CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER NINE
There was an outer layer of wrapping paper and inside were two items wrapped in tissue. I opened one and saw that it was a ceramic, four-inch-long potato.
“What?” I asked.
“Open the other one.”
When I unwound the second item, it turned out to be a ceramic tomato, about the same size as the potato.
It took me a second to understand what he had done, and then it hit me like a tsunami. If I’d been standing, I might have fallen over.
Oh ... how did he ...I couldn’t finish my thoughts, let alone say actual out-loud words.
Somewhere off to my right Krista said in a delighted tone, “Aww. So sweet!”
“They’re salt and pepper shakers,” he said and I could feel tears forming at the edges of my eyes.
“But why a potato and tomato?” Sadie asked.
Krista piped up with, “It’s something Rachel says,” at the same moment Camden said, “It’s an inside joke.”
An inside joke. We had an inside joke.
Something happened inside me. A break or a tear, where there had once been a firm commitment to a path I’d chosen for myself and my employees. Light was shining through, filling me up. It suddenly seemed stupid that I was staying away from Camden when he so obviously got me.
His present made me feel seen, and it had been a very long time since a man had done that.
“Do you like them?” he asked.
Like them? There weren’t words strong enough to express how very much I adored his gift. It was so thoughtful and just ... amazing. “I thought the no-interrogation thing was my present.”
He nodded, looking very pleased with himself. “I figured this was better.”
“How did you even get it?”
“Dan and I went out for a bike ride this afternoon and we stopped at this store that only sells salt and pepper shakers. It was easy enough to find a tomato set and a potato set. I bought both and mixed them up. Which means I have the only other potato/tomato set of salt and pepper shakers in the world.”
“It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect,” I told him. “I kind of want to name my firstborn child Potato Tomato, now.”
“I think we just got upstaged by produce,” Dan told Sadie, who nodded and gave me a knowing smile.
There was a part of me that didn’t ever want me to be happy. Maybe it was the same bit that sounded like my mother, always reminding me of all the ways I’d fallen short. Whenever things seemed good, there was always a way to mess up my potential happiness.
“Why did you do this?” I asked him.
“What? The present?”
“Yes.” I needed to understand. Would Camden really take things this far? Was he so dedicated to unmasking me that he was willing to completely mess with my head and my heart?
Because he had definitely affected me. I wanted to show him what this meant to me, how my heart had been touched. And there was only one way I could think of to properly convey what I was feeling.
To kiss him.
Which could not happen.
He shrugged. “Like I said, I thought you’d like it.”
But there was more to it than that. Even if he wanted to make it sound like it had been no big deal, it had been the biggest of deals ever.
I wondered if he had his own internal Mom Voice that was holding him back from saying more.
Sadie handed me a plastic knife. “You have to make the first cut of the cake,” she told me. I was having a hard time holding my hand steady, keeping my breathing even. I didn’t know what to do with everything—how sweet Camden was being, how I was reacting to him even though I shouldn’t.
After I made the cut I handed the knife back to Dan and let him do the rest. He started cutting up the cake, handing me one of the corner pieces. That was always the best because it had the most frosting.
I took a bite and sighed. I licked some of the icing off my lips and turned my head just in time to see Camden’s gaze focused on my mouth, his eyes dark and intense.
Gulping against the fiery lump in my throat, I again wished that we were alone.
I’d finished off my piece of cake before Dan had passed one out to everybody else. Well, everyone except Mary-Ellen, who said she didn’t put empty calories into her body.
Since it was my faux birthday, I decided not to remind her about the champagne.
I heard Mary-Ellen say to Vance, “I don’t understand that salt and pepper thing. The only good present she got was the earrings.”
She was so wrong. All of my presents were incredible. This might very well be the best pretend birthday I’d ever had.
Carol returned with more drinks for everyone, and I grabbed at my daiquiri. I was feeling a tad overheated with Camden’s general sexiness and needed something to help me cool down.
He smoldered at me again and I realized the drink wasn’t improving my situation.
“What happened to your cake?” Camden asked me, and although he’d received his piece right after me, he’d had only like, two tiny bites of it. “Do you want more?”
I considered what I should say. Should I lie? What was worse—telling him that I hadn’t liked the cake and didn’t want more or admitting that I had already hoovered up my entire piece?
“Um, I already ate it because it was really delicious,” I told him. I couldn’t slander cake’s good name.
“I can see that,” he said, reaching over to clean a piece of rogue frosting from my lips. I caught my breath when he touched me, but then he lifted his thumb to his own mouth to lick the icing off and molten lava started pumping through my veins and I seriously almost passed out.
“Did you want more?” he asked and I had to clamp my teeth together so that I wouldn’t call out, Oh, yes, please, I definitely want more!
Only it wouldn’t have been about the cake. “I do. I would like to have like, three more pieces of it but I’m afraid you’ll judge me.”
He looked perplexed. “Why do you think I’d judge you? I like seeing a woman enjoy herself.”
Okay, that was it. I was done. Somebody needed to stamp the word finished on my forehead and just put me to bed before I got any more bad ideas than the ones I was currently entertaining and spontaneously combusted. I felt dangerously close to that actually happening.
Camden got me another piece of cake while I drank more of my drink. Still not cooling me off. What did a girl have to do around here to not be in a state of constant heat?
“Get me one with the red rose on it. Those are my favorite. Both the frosting and real-life kind.”
“You got it,” he said and handed me a piece that had one and a half roses on it. I liked a man who listened.
I took my first bite and tasted something plasticky in my mouth, but I ignored it. “Ew.”
“What?” Camden asked.
“There was a piece of melted wax on my cake but I don’t even care. This tastes so good.”
That made him laugh, especially since I kept eating without slowing down. He cut me two more pieces and I dug into those, too. I hadn’t remembered to eat dinner. Cake counted, right? It had nutritional value. Eggs, milk, butter. Oh! And vanilla extract! Was vanilla extract healthy? I couldn’t remember.
Krista spoke up. “So Rick knows about this place that does nighttime paddle boarding. Apparently the bottom of the board lights up and attracts all these cute little fish. I thought it would be fun for all of us to head over and try it out.”
“We’re so in!” Mary-Ellen said, linking her arm through Vance’s.
“Us too,” Sadie said.
Dan gave her side-eye and said, “Do you not remember my issues with the ocean?”
“I promise that no fish will touch you,” she said. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
He didn’t even put up a fight. “Okay, but if I fall in and some underwater creature brushes against my skin, I will remember this. And remind you about it every day for the rest of our lives.”
“Deal.” She kissed him.
“Do you want to go?” Camden sounded hopeful and I couldn’t figure out why. My brain was getting fuzzier. I should probably slow down on the baked goods.
Did I want to go? Not really. I’d spent most of the night wanting to be alone with Camden, to see what would happen. It was like all of my issues and inhibitions had just flown away and I could think about only one thing.
His lips on mine.
And if we were alone ...
Some part of my mind squeaked in protest that it was a bad idea, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember why it was wrong for us to kiss. If everyone else went away maybe I could figure all this out.
“My stomach actually hurts a bit,” I told him. “I’m not feeling too well. I think I’d like to sit here for a couple of minutes.”
“It’s probably because you ate four pieces of cake,” he said with a wink.
“Such a shame!” Mary-Ellen called out loudly. “But we should get going!” She tugged on Vance’s arm, pulling him from the room.
Both Krista and Sadie looked concerned, and I knew they were about to offer to stay with me. Which would wreck all of my very-well-thought-out and carefully laid plans.
“I’ll make sure she gets back to the hotel okay,” Camden offered.
“Why, Camden, that’s a fabulous idea,” Sadie said, pushing on Dan’s shoulders, trying to get him to move. “We’ll see you later.”
“You’re such a gentleman,” Krista told Camden with a tiny smile, as if she were in on my game plan.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Dan said and Sadie hushed him, promising to explain it later and it was like they couldn’t leave fast enough.
Which suited me just fine.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I asked Camden. Now it was my turn to move closer to him, to get right next to his warmth and yummy scent.
“You can tell me anything you want.”
There was something pointed to his words, as if he were expecting me to come clean about my supposed James Bond impersonation.
“I feel fine,” I told him. “I mean, I feel a little light-headed but that’s probably from all the sugar I just ate and drank. I just wanted to be alone with you.”
“Really?” He sounded shocked.
“Yes. Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Probably because you’ve blown me off every single time I’ve flirted with you.”
Silly man. “Only on the outside. On the inside, I wanted to say yes.”
At that he paused, looking me over carefully. “You seem a little drunk.”
Hmm. I had been remarkably truthy this evening. But I thought I’d know if I were drunk. However, there was the fact that I couldn’t seem to shut up. “I am being talkative.”
“I noticed. I just thought my natural charm had finally started to work on you.”
“Yeah, I bet you did.”
He smiled. “What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, you know exactly what I mean. You’re just sitting here with your charm hanging out all over the place like women are supposed to be able to resist it. It seems very unsportsmanlike to me.”
Although I’d basically just told him he was irresistible, he frowned. “Let’s go get a car to take us back to the hotel.”
“Oh, let’s go paddle boarding!” It suddenly sounded really fun.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be out in open water right now.” He stood up, indicating that it was time to go.
Party pooper. I tried to stand up, too, but it was like balance and my body had parted ways. Camden grabbed me and I didn’t even get a chance to enjoy the sensation because my head was really spinning.
“I might have misjudged that,” I announced.
“You misjudged the floor?”
“In my defense, it was moving.”
He tried to straighten me back up, but I liked being pressed against him. “Floors hold still,” he told me.
“Not this one. It makes it hard to calculate where to step.”
“Okay, you are definitely drunk.” He sounded irritated, like I’d somehow wrecked all his spy-hunting plans.
“I don’t know how. All I had were my smoothies.” I tried to think of how this might have happened, but it was hard to focus on anything but him. Then I gasped loudly. “Do you think Sadie spiked the cake?”
He shook his head. “I don’t get it. Even if there was alcohol in your drinks, you only had like, three daiquiris and enough cake to feed a kindergarten class. You should be fine.”
“I haven’t mentioned that I’m a total lightweight? Like, just looking at a bottle of wine is enough to get me buzzed.”
Carol came in to check on us and Camden waved her over. “My friend’s daiquiris—she ordered them without rum.”
At that Carol’s eyes went wide. “I am so sorry, I didn’t hear her say that. Our club is known for our overproof rum in our famous daiquiris, and I thought that’s what she was ordering.”
“What’s overproof?” I tried to whisper to Camden, only it was loud enough that they both turned to look at me.
“It means it has twice the amount of alcohol as regular rum,” he said, still annoyed. “You didn’t taste the liquor?”
“I think they use fresh strawberries here or something. That was all I could taste.” Plus, I’d totally been distracted by him the entire evening. That didn’t seem like something I should be blamed for. “I’m not drunk, though. I’m just buzzed and full of pizzazz! But don’t try to text that to anyone because otherwise we’ll be here all night.”
Carol apologized again, asking what she could do to help and Camden asked if she could grab a taxi and some bottled water for us.
Camden leaned me against a wall, and it felt good against my face. He took out his wallet and I turned slightly to see him leaving like three hundred dollars as a tip. It was more impressive given that we hadn’t had to pay for anything tonight. Carol returned with the water bottles and he put them into his pockets.
He came back over to me, put my arm around his neck, and supported my waist with his free arm.
“I like men who leave big tips. It says a lot about your character. Your mom must have raised you right.”
“I don’t have a mom. Come on.”
Didn’t have a mom? Everyone had a mom. If he wanted one, he could have mine.
But before I could ask him to explain, he was moving us forward and I had to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. The floor seemed to be moving, shimmering in front of me so that it was always a surprise when my foot made contact. I couldn’t look up at the walls because they were definitely spinning.
“Okay,” I told him. “If I injure myself at some point, please tell the EMTs that I’m O positive.”
“Does that happen a lot when you’re drunk?”
“I’m not drunk,” I insisted.
“I can see that.” It sounded like he was agreeing with me, but it was obvious that he wasn’t.
I kept knocking into him, my hip slamming into the water he was still carrying. After the third time it happened I asked, “Is that a bottle of water in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” He looked like he wanted to laugh.
I stumbled hard and he had to hold up my weight so that I wouldn’t fall.
“You know what,” I said. “I think I am drunk.”
“You don’t say,” he responded in that teasing tone of his and I was glad he was more like himself again.
“Why were you mad earlier?”
“At the events we’ve gone to so far, I noticed that you didn’t drink. At the brunch you even spit out your mimosa.”
“You saw that?” Wow. He really had been trying to catch me from day one. “It’s probably that control thing. Getting drunk makes me feel out of control and I don’t like it. I mean, it’s fine now. But normally it upsets me.”
“I’m guessing it won’t be fine tomorrow and you will be mad,” he said. “We’re almost there.”
“Does that mean you don’t like getting drunk, either?”
“Nope. I don’t like having misunderstandings with the floor.”
Ha. That wasn’t why. He didn’t want to be out of control, either. I knew the real reason even if he didn’t want to say it.
A taxi was waiting for us, and the driver did not seem happy when he saw me. Which I thought was kind of rude. Camden had to promise to pay extra if I got sick, but I wasn’t that drunk. It seemed like overkill.
As the taxi drove away from the club, I studied Camden’s profile. He looked like he needed a haircut—the way his hair curled just behind his ear was really cute. I reached up to touch it, and he flinched like I’d hit him with an ax.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“You’re not really yourself right now and should probably just get to bed.”
“I can’t help myself. Do you know that you smell really good? I think it’s because you smell clean, like soap. As if you shower routinely. Like, that’s how low the bar is for women. That a man having good hygiene is what does it for us.”
He smiled again, but shook his head. “You might want to stop before you say something you regret.”
I probably should have listened to him.