Chapter 14
Cameron
Ihate Christmas parties. I hate any parties if I am being honest. Sure the open bar is great and the food is alright.
But all the suits and ties, the forced smile conversations, those are the things that make me want to duck and cover.
But being the now co-owner of Reinhart, I can’t exactly do that.
Tonight I have a date. Not only that but important people know I have a date.
My co-workers haven’t shut up about it. Trevyn is flat out obnoxious about it.
Not to mention Josh has had an eye on me since I walked through the door tonight.
An eye and a smirk. He thinks I’m up to something. If I’m being honest, I kind of am.
“Heads she shows, tails she’s not real–” Trevyn’s voice breaks into my thoughts as he tosses a quarter into the air and catches it. Then he flips it onto the back of his hand, holding his other hand over it while smiling at me.
“Don’t be an ass,” I grumble, though my eyes keep darting down to his hand, curious about the reveal.
“Listen, you know people are talking about you right?” he leans in. I love Trevyn. I do. He’s been my best friend for twenty years. But he can be annoying sometimes. Like when he worms his way into my personal life.
My eyes sweep around the room and I spot several people eyeing me before looking away. “Yeah, I got that loud and clear. Now what’s the damn coin say?”
“It says you’re up to something. And as your wing man, I need to know what that something is. Is she real?”
“Yes she’s real!”
“Is she… someone I know?”
“I’m not playing twenty questions with you.”
“Did you hire her?”
“What?” I bark out then lower my voice. “No, I did not hire her.” Not in so many words…
He studies me for a moment. “Hmm. Well, we’ll see…”
Trevyn slowly peels his hand off the other and it’s…tails.
“This is stupid. My date is coming.”
“You sure about that? Because the coin toss does not lie,” he jokes. Then he stops, his smile faltering a little and his mouth hanging open. His eyes are locked on the door. “Holy shit.”
My eyes follow his and my heart falls through a trap door in my chest.
She made it.
Riley is walking through the door in a greenish blueish dress. It dips low in the front and ties in the back and is frilly around the bottom. Like if the white Marilyn Monroe dress was the color of a peacock’s feathers.
“Is that–” Trevyn trails off.
“Yes. That’s her.”
I walk away from him and close the space between Riley and I. As soon as she sees me, she exhales a little. But I can’t tell if it’s a sigh of relief or if she is upset.
“This is the wildest thing I’ve ever done,” she says with a smile that I am sure is for show. People smile when they’re uncomfortable.
“What are you talking about? You’ve been to plenty of holiday events.”
Riley gives me a look and for some reason the all too familiar saltiness of it makes me feel better.
“Yeah but most of the time I’m not being chauffeured around the city like a celebrity before the red carpet event.”
“Did you not enjoy the massage?”
“Enjoy it? Jesus Cameron, I haven’t had a professional massage in five years! It was heavenly!”
My eyes narrow in confusion because the words she’s saying and the tone in which she is saying them are two different things. Then she looks up at me, her beautiful eyes wide and her cheeks rosy.
“Is my dress okay?”
“I fucking love it,” the words fall from my mouth before I can properly filter them but oh well. It’s true.
“I didn’t get it at one of those fancy stores. That’s not really how I like to shop.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with that. You look gorgeous.”
“She truly does,” Trevyn’s voice cuts in. “Which is why you should stop hogging her to yourself and introduce her to people at the party. Like, oh say, your best friend.”
“This is Riley,” I say with a satisfying smile. “And Riley, this is Trevyn. My best friend, allegedly.”
“Yeah fuck you too man,” he says while smiling at Riley and squeezing her hand in a soft shake. “I feel like I’ve seen you before, though.”
“We are at the hospital a lot,” Riley says. “My son and I.”
Trevyn wracks his brain for a moment before snapping his fingers and pointing at her. “That’s right! Halloween. You were a…nurse?... if my memory doesn’t lie.”
Riley’s cheeks turn three shades of red and I bite my lips.
“God, I wish your memory did lie. It was a last minute thrift shop find. I don’t usually wear things like that,” she says while brushing a lock of her curled hair behind her ear as she bites her lip.
It’s something I noticed she does when she feels a little nervous but is used to putting on a face.
It’s also something I noticed that makes me wonder what her lips taste like.
I immediately shake the thought from my head.
“Well, you look lovely. Cameron, doesn't she look lovely?” Trevyn asks, furthering her blush and making me need more alcohol.
“She does,” I say softly, looking down at her. “Now go find someone else to harass. I think my date would like a drink.”
“God, yes,” Riley says and I grin. As I lead her over to the bar, we are stopped by no less than six people who all want to know who Dr. Reinhart’s plus one is.
If I had it my way, we’d just blow through all of them but I know we can’t.
The whole point of this charade is that people believe it’s not a charade, namely my brother and the family lawyer who happens to be at the party as well.
So we take our time, exchanging niceties with everyone who approaches us. Our story, even though we didn’t actually map it out, is easy to tell. We met in pediatrics. Her son has CF and while he was connected to machines for ritual procedures, we had a connection ourselves.
By the time we make it to the bar it feels like we just swam from a desert island to a rescue ship, but in this case the first aid is spiked punch.
“Damn, I needed this,” she says as she takes a sip and then another. After a third, she fills the small glass again.
“That’s mostly juice if you need to amp it up a bit, I keep a flask of something stronger on me.”
“All the time?” she asks.
“No, just at holiday parties,” I admit with a smile, taking a sip of my drink too. She’s staring at me, as though she’s trying to figure something out. But before she can say anything, the band starts playing and I turn to her.
“Would you like to dance?” I ask.
“Oh, I don’t dance,” Riley shakes her head.
“Says every woman who actually wants to dance,” I say in return and before she can argue, I am whisking her to the floor, our drinks in hand. The music is on the upbeat side and I pull her into step. Her face flushes in shock as I lead.
“You look surprised,” I point out the obvious.
“I didn’t know you could dance,” she says.
“You said you couldn’t. That was obviously a lie,” I say, giving her a spin.
“I can dance. If by dance you mean parading around in the kitchen with Noah to preschool music.”
“Also a lie,” I smile, tugging her back in. “This is not preschool music and your hips clearly know that.”
The song finishes out and the music slows down. Riley looks around awkwardly but I pass our drinks off to Trevyn who just happens to be nearby and pull her even closer, her body against mine. It’s almost funny the way we fit together.
“It would look bad if we leave the floor now,” I say, my voice low.
“I suppose we have to keep up the persona, don’t we?” she asks. Her perfume smells like amber and patchouli and vanilla. It’s intoxicating.
“Ideally, yeah. But it’s not so bad is it?”
Riley looks around at the room and then down at her dress. Then back up at me. “You know it’s funny,” she says with a small smile. “My job has kind of ruined events like this for me.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “This is top tier. It costs a fortune every year. I hate it,” I laugh.
“I’m sure it did. And if I had been your hired planner, I could have done it for less with the same flare. Not to mention, better booze.”
“Maybe I should hire you next time,” I say.
“Well, you’ve already hired me once. Maybe I’ll give you a discount.”
I laugh at that. Part of me can't believe we are doing this. Can’t believe it’s real and yet not real.
A very small, very quiet part of me kind of wishes it were just real…
The song ends and Riley excuses herself to go to the bathroom. Trevyn pounces on me with a fresh drink in hand as soon as she walks off.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, Cam, but even if you did swipe right just to land a date, this girl is something else.”
“I didn’t find her on a dating app,” I say, taking the offered drink from his hand.
“Right. You found her at the hospital which is pretty impressive in itself. Using the ol’ I’m going to save your kid’s life but also, can I take you out to dinner? Spiel… brilliant. A little edgy, but brilliant.”
“I didn’t use a line! And it wasn’t like that.”
“Alright, alright,” Trevyn laughs, putting his hands up. “No need to get snappy. I’m just saying. She’s a ten out of ten. If things don’t work out, you wouldn’t mind passing my number on to her would you?”
With that, I shoot him a look to kill. “Yes I would mind because things are going to work out with us. In fact, in a few minutes, I am going to show you and everyone else in the room just how serious it is.”
I make my way over to a corner of the room decorated with prelit trees and garland and shiny Christmas gifts that are most likely just wrapped empty boxes. I need to get away from the crowd. From the eyes. From all of it.
I shove my hand in my pocket, a pocket that is not empty, and take a sip of my drink to ease my nerves. When Riley comes out her eyes sweep the room before she spots me. I take a deep breath as she heads over.
“You’re hiding,” she jokes.
“Yeah well, like I said, I hate these parties.”
She smiles up at me and suddenly the room erupts. A moment later, I realize everyone is looking at us, cheering and clapping and chanting my name.
“What the–”
“I think they want us to kiss,” Riley says.
I’m lost. “Why would they–”
But she cuts me off again, this time by just pointing above us.
Mistletoe. Of course.
My mind flashes back to the last time I was standing under mistletoe. It was a much wilder night than this…
“Kiss, kiss, kiss…” the room chants and I look down at her. I hate that all of this is arranged. Like we are following some kind of script and not just following what we are feeling. But I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t feeling the desire to kiss her.
So I do.
I clip Riley’s chin in my finger and bring her mouth up to mine and I kiss her. Soft, sweet, and dynamic. It melts me and nearly knocks me on my ass all at the same time.
When our lips part, the room cheers and Riley smiles sheepishly, a look I haven’t seen on her before. Then I turn so my lips are close to her ear.
“Play along,” I whisper.
“Oh god, what are you going to do?” she whispers back.
But her smile fades and she covers her mouth with her hands as I take a step back and drop to one knee in front of her.