Chapter 26
NADINE
The first two weeks of December, Paisley and I went a little nuts on the Christmas decorations, but she missed being at her home in Iowa for the holidays, and I wanted her to feel as “at home” as possible, so Camden’s Amex got a good workout with lights and wreaths and the most obnoxious illuminated snowman we could find to set out on the terrace.
Camden, the grinch, put the kibosh on a real tree, so I bought a nine-foot faux silver fir that we put in the corner by the guinea pigs, decorating it with a mix of new ornaments and ones Camden had saved from his parents’ house.
I did my best not to cry when he stood on the step stool to place the star on the top before folding his big body around his sister, both of them in tears.
But it was no use. Camden and Paisley cried because they’re grieving, and me because the two people I love most are hurting, and I can’t do anything to help.
Now, I pull out all the ingredients for a box cake from the refrigerator, having suggested we do something special to celebrate their mom’s birthday.
They’ve been quiet lately, anticipating this day, and I reminded to Erik to make sure he’s checking in on Camden more than usual. Keeping his spirits up.
It’s one of their parents’ first birthdays not on this planet, and I’m desperate to ease the sting.
So I told them that when Camden came home tonight, we’d make a cake together and then watch a Meg Ryan rom-com because she was their mom’s favorite.
Both Paisley and Camden have inherited Lorraine Long’s love of rom-coms, and I thought it might make them feel close to her today to do something she would love.
As soon as Camden shuffles in the door, he drops his bag and kicks off his sneakers before sinking into my open arms. He’s bent over, his face in my throat, arms around my waist, as I rub my hands over his back and neck.
Instead of going home to Erik’s house last night, I stayed over after Camden asked me to, his eyes bloodshot.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight,” he said. “Please stay. In case I can’t.”
I answered by kissing him, reassuring him that I wasn’t going anywhere.
He did end up struggling to sleep, and I lay with him in bed as he alternated between crying and telling me memories.
Then early in the morning, only two hours after he’d finally fallen asleep, Paisley made her way to our room.
She crawled under the covers on the other side of me, and I held her hand as she silently wept.
Now, I kiss his jaw. “How was your day?”
He mumbles something that sounds like “Fine.”
“Did you talk to Pearce?” When he nods, and I urge him to lift his head, meet my gaze, I can tell practice was rough solely from the set of his brow.
“I’m just so…tired,” he says after a while, and I guide his head back to my shoulder when his eyes go glassy. “I’m tired of feeling like this.” He tightens his grip on my sweat shirt, the one I stole from him that fits me like a dress. “Like it’ll never go away.”
He sniffles twice then clears his throat and stands straight, backing away from me a step, and he looks exhausted.
From lack of sleep and from the weight of his grief.
I know how much he wishes he could change the last few years and how he constantly replays the final conversation he had with his parents.
No matter how often I tell him, Erik tells him, the team psychologist or counselor, he hangs on to it.
Thinking that his parents left this earth being ashamed of him.
It’s not true. From everything Paisley has said, and from hearing all the wonderful things about the Longs, I know how they really felt about him. It’s simply an unfortunate coincidence that a perfectly normal parental conversation has become Camden’s nightmare.
And there is nothing I can do about it. Nothing I can do to soothe him besides tell him that I love him, his parents loved him, his sister loves him.
Remind him that he’s a good man, and if his parents could talk to him now, I’m sure they would say the same thing.
They would be proud of how he’s taken care of Paisley and showed the world that he is not the disappointment he once was.
“You hungry?” I ask, and he nods, so I direct him to sit at the eat-in counter while I heat up one of the meals his chef has prepackaged for him.
This one with salmon, green beans, and pasta, and I try to keep his spirits up as he eats by talking about my day.
Mindless stuff about Christmas presents I bought for Paisley and how I grounded Jelly today for chewing through one of the wires for the tree lights, which wins a laugh before Camden corrects me on his name, having yet to win the battle with Paisley and me to call the guinea pigs Rocky and Balboa instead of Jelly and Bean.
By the time he finishes eating, Paisley wanders into the kitchen, so we get to work baking. It’s no big feat, but having their hands and minds busy helps, I think.
Paisley laughs when Camden smears a fingertip worth of pink icing on her cheek, and they both carefully decorate the cake with the piping bags I bought, attempting some swirls and flowers, shaking lines that read Happy Birthday, Mom!
When it’s finally finished, I place a couple of candles on top and light them.
We don’t bother singing, but we do all take a minute to watch the flames flicker, and I blot my eyes when Camden takes Paisley’s hand, a silent communication passing between them before they lean over to blow out the candles.
They’re both quiet as I cut them pieces, ushering them into the media room, where I’ve already cued up When Harry Met Sally, and we eat their mother’s birthday cake while watching one of her favorite movies.
I’ve never cried more during a rom-com, but I’ve also never witnessed two people finding a bit of peace from such a profound loss.
And later, after Camden finds me in his bed after lying with Paisley until she fell asleep, he kisses his appreciation of me all over my skin. Whispers his love as he wraps his big body around me and finds his home. One I promise he’ll always have with me.
Days later, I hold my cell phone to answer Camden’s FaceTime call.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” I ask, even though it’s barely after nine o’clock there.
I’m already in bed, the same one I’ve shared with him for the past few nights.
Erik had texted, asking me why I haven’t been home to sleep, and I told him the truth—I didn’t feel like I could leave Camden and Paisley right now.
“Almost there,” Camden tells me now as he sets his phone up on what’s probably a dresser to strip out of his clothes. “Just got back from dinner. What did you and Paisley do today?”
“I took her to meet up with her friend at a school basketball game.”
He freezes, bent in half, mid-removal of his pants. “Basketball game?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure your sister has a crush on one of the boys who plays on the team.”
He huffs and tosses his clothes into his bag before taking his Prada toiletry kit and the cell phone into the bathroom with him. I’ve made fun of him endlessly for having a designer bag for his toothbrush and paste, but my man likes fine things. Including designer bags for his soaps.
“What’s his name?” Camden asks as he sets his phone—me—down on the counter, so I’m staring right at his abs.
“I’m not sure. She hasn’t said anything outright, but from how she was acting, I suspect she likes him. A couple of the boys came over to chat with them after, and she went red as a tomato.”
“Not sure how I feel about this.” Camden proceeds to brush his teeth, his mouth filled with foam when he bends to spit in the sink and finally moves so his face is in frame, meeting my gaze. “I need a full name, address, and report card.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You have access to that stuff, right?”
“I’m not going to ask the secretaries for his report card, you weirdo.”
He rolls his eyes and rinses out his mouth before asking, “What good are you, then?”
“Nothing besides your live-in sex doll.”
His smug smile drips with arrogance. “That’s right, baby.” Then he washes his face and lotions up. When I first learned of his skincare routine, I was really impressed. He takes care of himself. He’ll probably look better than me when we’re eighty.
I stay quiet, waiting until he finishes, taking out his contacts and putting on his glasses, and I don’t mind. I like being with him, even fifteen hundred miles away. Staying on the phone with him while he gets ready for bed is as close as we can be to doing it together in person.
“I miss you,” he says once he flops on the bed, lights off, save for one in the corner. Being a veteran player, and one of the top performers on the team, he’s given deference for a single room, as opposed to other players who have to share.
“I miss you too,” I reply with a yawn as I stick my hand under the pillow, and he smiles, moving closer to the screen as if to inspect my surroundings.
“Are you on my side of the bed?”
“Yes. I like sleeping here because it smells like you.”
He rolls, positioning the phone like we’re in bed together, and hums as if he likes my answer, but he doesn’t respond. Neither one of us talks for a while. Merely lying in each other’s presence.
“Your brother brought up how you haven’t been home all week.”
“He asked me about it too.”
“I was tempted to tell him,” Camden says quietly, a secret.
“That I’m your live-in sex doll,” I tease, but he ignores it.
“That I love you. I was so close to telling him that even if you weren’t too tenderhearted to leave me and my sister alone this last week, I still want you around. Forever. I love you and want you in my house every day.”
I rub at the sudden tightness in my chest, blinking away the stinging in my eyes. “I love you too.”
“But I’m afraid that one of these days you’re going to wake up and realize what a piece of shit I am, and I’m afraid if I talk to your brother, he’ll tell me what I already know—that I don’t deserve you.”
“Camden, no, I—”
“The thing is, though, I don’t care. I don’t deserve you, but I don’t care. I want you, for myself. You’re mine, Nadine.”
“I’m yours,” I repeat. “And you do deserve me. At least, if what you say is true.”
“It is.” Then he backtracks with a playful quirk to his lips. “Which part?”
I give in to my own smile. “The part where you want to take care of me. When you said the other night you want to make a life with me and buy a big house with room for a couple of kids and a dog.”
“I never agreed to a dog,” he mutters grumpily, and I laugh.
“You deserve me if you stand by your promise to support me in my career and give me the space to be me, even when your life is so big.”
“I do. I swear. These past few months, you’ve already given me so much, it would take me decades to repay you, and I plan on spending the rest of my life accruing interest on my debt. I look forward to it. Paying back all the love you’ve given me tenfold.”
“Then you deserve me.”
He nods, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip. Not in that sexy way of his, but in thought. After a moment, he says, “Every Christmas, my mom made homemade cinnamon rolls. I think I looked forward to those more than the presents.”
I imagine Camden as a child, all long limbs and huge appetite, gorging himself on his mother’s cinnamon rolls.
“I was thinking we should do that. Start a tradition…or continue it.”
“I could find a recipe. I’ve only ever made them out of a can, but I’m sure we could do it. All of us, you and Paisley included, because I’m not going to be the only one baking.”
“Agreed.” He grins. “What traditions do you want?”
“I was a big fan of countdowns. Remember those construction paper chains? My mom made them for everything. Countdown to Halloween, countdown to vacation, countdown to first day of school. Whatever it was, she’d have us write down things we were looking forward to, and I always loved that.”
His smile grows even bigger. “Yes. I want to do that. And game nights.”
“No Monopoly.”
He jerks back. “Are you serious right now? You made me fall in love with you, and now you’re telling me you don’t play Monopoly?”
“It is the absolute worst.”
His mouth hangs open. “I…truly don’t know who you are.” He shakes his head, his outrage pulling a few giggles out of me, which makes him give it up. “I love your laugh. Talking to you. Everything. I love it all.”
I burrow down into the covers, nestle against his pillow that does indeed still hold his lingering scent. “And I love you. All of you, even the parts you’d rather forget about.”
He lifts his fingers to the screen, moving them as if he’s touching my face on it, though I can’t be sure. “I think we should hang up now, because if we don’t, I’ll want to stay on the phone with you, and I need to get to sleep.”
“Okay.” I yawn. “I’ll be watching tomorrow. Play hard.”
“I will.”
“And then I’ll be waiting for you when you come home.”
“Like the sound of that.” He offers me a half smile. “Gives me a reason to win. Make you proud.”
We hang up then, but even if he doesn’t win, I’ll still be proud of him. No matter what.
Though that touchdown he scores in the third quarter pulls them ahead. And that sign he makes at the camera during his celebration? It means “river.”