Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
TALLY
I snap my gloves on at the tattoo studio, the latex cracking like a warning shot.
"Twitch one more time and your phoenix gets a dick for a head," I tell the guy in my chair, who's been jerking every time the needle hits his shoulder blade.
He laughs, all nervous teeth. The businessman waiting his turn scrolls through his phone, pretending not to hear me tell him he's "dancing on my last functioning nerve cell" when he asks—for the third time—how much longer.
But the needle in my hand moves like it's possessed by something holy today.
Each line flows black and perfect into skin.
No tremor, no hesitation. Like those stories nurses tell—how some dying patient will suddenly sit up, eat a full plate of hospital meatloaf, laugh at old jokes.
Family members start calling relatives: "Come quick, she's better!
" Then the monitors go silent. Seems like I’m getting a similar second wind from god knows where.
I wipe ink from a perfect wing tip, wondering if this is the last dance.
After eight hours on my feet, I drag myself through the front door to find Mom's lasagna waiting on the table.
Brinley's cooing in her bassinet, not a care in the world, and somehow my closet's stocked with clean clothes I definitely didn't wash or fold and Brinley’s is as well. I’d be screwed without Mom, which makes her schedule even more miraculous—she races to pound out jazz standards at Indigo three nights a week, and fills in the other evenings at The Ember Room on Sunset with whatever band needs a pianist. Between all that, she still manages to keep my kid alive and fed while making sure I don't drown in baby spit-up and dirty onesies. I don't deserve her.
But her smile is a little off. She’s up to something. Dammit. What is her game?
“What?” I ask her.
She shrugs. I just look at her, trying to figure out what she’s hiding. Because she’s hiding something. That much is plain.
And then I hear the doorbell ring and my heart stops. I look at Mom. “What did you do?”
She shrugs again and walks towards the door and there stands Cameron on my front porch, on the other side of the screen door.
Holy. Fucking. Hell. Cameron stands there like sex incarnate in that dark t-shirt stretched tight across his chest, those stone-washed jeans hugging every goddamn inch of him, and those boots that make me want to be stepped on.
His wavy hair falls just below his ears, begging for my fingers to grip it.
My skin burns like I've been branded, every nerve ending screaming his name.
My heart slams against my ribs so hard I swear he must hear it.
Before the baby, just looking at Cameron made me wet.
Now? These postpartum hormones have turned me feral.
I want to tear his clothes off with my teeth, pin him to the mattress, and fuck him until neither of us remembers our own names.
Just then, Brinley starts her high-pitched, ear-splitting wailing, and the spell between us shatters like dropped crystal.
Cameron's head snaps toward the sound, and something shifts in his face—a flicker of pain followed by a softening around his eyes.
His fingers twitch at his sides, as if reaching for a bottle or a burp cloth that isn't there.
I can see the muscle memory etched into his body.
After all, he lost his baby daughter, and I'd bet my favorite tattoo gun he was the type who not only changed diapers at 3 a.m. but probably sang lullabies while doing it, the kind of father who warmed bottles of mama's breast milk to the perfect temperature while she caught precious hours of sleep.
He has that gentle-but-capable energy of a man who wouldn't dream of doing the bare minimum, but insisted on carrying his full half of the parenting load—maybe even more.
I force a smile. "Cam. Come on in." I shoot daggers at Mom, who's standing there with this shit-eating grin plastered across her face.
I'll get her back for this ambush later.
Still, seeing Cameron doesn't completely suck—partly because the chemistry between us could power a small city, but mostly because he might be my ticket out of this mess with Brinley.
Maybe he'll take her. Permanently. Because I can't do this.
Brinley deserves someone who actually wants her around.
I know what it's like growing up wondering if you're wanted—though with Mom, it was different.
Even bouncing between foster homes, I knew somewhere deep down she loved me.
She just couldn't beat what was eating her alive from the inside.
With Brinley, there's no addiction clouding things up.
No complicated excuse. The truth is simpler and uglier: every time I look at her, something in me just.. . recoils.
Cam walks in as Brinley continues her hungry cry.
I drag myself to her room, scoop her up, and collapse into the rocking chair.
Christ, this kid's stomach is a black hole.
Makes that stray cat I had—the one that howled for food like it was being murdered every two hours—seem reasonable.
I get her latched and fed, change her diaper, and then find myself just staring.
Fuck me, she's gorgeous. Total Kensington through and through.
Celeste nailed it when she said those genes bulldoze everything else.
That dark hair. Those killer blue eyes with lashes that could start a damn fan club.
Cameron's eyes, exactly. No way in hell anyone's buying she's not a Kensington. Kid hit the genetic jackpot.
I carry her to the living room and collapse onto the couch.
My eyes burn, and I blink back tears I don't even understand.
Exhaustion, maybe? For six weeks straight, it's been nothing but ink-slinging at Manic Muse all day, then tag-teaming with Mom at night.
The second I drag my ass through the door, she's grabbing her purse to play piano at Indigo or Ember.
No breaks. No sleep. Just me, Manic Muse and Brinley, around the fucking clock.
Or maybe I'm crying over what I did to Cam.
Christ. Hiding his own kid from him while he was saving lives in Sicily?
Ghosting him like some coward? Looking at him now, standing there in my living room with his perfect jawline and those concerned doctor eyes, I feel something crack inside me.
When I look at Brinley, there's this weird emptiness.
But when I look at him—her father—it's like someone turned the volume back up.
And yeah, okay, maybe knowing he didn't run off with some sexy Italian doctor in a white coat makes it easier to admit my feelings for him.
Either way, I'm drowning in guilt over the whole damn mess.
He's staring at Brinley, and I can see it in his eyes—the moment it clicks.
Shit. The Kensington genes aren't exactly subtle.
Those eyes, that chin—it's like someone photocopied his family features onto my little girl's face.
My stomach knots as I watch him connect the dots.
No more hiding behind lies. Time to rip off the Band-Aid and tell him what he's already figuring out just by looking at her—that little nose is pure Kensington, just like her father’s.
I take a deep breath. "Cameron, meet Brinley. Your daughter."
His face freezes. "My—? But you told me?—"
"I know what I told you." My voice cracks despite my attempt at nonchalance.
I stare at a knot in the hardwood floor, counting the rings.
My heart hammers against my ribs while my stomach twists itself into sailor's knots.
The sight of him standing there—God, he looks good—makes me want to run to him and run away at the same time. What if he never forgives me for this?
Cameron's eyes lock with mine. "Why lie about her father?"
I exhale slowly as Mom bustles in with a steaming lasagna. She sets it down, beaming at Cameron and me. "Off to work," she announces, her fingers brushing my cheek. "Behave yourselves. Or don't—I'm hardly one to judge." With a theatrical wink, she's gone.
My stomach growls loudly. These days I'm perpetually famished—thank god breastfeeding torches calories like nobody's business. Between the baby and the drama, I haven't eaten a thing since yesterday.
“Sit down, and eat. I'm starving.”
I settle Brinley into her bassinet beside me, her tiny coos like background music while I pour Cameron's wine.
The rich burgundy splashes into the glass, and I swear it winks at me as I reach for my sparkling apple juice.
My mouth waters for just one sip of that Cabernet.
Just one. But my milk-heavy breasts remind me why that's not happening tonight—or any night soon.
I eye the bottle of wine and sigh. Add it to the list: wine, sleep, hot showers, spontaneous anything.
.. all sacrificed at the altar of motherhood. The list grows daily.
Cameron obeys like a good boy and sits his ass down at the table.
God, this is weird as fuck. A year of radio silence, when before Sicily we could jabber all night long.
And yeah, we could do other things all night too, but it was the talking I missed most. That feeling when someone just gets you, you know?
When you don't have to explain your jokes or apologize for your opinions.
When someone sees all your rough edges and thinks they're perfect just as they are.
But now? Crickets. I've already demolished one plate of Mom's lasagna and I'm working on seconds, plus some salad with veggies from her garden that she's been babying all summer.
Cameron just sits there across from me, not saying a damn word, which is freaking me out.
His eyes keep darting to Brinley, but his face gives nothing away.