Chapter 6 Cam
Chapter 6
Cam
Gus called Dusty to check in while we were eating dinner.
Dusty handed the phone to me. “Hello?”
“You doing okay?” Gus’s voice was low and concerned.
“I’m fine,” I said. “How’s Riley?”
“Good. She was wiped out from today.” That made two of us. “Fell asleep on the couch about an hour ago.”
“Thank you for taking care of everything,” I said quietly.
“Always, Cam. We’ll talk about everything tomorrow, okay? I just wanted to check and see how you were.”
“I’m fine,” I said again. “All things considered.”
“Okay. Well, I’ve got Riley, and my dad has a bed for you. I figured…” Gus trailed off. And that’s when I realized: I couldn’t go to my house because it was technically Graham’s. That was a hill to climb another day—today, I was too tired to even think about it.
“You figured right,” I said, grateful that he didn’t try to elaborate further. “Thank you. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Be safe, Cam. Good night.”
“Night,” I said before hanging up and handing the phone back to Dusty. I didn’t even know where my phone was. It was with my stuff in my dressing room last time I saw it. I wasn’t ready to face the music yet, but that phone call from Gus was essentially the orchestra warming up.
So, after dinner, Dusty and I drove back to Rebel Blue Ranch—the Ryder family’s home and one of the largest cattle ranches in Wyoming—mostly in silence. Our day was coming to an end. My sense of self-preservation, which was always so fleeting around him, kicked in as we drove, and I retreated back into my head.
He pulled up to the Big House just after midnight. He didn’t cut the engine when his Bronco came to a stop—it would be too loud to start up again at this time of night. It reminded me of all the times I would sneak out with him, and he’d have to park three streets away to pick me up and drop me off.
Dusty’s hands dropped from the steering wheel, and he looked over at me. He almost glowed in the moonlight. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.
I nodded once and swallowed. Today sucked, but it didn’t really hurt—but I knew what I was about to say would.
“Thank you for being there for me,” I said. “I’m happy you were at the bar—that you got me out of there.” Dusty tilted his head, waiting for me to keep going. “I just, um—” I stumbled over my words when I met his gaze, so I looked away. “—I think today should just be…today. And after tonight we should…just go back to how it had been before…with us.”
Dusty was quiet for a second. I kept my eyes focused on the dashboard. I didn’t want to know what his expression was— didn’t want it to threaten the resolve I’d spent the entire drive back to Meadowlark building.
“If that’s what you want,” he finally said.
“It is.” I nodded. “I have a lot to figure out—a lot of things to focus on.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Ash,” he said. “If you want to forget about it, we’ll forget about it.”
I told him that’s what I wanted—what I needed, so why did I feel disappointed in his response? “Okay,” I whispered.
“Okay,” he responded.
After a few more beats of silence, I pushed the passenger door open. I waited for him to say goodbye, but I was relieved when he didn’t. We were never good at saying goodbyes.
“Ash?” he called right before I was about to shut the door. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at him. He ran one of his hands through his hair and then rubbed at the back of his neck. “Sleep good.”
“You too,” I said, and then I shut the door. He didn’t drive off right away—not until I was inside and had closed the front door behind me.
The Big House was dark. I slipped off Dusty’s boots and hung his coat by the door. I’d have Gus give them back—he saw Dusty almost every day because he worked at Rebel Blue. The socks Dusty had given me made my steps almost silent, but I couldn’t think about the socks because if I thought about the socks, I would think about my feet. And if I thought about my feet, I would think about how Dusty had noticed they were red and swollen, and his first instinct was to make me feel better.
Just like it had always been.
When it came to Dusty, I understood what people meant when they said the more things change, the more they stay the same. Or that old habits die hard. Dusty was a habit—thinking about him, missing him, or at least the idea of him: It was a cycle that I’d always struggled to break. Especially because I also found myself missing who I had been when he was in my life.
I meant what I said. I was glad he had been at the bar today. Gus and everybody else would’ve treated me like I was covered in fragile stickers. Dusty acted like it was just another day—even though it wasn’t. It was the first time we’d spent more than five minutes together in years. We talked, we laughed, we had fun.
And now it was over.
There was a soft glow coming from the living room, so I went that way. I hoped no one was waiting up for me. When I made it to the living room, I found Emmy and Ada asleep—their heads on opposite sides of the couch with their feet tangled together in the middle under the same blanket.
I took another step into the living room and hit a creaky floorboard. I froze. In the dead of night, it was the loudest sound in the world.
Emmy’s eyelids fluttered open. “Cam?” she said on a yawn.
“Hey,” I said softly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
She sat up and pushed the blanket off her. When she stood, I knew what she was coming for. The Ryders were huggers—even Gus.
I let Emmy wrap her arms around me, and I let myself hug her back. “I’m so sorry, Cam,” she said. “Today must’ve really sucked.”
“It actually wasn’t so bad,” I said. “After, you know, the whole groom disappearing thing, everything else was pretty good.”
Emmy pulled back and raised a brow at me. “So…everything with Dusty was…okay?”
“Yeah,” I said honestly. I didn’t have a reason to hide anything from Emmy. “It was comforting, you know? Like going back in time…back to when I had less worries…and didn’t just get left at the altar. I’m happy he was there.”
“Then so am I.” Emmy pulled me toward the other couch, and I sat down next to her.
“You didn’t have to wait up for me,” I said.
“I know. Ada and I wanted to. I know you’re like the leader of the ‘I can take care of myself’ movement, but we were worried about you. Wes is asleep in his old room, and Luke is in mine. My dad made up Gus’s old bed for you.”
My throat closed again. I didn’t know what I did in a past life to make these people care about me so much, but it must’ve been really damn good.
“Thank you,” I said, and Emmy laid her head on my shoulder.
“Are you going to be okay, Cam?”
“I don’t really have a choice, do I?” I said dryly.
“You do, actually,” Emmy said. “You can cry and scream and fall apart. You can do whatever you want. You don’t have to be okay right now. It’s just us…and Ada, I guess. But she’s conked out.”
I let out a half laugh. Much to my surprise, tears welled up in my eyes at Emmy’s words. Ever since I found out I was pregnant with Riley, Emmy has been the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister, which is saying something considering that I actually do have a sister. But Violet couldn’t even be bothered to show up to my wedding, let alone help me pick up the pieces afterward.
“I don’t know what to do next, Emmy.”
“Well, I think you can start by getting some sleep. Everything looks different in the light of day.”
“And after that?”
“You start over,” Emmy said softly. “And you lean on the people around you who love you and your daughter. You let us help.”
The Ryders had never been anything but kind and loving to me, but sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder if they would have shown me love like this if I hadn’t gotten pregnant. I was a necessary part of their family because I was Riley’s mom, but would they have ever really wanted me on my own? I put walls up with everyone, but even my highest and strongest walls crumbled around the Ryders. You couldn’t help but love them, and love had always scared me a little.
“I don’t know if I can do that, Em,” I whispered.
“Why not?”
“I don’t even know if I can start over because I don’t know if I ever actually started in the first place.”