratefully as I got ready to leave. “I owe you.”
“Ooh, I like the sound of that,” she teased. “I need to give it some thought before I cash in!”
I managed a tight smile because the reality of what Tyler had done was kicking in, and I was getting angrier and angrier at him.
“I shouldn’t be too long, but please make yourself comfortable. If you’re hungry?—”
“I am not hungry at all, thanks to you,” she cut me off. “Now go.”
I opted to drive myself so I could spend the ride home yelling at Tyler without having to worry about Jimmy overhearing. It took forever to get things sorted out at the police station. It seemed that the bar fight had included half of the city. The waiting area was filled with rowdy, angry drunks who were there to pick up their drunker cohorts.
By the time Tyler finally came out to meet me, I’d downshifted from furious to exhausted. I was tired from the long day and worn out by the way Tyler was living his life.
Something had to change.
Tyler looked pale and bruised as he walked through the overcrowded, bright waiting area to me. He gave me a sheepish smile, and for a moment I saw a flash of the talented young kid who’d always been there to help me out during a gig.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry, bro.”
“Don’t call me that right now, okay?” I bristled. “Let’s just get out of here.”
He turned to me once we were out on the sidewalk. “I hate to ask you this, but is there any chance I can grab a bite? I haven’t eaten since?—”
“Since you got wasted?”
“Fine, never mind,” he grunted and pointed down the block. “I’ll just grab something from the bodega.”
“No,” I relented. “I passed a diner around the corner. Let’s have a proper meal.”
We walked there in silence, and my emotions ran from sympathy to anger and back again, over and over. I knew that lecturing an addict didn’t do any good—it had to be his choice to change. But that didn’t make it any less frustrating to watch him spiral further and further down the drain.
A tired-looking waitress seated us in a corner booth, and we were silent as Tyler scanned the menu. I didn’t want anything, not even coffee. I glanced at my phone. Two in the morning. I should be in bed. We both should.
“Okay,” Tyler sighed after he placed his order and handed the menu to the waitress. “I’m ready. Start preaching.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked angrily. “You’re going to come at me with that kind of attitude? After you blow off my dog all day and I bail you out of jail? Nice, Tyler, really nice.”
“What? I’m serious! Talk some sense into me.”
I growled, “Like it’ll do any good. We’ve been here before. Too many fucking times, if you ask me.”
He bowed his head. “Yeah, I know.”
“So why are we back?” I demanded. “I know you’ve been…struggling for a while, but things have gotten worse lately, and I just don’t get why. You’re booking gigs again, people are loving your music…Why isn’t that enough?”
He stared at the table, and for a minute, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. But finally, he said, “It would have been my anniversary last month, you know. If we’d stayed together.”
I let out a sigh. “So this is about Roxanne?”
He shrugged, still avoiding eye contact.
I leaned across the table. “Tyler, I don’t know how many different ways I can say this to you: Roxanne was no good for you. She brought out the worst in you. The relationship wasn’t healthy.”
“But I loved her!” he fired back. “It was so good when we were together, like I was on the top of the world.”
Yeah, I wanted to say, because you were—which was the whole reason why she was there. As soon as you stopped being successful and being with you stopped being fun and exciting, she bailed.
But how could I say that? He’d lost so much—of course he missed it. I just wished he’d stop obsessing over that one particular she-devil part of his past. Missing her wasn’t going to fix anything, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to help him move on.
I exhaled slowly because we’d been through all of this before. “Well, I can’t give you the top of the world—but in about five minutes, you’ll have enough diner food to choke a horse. For today, that’ll have to do.”
He crumpled into the corner of the booth. “It does just fine,” he said softly. “You always come through for me. Sometimes I think you’re all I have. You’re my brother, do you know that?”
The pitiful way he said it was a knife to my heart.
“Yeah, I know.”
The waitress delivered an armload of plates. Eggs, bacon, hash browns, pancakes, sausage links, scrapple, there was so much that I wasn’t sure he’d be able to finish all of it.
I felt like I needed to shift the conversation to something positive, since beating him up wasn’t going to work. “You still talking to Nina? She seems really nice.”
Tyler shoveled bacon in his mouth. “Yeah,” he grunted. “That’s just it; she’s nice. I don’t exactly deserve that kind of person. I’d corrupt her. Ruin her with my shittiness.”
“Stop,” I chastised. “She could be good for you—give you a reason to move past the shittiness.”
I didn’t want to push him into a relationship, but I sure liked the idea of the kindly librarian being a positive influence for him, because being the sole bright spot in his life was a big load for me to carry, especially when I had my own demons to wrestle.
“She’s pretty special,” he finally admitted. “And how about her friend Felicity and you? I definitely saw sparks at my last gig.”
I wanted to point out he’d gotten high as a kite that night and had probably seen unicorns and centaurs, too, but I kept my mouth shut on the subject. “Oh, her? Everything you saw that night was manufactured, like I told you before. Part of a marketing thing we’re doing for work, remember?”
He stopped chewing to frown at me, holding a sausage link like a cigarette. “You sure about that? Because I know you, and that flirting didn’t look fake at all.”
I grabbed my phone, which buzzed with a new wave of alerts. More photos of me with Felicity, this time leaving the restaurant. We were holding hands, and she was gazing up at me like she was mesmerized. Tyler was right, it looked real as hell.
“I’m not in the market for a relationship,” I countered. “You of all people should know that. I’m not about to go through that sort of damage again.” I didn’t even have to mention Carolina’s name.
Tyler got to work on the eggs. “If you say so. But I ain’t blind, brother.”
We sat in silence as I considered it. The very person we were talking about was currently in my penthouse, in cuddly and soft loungewear, taking care of my dog. Yeah, that felt sort of real.
“Finish up,” I said abruptly. “I’m tired.”
The drive home turned into a negotiation, as I wasn’t in the mood to trek to Tyler’s place. He felt bad about “putting me out” by staying over at my place, but we both knew that between my multiple spare rooms and housekeeper, it was no inconvenience. By the time we got home it was after three, so I held my finger to my mouth as we walked into my apartment.
“Why do we have to be quiet?” he whispered as we crept down the hall. “Who’s here?”
Boris hadn’t greeted us at the door, which clued me in to the fact that Felicity was probably asleep with my dog nearby, protecting her. We crept into the great room that overlooked the city to find it dim save a small light on the bookshelf.
And there was Felicity, curled up in a tiny ball on my sectional, with Boris asleep at her hip. They looked so peaceful that I didn’t want to wake them.
“Yup,” Tyler whispered to me as his eyes bounced from Felicity to me. “Totally manufactured.” He made an exaggerated “okay” gesture at me and winked.
Felicity startled and sat up. “Wha…” she inhaled deeply and looked around the room in confusion. Boris jumped off the couch and ran over to dance in front of us. “You’re back. Hey there.”
She smiled sleepily, and all I could think of was waking up next to her. I cursed my overactive imagination.
“We are. Everything go okay with the big guy?” I asked as I petted Boris.
“Hey, folks, I’m out,” Tyler said, flashing a peace sign. “Long day. I’ll let you two chat.” He left the room quickly.
By this time Felicity had stood up and stretched. Her shirt lifted up, giving me a peek at her stomach. I shifted, because just that quick glance was enough to get me going.
“Boris was great,” she yawned and padded toward me, barefoot and adorably sleepy. “I took him out a bunch of times, but all he did was mark every tree and signpost. I think he’s totally fine.”
“Good,” I said, feeling like I could finally relax. “I can’t thank you enough for stepping up to help.”
She knelt next to Boris to scratch his neck. “Happy to. This guy is the sweetest. We’re besties now.”
“Well, I owe you.”
Felicity slipped on her flip-flops. “Oh, I know you do. And don’t you forget it.”
She smiled wickedly and blew me a kiss, then walked down the hallway with an exaggerated strut I knew was just for my benefit.
Felicity Rhodes was going to be the death of me. And damn it, I liked it.