Chapter 40 Cam
Chapter 40
Cam
When I woke up the next morning, Dusty’s arm was draped over my waist, so I slid out from under it as carefully as I could before getting out of bed. I didn’t want to wake him. Yeah, we did get some sleep together, but only after we slept together one more time and took a shower before going to bed.
I moved Dusty’s blond hair away from his face as he slept. In the quiet of the morning, everything I felt about Dusty almost overwhelmed me. I couldn’t believe we did it—that we made it back to each other, that we made it back to each other ready—better, even.
I walked out to the kitchen and turned the coffee maker on. I looked around the house that had quickly become a home over the past few months. Even though it wasn’t technically mine, it felt like it was. I couldn’t imagine letting it go. Maybe I could buy it from whoever Anne left it to—maybe if they knew that someone was building a life here, they would let them stay.
Because I really wanted to live here. The truth of it in my gut was clear, after so many years of being unable to hear my own instincts. And another thing was clear, too: I wanted to work at Rebel Blue. I wanted to have my own piece of it like the rest of the people in my life did. I didn’t want to stay in a job just because it offered security. Because the truth was, Rebel Blue had always offered me the most security, in all the ways that actually mattered. I wanted to give back to the place that had given so much to me. It had given me a family.
Once I had a cup of coffee, I pulled out my phone and checked the time. It was just after seven, which meant Gus would definitely be awake.
“Hello?” He picked up on the first ring.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll take the job.”
“Are you sure?” Gus asked.
“I’m sure,” I said. “I’ll call my firm tomorrow and put in my notice, and once I finish out my caseload, I’m all yours.”
“Fuck yeah,” Gus said. “Thank you, Cam.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I really needed this.”
“I’ll tell my dad, and we’ll make things official as soon as we can. Do you want to come to the Big House for breakfast and celebrate?”
“I’ve got some things to do here, but I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Okay, bye.”
After Gus hung up the phone, I couldn’t stop grinning. When did my life get so…good?
I didn’t know how much time had passed when I heard my bedroom door open and Dusty’s bare feet against the hardwood floors as he made his way out to the kitchen. He was just in his briefs, his hair was a disaster, and he was rubbing the sleep out of one of his eyes.
Beautiful.
Every time I saw more of him, I tried to catalog his tattoos and make note of my favorites—the dagger in the middle of his chest, the bee on his thigh, and the scorpion on his ribs. And, of course, the “A.”
“Morning,” he said when he saw me. A grin stretched across his face. “It broke my heart when you weren’t there when I woke up, you know.”
He walked behind me and draped his arms over my shoulders and pulled my back to his chest. “You were out cold, and I didn’t want to wake you, and I had to call Gus.”
I felt Dusty stiffen just slightly. “Is Riley okay?”
I nodded. “She’s fine. Probably still asleep—she hates mornings—I had to call him about a job.” I smiled.
Dusty kissed the side of my neck. “What kind of job?”
“A job at Rebel Blue. For me,” I said.
Dusty lifted his head and looked at me, confused. I took a deep breath and started to explain. “Last night, Gus asked me to be Rebel Blue’s lawyer—full-time—not just looking over stuff when they need it, but actually working for them.
“Gus only talked about a couple of things, but I know there’s a million things I could do there. All the little things that slip through the cracks, like the liability waivers for guests at Baby Blue. The sanctuary is going to need someone’s full attention when it comes to the back-end stuff, and I think I’d be really good at it.”
“You would be,” Dusty said.
“And you’d be okay with that? We’d probably work together a lot.”
Dusty’s lips stretched into a smile. “I can’t imagine anything better, angel,” he said with another kiss to my neck. “So did you accept?”
I turned around on my stool so I could wrap my arms around Dusty’s waist. I liked him here in the morning—liked seeing what he looked like when he woke up. “I did,” I said and laid my head on his chest—right over the top of the dagger. “And I’m going to talk to Anne about the house—see if there’s any way I can buy it from her buyer or stay longer. This place just…means so much. It’s finally something that feels like…my own. And I want to find a way to hold on to it.”
“Oh.” Dusty sounded surprised.
“Yeah, oh.” I looked up at him, and he looked like he was about to say something, but then he yawned. “Need some coffee?” I asked.
He let out a puff of air. “Yeah, I had this woman wringing me dry all night.”
I kissed his chest. “Sounds like you need to work on your stamina—build up that endurance.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Especially because she’d really like to do it again tonight, or you know…now.” I licked up his chest and heard him inhale sharply.
“Now is good,” he said. “Now is really good.”
—
A little over an hour later, Dusty and I were at the grocery store. Neither of us really wanted to leave the other. I had things to do, so Dusty just decided to tag along.
“You buy name-brand cereal?” he asked as I pulled a box of Frosted Mini-Wheats off the shelf. “Fancy as hell.”
“I think they taste different,” I said with a shrug.
“That’s because you’ve got that sophisticated palate, Ash.” We went through every aisle in the grocery store, even though I didn’t need to—I had a list—but I liked doing it. I liked every moment of us rediscovering each other—hearing all about his favorite snacks and preferred foods or whether or not he got the ick from eggs every once in a while.
When I grabbed a plastic container of pickles from the refrigerated section, Dusty did a dramatic gag. “Still not a fan?”
“No, pickles are rank, Ash.”
“More for me.” I shrugged and put them in the cart.
“Cam?” A woman’s voice came from in front of us—her hair was darker than it used to be and cut short. She was wearing black jeans, black boots, and a white knit sweater.
“Chloe?” I said. My old high school teammate and Anne’s granddaughter. That was ironic. “Oh my god, hi.”
She walked toward me and pulled me into a hug, which was unexpected. I was awkward about it, but I hoped she didn’t notice. “How are you?” I asked when she pulled back.
“Good,” she said. “Hi, Dusty,” she said, shifting her gaze to the man next to me, who seemed kind of…nervous.
“Hey, Chloe,” he said. “Good to see you.”
“What are you in town for?” I asked.
“Just a pit stop on my way to New York to see my mom. How are you liking the house?” Chloe asked me, but it looked like she was talking to both of us.
“It’s perfect, really. It’s such a great house, as you well know.”
Chloe smiled warmly. “I love seeing you two together still,” she said. “I always knew you’d make it. How long have you been married? Like five years now?”
My eyes widened. “Sorry?” I choked out.
“Oh.” Chloe motioned between the two of us. “Sorry, I just assumed that you guys were married when Dusty bought the house.”
“Bought the…house?”
I looked over at Dusty, who was looking at his boots.
“Oh, sorry, one sec.” Chloe pulled out her phone. “It’s my mom. I’ve gotta go. I’ll be in town until Monday—maybe we can get coffee or something!”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling slightly dazed. My voice felt far away. “Sure.” Chloe gave both Dusty and me another quick hug and walked away, unknowingly leaving chaos in her wake.
I turned to Dusty slowly. “You…own my house?” There was hurt in my voice.
“Ash…” Dusty was looking at me like I’d just kicked him in the stomach. “I was going to tell you.”
“When?” I asked. “When you made me fall in love with you again? What if I didn’t? Were you going to kick me out?”
“Can I explain, please?” Dusty said. “Let’s get your groceries, and we can talk about it at home.”
“Whose home?” I asked. “Because apparently you own mine.”
“It’s not like that. It’s never been like that.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know that, would I?” I spat. “Because you never told me.”
“Please,” he begged. “I don’t want to do this here.”
“Fine,” I said and then pushed my cart to the front of the store to check out. I walked ahead of him and didn’t look at him—not while we were checking out, not while we walked to the car or when he opened my door for me, and not for the entire drive back to my—sorry, his—house.
The silence was tense and heavy, until finally he spoke. “I bought the house five years ago.” He sighed.
I folded my arms across my chest. “I got that part.”
“Anne’s kids wanted her to put it on the market because she couldn’t take care of it. They had a buyer lined up who wanted to try and get the permits to tear the house down and develop on it—condos or some shit—and when my mom told me, I knew I didn’t want that to happen.”
“Why?”
“Because it was your dream house,” he said. “Because every time I came home and I passed the turn that took me up the drive or when I parked here for a hike, I thought about you, and I didn’t want to lose that. But also because I’ve watched places like this disappear around the world, and I didn’t want that to happen to this house.
“So I called Anne, and told her I would buy it—that I would pay for someone to come and do the maintenance that she couldn’t do anymore and that she could live here as long as she wanted.”
“And she said yes?” I asked.
“And she said yes. She didn’t really want to sell, but her kids and grandkids had moved all over the country, and they couldn’t help her, so selling was the compromise. Me buying the house worked for her, and it worked for me. When I decided to come home, I knew I’d have the cabin to go to, and I would get a chance to do a lot of the maintenance myself.”
“Why did you rent it to me when Anne moved into the assisted living facility, instead of moving into it yourself?”
“I couldn’t imagine living in it without you,” he said softly, rubbing his neck—rubbing the “A.” “I don’t know, Cam. I just wanted you to have it, I guess. I wanted you to have something that was your own.”
“But this isn’t mine.” I gestured around the house. “I just went from being trapped in one situation with a man to another.”
“That’s not…” Dusty’s nostrils flared. “That’s not fair, Cam. I wasn’t trying to trick you or trap you, I was trying to help without being weird and invasive. I didn’t know we were going to rekindle things. I mean, I hoped that we could maybe try, but that wasn’t the point of me renting you the house.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Of course I was.” He ran a hand through his loose blond hair. “I just didn’t know when or how. I was going to do it earlier, but then we started picking things up, and I just wanted us to be stable—whether that was as friends or more.”
“So when I asked you how you ended up in the cabin, you didn’t think that was a good time to bring it up?”
“No,” Dusty said. “I really didn’t.”
I felt overwhelmed. I felt mad and sad and frustrated, and I didn’t want him here. I didn’t want to be around him. I needed space.
“I need you to go,” I said calmly.
“Cam…” Dusty tried to reach for me.
“You should go. Just leave. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”
“Please don’t say that, Ash. I came back…for you.”
That’s when I delivered the landing blow. “Yes, you did. But you should have stayed gone.”