11. Cam
ELEVEN
CAM
For three days we were polite to one another.
I made breakfast and did the school run because Price left for the studio early. Perhaps he thought he could sneak out before I got up, but he didn’t count on me not being able to sleep and pacing the back garden before the sun came up.
Me interrupting him had ruined his perfect blue, not that he’d told me that. We didn’t speak other than, “Pass the hot sauce,” and “Jack needs new shoes.” But I’d overheard him speaking to a client and pieced together that it was the blue thing he was working on when I interrupted him.
Another revelation was it turned out the school wasn’t for humans. Silly me. Why would I think my three charges went to a human school, though that explained the Fire-Free Zone sign near the entrance.
I didn’t allow myself to be in a room alone with Price. My thinking was still muddled, and I was bombarded with the words dragons, shifters, fire, but I still didn’t want to leave.
My boss thanked me for little things like helping Jack put on his shoes, and he kept to his end of the house and I kept to mine, except when we circled around one another and the children in the kitchen. I avoided the courtyard which was my favorite place in the house, and I missed its serenity.
The kids didn’t query me as to why I wasn’t talking to their dad, but they watched us orbiting one another all week.
I wasn’t angry at him for not revealing the shifter thing, because if I were Price, I’d have done the same thing. He hadn’t wanted a human to broadcast to the world that there was another species living among us. But he’d put pressure on the children to be someone they weren’t to accommodate me.
On the fourth evening, I snuck into the courtyard and let the sound of the fountain soothe me. But Price found me. I tensed because I didn’t want to have that conversation.
“There’s someone you should talk to.”
I scoffed at his suggestion, because if he’d set up an appointment with a shifter shrink, I wasn’t playing.
“There’s a friend a few doors down who a couple of years ago was in the same situation you are.”
“Huh? Did you scare the crap out of another manny?” That was mean, and I wished I could delete it, and anyway, I was the family’s first manny. Maybe he did want me to see a psychologist.
He had a slip of paper, just as Meara once had. Oh, Meara, she was in on this too. She had to be, but I didn’t dare ask what she was if she wasn’t human. And what was it with the paper? Did shifters prefer going old school to digital?
“I’ve never been the human in this story, so he’ll be able to give you a different perspective.”
The next day, I stopped in front of Ledger’s place. Number 221. But the one was faded and hardly visible. That was why I’d missed it that first day. How about that? One misread number and I ended up in a home with three lovable children and their father who was… Yeah, I couldn’t finish that.
It was a huge three-story house, and after I was buzzed in the gate, the door opened, and a man, presumably Ledger, with a toddler on his hips, appeared. He hugged me, and the little girl gave my hair a tug.
“You’ve got the look.”
I squinted at him. “Aren’t those song lyrics?”
He giggled and ushered me inside. The house was much the same temperature as Price’s, and he took me into a cinema room. He put the toddler down, and she scampered into the next room.
“This will cool you down.” He handed me a cold soda, and I placed it on my cheek. “So how about them dragons?”
I closed my eyes and let the laughter bubble out of me. Gods, it felt good ‘cause I hadn’t done that in a while.
“Let me guess. You found out by accident, and you were horrified and conflicted because of the children.”
I sighed. “Mmmm, something like that.”
“I made a list before I knew and added everything I couldn’t make sense of. I was going to crack the case, but it turned out the case was just dragons. Wait till you attend a neighborhood barbecue with everyone vying to cook the meat.”
An image appeared in my head of people searing one another’s butts so they could take charge of charring the steaks or rather lightly cooking the outside, leaving the insides bloody.
I fell back on the sectional that was so soft, I wished we had one in our house.
Ledger lay beside me because this thing was huge.
“You’ll get used to the dragon antics.” He patted my hand. “But one day, you’ll watch a man light a barbecue with his own fire and you won’t even shrug because it’s normal.”
“Maybe. I can’t imagine that day, though.”
“Word travels fast in this community, and I’ve heard whispers about Price’s feelings.” Ledger got on his side so we were face to face. “I’m going to guess it’s not just the kids you care about.”
Price had hinted at his feelings, but I’d never addressed them. I rolled onto my belly. “How did you know that Theron was the one?”
Ledger’s eyes darted to the left and right before focusing on me. Damn, he was figuring out how to say something.
“There’s something that happens to shifters. Not to all of them, though. But sometimes they meet a person, and I wouldn’t describe it as falling in love. It’s more recognition.”
I thought back to when I first caught sight of Price. My insides were flipping and flopping, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him.
“It’s as though two people were fated to be together but the universe had forgotten to tell either of them and was just catching up.”
Ledger said that person was their fated mate. “It’s instant, and it’s based on scent. The human might not pick up on it. They just know the other guy has the look of someone who’s drowning.”
The hair on the back of my arms stood up.
When I got home, Price was in the courtyard again, and the kids were watching a movie in the playroom. He stood when he saw me but didn’t ask me how the meeting went.
“Price.” That was all I could get out.
“Cam.”
Oh gods, that one word, my name, on his lips, and I wanted to wrap my arms around him. Or better, fling myself at him so we toppled into the bushes as we slammed our mouths on one another.
“You need to tell me something. Ledger told me about fated mates, but there was something he wasn’t telling me.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t really understand the concept of fated mates other than it’s bing-bam-boppity-boop.”
He screwed up his face. “What’s that? Sounds like superheroes for toddlers.”
I tried to keep a straight face but a giggle snuck out of me, and I put a hand on his chest. Price laughed, and I bent forward ‘cause my tummy was hurting, and he did too, and we bumped heads. How did a guy who had fire inside him and a dragon have lousy coordination?
“Owww.” I clutched my forehead, and he grabbed me and pulled me against his chest. “If your dragon is as clumsy as you, I worry about you at the studio.”
“He’s not. I’m not. It’s you. I’m discombobulated.”
I pulled back and studied his expression. “I’m impressed you can say that word.” It described how I’d been feeling since the morning at the studio.
“Dis-com-BOB-u-la-ted.” He grinned. It wasn’t his usual smile but a cheeky one. “I have another. Anemone. Uh-NEM-uh-nee.”
I giggled. “What’s that got to do with the serious discussion we’re having?” I tapped his chest. “Unless you have a sea creature in here too.”
“Were we? I had no idea.” He trailed a finger along my jaw.
Damn, this man trying to distract me.
“There’s just one fiery dragon.”
“You’re being MIS-chiv-us.”
“Mmmm.” He rested his chin on my head.
“You don’t get to do this.” I untangled myself from his grip. There couldn’t be any skin-to-skin contact when I asked him the next question. And not with the kids close by. “Am I your fated mate?”
The laughter vanished from his face, and he appeared to be in pain. But I didn’t know the remedy for a dragon shifter… in love? Was that what it was? Or was I overthinking this? Perhaps he just had a tummy ache.
“You, Cam, my children’s manny, owner of a crappy car, whose parking skills are even crappier, and the person who encourages my kids to eat better, are my happy ever after.” He took a breath. “And yes, you are my fated mate.”
He caught me as I slid downward and pulled me close so my face was smushed on his shirt. “But you don’t have to accept that as your fate. You can leave and follow your dreams.”
With my eyes closed and his scent hovering around me, I gulped in mouthfuls of oxygen. I had options and didn’t have to accept that the universe told Price I was his fate. That was his destiny despite me being his endgame.
But as we stood swaying with the fountain gurgling in the background, I slid my arms around his hips. I refused to accept fate and was choosing my future. It just so happened that Price was in it. He was the alpha main character, and by picking him, I was picking the kids too.
I didn’t understand it all, but my world had tilted at the studio and I couldn’t see straight, but now, I sensed a change, and it was beginning to tilt back.
“Kiss me.”