Chapter 20
She walked to Des’s place. When Holmes was fed and walked and safely tucked back away inside Lenny’s place, Cami thought about catching a bus, but waiting for one to arrive and then sitting immobile while she went through fifteen different stops on the way to his place would take longer than walking anyway, and she wasn’t sure she could stand being still for that long.
She could hear Des’s voice in the back of her head, an echo of that night they’d run into each other at Pacific Park, urging her to let him walk her home or to take a cab.
But he wasn’t here to walk her, and she didn’t want to waste money on a cab when unemployment was looking like an increasingly preferable option.
So she made the walk to Ocean Park in the fading light of evening, taking note of the extravagant houses and their opulent lawns.
But she had enough on her mind without adding more insecurity over her and Des’s income disparity.
Tonight, she just wanted a pleasant distraction.
Something to stop her from spiraling into angst and anxiety while she processed what she’d learned.
Des and his basket of goodies would be exactly what she needed to keep her mind off things.
She stopped in front of Des’s place and turned toward it.
His bike wasn’t in the driveway, but the garage door was down.
His porch light was on, though it wasn’t all that dark yet, and there was a set of solar-powered lights sticking out of his lawn, lining the stone pathway to the porch.
She followed the path, watching her toes as they stepped from one stone to the next, avoiding the cracks for no real reason.
Maybe she didn’t want to have reasons for anything tonight. She wanted to do things just because.
She stepped onto the porch, opened the storm door, and knocked on the wooden one. She only had to wait a few moments for the door to swing open and Des to appear there, backlit by his hall light and smiling as though she were the most welcome sight he’d seen that day.
“Hey,” he greeted, stepping back to make space for her to come in.
She crossed the threshold and moved into his space in one motion, then lifted to her tiptoes and kissed him.
For a heartbeat, he seemed too surprised to respond, but then his lips parted and his hand came up to cup the back of her head, fingertips sifting into her hair. She tried to deepen the kiss, but he drew back, nipping gently at her lips until she sank back to her standing height.
“Hey,” he said again. This time, he sounded a little hesitant. “I’m sorry I didn’t call or text earlier today. It was a bit of a shitshow and—”
“It’s okay. I get it.” Cami stepped back and slid her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She cocked her head in the direction of his bedroom. “Shall we?”
His eyes narrowed at her. “Are you alright? You seem a little... off.”
She exhaled and then forced a smile to her face. “I’m alright. I had kind of a bad day, and don’t really want to talk about it. I’m looking forward to a distraction.”
Des absorbed this quietly, surveying her as he thought. Maybe he was looking for signs that she was mad at him, or that this was some kind of trap. “You sure?” he asked. “If you want to talk about it, we can. We don’t have to fool around. We could just watch a movie, or order a pizza or something.”
Cami lifted her shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor at their feet.
His tongue darted out to moisten his lower lip. “Right. Got it.” His hands found her waist and he lifted her so she could wrap her legs around him. She let herself get lost in the scent of him while he walked them to the bedroom.
The door knocked again, louder and more insistently this time, and Des reluctantly drew away from Cami, who was still bleary-eyed and sweaty from the orgasm that had swept through her a few minutes earlier.
He tucked himself into his jeans, which hadn’t made it all the way off, then pulled on the shirt he’d discarded on the floor when they’d migrated to the bedroom.
He wasn’t put-together, but was at least presentable when he padded into the foyer to answer the door.
His pleasant post-orgasm haze evaporated in the face of his bemused sister, who stood on his stoop looking frazzled and vaguely annoyed. “Liv?” he prompted. “What’s up? Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” she replied slowly, her dark gaze sliding over him. “Sorry to drop by unannounced, but you weren’t answering your phone.”
He shifted his weight to his other foot, fingers tightening on the edge of the door he held to stop it from swinging all the way open. “I’ve been busy.”
It must have come out shiftier than he’d hoped, because her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Busy, huh?”
“What did you need?”
The unsubtle hint did its job for the moment. She refocused and blew out a breath, her shoulders straightening. “I’ve got a surprise thirty-six hour shift starting at midnight. I was hoping you’d be able to feed Jenga her breakfast and dinner tomorrow.”
“Sure, I can do that.”
“I just didn’t want to leave for my shift without confirming, then come home on Friday to find she’s eaten the sofa, you know?
” With the main issue out of the way, Liv didn’t seem to be amenable to distraction any further.
She was standing on her toes, trying to peer around his shoulder searching for anything of interest in her line of sight.
He responded by swaying in the same direction to block her view.
“Of course,” he smiled. “I understand completely. Did you need anything else?”
He should have known the opening would have been irresistible to her. “Who’s here?” she asked outright. “Is it your girlfriend? Can I meet her?”
His voice dropped to a warning whisper. “She’s not my—absolutely not.”
“Hi!” Olivia called. He scrambled to clap a hand over her mouth so fast he almost punched her in the jaw. She dodged him with the reflexes of an expert older sister. “I’m Olivia, Des’s sister! It’s nice to not meet you!”
“Your car’s running. You better take care of that, you nosy asshole.” He shoved at her, but the lighting up of Olivia’s face made him freeze with dread. A tentative glance over his shoulder confirmed his unfortunate suspicion; Cami had poked her head around the corner.
She looked a little more aware of herself now, at least. Less fresh-from-bed than Des himself.
He sighed, then smiled at the wide, hesitant blink of her eyes.
There was no getting out of this now, so the least he could do was make it as comfortable for her as possible.
He stepped aside to swing the door open a bit wider, allowing her to see Olivia on the doorstep, then lifted an arm out for Cami so she could slide into the space next to him.
She took the offered space, tucking in next to him as she offered a hand for Liv to shake. “Hi, I’m Cami.”
“Olivia. It’s so nice to meet you, Cami.” Liv’s eyes had gone wide and shiny with excitement and kept flickering over to Des as if to say See? It’s so easy to date someone appropriate. Except she didn’t know the half of it, and neither did Cami.
He needed to tell her. About everything.
But for now, she was next to him, and not looking to have him castrated, and he was going to enjoy that while it lasted.
“You as well,” Cami said, with a pretty, genuine smile.
Something inside him squeezed pleasantly, seeing Cami interact with his sister.
It almost made him wonder how well she’d get along with his parents.
He’d never wondered anything like that when he was with Madilyn, but he supposed that wasn’t surprising.
Their relationship was very different, far more likely to trigger stern looks and sidelong glances than Cami herself with her bouncy blonde hair and friendly face.
But then, Madilyn had been more of a ‘relationship’ than Cami. A forbidden one, sure, but a relationship, with dates and discussions of the future and all that went hand in hand with that, in spite of Madilyn’s husband.
“I don’t know what Des has told you about me,” Olivia leaned forward conspiratorially in a way that made him want to close the door in her face, “but I assure you, none of it’s true.”
Cami laughed. “Do you want to come in?”
“Liv was just leaving,” he interjected. “She left her car running and everything. It’s impacting the environment terribly.”
Olivia rolled her eyes but did step back out of the path of the door. “I do have to get going. I didn’t mean to interrupt your date.”
“Great, bye.” He started to close the door. Liv shoved her hand out to block it, and he rolled his eyes. Cami vibrated with laughter next to him.
“You should come to dinner, though!”
Damn it.
“Des is coming to dinner on Saturday night with me and our parents. They’d love to meet you, Cami.”
Cami went still against his side. “Uh.” Her hesitation was just as obvious as his, and he couldn’t help but wonder guiltily if she was uncertain only because she could sense his own ambivalence.
Perhaps she would have jumped at the invitation otherwise.
The last thing he wanted her to think was that he was ashamed of her. “I don’t know if that’s—”
“We’ll talk about it,” he finished for her. Hopefully that would be enough to get Olivia off their backs, then maybe he’d be able to straighten things out with Cami before she committed to suffering through dinner with the Drs. Blake.
“All right.” Olivia was surprisingly chipper about his noncommittal response, perhaps because she didn’t have to rely on him to deliver the invite to Cami. “Bye, then. Stay out of trouble!”
Des snapped the door shut before she could decide to add anything more embarrassing to her departure, then squeezed Cami’s waist. She responded by coming up on her tiptoes to kiss him, and he let it sink through him, pulling her tighter against him when she started to drop to her heels.
She smiled against his mouth, her fingers playing along the collar of his tee.