Chapter 26
Des had already been outside that day, so he didn’t know why he was surprised that it was still so warm and sunny when he stepped out of the hospital.
The bright, glaring sun of Southern California seemed at odds with the goings-on of an emergency room.
All the rushing, blood, chaos, and uncertainty that came with having your hands inside someone.
It had always seemed to Des like the sky should, at the very least, give his patients the courtesy of being cloudy.
Why should so many people be sunbathing while others were being strapped to gurneys?
Lenny was okay, though, which was a cause for celebration. So he’d let the sky stay happy and blue, even though his insides roiled like a thunderstorm.
He’d known Cami would come when Tristan called.
Even though she and Lenny were on the outs, she would never abandon someone on their sickbed.
She’d proven that time and again before she’d ever come to California.
He hadn’t been there to witness it, but he knew without having to that Cami would have poured everything she had into taking care of her grandmother.
She’d tried to downplay it, but no one who worked three jobs to support the disabled elderly was giving it any less than their all.
No doubt she would do the same for Lenny. Hell, they’d probably already patched things up. Lenny had lied to her, sure, but a secret grandmother was a hell of a lot more palatable on the fib front than a secret plot to swindle her out of house and home.
He’d given them some privacy. He should just head back inside now and make his goodbyes. He had enough to take care of for the foreseeable future to hopefully keep Cami off his mind. Or, at least, not in the forefront of it.
He pushed off the raised brick garden he’d been leaning against and started toward the covered entrance of the hospital. The automatic doors hissed open, and he glanced up from the grated flooring just in time to catch a flash of blonde before the collision.
She hadn’t been moving fast enough to knock the wind out of him, but Cami’s sudden appearance still left him breathless.
She whirled around, hand flying to her mouth as she gasped. “I’m so sor—”
“My fault,” he said, though it wasn’t. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
She was quiet for a moment, her gaze flickering over his face like she was studying him. It made him curiously itchy. “I was walking backwards,” she said finally. “I was just asking an orderly a question. Definitely my fault.”
His lips tightened, but he stayed silent, unsure how to respond. She was probably leaving now, back to the bus station or wherever she’d been when Tristan had called her. This was likely the last time he’d ever see her.
The thought struck him, and his chest burned with the need to commit her to memory.
The softly floral scent of her. The honey blonde gleam of her hair under the fluorescent hospital lighting.
The way she carried herself; there was a more relaxed slant to her shoulders compared to when he’d seen her that morning, or even on her way into Lenny’s room. Maybe they had made up.
“Coming through!” a middle-aged bald man snapped at them as he passed Des on the left, hurrying into the hospital proper.
“Shit. We shouldn’t be standing here,” Des murmured, and he reflexively cupped Cami’s elbow and steered her to the side of the entry. “I guess you’re on your way out.” His stomach clenched. “I shouldn’t keep you.”
“Actually...” Her tongue darted out of her mouth to moisten her lower lip. “I was hoping we could talk.”
For a split second, hope began to swell in him, but he tamped it down. Lenny had probably told her she was selling the store. Cami likely just wanted to ream him about that. “Uh, sure. We should do it outside, though.”
He led her to the perfunctory garden out front of the trauma building.
It was sparsely decorated with a few hot weather plants and cacti, mulched to discourage weeds.
Nothing that would require heavy attention like you’d find at the main entrance, but it had a little bench and was deserted enough to provide the illusion of privacy.
At least he wouldn’t get his ass handed to him in front of an audience.
He hadn’t realized how tired he was until he looked at that bench.
He’d been standing, moving, or too tense to relax for hours now.
Beside him, Cami vibrated with energy, or nerves, maybe.
He understood that she needed to confront him about everything, and he’d respect that, but he could be sitting when she did it.
He sat. As soon as his weight shifted, his feet started to throb. If he was going to hack it in a hospital setting again, he’d have to get some stamina back.
In front of him, Cami did a little half-pace, then faced him, hands clasped together at her belly. His brow furrowed. He could understand being nervous at having to be alone with him when she thought he’d seduced her for personal gain, but this didn’t seem like that brand of nerves.
“Do you...want to sit?” he asked carefully, gesturing with one hand to the spot next to him.
Her warm brown gaze shifted to the empty space on the bench, but she shook her head. “No. Sorry, it’s just hard to get my thoughts together.”
He waited. Silence stretched thin between them, undercut by the rustle of plant life in the breeze, the buzz of insects feeding in the garden, and the far-off voices of people entering and leaving the hospital.
For someone who wanted to talk to him, Cami seemed to have forgotten how to use her voice.
Given everything he’d put her through, the least he could do was throw her a bone. “So you talked to Lenny?”
She nodded, glancing down at her hands. “Yes. She— She’s my grandmother.”
“She told me,” Des said quietly. “How long have you known?” He’d been wondering ever since Lenny had told him that afternoon.
“A few days.”
“You never said anything.” Part of him felt scummy even pointing it out, given everything he’d kept from her over the last few months, but it stung that she’d made such a momentous discovery and didn’t tell him.
She just tried to deal with it by herself.
Nobody should have to process that kind of news on their own.
“I know. I—I found out and didn’t know how to handle it.
So I didn’t. I just pushed it to the back of my mind for a while.
” Her gaze skimmed over him for a beat, then slid away, focusing on some unspecific point behind him.
“It was easy to pretend everything was fine and normal when we were—” She chewed her bottom lip. “You’re good at distracting me.”
He was a distraction. He loved her, but he was her distraction.
“Glad to be of service.” His voice was flat and lifeless, all the emotion sucked out of him in one fell swoop.
The lack of animation seemed to draw her attention, and she finally focused on him, brows drawing together as she frowned at him. “That’s not what I—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He gave a harsh shake of his head.
He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and biting the inside of his cheek.
“It’s no less than I deserve anyway. I should have told you from the start what my real job was, or at the very least, told you before I took you to bed.
But I liked you so much and wanted to keep spending time with you, and it never seemed like the right time to bring it up.
It got away from me. And then the next thing I knew, I was in love with you, and I had to find a way to tell you without blowing it, which was, obviously, impossible.
So if all I was to you was a distraction, then I can’t blame you for that. ”
He said it all in a rush, the words spilling out of him in spite of the ache they caused under his ribcage. The last thing he wanted was to be one more bad memory of Cami’s time in Santa Monica.
She sighed, letting his words rest for a moment, then finally met his gaze. “If you were only a distraction, Des, your lies wouldn’t have hurt so much.”
He inhaled slowly, then swallowed. “Well. That’s nice to hear, even if it doesn’t matter in the long run.”
“Why doesn’t it matter?”
“You’re leaving. Going back to Tennessee.
” He only noticed then that she didn’t have the bags she’d carried when she’d arrived at the hospital, but she’d probably just left them in Lenny’s room.
Easy enough to pick up when she was ready to hit the road.
When one of them left this hospital, Cami would be well and truly gone from his life.
It made him feel hollowed out inside like a house infested with termites. “Lenny told me.”
“Well,” she started, shifting her weight to one foot and back in an undeniable fidget, “I’m not.”
He straightened. At first, he was certain he was misunderstanding her. Surely, she didn’t mean she was staying in California. But she didn’t add any caveats, didn’t specify that she was only going to stay for an extra week for Lenny’s sake. No other shoe dropped. “You’re not?”
“No. I’m going to stay and get Lenny set up with an online storefront. I’m not sure where I’ll live after she sells the store, but...” She trailed off, shrugging.
“I’m so sorry, Cami.” He’d lost track of how many times he’d said it at this point, but he’d say it as many times as he needed.
“It’s not your fault. You were just doing your job.
The lying, that was your fault. But the rest of it?
” She unclasped her hands at last, and slid her fingers into her pockets, her stance shifting into one more casual than he’d seen on her in days.
“If Lenny wants to sell the store, then she should. I’ll figure it out.
” She gave a little half-smile that tugged on his heart.
“Besides, I’ve got family now. Maybe I’ll couch surf with her for a while. ”
Their conversation was drawing to a close, and while he loathed to let her walk away from him again, there were bigger concerns right now than his feelings. He stood.
Though his feet didn’t bring him closer, just rising to her level made him feel that much more surrounded by her. His fingers itched with the need to touch her, to test the soft warmth of her skin or the silky slide of her hair against his palm.
“I’m glad you guys worked things out,” he said. His accompanying smile was stiff, but he thought she’d forgive him for that, all things considered.
“Me too.” She cocked her head, her warm gaze flickering over his face as though searching for something. She hesitated. Her posture remained the same, but there was a new tension to the line of her shoulders that hadn’t been there a second ago. Finally, she asked, “Can we?”
Given the context, it was obvious what she was asking, but his brain still refused to process it. He blinked. “Can we what?”
She deflated a little at his question, glanced away and reflexively licked her lower lip.
“Work things out.” He opened his mouth, but she rushed to explain.
“I know, I know, you’re a big fat liar. And that sucks, but you feel bad about it, and you’re not going to do it again, right?
” She paused, and all he could do was shake his head dumbly.
“Good. So we could make it work, maybe? I mean, I have some perfectly legitimate trust issues to work through, but nobody’s perfect.
We could even do it properly, this time.
” The longer she talked, the faster she spoke, like her nerves were gaining traction, picking up speed runaway train-style.
“Go on a date. Hold hands or something.”
“You wanna hold hands with me?” As he repeated her words, an unstoppable grin spread wide across his lips, and, when she noticed, a faint pink stained her cheeks.
“Well. We’ll have to see. I’m not a harlot, Des.
I don’t just go holding hands with any man with pretty eyes and a duffle full of sex toys.
” She wet her lower lip again, and this time the motion drew his attention in a baser way that made him want to lick her lip himself.
He started to lean in, not entirely on purpose. “I only hold hands with men I love.”
That stopped him dead. All thoughts of kisses were halted with his heart, which had gone worryingly still.
She seemed to let go of the tension clinging to her as she took in his stillness. Her lips quirked as though she were fighting a smile. She cocked her head. “Can I kiss you?”
He took a long, slow breath in, both to give her the chance to change her mind, and to steady himself, because her question had left him curiously weak-kneed. “Do you promise to be gentle?”
The smile she’d been stifling broke free.
It was the happiest, most genuine smile he’d seen on her in weeks.
In lieu of answering, she closed the distance between them and threw her arms around his shoulders, one hand cupping the back of his head to pull him toward her.
She kissed him hard. There was no shyness in it, no hesitation as she pushed his lips apart and delved her tongue into his mouth.
He nearly stumbled back with the force of it, his hands coming up to her waist and holding her close against him.
Her body slotted perfectly against his, warm and insistent, and when she finally broke the kiss, she did it with a tantalizing draw of her tongue over the roof of his mouth.
“Gentle?” She rested her forehead against his, fixing her eyes on his. Her lips glistened with their kiss as she smiled again. “Not a chance.”