Chapter Twelve #2
“No, at all of it.” Soraya pulls a tube of lip gloss from her purse. “Being a friend, a person.” She swipes it on and drops it back into her bag before looking at me. “Don’t speak on things you don’t know about.”
“I’m—” My mouth works open and shut like a trout.
How has Campbell managed to get Soraya, very likely the coolest person I’ve ever met, under his spell?
Zero percent of me thought she wouldn’t want to commiserate—what’s it to her, another man with an ego in advertising?
I feel chastised and hideous and tricked. “I’m sorry.”
Soraya nods. “I know you have history, but—”
I don’t get to learn the but, because Campbell waves us up to the bar to collect our shots. The last thing my roiling stomach needs is tequila.
“To week one,” he says as he passes them out. He holds his glass in the air and adds, “May the best team win.”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes, just in case Soraya’s looking my direction and it gives her more cause to hate me. Campbell clinks his shot glass to the bartender’s first, then Soraya’s, then Dexter’s.
When he turns to me, he says, “Eye contact, French.” His voice is just low enough to feel private.
I don’t want to look at him, especially not after all that with Soraya.
But Campbell’s right here: not only the person whose very existence repeatedly reminds me I’m not the best at this, not only the person who knows exactly how to knock me off balance every time it counts, but apparently the best person on earth.
When I hold his gaze, it’s almost unbearable. The dark pull of his irises in the amber light of the bar, the fool’s gold of his eyelashes.
I’m thinking he’s beautiful—I’m hating myself for it—when he touches his glass to mine and adds, “Or it’s bad luck.”
Campbell tilts the shot to his lips and knocks it down. Swipes the back of one wrist over his wet mouth.
I swallow the tequila in a searing gulp and drop my glass on the bar. Campbell’s all the bad luck I’ll ever need.
“Could I get an espresso martini, please?”
The bartender nods at me, then turns away. The music changes, Frank Sinatra warbling the opening lines of “Moon River,” and suddenly I’m back at my intern desk across from Campbell. His phone ringing in his pocket.
“Is this still your ringtone?” I ask. He’s the only person I know with something other than a preset ringtone; but then again, he’s also the only person I know with a horseshoe-patterned shirt.
Campbell leans back against the bar beside me so we’re facing each other. I shift as far away from him as the cramped space will allow.
“Guilty,” he says. “It was my parents’ wedding song.”
“That’s adorable.” The bartender pours vodka into a cocktail shaker and smiles up at Campbell from under her eyelashes. He grins at her, angled over his shoulder, and I need air.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I say, pushing off the bar.
“What about your drink?” Campbell calls after me. But I just lift a hand—who cares?—and beeline away from him.
The bathroom’s tiled and fancy, with stall doors that hit floor to ceiling. I drop onto the toilet with all of my clothes on and bury my face in my kneecaps.
You’re better than this.
Don’t speak on things you don’t know about.
Eye contact, French.
I hate what Campbell does to me, the abject disorientation of being close to him for too long.
I wonder what Dexter would say to Campbell if he started talking shit about me—if he would defend me the way Soraya defended Campbell—and realize that I know through to my bones Campbell wouldn’t talk shit about me to Dexter.
Campbell doesn’t need to talk shit, because he’s better than me. He can beat me with his work alone.
It’s only me, scrabbling at ways to get ahead of him. Clawing up from the pit of my own insecurities. Acting like a child and watching the shape his mouth takes around a shot glass. The person he reduces me to is disgraceful.
Ava’s text sits unanswered on my phone: Are you surviving World War C?
No, I could tell her. I’m hiding from him in a bathroom. I actually can’t even be around him without acting deranged.
I wish, suddenly and acutely, that I could snap my fingers and be home.
That I could be the one snuggled next to Pancake on the couch instead of Lev.
That Ava and I could be standing side by side in our tiny kitchen, cobbling together a raccoon charcuterie board in our pajamas with Campbell entirely out of the picture.
I close my eyes and imagine it. But even in the fantasy version of my life, this conjuring of my own brain, I can’t buck the nagging sense that it doesn’t exist that way, anymore. Even if I was home, it wouldn’t feel the way it used to.
The bathroom door bangs open, and I jolt up. Someone walks into the stall beside me and snicks the lock into place. I breathe out, long and slow, through my nose.
Campbell is one person. Why am I giving him so much power?
I wash my hands in the frigid tap water and push out of the bathroom. Shoulders set back, espresso martini on my mind. I’m capable of getting through a simple round of drinks with Campbell Porter, for god’s sake.
But right at the end of the hallway leading back to the bar, someone intercepts me. He’s tall and smells expensive. Really smells—the cloud of his cologne greets me well before I have time to look up and register his face.
“Hey, there.”
Low voice, something a little sticky about it.
He’s wearing a cowboy hat that looks more performative than anything—an Aspen uniform that feels like the rich person’s equivalent to being a Disney adult.
Everyone here with money wears glistening cowboy boots and a hat, whether or not they’ve got any intention of approaching a horse.
I think of Nantucket and curl my fingers into my palms.
“Hi.”
“I noticed you at the bar,” he says. Easily a decade older than me, late thirties edging forty. Handsome in an assembly-line sort of way, all Ken doll features that add up to something attractive I should probably like but don’t. “Where you visiting from?”
My eyes flick past him toward the bar, where I can just see Dexter and Soraya next to Campbell. He’s still talking to the bartender, leaned onto the counter with one elbow.
“How do you know I’m not local?” I ask, looking up at the man. He smiles, perfectly symmetrical.
“Ah, your clothes.” His eyes sweep down my body. “City girl.”
It’s a character I could step into. City girl. I lift my chin to get our eyes more level; he’s got a few inches on me. “Chicago,” I tell him.
“Cubs fan?”
“Not even a little bit.”
He laughs. It’s rough and short, and it doesn’t quite touch his eyes. “Can I buy you a drink?”
I glance to the bar again. The bartender’s gone, serving someone near the door to the kitchen, and Campbell’s looking right at me. One elbow still propping him up. His eyes are just narrowed, like he’s trying to parse what’s going on.
“Already ordered one,” I say, pulling my gaze from Campbell’s. “It’s waiting for me.”
The man turns to look behind him. “Got a man waiting for you, too?”
“Nope,” I say. When I try to step around him, he holds out one big hand. Flat-palmed, all five fingers spread. Not quite touching me, but close enough that he would be if I took another step. I look up at him. “Excuse me.”
“One drink,” he says. “You can tell me what you do like about Chicago.”
“No, thank you,” I say. “Have a nice night.”
I step forward and he doesn’t move; his hand makes contact with my rib cage and I immediately step backward. My skin prickles in warning underneath my shirt.
“Come on,” he says. Smiling in a way I feel as a drop of my stomach. “You can order whatever you like.”
“I already did order whatev—”
“I heard her say no.”
We both look up to find Campbell in the hallway. He’s got his hands in his pants pockets, the picture of composure. “Even heard her say ‘thank you,’ ” he continues, “which, between you and me, is pretty rare.”
The man stares at Campbell, who smiles as he leans closer to us. “Not much in the way of manners, this one.” He tips his head at me and then looks at the guy. “Though I guess you aren’t big on those, either.”
The man opens his mouth, but Campbell’s looking at me. “You good, French?”
“Fine,” I say, thinly.
Campbell reaches into the space between us so his arm’s separating me from the man. He nods. “Come on, then. While your martini’s still cold.”
I step toward him without looking up. I feel Campbell’s arm around my back—close, warm, but not quite touching me—until we’re a few paces away and he drops it. The temperature shift sends goose bumps along my forearms. I tell myself not to miss it, what it felt like to be surrounded by him.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say, quietly.
“Of course not.” Campbell looks at me, but the smile he offers isn’t quite what it was a minute ago. “Just didn’t want you to be exposed to any more equestrian attire after taking such offense to my horseshoe shirt.”
We hit the bar, and Campbell reaches out to drag my espresso martini toward me. His hand’s shaking a little. His knuckles are dusted with freckles.
“Thoughtful,” I say, slowly, meeting his eyes.
He can’t quite hold them as he replies, “I’m glad you finally noticed.”