Chapter Sixteen #2
“French.” His voice is drawn and raw: a warning. He’s opening his mouth to say something else when my phone rings.
Campbell watches, his lips parted, as I yank it out of my bag. When I see that it’s Ava, I pick up just for the relief of someone else in this hallway besides Campbell and me. I’m on the verge of breaking a sweat; I’ve never been so grateful for a distraction.
“Hi,” I say, too loudly. “I’m at dinner. Can I—”
“Mattie, it’s Pancake.” Ava’s voice is a strangled whine. “It’s Pancake, she got into my edibles. I think only one, maybe two? She’s walking so wobbly, Mattie, she can’t even stand—” Ava starts crying. She tries to talk through it, but her words are unintelligible.
My nervous system, already at an eight, rockets to an eleven. I spin around so I don’t have to look at Campbell as I say, “Is she breathing normal? Can you feel her heart?”
“I don’t know,” Ava whimpers. “I don’t know, Mattie, I’m so sorry, I was such an idiot to leave them on—”
“Ava,” I snap, and she immediately goes silent. “It’s not your fault, okay? But I need you to get her to the ER right now.”
“I’m in the car,” she says, a little clearer. She swallows so hard I hear it as a gulp through the line. “Lev’s driving. We’re almost there, she’s in my lap and she’s breathing, I just wanted you to know. I wanted you to know and I’m so sorry and I’m going to do everything I can—we’re going to—”
Her voice dissolves away again, and I mutter, “Shit.”
I’m looking down at the floor, and suddenly Campbell’s shoes are in front of mine. I try to turn around again, but he stops me. Both of his hands on my elbows before they drop again. I can’t bring myself to look at him. I have a flash of it—his gaze on my mouth—and then Lev says my name.
“Mattie?” He sounds like he’s talking from behind a heavy curtain; he must have me on speaker. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose. Pancake is my family. My responsibility. Ava wasn’t hard to convince, but still—it was me doing the convincing. Me who brought Pancake into our lives. If anything happens to her—
“Look, I think it’s all right,” Lev says. I can hear Ava crying in the background. “This happened to my cousin’s dog and he was okay.”
“How big is your cousin’s dog, Lev?” My voice rises, too loud for this hallway. Campbell hasn’t moved; he’s standing two narrow inches in front of me. “Pancake is seven pounds.”
“Ah, I don’t know, Mattie,” Lev says. “Bigger than her. Bigger. But it’ll be okay, okay? Ava just wanted you to know, but it’s going to be okay.”
“How do you know that?” The question edges on hysterical, my voice cracking. “How can you possibly know that, Lev? You’re a pharmacist, not a veterinarian.”
“That’s true,” Lev says. Good, decent Lev, who’s driving my cat to the emergency room and doesn’t deserve any of my ire. My breath is coming fast and shallow. “But we’re doing our best, Mattie, okay? I promise. I promise.”
“Okay,” I say. “Okay, fuck. I’m at, like—” I look toward the dining room, because I can’t quite remember where I am.
When I turn back around, Campbell’s face is right there, watching me carefully.
I glare back at my shoes, centimeters from Campbell’s.
“I’m at a dinner. For work. But can you text me? Like, as often as possible.”
“Yes,” Lev says. “Yeah, we will. We’re pulling in now, okay? Ava will text you.”
The line clicks off. I stare at my phone in the palm of my hand, thinking of Pancake’s small body. The tickle of her whiskers against my skin when she nuzzles into my jaw. Her minuscule, beating heart.
There’s a horrible clattering noise in the hallway, and it isn’t until Campbell’s hands land on my shoulders that I realize it’s my own breathing.
“What’s going on?” he says, in a tone so gentle I have to look up and confirm it’s actually him.
I’ve known so many versions of Campbell—arrogant and cuttingly clever and professional.
Loud and obnoxious and really, inconveniently funny.
But never this: soft. The patient way he’s looking at me, the grounding weight of his palms on my bare shoulders.
I can just feel the smooth metal of his ring.
“It’s my cat,” I manage. I sound panicky and garbled. “She’s—sick.”
Campbell’s eyes move over mine. “Sick goodbye, or sick expensive vet bill?”
My lips part. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Just want to know what we’re working with,” he says, easily. His thumbs are tracking over the ridge of my collarbone. Back and forth, just enough pressure to get me back into my body.
“I’m not sure,” I admit. My eyes feel dangerously sharp. “I think I might cry.”
“Okay,” Campbell says. “Crying’s fine. Need you to breathe, though.”
My breath’s so rattly I feel like I’m choking. Campbell draws a deep breath, and I’m desperate to get away from this: the intimacy of it, the idea that I’d ever let Campbell Porter lead me through a breathing exercise. What almost happened before this, a cliff we nearly fell over face-first.
“Come on, French,” Campbell says. The low drawl of his voice. “I know you hate this. But you’ve got to breathe.”
I meet his eyes, finally—he’s going blurry. He nods at me. I breathe and Campbell squeezes my shoulders, all ten fingertips pressing in. “Good,” he says. “I think you can do better, though.”
“Fuck off,” I mutter, and he grins.
“There she is.”
I breathe again, trying to still the frantic gallop of my stupid heart. I’m so far away. There’s nothing I can do—nothing. Letting myself boil down to a human puddle in this hallway isn’t going to help anything at all.
I raise my shoulders up to my ears, drawing a long, slow breath, and Campbell’s hands rise with them. His skin is so warm. I have the indecent urge to close the preposterously small distance between us and hide my face in his chest, that navy linen he looks so good in.
Instead, I wipe my eyes and say, “Please stop touching me.” What I don’t say is that I like it too much. That I’m scared to know what this feels like.
Campbell drops his hands. He dips his chin, just a little, to get me to look at him. “Hey, I’m sorry about your cat. I hope she’s okay.”
“Yeah,” I mumble, swatting at him. Campbell seeing me this way, Campbell holding me still, Campbell calming me down: it can never happen again. “Thanks. And I’m sorry about—before.”
My eyes flit over him and away. Apologizing feels terrible. Everything feels terrible.
But when Campbell nods, holding my gaze as it finally settles back on his, what I also feel is grateful. A numbing blur of relief that he’s here with me, that I’m not alone in this hallway with my fear. My nose burns, and I shoot my hand toward him. He looks down at it.
“Truce?” I ask. It’s the best way I know how to say thank you. “For the rest of the trip.”
Campbell’s eyes rise back to mine as, slowly, he wraps his hand around my outstretched palm. Firm and sure. Cool press of his ring.
“Clean fight?” he says.
I squeeze his fingers, holding on just a little longer than I need to.
“To the death,” I promise.