20. Campbell
TWENTY
CAMPBELL
For the entire fifteen-minute drive from Daisy’s homestead back to Jake’s place, neither of us says a word.
It isn’t a heavy, suffocating silence; it’s more like the quiet that settles over a dugout after a massive win, where we double the other team’s runs, and everyone is just too exhausted and dialed in to speak.
I keep my hand resting on the center console, palm up, and Jake keeps his fingers firmly laced through mine, his thumb occasionally grazing the side of my hand in slow strokes.
My mind is spinning at ten thousand revolutions per minute.
Just three hours ago, I was Eric Hines’s daughter, an optics problem with a fancy law degree and street smarts in damage control.
Now? I am the newly minted strategist for a ragtag grassroots rebellion called Save Sweetwater, sitting next to a minor-league catcher who looks at me like I have personally handed him the moon.
Even the highway that runs alongside Jake’s complex is quiet, barely a single car zooming by us as he parks in his usual spot under the tin carport.
I link my fingers with his as he leads me to his place, and when he unlocks the door to his apartment, the reality of the last forty-eight hours finally breaches my perimeter.
I blink into focus, seeing this space with new eyes, from the perspective of a woman who is giving up some pretty cush digs and might be living in a place much like this one come next month.
Fuck, if I can even afford that.
Jake’s apartment isn’t small; it’s tiny.
A classic, industrial studio with exposed brick that has seen better days, a single massive window overlooking a gravel alley, and a floor plan where the kitchen counter bleeds right into the living room, which, naturally, bleeds into his unmade queen-sized bed.
It’s clean, but I think that’s only because it’s sparse.
It’s the home of a man who spends four hours a day crouching in the dirt and the rest of his time swinging a wooden bat at a ball—and bookends his time on the field by working himself to the bone on his family’s farm.
I drop my heavy tote onto the scratched hardwood floor with a dull thud. The sound echoes off the high ceiling, sounding definitively like a closing door. Ironic.
I don’t have a job. The thought crystallizes. I don’t have an income. I am officially, undeniably, unemployed.
Jake tosses his keys into a ceramic bowl by the door and watches me.
He doesn’t push. He just sheds his light jacket, leaving him in a fitted charcoal gray T-shirt that clings to his broad shoulders and muscular chest, and gestures toward the small, worn brown-leather couch pushed against the brick wall.
I walk over and sink into the left corner, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them.
Jake doesn’t crowd me. He sits on the opposite end, his long legs stretching out, shifting his body so he is facing me completely from his side.
We are like two prize fighters nearing the end of a fifteen-round bout, staring across the ring, trying to figure out whether the referee has officially called the fight or if we have to muster up enough guts and glory to go one more round.
“You’re thinking so loud I can hear it from over here,” Jake says, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. His head falls to the side, resting on the brick wall, and his warm eyes widen, taking me in.
I let out a short, breathy laugh, staring at the space between our feet on the cushions. “I am currently calculating the exact timeline of my financial ruin. It’s a very precise legal algorithm.”
“You aren’t going to ruin.”
“Jake, I wrote a resignation letter that essentially called my now-former boss a traitor to his own people and called the lawyer pulling the strings a bad father. Oh, and then I told him to go screw himself.” I rest my chin on my knees.
“I didn’t just burn the bridge. I blew up the bedrock it was anchored to.
My savings account can sustain me for maybe two months if I eat nothing but instant ramen and stop putting premium gas in my car.
Which brings me to my next point. I’m going to have to sell the Mercedes. ”
Jake’s brow instantly furrows, his jaw tightening slightly.
“The hell you are.”
“I have to,” I insist, matching the tilt of his head with my own as panic bleeds into my tone.
“It’s a luxury asset. It’s a depreciating piece of German engineering that represents everything I am currently trying to expunge from my life.
It was a graduation gift for passing the bar.
I feel like a massive fraud driving it around this town.
Every time I turn the key, it feels like I’m driving a billboard that says Property of Eric Hines.
” I pause, wiping a hand across my tired eyes.
“Granted, my mother is actually the one in charge of gift giving. My dad just signs the checks and okays the credit swipes. She picked the diamond-stitch leather because she thought it would look good in the country club parking lot should I ever join her and her gaggle of hens for . . . brunch.”
Before I can launch into a full financial autopsy, Jake reaches across the small distance between us and catches my ankle. His calloused hand is warm against my skin, and his touch effectively cuts off my frantic monologue.
“Don’t you dare sell the Benz,” he says, his face is solemn.
I blink at him, thrown off by his intensity. “Excuse me? Are you suddenly a luxury car enthusiast, McKinney?”
“I am a mechanic’s son, Campbell. I know what’s under that hood.
” A faint, lopsided smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth.
“That’s a twin-turbo V6. The compression ratio on that engine is a work of art.
It’s got independent multi-link suspension.
And those seats? That leather is nicer than the interior of most houses I’ve been in.
You don’t sell a machine like that just because your old man has a shit personality. ”
A breathless, incredulous laugh bursts from my throat. The sheer absurdity of Jake McKinney—grumpy, farm-boy, dirt-under-the-fingernails Jake—defending the mechanical integrity of my luxury sedan is enough to crack the ice in my chest.
“One, isn’t your dad a ballplayer? Since when is he the master of the garage? And two, does this mean you’re using me for my car now?” My voice cracks slightly as I try to keep my laughter at bay.
“Absolutely,” he fires back, his expression steady, selling the lie. Then his eyes haze, a devious smirk slipping across his face. “I’m entirely in it for the heated seats and the turning radius.”
“You are ridiculous,” I mutter.
I uncurl my legs and lean forward, and before I can think better of it, I let myself fall against him.
I collapse onto his chest, my forehead sinking into the crook of his neck, and he catches me instantly, his arms winding around my waist like steel bands, pulling my body flush against his.
He feels massive, solid, and completely unshakeable.
The heat radiating off him is all the comfort I could ever need.
“Fine,” I mumble against his collarbone, my hands clutching the fabric of his shirt. “I won’t sell the Benz. But you’re going to have to help me modify the trunk, because I’m probably going to have to live in it by next month.”
“Stay here.”
The two words are spoken directly into my hair, flat and absolute. They come out fast, too, like he’s been sitting on them, waiting for the moment. This moment.
I freeze, my breath catching in my throat. For a long, agonizing beat, the only sound in the studio is the low hum of his refrigerator and the heavy, steady thud of his heart beneath my face. I push myself up, resting my palms against his chest so I can look down into his face.
He stares up at me, his dark eyes intense, unblinking, and entirely devoid of the usual teasing humor. This is not the face I expected him to be making. He means it. He wants me to stay . . . here. With him.
“What?” I breathe out.
“Stay here,” he repeats, his grip on my waist tightening just enough to let me know he isn’t joking. “Move your stuff in. Sleep here. Live here. Don’t live in your car, and don’t look for some shitty, overpriced apartment in town just to prove a point.”
I stare at him, my analytical brain desperately scrambling to construct a fortress of logic to protect myself. My heart is drumming a rapid-fire cadence against my ribs.
“That is an incredibly bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Because,” I stammer, my legal mind failing me all of a sudden. “Because it’s too fast. We’ve been . . . whatever this is, we’ve only been doing it for a few weeks. It’s completely unprofessional, not that I have a profession anymore. And it’s reckless.
“This apartment is one room. You don’t have space for me. You have one closet, your bathroom doesn’t even have a proper door, just some sliding barn panel. We would be completely on top of each other. It’s a pressure cooker. I’ll drive you nuts!”
“I don’t care about the closet,” he says, his voice soft, his tone sincere.
“Be realistic. If we do this, there’s no safety net. If we explode, I’m homeless, and you’re stuck with a crazy ex-comms director sleeping on your floor. It ruins the dynamic. It changes everything.”
“Campbell.” He catches my face in both his hands, his thumbs resting on my cheekbones, forcing me to look directly into the raw honesty of his gaze.
He looks slightly terrified, licking his lips as his gaze shifts from my left eye to my right.
His jaw is clenched so hard that a muscle twitches in his cheek, and his chest heaves.
Despite it all, he doesn’t pull back. He swallows hard, his dark eyes boring into mine.
“Just stay. Because I like you here. Because I want you here.”