The table is set with ten separate seats, each adorned with name cards and a full three-course meal worth of cutlery and dinnerware laid out and ready to be used. The cascading centerpiece is nothing but ivory candles, greenery, pinecones, and clementines that run the length of the table.
“Ethan,” mom calls from the kitchen. “Would you be a doll and light those candles for me?”
Grabbing the lighter from the shelf behind him, he starts moving down the table, lighting each candle with a smooth flick of his wrist. “So I wanted to tell you something,” he says, looking up at me over one of the flames, his face taking on an orange glow. “I'm proud of you. For everything you've accomplished with your business.”
Furrowing my brow, I wonder what the catch is. “Thanks. That means a lot coming from you.” I hold my hand out for the lighter as he reaches the last candle on his side of the table. He passes it to me, and I start lighting the balance of the candles on my side.
“Also,” Ethan says, shoving his hands in his pockets. But before he can continue, there’s a barrage of clanging pots from the kitchen, buzzing the peaceful atmosphere, upsetting the calm. “I wanted to give you fair warning.”
With the flick of the lighter, I look up at him over the flame, concern threading my brow. He seems nervous, and my brother is never nervous. “Warn me about what?”
Suddenly, the ding of the doorbell interrupts.
“Ethan, go grab that, please,” Mom yelps, panic now setting in her voice. I can hear it in her tone, she’s not ready for guests yet.
As I reach for the last candle, I hear the door open and the deep, brooding drawl of the voice that I haven't heard in three weeks. My heart stops as I freeze in my tracks, a certain familiar heat flooding my cheeks. No, no, no.
Is that what Ethan was about to tell me? That Cameron would be here? Does he know about the two of us?
Numerous questions infiltrate my mind. Surely, Cameron wouldn't have said anything, right? He's not even the type of guy to give enough of a shit to open his mouth about that type of thing.
For a moment, I panic. My heart is racing at an immeasurable speed now, and my palms grow clammy with sweat as I turn and consider bolting. I could hide out upstairs for the remainder of the evening. I can skip Thanksgiving dinner this year, I'm not that hungry anyway. Couldn’t I fake being sick? Or with the way things are going now, maybe I won't have to fake it. Truth be told, I could probably vomit in my mother's crystal vase right now if I had to.
I hear my mom call my name from the foyer as she greets Cameron and whom I can only assume to be his mother.
“Riley, don't be rude, honey. Come say hi. Marsha’s brought the dog with her.”
No, no, no, no, no! This cannot be happening.
“We’re putting him on fire-duty out there with Jim for now so he can tinkle if he needs to,” I hear her say.
Tossing the lighter back on the shelf, I roll my eyes at the thought of the dreaded corgi that started all of this. If I were a decent daughter, I’d correct my mom. The corgi is a girl. A princess to be exact. But I don’t care all that much to waste my breath with it.
Collecting myself, I take a deep breath. Slinking into the foyer with my best forced smile, I keep my eyes to the ground as I head toward Cameron's mom first. She's hunched over and is wearing bright crimson lipstick that coordinates with her green and red plaid pantsuit.
“Hi, Mrs. Alden,” I say, hugging her. She's frail and soft and pats my back when she says my name, but her dark eyes pierce mine with a smile that lets me know she's missed me. My mom takes her coat and whisks her off to the kitchen for a drink.
Ethan suddenly splits from the foyer, giving us some privacy. Cameron locks eyes with me. And though I haven't seen gorgeous, towering man in three weeks, it feels more like a lifetime. It's been difficult for me to not contact him. Not a single night has passed where I've not considered texting him, sending him a message or reaching out to him in one way or another. I just miss him. I’d forgotten what it feels like to be in his presence, to feel the gleaming bright light he shines on situations. To feel his humour run through me like it’s a driving life force.
Bending down, he kisses me on the cheek, and whispers my name.
“Hey,” I whisper back, not sure exactly what to say to him.
“Riley,” Cameron says again, lower this time with more concern. “Can we—”
But then the doorbell rings again. Locking eyes with him, I nod. “Excuse me. I need to get this,” I say before turning from him. And I feel like a complete asshole. Mostly because I've become the very thing I accused him of being.
Dinner at the dining room farmhouse table is hectic. Mom and dad are at either ends of the table. Ethan is next to me, Mrs. Alden across from me, and Cameron next to her. And then the Dowds, followed by Jane and Tricia who are both long-time, single friends of my mom’s.
My dad offers a blessing from the head of the table right before everyone digs in. The candles throw glimmers of silver and gold down the table as we all pass dishes back and forth over conversation.
Cameron catches my eye every few minutes throughout the meal. That smile of his is strong, almost arrogant without even trying to be. But then there's a softness to him tonight, one I haven’t noticed in him before. And that, alone, makes me wish I hadn’t run from him that afternoon at the beginning of November. It makes me crave what knowing him fully would feel like.
I don't speak much over the table. Embarrassingly enough and in front of everyone, my mom points out that I'd burned the edges of the green bean casserole. And by far, she swears it was the most common dish of the meal since everything else came straight from Alfred the chef himself.
And though I would normally find this type of thing amusing, I don't feel like myself. In fact, I haven't felt much like myself since I all but blacklisted myself from Cameron's life. I've been a shell, empty and fragile. A lingering case of who I was before I tried to get involved with Cameron. And I know I'm right. Because it's easier and safer to not get involved with anyone. It saves you from the heartbreak of it all.
After I clear the dishes with mom, my dad insists on running outside to check on the dog and to take on fire-duty again. But I intercept the task and excuse myself from the house.
When I hit the patio, closing the door behind me, I feel a sense of relief. Like a huge boulder has been lifted from me. I take in a deep breath, the cool air of the night biting at the back of my throat. I should've brought my jacket with me, but it’ll be warmer around the fire.
The tan corgi is curled up by the fire pit. She pops her head up from the bricks once she notices me.
“Hi, Cannoli,” I say rolling my eyes at myself for even trying to make conversation. With a dog. “We need more wood, little demon baby,” I sing to her, trying not to sound rude. But again… she’s a dog. She has no clue what I’m saying.
When I walk over to the stack of wood by the side of the house, Cannoli jumps up and follows me, fast on my heels. I grab two logs, one in each hand. The one on my left is much longer than the other and nearly drags the ground as I head back toward the fire pit. Cannoli must think I'm playing with her, because, coming up on my left side, she lurches and tries to fit her entire snout around the piece of wood, as if she's not a stubby rectangle, her proportions awkward but cute.
“Let go,” I say, jerking the wood that she's sunken her teeth into. “Come on, Cannoli. Please let go! You’re gonna get splinters if you don’t stop!”
The dog starts growling at me, as if I'm playing a silly game of fetch with her. If she's waiting for me to call her Princess, it's not happening. Giving up, I drop the firewood that she's latched onto to the patio so she can have it and place the other piece into the fire pit. Grabbing the fire iron, I poke around at the flames and logs and watch them grow, the reds and oranges bleeding in intensity.
Sitting on the bench across from the fire, I pull my dress down to cover my bare thighs from the cold air. I should go back in for my jacket,
but I don't want to face anyone again tonight. Cannoli snarls, drawing my attention to her. “You’re a naughty dog, you know that?” I say, as if she understands a word I’m trying to get across to her. In my solace, I consider how to wrangle the wood away from her. She’s wrapped her paws around it now and is resting her chin atop the log like it’s her throne, but the log itself is as long as she is.
I hear the patio door swing open behind me, and I assume it's my dad. Cannoli picks her chin up off the wood, staring, her snout following my dad. But then unimpressed, she lays her head back down with a huffing sigh as if she can’t be bothered.
“Well, well. Look what the badass little corgi dragged out by the fire.”
When I hear the voice, I’m shocked. But then relief flows over me like a raging waterfall. Cameron.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she has a thing for you,” he says.
Turning, I smirk at him thinking he’s trying to rope me into one of his jokes. And this is the first normal thing I’ve heard him say all night, something that’s not forced or formal. Something completely at ease. I watch as he squats beside the dog. “I didn’t mean you, by the way. I meant the firewood,” he says, sheepishly pointing down at her. He pats the pup’s head. “Drop it, Princess,” he says, his voice sounding serious and gruff. And with a single whimper, Cannoli drops the wood, letting him take it from her. And without a fight, she rests her chin on her paws like she’s the most obedient four-legged creature this side of the Mason-Dixon line.
Cameron looks over at me with a cocked eyebrow.
Shaking my head at him, I laugh. “Maybe you’ve got the right kind of voice for it. Females seem to do anything you ask.”
“Maybe,” he says, standing. Tossing the log into the fire, he sits a few inches from me on the bench, and I can smell the darkness of his cologne as it puts me back to when we were one with each other. “Females. All except for the one that really counts.”
At his words, the back of my neck burns, something strong and almost forlorn. “I’m sorry,” I say, looking down at my restless hands. I pick at my skyfall purple-painted fingernails because I don’t have the courage to look him in the eye. I have no good reason for the chasm I’ve caused between us. And he knows it. “I’m sorry for being unprofessional. And for upsetting what we had. It was fun, and,” looking up at him, I stare into his gaze. “I probably shouldn’t have listened to my brain for once. I should’ve listened to my heart.”
“Hey,” Cameron whispers. When he lays a gentle hand on my knee, I flinch at his foreign touch even though I’ve missed it. “Hey, I understand completely, and you are not the one to blame for this. If I hadn’t been such a player,” he jokes, his words rolling off his tongue, “it might’ve gone different.”
I consider what he means. But then he smiles at me, with his eyes this time, and this is another part of him that I haven’t seen in him before. Content and promising.
Breaking our silence, I can’t help but ask. “Did my brother?” But he doesn’t let me finish before he grins.
Nodding, he glances over at the fire, the flames soak us in a warm watercolor of apricot and citrus. He grimaces at himself. “I may have mentioned us?” he says in more of a question, as if he’s trying to evade my onset of worry.
But surprisingly, I'm not upset. Not even a little. It's almost as if Cameron telling someone rectifies that something ever even happened between us. It throws some weight on the situation, making it a little more real than I thought it was.
“I had to say something, Riley. I was a wreck.”
My chest flutters and goes taut at the thought of me turning him into a mess. I never want to be the cause of his stress or sadness or unsurety in life. In all actuality, the fact that he’s verbalizing all this to me now makes it seem like he wanted it just as much as I did.
“Riley, I’ve been wanting to see you ever since you walked out of my house that day. And you know me. Normally, I do what I want. But I wanted to respect your feelings and your decision to leave. And I figured if you wanted to hear from me, you would reach out.” Reaching over to me, he takes my hand from my lap and pulls it over onto his thigh. Staring down at my fingers, he runs the pad of his thumb down each of my nails like he’s tracing me, studying me. Like I’m his map, and he’s trying to find his way home. Clearing his throat, he continues hesitating on the words. “There’s a world of a difference between you and all the other girls that have hung around me for the past five years. You knew me before the whiskey. Before the money, before the madness of everything.” Looking up, he pulls my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles. “And I can’t say that about any other woman. So, yes. You’re not like the rest of them. You’re better than all of them rolled into one.”
My eyes starting to sting, I feel my throat grow tight with emotion. Without even thinking, I lean myself against him, resting my head on his shoulder, and finally… everything feels right. Like every last piece of me is put back into place. Like all of my empty shelves have been refilled. “Cameron,” I say, wanting to comfort him. But he doesn’t let me.
“It’s crazy to feel like this, isn’t it? To feel like you finally found a place inside someone to call home? Like you were meant to live your entire life tucked away inside someone else’s heart?”
Nodding, I know exactly what he means. I feel a tear spill over and race down my cheek, but I wipe it away before he notices.
“You know,” he hums. “Loving someone is different than I thought it would be. It’s like tasting something you never knew you were missing in your life. A fine wine. Or a perfectly aged whiskey.”
“You hate wine,” I whisper.
He furrows his brow at himself. Then, touching my hair, he leans in and kisses my temple. “Alright, true. But you do taste pretty damn amazing,” he purrs into the side of my hair.
With a laugh, I hold my face up to his and can’t keep myself from smiling. And this is what it must feel like to be pressed against the sun.
“Anyway, I know I’m waxing pretty damn poetic about this. But when it comes to you, I can’t help it.”
“Yeah,” I scoff, still trying to suppress my onset of tears. “Looks like you’re going soft on me.”
“On the contrary,” he chuckles, throwing a glance down at his crotch. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Falling into a fit of giggles, I feel a tormenting flush crawl up my face as he puts his arm around me and pulls me closer to him, kissing my hair again.
“I’ll stop being bad. I just needed to say my piece. And then we can go back to being friends. Or to being nothing, if that’s what you still want.”
His statement catches me by surprise. Because that’s not what I want. Not at all. “Cameron, I don’t,” I blurt, the words not coming quick enough. “I don’t want that. I want to be with you. There’s no one who’s made me feel the way you make me feel every time I’m with you,” I say, looking up at him. Clearing my throat of emotion, I push my hair to the side and shiver under the cool evening.
Without a word, he slinks out of his charcoal blazer and swings it around my shoulders, pulling me into the crook of his arm. The warmth of his body immediately melts me and throws me into a state of calm.
“I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls or text messages,” I say, the words feeling heavy against my tongue. “I just didn’t know what to say. And I understand you have people interested in you.” Pausing, I look up at him. “But I accidentally started developing feelings for you that I couldn’t control. And the best way for me to control them was to remove myself from the situation entirely. And leaving you was the quickest way I knew how to do that. I completely regret it.”
“God,” Cameron breathes, his shoulders slumping, all the tension leaving him. Reaching over, he holds my hand in his, tight and strong with an unmistakable conviction. But when he leans over to kiss me again, I feel him trembling for the first time. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say those words. I don’t know what I�
�d do if you would’ve said anything other than what you just did,” he purrs, letting out a wavering breath. “I might’ve had a whiskey meltdown.”
Smiling, I press my lips to his chin. “Are we going to be okay?”
With a chuckle, Cameron reaches down and brushes another escaping tear from my cheek. “Yeah,” he says, nestling his face in my hair. “Yeah, I think we’ll be just fine.”
Epilogue
My phone dings from beside me on the bathroom counter. I’m hovered over the sink with my face nearly pressed to the mirror trying to wrangle mascara on my curled lashes. I already have my dress on, but it’s too tight to move much without feeling like I might actually fall out of it.. Reaching into my makeup bag, I grab nude lipstick and a gloss, carefully applying it.
My phone dings again. For a second, I think it might be Becca with an update on one of my new clients. But when I tap my phone, I see it’s a message from Cameron.
Cameron: Which shirt should I wear?
The text is followed by two separate photos. Both are of him wearing a white dress shirt, unbuttoned with his abs peeking out. Also in both, he is clearly not wearing pants. At all. Bare to the freaking world.
In fact, he is so incredibly bare that I can’t even focus on the shirts he’s wearing at all, because he is so unbelievably sexy, his abs rippling through and begging me to run my hand down him. I roll my eyes at myself for even thinking it. I scoff and start typing the only comeback I can think of right now. Got him.
Riley: Why don’t you ask your girlfriend?
Studying myself in the mirror, I tuck the last two bobby pins in my blonde hair to secure the low bun that rests at the nape of my neck. Spraying a little of argan-scented hairspray to tame the flyaways, I check my mascara for clumps and my teeth for any food or nude lipstick smudges. My dress is black and hits the floor in a flowing maxi style. It starts as a sweetheart neckline with a crocheted lace that is three-quarter length sleeves and a corset bodice. Turning, I glance at the open back that I, somehow, had laced up on my own. Good to go, Riley.
Whiskey Heart: An Alpha Billionaire Friends to Lovers Romance Page 11