CHAPTER 17
Cameron
“Can you two maybe not?” Cameron asked once their towels were on the sand. “Just give us some space, please.”
“We’re supposed to film, Miss Levine,” one of the camera guys said.
“I know. But can you do it from, like, way, way back there and no zoom? I’ll know if you zoom. I’ll watch all of this footage just to check on the zoom.”
“We can’t get audio that way. You’re not wearing mics. It’s already going to be hard to–”
“I know. That’s why I’m suggesting you go under the deck and station yourselves there. You can barely hear anything over the ocean anyway. Like you’re going to get studio quality audio out here. Come on, man. Please.”
“I… I don’t feel comfortable being on camera in my bathing suit,” Lacey said.
Cameron turned to her and watched Lacey move both hands to the end of her braid that was, just like in the picture Cameron had seen of her with River, draped over her shoulder.
“Sorry?” the camera guy said.
“In the paperwork I signed, it said something about telling you that if I was uncomfortable with something being on camera, I could… refuse?” Lacey asked more than said.
“Oh, right,” Cameron said with a nod. “She’s right. I reviewed the contract for this. If she or River is uncomfortable at any time, we need to respect that. This is their prize weekend.”
“We’ll just… wait inside, then.”
“Play games in the basement. Have a little fun while you are here,” she suggested.
The camera guy didn’t say anything else, but both he and his colleague marched unceremoniously back up the sand.
“Did you just make that up?” Cameron asked, surprised.
“Yeah. Am I in trouble?”
“Hell, no. That was awesome.” She laughed. “Want to go in?”
Cameron nodded toward the ocean, and Lacey looked down at her body first and then toward the water. Cameron watched as she bit her lip, and her arms moved to cover her stomach.
“Hey, Lace?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re beautiful,” Cameron said.
She knew she’d say that to any woman who was uncomfortable how Lacey was right now, but that didn’t stop the guilt from hitting her.
“Thank you,” Lacey replied.
“We can sit here. We don’t have to go in.”
“You wanted to swim.”
“I can swim whenever I want. We have a pool.”
“That’s not the ocean,” Lacey pointed out.
“No, but it’s heated, and I’m not great with cold water. I was just too stubborn to say anything in there.”
Lacey looked toward the ocean and pulled off her shirt, which Cameron hadn’t expected.
Her eyes went instantly to Lacey’s bikini-clad breasts, and she averted her gaze before Lacey noticed, but then, Lacey was kicking off her shorts, and Cameron’s eyes found their way to the place they should not be looking at, so she lowered them immediately to the sand.
“It’s just that you’re you,” Lacey said. “That’s all.”
“Sorry?”
She looked up and met Lacey’s eyes.
“You’re you. You’re Cameron Levine. I mean, look at you.” Lacey motioned to her. “Your abs are…”
“Oh.” Cameron looked down. “I have to work out for my job. I’m thinking when I retire from acting, I’ll never go to the gym again and eat whatever I want.”
“You don’t already eat whatever you want?”
“This weekend, I have been, but not normally, no. I relax when I’m not filming or getting ready to film, so I’ve been a little more chill recently.”
“I should probably pay more attention to what I eat.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t have abs like that.”
“Do you need them?”
“No, but they–” Lacey looked down at the sand. “They look good, and I eat a lot of crap. We order in a lot, and it’s mostly fast food.”
“Do you like it?” Cameron asked.
“Fast food?”
“Yes, Lacey. Do you like it?”
“Sometimes. I get sick of it.”
“Then, eat it when you want it. I think you look great,” she said, meaning it.
“Not that it should matter to you what I think. I just mean that you should do whatever you want and do it for you, right? So, if you want fast food every night, have it. Although, it’s not exactly healthy, so I probably shouldn’t be recommending you do that, huh? ”
“Do you want to go out into the water now so I don’t have to stand here in a bikini I only bought because I thought my girlfriend might be interested in seeing me wear it?
She’s inside with your girlfriend and couldn’t have cared less when I put it on this morning. I’m feeling a little exposed out here.”
Cameron picked up Lacey’s T-shirt and handed it back to her.
“Let’s just sit down.”
“No, you wanted to boogie board.”
“I’m good.” She picked up Lacey’s shorts and handed them to her. “Let’s sit. If you want to go in later, we can, but Kennedy is probably right: it’s too cold. I’ll freeze after a second and get out anyway. This will save me a mid-day shower.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Cameron said and sat down on her towel.
Then, she watched Lacey put her shirt and shorts back on, silently wondering how River couldn’t even care that her girlfriend looked really, really good in a bikini.
“Are you okay?” Lacey asked when she sat down next to her and brought her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
“I’m good. Why?”
“I don’t know. I’ve known you less than twenty-four hours, but you… You don’t seem…”
“Happy?” Cameron finished for her and brought her legs up to match Lacey’s posture. “I am. Well, I was.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can trust you, Lacey. That’s not a question. It’s a statement. I can already tell that I can.”
“Okay…”
“But you’re here on a double date with me and my girlfriend. I shouldn’t be dropping anything on you. I know it’s already been awkward.”
“I don’t really care about that. I want to make sure you are okay, Cam.”
Cameron looked over at Lacey and said, “We’ve been having problems for a while.
The fight we had in public was a mistake, and it’s hurting our careers, which makes us even more unhappy because we both love what we do.
It’s been like this double whammy recently, but it wasn’t good before that, if I’m being honest. It’s like we’ve been slowly growing apart for at least a year, and there’s nothing we can do to get it back; what we had before.
God, I was so in love with her, Lacey.” She shook her head.
“I couldn’t imagine being without her. I thought we’d move in together, get engaged, and be married by now.
I’m just glad we don’t want kids, or we could’ve had them already, too, and–” She looked out at the water.
“I wouldn’t want to bring kids into this. ”
“It’s that bad?”
“I love Kennedy. She’s my best friend in a way I have never had a best friend before, but I don’t know that I’m in love with her anymore.
She’s amazing, and it’s nothing she is or that she’s doing necessarily.
It just feels like we’re both in different places, when we’re not, you know?
We’re in the same place we’ve always been.
We’re in the same house, same career. We even have the same team pretty much.
It should still be working, but it’s not. ”
“It’s probably not my business, but have you talked to someone about it?”
“Therapy?” Cameron took a deep breath. “We’ve thought about it, yeah, but we’re worried about it getting out. Not the going to therapy part specifically, although we don’t really want anyone knowing that, either, because it’s our business. You know Jon Martinez?”
“The action star guy?”
Cameron chuckled at how Lacey described one of the biggest stars on the planet.
“He and his wife went to couple’s therapy years ago now.
I want to say at least four or five. Their therapist didn’t share anything, but their receptionist shared that Jon and his wife were attending therapy and made money from some tabloid because she could hear them arguing with each other through the therapist’s door.
They sued her and won, but the information was out there.
” Cameron hooked her thumb toward the house.
“Kennedy is friends with Jon. He was on her show for a couple of seasons, and they’ve stayed in touch over the years.
He and his wife were devastated, and you can say that Ken worries that it could happen to us.
No matter what you do to protect yourself in this business, people will still find a way to get into your personal life.
I feel like we have CIA-level encryption on our phones just to be safe.
It takes me twenty minutes to unlock the damn thing, but if it could give me time to erase everything on it before some hacker gets into it, I’m more protected. ”
“Wow. I’m sorry, Cam. I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“Doing this job can be exhausting at times, and it means you have to give some stuff up, but it’s worth it to me.
I’m really not complaining. I love acting.
I’ve only ever wanted to be in the movies.
Well, theater was my first love, which was why I went to school for acting, but I knew I wanted to be in movies, too, and once I was here, I knew it was all I wanted to do.
I love it. I do wish Kennedy and I didn’t have to worry as much about things getting out because it means we’re resistant to talking to someone, but I don’t know that it would have helped much. ”
“No?”
“You’ve seen my girlfriend.”
“Yes.” Lacey chuckled.
“She’s gorgeous.”
“Yes, she is.”
“I don’t… We don’t touch each other much these days. I don’t know that I want to, either. That’s really bad, right? I should want to touch my gorgeous girlfriend; the woman I love.”
“Think it’s the dreaded lesbian bed death thing? I hate even bringing it up, but maybe it’s a rut or something and you can pull out of it. It happens to all couples, right? Even the gorgeous ones.”
Cameron smiled over at her and said, “It’s been a really long rut, then, Lace, and I’m ready to get out of it.
I think Kennedy is, too, but it’s like we can’t find our way back to one another; to whom we used to be.
She suggested we just take time off and go on a trip, Italy and Florence specifically, and all I could do was picture us arriving at the airport, sitting in the lounge not talking to each other because I have my headphones on and she’s checking her notifications.
Then, we’re on the plane not talking to one another.
We get to Florence, one of the most beautiful places in the world, and we have this really nice rental or something, where we can just be by ourselves and get away from everything and everyone, but it makes things worse because the world isn’t the problem.
I mean, the world’s not great; don’t get me wrong.
But it’s us. We’re the problem, so we just bring it with us, and we end up fighting, bored, and miserable until we come back home. ”
“But what if you two need a break from the stress of being here and dealing with this whole fight thing? Maybe it could help, and instead of being miserable, you could grow back together. Anything could happen, right?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Cameron said. “Now, I’m going to go run into that water and make a total ass out of myself on this boogie board before I come right back out, because I need to do something other than talk about my relationship with my girlfriend. Are you coming with me or not?”
“I thought you didn’t want to take a midday shower.”
“I’ll air-dry and shower later.” Cameron stood quickly, grabbed both of the boogie boards, and held out one. “Come on, Lace. Let’s make asses out of ourselves.”
Lacey laughed, but then she stood up, stripped off her shirt and shorts again, and took the offered boogie board.
“Now, these were made for children, so we’re going to immediately fall off of them. Make sure to keep hold of those bikini strings or your top might fall off, too,” Cameron told her and took off running.
“What? Cam!” Lacey yelled after her.
But Cameron didn’t stop running. Her feet hit water, and she kept going, trying to wade as it got deeper, until she could climb onto the board.
Then, she started paddling and turned back to see Lacey about ten feet behind her, doing the same thing.
Lacey had her eyes in slits, either because of the sun or the salt water, but she looked focused at the same time when Cameron stopped paddling to wait for her.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“To lose my top? No. Not really.”
Cameron laughed and paddled until she turned herself around.
Lacey did the same. They waited for the small wave and let it carry them back toward the shore.
Cameron yelled. Lacey screamed. Then, Lacey fell into the water, and Cameron jumped off her board, letting it head in the rest of the way, carried by the waves.
She spotted Lacey’s head sticking up and swam toward her.
Lacey was laughing, and Cameron watched her wipe her face free of water and smile at her.
She was beautiful, and Cameron knew she needed to stop spending time alone with her because she never wanted to be the person that Kennedy thought she was at that party.
“You didn’t fall,” Lacey said when Cameron got to her.
“Nope. I would’ve made it, but I stopped to check on you, because you did.”
“It scratched my stomach or something, and I fell off.”
“Come on. Let’s go in and check.”
“I’m okay,” Lacey replied. “Want to go again?”
“Are you planning on staying on the thing this time?”
“Nope,” Lacey said and swam toward shore.
Cameron followed her, and when they got there, she saw that Lacey had a little scratch on her stomach.
“Hey, hold on a second,” she said and turned her to face her before they were out of the water. “You did get scratched.”
“It’s fine. I’ve been scratched worse by a cat.”
“How big was that cat? You’re bleeding a little.” Cameron’s fingertips grazed Lacey’s stomach next to the scratch. “And what the hell did they put in that boogie board? Razor blades?”
Lacey laughed and said, “Cam, I really am okay. I want to go again. I’ll flip it over this time and be fine.”
“Let me check it first.”
“I will agree to that.”
Cameron smiled and without thinking, she took Lacey’s hand and walked them both out of the water before she let go of it and found Lacey’s boogie board. She ran her hand over it and found the issue.
“A piece of fiberglass just tore off here a little. This is fiberglass, right? What is this thing made of?” She pulled off the offending piece. “They let kids play with these things?”
“Cam?”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s go,” Lacey insisted.
Cameron handed her the board and said, “Fine. But if you get scratched again, we’re going inside.”
“Deal,” Lacey replied and took off toward the water.
Cameron just watched her run for a second and thought about how free she looked in that moment.