Chapter 27 SOS
Chapter twenty-seven
SOS
I start to climb the pitch-black staircase with Cameron at my back.
The stairs are narrow, steep, and winding, but once I get into the rhythm, I climb them efficiently despite not being able to see my own hand in front of my face. Just as I think we must be getting close to the top and I consider slowing down to ask, I slam headfirst into something solid.
“Ouch!” I bring my towel-wrapped hand up to my forehead.
“Sorry, there’s a door right there,” he says, and we both laugh at the timing of his statement.
He reaches around me and turns the doorknob, depositing us into what I immediately know is the library, based on the smell alone.
I breathe in the scent of old paper and ink that I have come to adore over the years, and catch a whiff of something floral, likely from a vase of fresh flowers somewhere nearby.
He leads me out of the library with a promise to bring me back as soon as the lights turn back on so that I can truly appreciate it, and then he pulls me into the primary bedroom.
Even if he didn’t tell me where we were, I would have also been able to identify this room by the deliciously warm and woodsy smell of the man that is currently holding my hand.
Footsteps approach as Ollie and Val enter just a minute after us.
“Pretty cool lightning show outside, huh?” Val asks, her excitement leading me to believe that she must have missed most of the showdown between Ollie, Cameron, Delaney, and me, for her to still be in such a good mood.
When we are all quiet in response to her question, she asks another one. “Where’s Leah?”
“Probably still in her room,” I say. “I should go get her.”
Before I can remove my hand from Cameron’s grasp, he squeezes it tighter. “I’ll go with you.”
“Here, take my phone,” Ollie offers, and Cameron reaches out to grab it, then we head down the hall together.
“Let’s stop in my room first so that I can get my phone too.” We make the detour to slip inside. I try to let go of his hand again when we enter so that I can get my phone from where I left it on the bed, but instead he gently whirls me back around to face him.
“What?” I ask, stomach dropping in anticipation that he is going to finish what I tried to deny was starting downstairs, but instead, he holds the light up to my forehead.
“Let me check you out real quick.” He pushes my stray hairs back with his free hand.
“I’m fine,” I argue, but let him look me over.
After his assessment, he states, “No blood, just a knot.”
He lowers the phone light to point at our feet, but the hand he was using to push back my hair lingers, pausing when his thumb reaches my cheek, and the rest of his fingers curl lightly around the back of my neck.
I freeze at the contact, and he falters, too, pulling his hand away. In the haphazard view from the phone’s flashlight, I see his Adam’s apple bob up and down.
“I’m going to grab my phone,” I say.
This time he doesn’t try to stop me when I turn away.
My face tingles from where his warm hand was just touching it as I unplug my phone from the charger, pleased to see that it reached full battery before the power went out, and swipe to unlock it so that I can check my most recent messages.
The storm must have knocked out the network connection, too, because my phone is SOS only.
I can still see my missed calls and unread texts, though, the most recent of which is from Scott.
Scott: We just got the call! Baby boy is on the way!
Gabe: Driving to the hospital now. Will call later when we have news!!!!!!
I gasp and do a little dance, unable to contain my excitement.
“What’s going on?” Cameron asks but stays where he is across the room.
I turn on my phone’s flashlight and turn back around to face him. “My brother and his husband are adopting a baby, and the birth mother just went into labor!”
“That’s incredible, congratulations,” he says with a wide smile. “Do you want me to step out so that you can call them back?”
“I can’t, the phone is SOS only,” I say. “Maybe once the generator is back on, I can do a Wi-Fi call or something.”
“If we don’t get power back soon, I will personally drive you around until we can find a signal, because I can’t have you missing out on all that.”
I melt at his offer, because driving around in the rain is the absolute last thing he would want to do right now, and yet I believe that his offer is a legitimate one.
Even if he had to face his biggest fear and only ended up driving me around at five miles an hour to make sure we were safe, I believe that he would do it if it meant he could help me call my brother.
Because even though I am not sure what this is between us, the way he looked at me downstairs when he told me what my writing meant to him, and the way he is looking at me right now, feels like he would give me the entire world if he could.
I don’t know if it’s the excitement of my nephew’s birth, the fact that I bonked my head on the door a minute ago, or the way that this stunning man is smiling down at me, but when Epic Drew proposes a crazy idea, Cursed Drew happily moves aside and lets her take the lead.
Cameron stops breathing as I take one step towards him, then another. I lift my eyes to meet his gaze, and his eyes search mine in the dim light with a mixture of confusion and awe.
The room is silent. I hesitate for a split second to allow him a chance to tell me that he doesn’t want this, and that I’m not about to ruin everything between us by taking it one step too far.
I can see the gears turning in his mind as he realizes what I am proposing, but his answer becomes clear when his gaze dips down to my mouth, and back up again.
I take that as a yes and push up on my toes so that I can firmly press my mouth to his.
He exhales sharply the second our lips connect, and I marvel at how soft and warm and perfect they feel, even better than I imagined they would.
I fall back down on my heels and he blinks down at me, stunned.
My muscles coil in anticipation as he searches my eyes for a few painfully long seconds.
I made the first move, so if he wants to continue, then he will have to make the next.
When even more seconds pass, I start to think that I’ll just have to be content with that single, perfect kiss.
I avert my gaze in disappointment, which must have provided him with what he was looking for, because he finally reaches forward to grab the back of my neck and crushes his lips back down onto mine.
All my senses become laser-focused on Cameron.
There is nothing else on earth but our kiss.
No curses. No crazy retreat guests or dead parents.
No more playing small or living quietly.
No. This kiss is loud. A statement we are shouting into the void that has, for so long, tried to drag us down with it.
We are fighting back, and we are taking this moment for ourselves, despite everything that makes it unorthodox.
Our breaths become ragged as we fight to bring our bodies together so that there is no space between us.
I grumble in frustration at our height difference and how it makes it impossible for our bodies to match up the way that I want them to.
He must feel the same, because not a second later, he flexes his hand on my hip and brings the other back up behind my head and starts to walk forward.
I move backwards, secure in his grip, until my back hits the wall.
It feels cool against my feverish skin, and when he brings his lips down to mine again, we finally have the pressure that we were so desperate for before.
I angle my head to deepen the kiss and part my lips so that I can taste him with a swipe of my tongue.
He groans and reciprocates just as the generator kicks back on.
The clicking of electronics around us is barely distinguishable over our labored breathing, but once the lights start to come on, we reluctantly break away from each other.
Even though we confirm that the light is from a lamp and not someone catching us again with a phone light, I still pause his attempt to jump back in where we left off and instead rest my forehead against his for a moment, to focus on the feel of his chest beneath my hands as it rises and falls with his every breath.
There is no question anymore of where we stand, or what this thing is between us.
I know with complete certainty that we are on the exact same page about everything, but the question moving forward is, how?
How will this ever work, both in the short-term sense and long-term, with us living on opposite coasts?
I decide to start with the most pressing question and ask, still a little breathless, “What if the others decide to leave?”
He smiles as if he was thinking the same thing. “You can stay if the others go. I was already secretly hoping for that possibility.”
I pull back so that I can blink up at him. “So, it would just be the two of us?”
“Yeah,” he says, and leans forward to kiss the tender spot on my forehead. “I mean, if that’s what you want. We can keep getting to know each other.”
In this moment, that is exactly what I want, but before I can say it out loud, or give Cursed Drew a chance to talk Epic Drew out of it, someone speaks from just outside my door.
“Drew, are you in there?”
Cameron and I separate so that we can present ourselves as two people who were definitely not just making out against the wall to whoever is outside, and I smooth down my hair just in time for Leah to walk in the door.
“Looks like they got the power back on,” she says cheerfully as she enters my room in her pajamas, but she stops dead in her tracks when she sees Cameron. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you weren’t alone.”
“It’s fine, Cameron and I were just talking,” I lie.
Her suspicious look from earlier returns in full force as she narrows her eyes at me, but as soon as she notices the soiled dishrag I am still clutching, her look turns worried. “What happened to your hand?”
“I accidentally broke a few of the champagne glasses downstairs and cut my thumb trying to clean them up,” I say.
Her eyes widen as she notices the bump on my head. “Drew, you have a goose egg on your forehead.”
“I also ran into a door while I was walking up the stairs in the dark.”
Leah shakes her head, incredulously. To Scott, Gabe, or Monika, those accidents would be no cause for concern and just a typical day in my life. But to Leah, who doesn’t know me well enough yet . . .
“That rag has a lot of blood on it.” she presses.
“It’s nothing, just a little—” I start, but Cameron interrupts.
“She cut it right before the power went out, but now that the lights are back on, I’m going to take another look at it. Although I think that keeping pressure on it will suffice until the morning.”
I nod up at him in agreement, but flinch when I turn back to Leah to see that her face is twisted in a grimace. “Drew, can I talk to you for a second? Alone?”
“Sure?” I say, but I find I am not particularly interested in whatever she has to say if it means Cameron has to leave.
“I was just going to head down to see if Delaney needed help, anyway,” Cameron says, and I watch longingly as he walks towards the door to let himself out.
I hate the thought of him leaving my side right now, and I hate even more that he’s going to speak to Delaney, who has had nothing but awful things to say to him all night. He gives us both a nod and disappears out the door, and my heart physically hurts to see him go.
She opens her mouth to speak, but I ignore her to follow after him. “Hang on, Leah, I just need a second,” I say, and leave her and her shocked expression to chase Cameron down the hallway.