15. Fifteen
Fifteen
“Camp,” I say on an exhale. Instantly breathless at the sight of him, in his polo, athletic pants, and Ledger Lake Trout ballcap. Here. With Reed. With me and Reed. Realizing how bad this looks.
I fumble to slide out of my side of the booth, bumping the edge of the table, making my wineglass fall, last drops spilling across the table.
Much to my dismay, Reed follows suit, albeit smoother than me, sliding out of the booth until he’s next to Camp. Then there’s the staring, them at each other. A testosterone-fueled sizing up like two animals in the wild.
“Maybe if your wife was getting what she needed at home, she wouldn’t be sitting here having wine with me.” Reed delivers the words like a bat to a ball on a perfect pitch.
Camp growls, literally the first time I’ve ever heard him make a sound like some kind of beast, and steps toward him. Reed stands barely an inch taller than Camp, and with their proximity, the rim of his hat swipes across Reed’s forehead.
“Okay, maybe let’s not do this,” I whisper, wrapping my fingers around Camp’s bicep which he shakes off without looking at me. A family from the table nearby gives us their full attention. Forks down, eyes glued.
“Camp,” I plead.
His fists clench and unclench by his side. “My wife gets exactly what she needs at home.”
“Really?” Reed laughs, too loud to go unnoticed. More people looking. “Because the way she tells it . . .” He shakes his head, letting out a low whistle.
Another growl out of Camp.
“Are they gonna fight?” a kid asks from the table next to us.
“Couldn’t get her twenty-two years ago, so this is what you do? Try to win her over with a bottle of wine?” Camp scoffs.
The owner, Matthew Dalton—who we also went to high school with—notices the commotion across the restaurant and starts lumbering toward us.
Reed. Smirks.
Dear God, please let lightning strike this building.
“I don’t think I need the wine, Camp.”
Another. Growl.
This can’t be happening.
When Reed starts to roll up his sleeves, I wedge between them.
They don’t react to me—their eyes locked on one another like I’m not even there.
“Guys. Stop this,” I hiss, the restaurant eerily silent. “Everyone is watching.”
Camp’s chest, rising and falling in rapid fire, pushes against my back. “I don’t give a fu—”
“We’re done here,” I snap, pushing one hand into Reed’s chest and the other into Camp’s. “We’re leaving.”
I fumble in my purse; Matthew is almost to our table, waving across the room to a male server.
Shit.
Camp’s shout of, “Let’s go for round two outside, asshole!” is met with my strained whisper of, “Camp, stop!”
I drop a wad of cash on the table.
Reed laughs. “So I can break your nose twice?”
“Enough!” I snap.
With an apologetic wave toward Matthew, the staff, and tight smile to anyone that looks at us, I bulldoze a shouting Camp. Around the tables. Out the door.
Down the street.
And into the bar next door where I shove him on a stool and order us two drinks: him a beer, me, tequila.
“Are you insane?” I demand. “That was the entire town witnessing your little temper tantrum!”
The bartender sets my tequila in front of me, lime wedge on the rim that I toss to the side before shooting it back and gagging loudly.
“Me?” he asks with an incredulous shout. “My wife goes on a date—with Reed Simmons—in public—and I’m insane?!”
The bartender looks up from where he’s standing at a cooler, studying us a beat before pulling out a bottle of beer.
“Jesus, Camp. It wasn’t a date,” I hiss. “It was a work-dinner thing. And he ordered wine before I got there. And you—you came in like some sort of Tasmanian devil ready to tear the place down!”
He scoffs, opens his mouth to say something, then scoffs again before taking a too-big pull of his beer.
“Are you fucking him?”
I nearly fall over.
“Are you kidding me right now?” Now I’m shouting. The bartender snaps his head toward us, again, glares, then goes back to wiping the bar. “I can’t even believe I’m dignifying this with an answer but no, Camp, I’m not—” I lower my voice to a whisper and say, “ fucking him .”
Without breaking the lock of our eyes on one another, I spin the empty glass on the bar.
“Just so I’m clear,” he says, popping his jaw back and forth. “We can’t tell our kids that you want a divorce. I can’t put my mouth on you if I want—can’t even sleep in the damn bed with you—but you can go out on a date, with Reed Simmons, in the busiest restaurant in town, and make me look like a fool.”
Shit.
“Camp, I didn’t think of it like that, I swear. I went to that gallery today—with all the photos I’ve been shooting—and the owner basically told me they were bad. Then she suggested I get together with him—to brainstorm or something—and, I don’t know, it was innocent, and nothing happened.” I pause, Reed’s face when he asked if I thought about that graduation night from twenty-two years ago flittering through my mind. “I didn’t do this to hurt you, and I’m sorry if it did. We might be over, but I’d never do that. Never.”
His eyes bounce between mine, as if he’s rereading a transcript of what I’ve just said to check for accuracy and trying to decide if he believes me.
When he says, “I hate that fuckin’ guy,” I know he does, and despite the tension, I let out a small laugh.
“I know you do, honey .”
Bringing his bottle up to his lips, he chuckles.
I prop my chin on my hand, facing him with a small smile on my lips, belly warm from adrenaline and tequila. “You were coming on pretty strong with all the wife-calling.”
“You’re still my wife.”
I snort under my breath. “You sound jealous.”
“I am.”
My spine straightens as my arm drops to the bar and my hand smacks the top. “You aren’t jealous , Camp. You haven’t paid attention to me for years. You just don’t want me with him.”
He shakes his head.
“I don’t want you with him.” He takes a sip of beer, then adds, “Or anyone else.”
I roll my eyes. “You know just as well as me that we haven’t been good for a while. We’ve been fine. Existing. Is that really what you want? A life of stasis? And, you know, there’s no romance—no passion. You never even touch me!”
He looks at me, heat consuming the brown of his eyes. In one swift move, Camp sets his beer on the bar, brings a palm to my knee, and slides it up my denim-covered thigh.
High.
Where he stops.
Squeezes.
Stays.
Face an inch from mine, his breath is warm against my lips. I don’t breathe; I can’t.
When he tightens his grip, blood rushes and muscles clench.
My pulse pounds in my ears and between my legs.
If he moved his hand . . .
Just.
A.
Little.
Higher . . .
“What I do and what I want to do are two very different things, wife.”
His fingers move, enough to brush me. There . A skimming against the seam of my jeans. Lingering.
I open my mouth; his eyes drop to my lips.
My husband is looking at me like he wants to feast, and the way my whole body feels like it’s been lit on fire makes me think I would very much enjoy that.
His lips pull to a smirk as he drags his palm back down my thigh and wraps his fingers around his bottle of beer.
Sonofabitch.
He’s playing me. Pretending. Just like he was when we made pizza.
Beer to his lips, his body squares to the bar. Like I’m not sitting next to him stunned and covered in chills. Like my lower body isn’t throbbing and swelling to the point of trying to rip out of my jeans.
“I don’t know what that means,” I say, my attempt at being haughty betrayed by the breathless sound of my voice.
“Of course you don’t.” He cuts his eyes to mine, and they rake down my body before snapping back up. “Years of me tryin’ to peel your clothes off and kiss your skin only to be told that you’re too tired. You have a headache. You’ve been touched too much already. Not tonight . . .” His voice trails off; he takes another pull of his beer. “I got tired of askin’. Of the excuses. Of the rejection.” He shrugs, eyes now on the TV playing ESPN. He cracks the shell of a peanut, tosses the nuts into his mouth. “Doesn’t mean I don’t think about it. Or want it.” He looks at me again, eyes dropping to my bare shoulder. “Or you.”
I scoff. “That’s ridiculous.” I raise my empty glass toward the bartender who nods and grabs the bottle of tequila, strolling over to fill my glass. “I don’t make excuses.”
Camp looks at me, says nothing, expression annoyed as he turns to the bartender. “I’ll have what she’s havin’.”
As the bartender pours drinks, I sift through the weeds of my mind to the last time Camp tried to touch me. It’s been a while—months even. We were lying in bed, he traced the line of my hip, kissed my shoulder; I told him I was on my period, but it was a lie. It was still a week away. My stomach drops—I rejected him.
But then I remember the rest of the story.
He was late—missed dinner again. The sink wasn’t working, and the boys had gotten a bad report from their teacher. And the dog . . . Thor had chewed my favorite sandals to smithereens. I may have rejected Camp, but he had unknowingly rejected me first.
I look at him and his familiar features that I fell in love with so many years ago. His chin, his eyes, the bump on his nose. He works to open another peanut, pops it into his mouth. I can’t read him, not like I used to. Does he want me?
The bartender sets the tequila in front of him. Lime on the rim.
“It’s hard to get hot and bothered when you don’t come home until the day has already kicked my ass, Camp.”
He scoffs. “It’s my fault now?”
Even though he asks, we both know any response is moot. It will lead to an argument with no winner, only proving my point. This. This is why we can’t be married. He doesn’t see the whole picture. I’ve pushed him away . . . because he lets me. I’ve shut down . . . because he doesn’t show up. I’m done because he stopped long before this.
I take a small sip of my tequila.
“What are you goin’ to do?” he asks.
I blink.
“About the photos?”
“Ah.” I spin my glass, study the gold liquid as it moves. “I don’t know. Reed and Irma both said I’m not a landscape photographer. Said I’m good, just not good at that.” I shrug. “So I guess I just need to lick my wounds with that one and figure out what comes next. After Lyra goes . . . I need a job.”
He’s quiet, and I wish I knew what he was thinking—desperately—but his expression is neutral. He looks unaffected as his tongue moves along the inside of his lower lip while he watches the TV behind the bar. Tequila and lime untouched in front of him, all these years later he’s still so good looking it hurts.
I’m staring; he notices. I don’t look away. I can’t. I hate him but I love him, it’s as simple as that.
He stands, drops cash on the bar, eyes staying on mine as he reaches across me for the . . . salt?
I still.
With his free hand, he grabs mine.
Bringing the inside of my wrist to his mouth, he pauses. I don’t flinch.
He licks.
Camp Cannon licks my wrist.
Shakes the salt onto my skin.
Licks again.
Drops my hand.
Shoots his tequila.
Sucks the lime.
The only thing moving is the blood rushing through my veins.
He leans in, bringing his mouth to my ear. “You ever decide to crawl into Reed’s bed, it’ll be my tongue you’re thinkin’ of.”
I don’t take another breath until he’s gone.