CHAPTER 21
Cameron
“Okay. One more point,” she said. “Can you hold me off?”
“No,” Lacey replied, and Cameron laughed at her directness.
“I’m going to hit it that way, so you’d want to block on the right,” she told her.
“Okay. Still no,” Lacey said and moved to the right.
Cameron laughed again and hit the puck hard, but not as hard as she normally would to start them off. Lacey didn’t move, but the puck hit exactly where Cameron had told her it would and bounced back, sliding straight toward Cameron.
“Now, to the left.”
“Cam, if you keep telling me where it’s going to go, this isn’t exactly teaching me.”
Cameron hit it back to her and replied, “I’m trying to help with your reflexes.”
“So, if I play this again later against someone else here, they’re going to tell me every move they’ll make in advance? Because if not, I’m not sure that’s going to help much.”
Cameron tapped the puck that Lacey had just hit back to her and said, “Okay. Want to go fast, then? I’ll really play.”
“Really play? I have scored one point. You’re about to win.”
Cameron grabbed the puck, and her eyes landed on the doors and the beach just beyond, where she could make out two shapes on the sand.
“What do you think they’re talking about out there?”
Lacey turned her head to look and said, “I don’t know. I thought River was just going to walk and listen to music.”
“Seems like Kennedy decided to join her.”
“I guess so. Does that bother you?”
“Weirdly, both yes and no.”
“What do you mean?” Lacey asked.
“It bothers me because she’s my girlfriend of five years, and she’s spending more time with someone else this weekend than with me, when this was supposed to be a double date and a chance for us to have some time together away from everything, but I’m doing the same thing with you, so there’s that.
It also doesn’t bother me because I want…
God, I want Ken to be happy. I’ve seen her laugh and smile a lot since we got here, and I know that’s not because of me. ”
“It’s because of my girlfriend,” Lacey said.
“Does it bother you?” she asked, not knowing what she wanted the answer to be.
“Yes.”
“Right,” Cameron said before she picked up the puck and moved it to the side of the table.
“And no.”
“Oh.”
“It’s confusing,” Lacey said. “I guess I feel the same way you do, but I have no right to complain because we’ve been spending time together just like they have.”
“Yeah…” Cameron said. “Okay. Let’s just finish this game so that you can make me better at pool.”
“I never promised to make you better.”
“You said you’d teach me.”
“I can teach you, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get better. I mean, look at me – you’ve been teaching me this, and I’m still terrible.”
Cameron shook her head and replied, “I think that says more about my teaching ability than it does about your learning ability. I’ve been going about it all wrong. Let’s try this: no points.”
She slid the points she’d gathered back over to zero and watched Lacey take her index finger to push the one point she had earned back over to zero with a flourish, making Cameron laugh.
“Done.”
God, Cameron liked her. Lacey was just… Well, she was just what she needed, and she couldn’t need Lacey right now.
“So, this is just like pool with the angles, right?”
“Yes,” Lacey replied.
“And you’re good at pool.”
“I’m not a pro or anything.”
“But you’re good with the angles.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“So, it’s just the speed of air hockey, then. Let’s play without the speed for a minute; see how you do.”
Cameron reached down and turned off the air on the table.
“You realize that puck is going to hardly move, right?”
“It’ll move enough,” she replied and hit the puck, but without the air, it only made it to the center of the table.
Lacey practically cackled.
“Okay. Okay. I’ll just hit it harder.”
“Can we just call it on my pro air hockey career? I don’t have a table at home in my tiny living room. It’s not like I’m going to play again anytime soon.”
“Do you want one?” Cameron asked.
“An air hockey table?”
“Yeah. I can get you one.”
“I’m sorry; what?” Lacey asked.
“I can get you one.”
“To put where, exactly? Did you miss the part about me having a tiny living room? It only has a sofa, a TV, and a coffee table. There’s a bookshelf in the corner, too, I guess, but that’s about it, and I’m not putting an air hockey table in my bedroom, which is also tiny.”
“Right,” Cameron replied. “Sorry. I got a little ahead of myself there.” She set everything down and looked around the room. “Something to drink?”
“You really would have bought me an air hockey table, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
“Well, not all of us can afford to just impulsively buy an air hockey table.”
“Are we about to argue about money?” Cameron asked, squinting at her.
“No.”
“Because I don’t spend wildly or anything. Believe it or not, I actually have an IRA and other investment accounts, and I have a house.”
“Well, I’d hope you have a house.”
“No, I meant I own another house. I rent it out. It’s an investment that I own through my company, which I set up so that no one would know I own it.”
“We’re not fighting about money, Cam,” Lacey replied. “You can do whatever you want with yours, including buying your very own air hockey table.”
“Where would I put it?”
“Assuming my entire apartment fits inside your likely giant living room, I’d say somewhere inside your house.”
“An air hockey table doesn’t exactly go with the aesthetic of the living room in my house.”
“I’m sure you have other rooms.”
“All of them are used for other things.”
“And you can’t redecorate any of them? Make it your space?”
“My space?”
“Call me crazy here, but I’m guessing Kennedy was in charge of decorating everything, having a lot of opinions about what should go where in your house.”
Cameron laughed and said, “You’d be right about that. I didn’t fight her on it. Sometimes, it’s easier to give in.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Lacey replied. “River’s apartment isn’t impeccably decorated or anything – it’s smaller than mine and above her shop – but it’s definitely her space.
I’ve left things there from time to time, but she always puts whatever it is in a certain spot off to the side of everything else, as if to say, ‘That’s where this goes,’ because it doesn’t go with her stuff.
She has more stuff at my place, and she can put it anywhere she wants, you know?
It doesn’t bother me if it gets mixed in with mine.
It can make you feel like you’re the other and not part of it with them in the spaces you’re supposed to share.
River’s apartment is technically hers, so I can’t say much, but you and Kennedy own your house together, I assume, and you’ve lived there together for years, so I imagine it’s worse for you. ”
“Wow,” Cameron said, moving to lean back against the wet bar behind her.
“Wow, what? Did I say something wrong?”
“No. I just never realized it before.”
“Which part?”
“How bad it was.”
“Bad?” Lacey asked.
“When we bought the place, she decorated it herself, even though we were going to do that together. I wasn’t happy about it, but it was done, and I didn’t mind it.
We were working so much anyway – I wasn’t home, really; except to sleep.
She does like things a certain way, and that’s not always my way, but that’s a relationship and compromise, right?
We have a ton of space, and I probably could’ve turned a room into something just for me.
It’s not like we ever have guests. Her parents live about twenty minutes away.
Mine aren’t that far now. I bought them a house in Palos Verdes, so they’re only staying the night if they don’t want to deal with driving home after dinner, and I think that’s happened maybe once.
We don’t need all those guest rooms. I could’ve used one for something I wanted. ”
“Yeah, you could have,” Lacey said before she walked over to the wet bar and leaned against it next to her. “Did you ask?”
“No. I mean, maybe I did once or twice over the years. Maybe I asked if we needed all those rooms for people who wouldn’t be staying with us, but I don’t think I ever just asked for one of them to be mine to decorate or use how I wanted.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “We’ve only actually lived together for about three years, and one of those years, the house was in progress.
I was busy with work, too, so I didn’t worry about it.
We had a good year after that, but then, the fighting really started, and the last thing on my mind was buying an air hockey table and putting it in a room.
” She turned her head to Lacey. “Have you asked River to let you mix your things in with hers?”
“No, not specifically. I did ask her to move in with me, and she said no. Maybe I should’ve warmed her up to that, asked if she could maybe not push my shirts off to one side of a drawer, when I only get half of it, so there’s no need to put a divider in there just to indicate that those are my shirts and hers are on the other side. It’s half my drawer.”
“You only have half a drawer?”
“She has a small dresser. It’s only three drawers. I had a sweater in her closet once, and I had some toiletries there, but, honestly, I don’t even know if I still do. I stopped buying toothpaste for her apartment.”
“You don’t just use hers?”
“She likes the kind that has way too much baking soda in it for me. I can’t stand the taste of it, so I have my own.”
“Does she have her own at your place?”
“Yeah, right next to mine,” Lacey replied.
“Do you think that maybe we’ve let them get away with some things?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“So, it’s not all their fault. It’s ours, too, right?”
“Yes,” Lacey agreed.
Cameron reached around Lacey then and grabbed one of the small bottles of water for herself, needing something to drink but not wanting to get drunk while alone with Lacey because when she got drunk, she got a little handsy and, well, horny sometimes, and she wasn’t about to be unfaithful to her girlfriend.
Something told her that if she and Lacey were both single, this would’ve been a date right now, meaning it was possible that Lacey would’ve kissed her back if Cameron had gone for it.
Instead, she opened the water and drank half of it before she capped it and moved to sit down on the sofa.
Lacey grabbed her own bottle and joined her.
“So, what do we do now?” Lacey asked her. “You don’t seem like you’re in a pool kind of mood.”
“I don’t think I am, no. Can we talk about something else, though? Not Kennedy or River or our relationships.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
Cameron turned to her, crossing her legs, and set the bottle down on the floor before she settled in.
“Tell me what you want for your life.”
“Um… Haven’t I already done that?”
“More specifically.”
“Own my own massage place and maybe offer other services people expect, like facials and stuff like that. That’s the goal, anyway.
I’ve got a ways to go before I get there, though.
I’d like to get married, but no kids. I’d also like not to live in an apartment forever, so maybe a house that I own, too, but I’m not sure how I can ever afford to do both, have my own massage place and have my own house. ”
“What if your partner helped out?” she asked. “Like, with the house, I mean. And maybe with the massage place, too. River got a loan from the bank and her friend, right? That’s what you told me before.”
“She did, yeah. Without Calista, it would’ve taken her a little longer because the bank wouldn’t give her the loan she needed on her own.”
“So, you could maybe get a loan from someone, or you could share the house payment with your future wife, right?”
“Yes, Cam. That’s the idea. On the house part, anyway.
I don’t know about the massage place. We’ll see,” Lacey told her.
“I’m still building my client base right now, and I want to make sure that that’s as solid as it can be before I take that step so that I would have clients already.
It’s tricky because I go to their homes or offices, which is really convenient for them, but not for me.
If I ask them to come to my shop, they might find someone else who can travel to them. ”
“What else do you want?” Cameron asked.
“From life?”
Cameron nodded, and Lacey sighed.
“I guess I’d like a dog, but I don’t have the time or the space, really, for one right now. And if I’m talking real pie in the sky here, I’d like to travel a little bit. Not everywhere, but there are a few places I’d love to see. Bucket list stuff.”
“Like where?” Cameron asked and yawned before she leaned her head against the back of the sofa.
“Probably all the places you’ve been to already.”
“I travel for work. Yes, I’ve taken a few trips personally, too, but mostly, it’s for work, so I don’t even see where I’m traveling to or from. Where do you want to go, Lacey?”
“Well, I’d like to go to Italy. Rome would be great for the history and maybe…”
“You’re trying not to say Florence because I told you about Kennedy’s plan for us to go there, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to see the David and maybe go to a vineyard or something, but I have other places I want to go. I’d like to go to Paris, Madrid, Vienna, Zurich, maybe Prague, and–”
“So, just a few?” Cameron teased, smiling softly at her.
“You look tired.”
“Gee, thanks,” she replied sarcastically.
Lacey looked over Cameron’s shoulder then and said, “I think they went inside.”
“Maybe they’re baking something else in the kitchen.”
“You don’t bake fudge,” Lacey said.
“You know what I mean.”
“I do, yes.”
“I should get some sleep,” Cameron stated. “We both should, probably. It’s late, and I don’t know about you, but I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Is it wrong that I really don’t want to go to bed?” Lacey asked.
Cameron didn’t know how to answer that because she knew exactly what Lacey meant, and she really didn’t want to go to bed, either.