It was a little overwhelming to think that the guy who’d essentially dive-bombed my world was sought after by millions of people. And he’d picked me as someone he deemed worthy to spend time with. I could say that it didn’t make sense, but quite honestly, if I took away all that I’d read about Cam and just looked at the guy I’d gotten to know, it made all the sense in the world. We got along great, we made each other laugh, and we had a lot in common. I didn’t know the other guy that the world thought they knew. I just knew Cam, and I liked him a whole lot.
I didn’t mention to him that I’d stalked him online, because I wasn’t sure what he’d think about that. Part of me wanted to jokingly ask him if he’d follow me back on Twitter just to see what he’d say, but I didn’t want to invite the outside world into what had been three really great days with the promise of two more. It sort of felt like I was existing in a world that was parallel to my own but on a completely different plane.
I hadn’t even told my parents why I’d decided to postpone my flight home. I’d said something had come up at work and left it at that. I’d only briefly texted with Hannah, but I hadn’t told her about Cam, Gabe was lost in Mexico with his boyfriend, and Tory was still waiting for Van to call, so I didn’t dare tell her who I was with for fear that she’d ask me to have Cam step in to find out why Van hadn’t called. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that he probably wasn’t going to call. From what I’d learned about him from Cam, Van was a huge player.
“I’m almost ready,” I called out to Cam who was sitting on my couch.
He’d come home with me so I could change before we headed out sightseeing. I was dressing warmly since I planned to take him on the Staten Island Ferry. It was cold outside, and being on the water would make it feel ten times colder.
“Take your time,” he called back.
“You want to grab breakfast first?” I asked him.
“Sure. That would be great.”
“Okay, cool. I know a place we can go.”
We ended up at Time Café and both ordered pancakes. Breakfast, just like our other meals, had been filled with conversations about everything and nothing. It felt like we never ran out of things to talk about. I felt bad that Chris and Bruce didn’t sit with us, but they said they didn’t want to intrude. Instead they sat at a nearby table, drank cups of coffee and talked while they kept an eye out for stalkers or other crazy people.
Before we were ready to leave, I told Cam I had to use the restroom and slipped away. When I returned to our table, I stopped short and did a double-take because there were five high school girls standing in front of the booth, talking and giggling and fighting for space. Chris was standing back watching, and I didn’t see Bruce. I guessed Cam was somewhere on the other side of the girls, but I couldn’t see him.
“Is he okay?” I asked Chris.
“He’s fine. He’s just signing autographs, and everyone’s being courteous.”
I watched with slight surprise as Cam stood up and posed for a selfie with the girls who then took turns hugging him. It was surreal to watch.
“Okay, girls. Camden needs to get going now,” Chris said, suddenly interjecting himself into the fray.
The girls whined a little, but Cam made a joke that had them laughing, and they moved away civilly, one of the girls asking him to please follow her on Twitter. He just winked at her, which I’d never seen him do before. He was like a different person. It was like he was on-stage, like how he’d been when he’d first approached Tory and me and assumed we were fans. His tone had only changed when he realized I was there, and I wasn’t a fan at all. It was like he played into the expectation the fans had of him. But they didn’t get the real him. I did.
“Ready to go?” Cam asked me, and I saw the girls watching us from across the restaurant. They were taking pictures as we started to leave.
“They took our picture,” I said, feeling weird that people I didn’t know had pictures of me.
“Yeah, that happens. Sorry about that. I wasn’t trying to get recognized, but they came over to the table. They knew it was me, so I didn’t want to be rude.”
“No, it’s fine. I wouldn’t want you to disappoint your fans, but why would they want a picture of me?”
I knew they didn’t want a picture of me, per se. I just happened to be in the pictures they wanted of Cam.
“Who wouldn’t want to picture of you?” he said teasingly. “You’re gorgeous.”
And there he went flirting again. He’d been doing it off and on for days, but he had yet to act on anything.
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. They just wanted pictures of you.”
“Yeah, probably,” he said vaguely, and I wondered what he was holding back.
As we emerged outside, Bruce met us, and he and Chris fell into stride several feet behind us. I guess it was comforting knowing they were there after what I’d just witnessed. The four girls surrounding Cam had felt suffocating to me. I could only imagine how it would feel if there were more of them.
“It’s such a nice day,” Cam commented, and he wasn’t wrong. Even though it was cold, the sun was finally shining after days of clouds.
“I think we’re going to have fun today,” I said, squinting up at him in the bright sunlight.
“Me too,” he said, and then he surprised me by slipping his hand into mine.
I started to say something, but suddenly a flashbulb went off to my right, and it drew my attention away. I turned, expecting to see another fan with a cell phone camera, but I was instead greeted by a photographer who was snapping picture after picture of Cam and me walking.
Suddenly Bruce and Chris were flanking us, pushing us closer together and hurrying us along. I didn’t know what to do, so I just faced forward and tried not to trip over my feet as more photographers appeared, walking in front of us and coming even closer.
I gripped Cam’s hand tighter, because I didn’t know what else to do, and I wasn’t sure if I should be afraid or not. He didn’t seem to be affected, but I could sense an urgency in how Chris and Bruce were reacting.
“Back up,” Bruce barked at a photographer who’d gotten too close. He didn’t listen.
“How are you Camden?” he asked, never lowering his camera.
“I’m just fine,” Cam said coolly. “How are you?”
“Doing great. Who’s your friend?”
Cam squeezed my hand, and I took it as a sign to not say a word. He didn’t answer the photographer’s question either.
“Where are you two headed?” another photographer asked.
“Just doing some sightseeing,” Cam told him.
“How long are you in town?” the photographer asked.
“Not long,” Cam said, being purposefully vague.
“Andrea, how long have you and Cam known each other?” a female photographer suddenly asked, which obviously made me turn to look at her. She knew my name.
“Don’t answer her,” Cam said, his lips right by my ear.
“Here,” Chris said, and suddenly we were being pushed down a set of stairs that I realized were an entrance to the subway.
Cam held my hand tightly so I didn’t fall, and Chris and Bruce stopped at the top of the stairs to prevent any of the photographers from following us. Within a few seconds, we’d disappeared underground as the photographers fired off shots of us until the last possible moment.
Cam surprised me by whipping out a subway card, since as far as I knew he’d never been on the subway, and swiped it for us to pass through the turnstile. A train was loading, so we slipped onto it and grabbed the first two seats we could. Thankfully they were in the corner and the train wasn’t crowded.
Cam finally dropped my hand when the train started moving. I had no idea which one we’d gotten on or where we were headed, but I guess it didn’t matter. We were no longer being followed. My heart was pounding like crazy, so I took a few calming breaths.
“Are you okay?” Cam asked me.
“What was tha
t?”
“Just the paparazzi,” he said, seemingly unaffected by what had just transpired.
“So, I’m guessing that wasn’t the first time you’ve encountered them like that?”
He laughed. “Not hardly.”
“Yeah, I figured. You handled that like a pro.”
He tugged his baseball cap lower on his forehead. “Yeah, well, I kind of am by this point. I’m surprised it took that long for them to approach me since they apparently knew I was still in the city.”
“Do you think it was the pictures you took with those girls?”
I had a feeling those pics had found their way to social media before we’d even left the café.
“No, they knew before that. They were waiting for us to come out of the restaurant.”
“They knew who I was,” I said, still reeling from that fact.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“They saw us together on Sunday,” he said resolutely, and I wondered how he knew that.
“How do you know?”
“There were pictures online of us coming out of the theater. Chris told me about them on Monday. I didn’t want to freak you out, so I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry.”
“Camden!” I said in disbelief, which made him shush me and slouch down in his seat. I looked around to make sure we hadn’t drawn any attention, and it looked like we hadn’t. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” he said tightly. “I should have told you. I was just afraid that you’d change your mind about staying and hanging out with me.”
I sighed, hearing the defeat in his voice. “Does anyone really care about pictures of me?”
“When you’re with me, yeah. I haven’t really ever had a girlfriend, so the press always jumps at instances when they think I’m with someone new. Last year pictures of me and my brother’s girlfriend surfaced, and the media assumed we were together. It’s what they do.”
“That sucks.”
He shrugged. “It’s part of my life, but I get it if you want to bail. I can take you back to your apartment when we get off the train.”
He was running his hands back and forth over his thighs, which I assumed was a nervous habit, so I reached out and grabbed the hand closest to me, lacing our fingers together. Cam looked at me in surprise.
“I’m not going to bail,” I promised him.
“I’m pretty sure sightseeing is over,” he said remorsefully.
“That’s fine. I’ve seen the city before. I’m good.”
That earned me a small smile.
“Let’s just go back to my apartment. We can lay low and watch movies or something,” I suggested.
“I think we’d better go back to the hotel. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re apartment is sort of vulnerable. If you had a doorman, that would be different, but with anyone able to walk in, it kind of leaves you exposed to being bombarded.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded. “Yes. Now that they know who you are, they’ll find out where you live.”
“But we’re not together,” I reasoned.
“They don’t know that, and they just got pictures of me holding your hand.”
“This is true,” I mused.
“As soon as we get off the train, we’ll call Chris. He and Bruce went back to the hotel to get the car, and Chris will pick us up.”
“How do you know that? You haven’t talked to him.”
“We have a strategy whenever we go out. We talked about it this morning. He and Bruce briefed me on what to do if we got into a jam. Since hailing a cab wasn’t an option, the subway was the next best thing.”
“That’s how you had a subway card,” I mused.
“Yes. Chris gave it to me the other day. I guess I just got cocky after we had a day free of fans and paparazzi, but I should have known it wouldn’t last. I thought I wasn’t going to need the card, but I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I assured him. “I can’t say it was my favorite experience, but it wasn’t that bad. It’s weird that they know who I am, but that’s all.”
He nodded, but he didn’t say anything else. The train was coming to a stop, so Cam got to his feet, pulling me along with him since I still had his hand in mine.
“We should be far enough away,” he said, looking at the numbered streets listed on the station wall. We were on the Upper West Side.
He got his phone out and sent a text to Chris, and then we waited, standing off to the side of the steps that led to the street, Cam not looking at me and me trying to figure out what he was thinking. Ten minutes later, his phone beeped, and we ascended the steps. Chris was waiting in the same black SUV with the tinted windows that we’d been riding around in all week.
No one said anything as we made our way back to the hotel, but Cam kept his fingers laced with mine, which I appreciated. My heart rate had returned to normal, but I was still on alert for lurking photographers, expecting them to pop out at every red light. The windows of the SUV were massively tinted, so they wouldn’t have been able to see us, but I was still apprehensive of being caught off-guard again.
When we finally made it back to the hotel suite and parted ways with Chris, Cam dropped my hand and walked into the living area, running his hands back through his hair.
He turned to face me. “I can arrange for the plane to take you home tonight if you want to go,” he said. “And I’ll have Chris and Bruce go back to your apartment with you while you pack, just in case.”
“I don’t want to leave, Cam,” I said, taking the necessary steps forward to close the distance between us.
“Well, it’s not like we can do much. I guess we can go to dinner or something, but we’ll have to be discreet, and even then I can’t promise that we won’t have our picture taken.”
“That’s okay,” I assured him.
He looked down at me, and I realized it had been a while since I’d seen him smile – not since breakfast. He looked so morose.
“People are going to think we’re together,” he reminded me.
“Is that such a terrible thing?”
Cam looked a little dumbstruck as he pieced together what I’d just said. “Um, well . . .?”
“I mean, if that’s not something you want them to think, then that’s fine. It’s just . . .”
I purposefully let my words trail off as I tried to gauge what he was thinking. We were treading so close to what I hoped was the same line, and I figured neither of us would cross it unless we knew the other felt the same way. Rejection sucked, but I had a feeling we were on the same page.
“Andi, what are you saying?” Cam asked warily, but there was also hope in his voice, giving me the courage I needed.
I smiled a small smile as I pushed up on my toes and slid my arms around his neck. “If people want to think we’re together, let them,” I said, and then I kissed him.
I felt him falter just a touch before he reacted and was suddenly kissing me back. His arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me gently against him as he took over the kiss and parted my lips with his tongue. I met him halfway, our mouths pressed together as we deepened the kiss, and his hand slid up behind my head, holding me in place, right where I wanted to be.
His warmth, his taste, the closeness – those were the things I’d been craving for days, and now that I had them, everything just felt right. This thing between Cam and me had been growing, and now that I’d taken this step, pushed us toward what we both wanted, I had no regrets. His kiss was firm and determined, and I’d never felt as safe as I did in his arms as everything from our crazy morning suddenly melted away. It was just us, as close as we could get, finding out that there was so much more between us than we ever thought.
When he pulled back, he was breathing hard. He rested his forehead against mine, and I noticed that he was grinning. “Did you just kiss me?” he asked breathlessly.
I nodded against his forehead. “Yes.”
“Did you want to?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said as he lifted his head and gazed down at me. “I’ve wanted to do that for days, but I didn’t think you wanted me to.”
“Yeah, I did,” I said as I ran my hands through the hair at the base of his neck and he pressed against me, closing his eyes as he leaned down and kissed me again, bringing back the feelings between us that were so strong. I never wanted to stop feeling them.
Then he was tugging me back as he held me against him, and we tumbled onto the couch, Cam sitting and me straddling his hips as we continued to kiss, getting our fill of four days’ worth of a desire that we’d denied ourselves. My hands ran through his hair, and he planted his hands at my waist, as he continued to kiss me, holding me in place and making me feel secure in the fact that he wanted this as much as I did. His lips moved from my mouth and started to trail down toward my jawline.
“You smell amazing,” he said, as he kissed his way to my neck and buried his head there. “I don’t know what perfume you wear, but it’s been driving me crazy for days.”
I smiled as he kissed my collarbone, his lips warm against my sensitive skin. I slid my hands under his hoodie and his t-shirt to the smooth skin of his stomach and around to his lower back, pulling him closer to me. He groaned softly against my skin, biting me just enough to tease, as I moved my hands to push his hoodie up.
“What are you doing?” he asked around a breath.
“What I should have done the first night you were in my bed,” I said as I lifted his hoodie over his head. I tugged his t-shirt off after it, not letting him have time to second-guess or change his mind.
When he was shirtless, I ran my hands up his chest, making him shiver as he looked up at me in awe. I leaned down and kissed him, pressing against him as I cupped his face in my hands.
“I’m so not going to argue with you,” he said against my lips.
“Why would you argue?”
“Well, because I like you, and I respect you, so I should probably be a nice guy and stop this. But I’ve also wanted this since the first night we met, so I’m not going to do that. I’m going to be selfish.”
Westside Series Box Set Page 14