27. Twenty-seven
Twenty-seven
After lunch, after the laughing over Mave’s sex party, and in the quiet of the drive home, I decide I hate everyone and everything.
It’s not menstrual—I checked the calendar—it’s Camp.
It’s pretending to be happy but not knowing what’s real or not. Our whole arrangement is turning me into a crazy person. A lunatic one meltdown away from a padded cell.
It’s the tone everyone uses. Like I’m irrational for wanting a partner. A. Partner. I don’t want him to do it all, I just want him to help. To want to help.
It’s Mave, defending him like he’s some kind of heroic war veteran.
I was polite for lunch, but now that I’m home, fury wraps around me like shrink-wrap and makes me lash out like a child.
I stomp.
Slam cabinets.
Snap at the kids.
Glare at the dog.
And Camp?
Camp I want to shove into Scotty’s cremator and watch him burn to ashes.
When Lyra leaves to meet friends at the coffee shop, I take a shower, failing to scrub the idea of him off my skin.
Instead, I find myself replaying Mave’s words, rolling my eyes, and muttering, “they work hard but love harder,” and gagging at the sentiment.
In the bedroom, wrapped in a towel, I could climb the walls.
“You ready to talk?” Camp asks, startling me with his presence as he closes the bedroom door.
I scoff.
“Otherwise we’re gonna have to replace all the doors you’re slammin’.”
I ignore him.
“I’m tryin’ here, J. Like hell. My schedule can’t just change in a blink. I’m workin’ on it—so it does get better. It will . But you can’t just not tell me somethin’s wrong for years then drop it on me and expect it to get better in an instant.”
“How?” I snap, gripping the knot of my towel with one hand. “You know what—don’t tell me. Like you always do, don’t tell me and just surprise me with some big decision that I have no say in. Your mom seems to be just fine with that!”
“Jungle Rules,” he says, stepping toward me.
My eyes narrow. “What?”
“Jungle Rules. We did it when I played for the Copperheads in Charlotte. When the players got restless with the coaches, they called Jungle Rules, and we could say whatever we wanted—air our grievances—without repercussions.”
“No!” I snap. “I’m not playing some stupid baseball game.”
“So you’d rather stomp around like a damn lunatic?”
My chest rises and falls in sharp breaths. I nearly grind my teeth to dust as I glare at him.
“I hate your mustache,” I blurt.
His eyes widen as he touches his upper lip with his finger. “ What ?”
“You heard me. And I think your barefoot shoes are pretentious.” He stills; I grip the knot holding my towel tighter in place, feeling a jolt of courage. “I hate that—that even though you’re barely here, you’re the fun parent, and the kids don’t like me. Lyra always wants to talk to you. I hate that-that-that you act like a few weeks of you showing up fixes years of you not being here.”
“I hate your meatloaf,” he snaps, shoulders tense. “It’s gross.”
My jaw drops. “It’s what ?”
“And your music. It’s depressin’.”
“Excuse me, Norah Jones is iconic!” I argue, my eyes popping out of their sockets. “Coming from the guy who listens to music associated with dirt color, that’s real rich, Camp.”
“If you’d listen to the Joe Stamm Band, you’d get it!” he shouts, incredulous.
“You slurp your coffee—it’s unnerving.”
He gasps. “I hate how you drive. It’s too slow.”
“Oh!” I laugh a loud, cold ha . “Says the guy who turns off his truck at every damn red light!”
He steps closer to me, his face as furious as I’ve felt all day. “I hate your underwear.”
“My underwear?”
“Yes,” he snaps. “They fit like parachutes.”
Asshole.
I grind my teeth.
“I hate you say yes to everyone but me.”
He steps closer, and I step back, eyes not leaving his.
“I hate that you smile at Reed Simmons.”
I still, shallow breaths puffing through my anger. “I hate that Dani smiles at you .”
“I hate how bad I want to touch you.”
“I hate that you got me off in the shower.”
With that, the look in his eyes starts to burn with the heat of a blue flame, and my traitorous bitch of a body matches it.
A step forward.
A step back.
Our dance until my back hits the wall.
Nowhere to escape him, rage fuels the rhythm of my heart.
“I hate that I can’t kiss you.”
My nostrils flare. “I hate that you ever kissed me.”
“I hate that towel.”
His voice is lower now, and his jaw clenches so severely I expect to see bone pop through skin.
Palm to his chest, I shove with a grunt. He doesn’t budge. I grip the knot of my towel, push my toes into the hardwood floor, unable to move anywhere except sliding inches up the wall.
He steps forward, fully pushing the front of him against the front of me.
And I feel it.
There.
Him.
Hard.
His eyes drop to my mouth as his hips pin me to the wall . . . and rock.
“And I hate that you do this to me.”
I shove into his chest.
Again.
He goes nowhere.
Again.
“I hate that you do nothing to me.”
He smirks; I squirm.
Without warning—without permission—Camp puts his mouth on mine.
We still—his mustache-covered lip scratching against mine.
He pulls back.
I push into him with another grunt. “ Nothing .”
The intensity of his gaze seems to generate an actual temperature.
He pulls his hand from the wall, slips it into the opening of my towel, and traces the bare-skinned line over my hip.
To my inner thigh.
Up.
Fingers between my legs, he knows my lie. Feels it on his fingertips. The truth serum of my body that’s currently betraying me.
“Nothin’?” he asks, word drawling like sandpaper across my skin, gaze steady, fingers moving.
Swirling.
Toying.
I shake my head, less convincing as my hips buck against his hand, needy and greedy.
He kisses me again, borderline aggressive, only to pull back fast.
“Nothin’?” he repeats, his face less than an inch from mine.
I shake my head, but the lie feels as heavy as my eyelids.
His fingers slip inside me. Hook. Move.
“Nothing,” I grit out, more breathy than combative.
His tongue drags down my neck. Down the divot between my collarbones. Across the knuckles of my fingers gripping the towel. And, sweeping the towel open as he lowers himself to his knees, to the spot above my belly button. Sucking, biting, licking every inch of my body's real estate.
All the while: His. Fingers. Keep. Working.
Orgasm building, I fight it. I refuse. I will not let this feel good. But, dammit, I’m so close I can feel a scream building in my toes.
His mouth on my inner thigh, pushing me closer with the way his lips, tongue, and mustache drag against my skin and match the evil rhythm of his hand.
My teeth clench. “Camp, I—”
“Daddy.” Hank’s squeaky voice comes at the same time he pushes the door open. My hands slap over my own mouth.
Camp must have superhuman reflexes because his free hand shoots out, preventing the door from opening more than inches.
“Daddy? Why are you on the floor?” Hank asks through the crack of the opening, my eyes widening in horror.
Camp’s fingers slow but don’t stop. “Fixin’ an outlet. What’s up?”
“Can you come play?” Hank asks, oblivious where he stands in the hall that the outlet Daddy is fixing is the spot right between my thighs.
“Later.” Camp’s eyes go from the crack in the door to lock with mine. Which are watering. Because he won’t stop moving his blessed fingers. “Y’all play on your tablets.”
“Yeah!” Hank yells as he runs away from our bedroom. “Ty! We can play on our tablets!”
Camp pushes the door shut; I’m panting.
Like our kid wasn’t just here, his tongue is back on my inner thigh. “Camp, please,” I hiss. He kisses the spot his fingers have been so skillfully torturing. His tongue as warm and wet as I am.
“Dammit, Camp,” I grit out, dropping my hands to his head and running my fingers through his hair. I hate how hard it is to breathe. How good every single touch he gives me feels. That his mouth can unravel me like a thread.
He pulls back—slightly—his chin and lower lip not moving from my most sensitive spot. He looks up at me, lids heavy, and slips both his hands around the backs of my thighs.
“Nothin’?” He smirks and it’s hot and I hate him.
And when I don’t argue, it’s like it’s what he was waiting for.
He bites; I choke. Then he grips the towel I’m only barely holding onto and yanks it off, rendering me naked.
In the daylight.
In a forty-year-old body.
His hand leaves the spot it’s been working, earning another whimper from my lips, and his mouth travels up.
Across my lived-in belly.
Around my soft chest.
Up the side of my neck.
When he’s standing again, he kisses me.
As much as I know I shouldn’t—I let him. I kiss him back, letting myself love the way his lips and tongue and stupid mustache feel against me. Letting myself remember the familiar flavor of me and him.
I claw at his shirt, peeling it over his head, revealing his body.
His unchanged perfection amplifies my own self-consciousness.
I shrink.
With one arm, I cover my breasts—the ones that changed with more pregnancies than babies—and suck in my belly.
He sees my insecurity and pulls my hands away.
“I hate how good you look,” I whisper as he cups my face.
“I hate that I’ve let you believe you don’t look good,” he says.
We stare, breaths falling into sync with one another.
“Is this pretend?” I ask, needing to know. Needing him to tell me one way or the other.
“You tell me.”
And then, before I can say anything, my husband kisses me—deep—like he’s trying to drown in the entirety of me. Of us. And I kiss him back. Not forced. Not out of habit or obligation or pretending I’m happy. I kiss Camp Cannon like the feeling of his tongue on mine is the only thing I’ll ever need in this life.
His hands drop from my face.
To my neck.
My chest.
His thumbs brushing across my nipples then drop to the curve of my waist.
When his hands drop to my hips, he guides me—naked—across the room with his mouth fused to mine.
We drop to the bed—the one we haven’t slept in together in weeks. I'm on my back, he's between my legs.
Every move we make—our mouths, our hands, our hips, our breaths—is carnal. Frantic. Heated. Chasing the same glorious thing.
My hands fumble down his chest, his slight dusting of hair tickling my fingertips, until I’m in his pants and the warmth of his flesh fills my palm. So hard my mouth waters.
He swears against my skin.
My hips lift from the bed, legs hook around his waist.
“I’ve missed you, J. This .” He kisses a line across my jaw.
Maybe it’s the pending orgasm or maybe it’s the realization that I’ve missed this too—him—but a lump forms in my throat, making it impossible for me to respond.
I nod, blinking back tears, and he moves to stand. Thumbs in his waistband, he—
“Dad!” Ty shouts. “Wi-Fi’s not working!” Our eyes fly to the doorway, where he’s standing, door wide open, nose scrunched as he stares at his tablet and pounds an angry finger on the screen.
I do the only thing I can think of: I scream. Loud.
Ty’s head jerks up.
I scramble crawl across the bed—naked—until I land on the floor with a thud, hiding myself with the bed.
He tilts his four-year-old head to the side. “What are you doing?”
“Mom’s sick,” Camp says, covering his mouth with a fist with one hand and adjusting the situation in his pants with the other.
“Where are your clothes?”
“In the washer,” I say at the same time Camp says, “She lost them.”
I shove my palms so hard into my eyes I see stars.
SHIT!
Instead of attempting to salvage any piece of my dignity, I lie down on the floor. Out of sight.
A real-life Naked and Afraid .
“C’mon, Ty,” Camp says. “Let’s go to the livin’ room and see if we can get the Wi-Fi fixed before I head out.”
My head pops up. “Head out?”
Camp stops in the doorway, shirt slipping down his torso as he gestures for Ty to go ahead. “Yeah, sorry. I thought I told you. These next few weeks are goin’ to be crazy.” He leans against the doorjamb. “Short meetin’ this afternoon to get everythin’ planned out and outline the week. The damn ceremony comes with a million fires to put out . . .” His voice trails off, lost in thought.
I nod, pulling a blanket off the bed to wrap around myself as I stand.
“Right. That makes sense.”
It makes sense, yet a pit forms in my stomach. Because it’s Sunday afternoon, and he’s leaving. The complex is a huge deal and so important, but also . . . that’s been the story of our lives these last years. Everything is important. Everything except me.
“Hey”—he crosses the room to where I’m standing, lost in doubts, and lifts my chin with his knuckles—“I’ll just be an hour or so. And I want to finish what we started.”
He kisses my forehead. I bite my cheek to hide my smile.
“Okay.”
“Dad!” Ty shouts from the living room.
“Go,” I tell him. “I have to find my lost clothes anyway.”
He kisses me again, then he’s gone.
For dinner, I make meatloaf—a new recipe—grinning like an idiot the entire time I cook.
Right until I clear the last dish off the table, including Camp’s empty one because he didn’t make it home. Instead, a text: sorry it’s a madhouse running behind tournament schedules are a beast and lights aren’t working in an entire hallway what a headache
I put his leftover plate in the fridge and make his bed on the floor.
When he comes in, late, he whispers my name. I pretend not to hear.
I also pretend not to be crying.