Hot Commodity

by Linda Kage

  ~ * ~

  Cameron perched his hip against a small table and watched Boston arrange the pool balls into a battered triangle.

  "Is it your turn to break or mine?" Boston asked.

  He knew full well it was Cameron's. The loser of the previous game always started the next game, and his dear cousin never forgot anything. He just wanted to hear Cam admit he'd lost yesterday.

  Cameron took a sip of his cola, wishing the bartender had accidentally slipped in a dash of bourbon. "I think it's yours."

  Boston laughed. "Yeah, whatever." He handed a cue stick to Cameron. "You know you lost yesterday."

  "Okay, fine," Cameron grumbled as he hefted the stick and leaned over the table. "If you want to remember it wrong, then far be it for me to correct your faulty brain."

  He broke, and the balls cracked against each other, spreading across the green felt as they rolled madly to escape each other. When nothing dropped into a pocket, Cameron obligingly offered the stick to Boston. His cousin promptly sank three before missing.

  During Cameron's second turn, the woman walked in.

  He didn't spot her but the other guys around the smoke-filled joint definitely did, wolf-whistling and ogling the entrance. Cameron hovered over the table and aimed. He didn't bother to glance over, but Boston did. Cameron saw his cousin's eyes widen.

  "Uh, Cam," he said in a strange voice.

  Cameron hit the cue ball, straightened, and glanced over just as Olivia caught sight of him. As their gazes connected, something passed through him and made every nerve in his body shudder. God, she looked good.

  It took him a moment to realize she was pissed.

  He swallowed briefly, a sinking feeling landing hard in his gut. For some reason, he knew things were about to get ugly. But he smiled anyway and said, "Hey, baby. Want a drink?"

  Her eyes flashed to his glass and she picked it up to take a sniff. When she was satisfied it wasn't alcoholic, her glower settled a little. She set his cup down. "What're you doing here?"

  Cameron glanced toward Boston. "We're playing pool," he answered. "What're you doing here?"

  "I went to see you at work," Olivia said.

  Cameron grinned. "Really? A nice, wifely visit, huh? Was I going to get a nooner?"

  Olivia glared. "Not hardly." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I was...I was…" Her face turned a bright red in embarrassment, making Cameron think maybe she had been coming to give him a nooner. Well, hot damn. Now he felt bad about being away.

  Tightening the arms she still held over her chest, she turned from Cameron and watched Boston aim and hit his cue ball, pocket it, and then look around at what he wanted to aim at next. Her gaze slid to Cameron.

  "So, it's real busy at work, huh?" she demanded. "No time for you and your lawyer to work on annulment papers. Isn't that what you said last night?"

  "Hey, everyone needs a break every now and then," Cameron answered.

  "Oh, really?" Olivia set her hands on her hips. "That's funny. Your receptionist said you'd been gone for almost three hours. And this was the third time this week you guys have come down here to 'take a break'."

  His smile faltered. "Okay, so I lied. We're pretty much dead at work. Our last venture recently fell through." Thanks to her mother.

  Olivia's mouth dropped open. "You lied?" she repeated as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

  "Well…" He shrugged and sent her a pretty-boy smile. "Yeah."

  "You lied!? You lousy son of a bitch. What about my annulment papers? I want an annulment!"

  Boston totally missed the cue ball he was trying to hit, and everyone in the place stopped what they were doing to turn their way.

  "Yo, lady," some idiot actually called. "If you're going to be single, you can go out with me."

  Olivia told him very rudely where he could shove it.

  Cameron sent her a frown. "Hey now. Old Mack over there's a decent fellow. You might want to take him up on his offer. You'd probably have a lot of fun on a date with him."

  Olivia stared at Cameron. "Have you even started the papers?"

  He squinted his eyes as if he was thinking about it, then straightened, and shook his head. "Nope."

  Olivia stomped her foot. "Why the hell not?"

  "Well, probably because I don't really feel like it right now. I'd rather play pool." He glanced at her as he bent over the cue ball to aim. "If you're so hot and fired for an annulment," he added, squinting one eye on the ball. "Get your own damn lawyer. I sure as hell won't try to stop you."

  He hit the ball, totally missing his target, and glanced Olivia's way. She looked like she wanted to let loose with a shrill scream, but she must've been so mad, she couldn't even manage that. She merely turned and stomped from the building. He watched her leave before he glanced over at Boston. "Want to finish this tomorrow?"

  Boston shook his head and laughed like he didn't know why Cameron was even asking. "Just go."

  Cameron tossed his stick onto the pool table and hurried after his wife.

  He caught her by his Miata. "Hey, could you give me a lift home? I think I'll knock off for the rest of the afternoon."

  Olivia completely ignored him and threw herself into the driver's seat. Cameron opened the passenger door. He barely shut it before she gunned the engine and took off.

  Cameron sucked in a quiet breath and refrained from latching onto something for support as they neared a tight curve. "So…" he started nonchalantly. "Nice weather, we're having today. Bright and sunny. Not a cloud in the sky."

  Remembering their first morning in Vegas, Cameron watched Olivia ignore him as she sped even faster.

  He gnashed his teeth and stared out the side window so he couldn't see how recklessly she drove. He tried talking to her some more, but she completely ignored him. His humorous monologue should've had her cracking up with laughter, but she merely stared stonily ahead.

  Cameron started to grow frantic. Why was she so mad at him, anyway? Who cared if he'd been playing pool? Who cared if he hadn't gotten started on the annulment yet? Why was she suddenly in a rush? Was he such an awful roommate?

  As she veered around a corner, the tires broke loose and squealed. Cameron grabbed hold of the dash for dear life. "Holy—" he started to swear and then glanced over at her irritably. "Why are you so eager about this annulment anyway?" he muttered, finally getting to the meat of the problem. "It's not like you have somewhere more important to go."

  He realized he'd just said the wrong thing a split second after the words left his mouth.

  "Actually, I was coming to tell you about the job I started today," she hissed. "I even got paid. Real money."

  The breath whooshed from his lungs. Oh God. She was leaving?

  "Really? That's great," he said, after clearing his throat. "Uh, where is it? What'll you be doing?"

  She screeched to a stop in their drive, hurled herself out of the seat and slammed the door, stomping toward the house.

  "Okay, then," Cam said to himself, since there was no one else around to address.

  He opened the passenger side just in time to hear her slam the door into the house as well. Cameron blew out a breath.

  Slowly, he exited the car and loped to the entrance. He could hear her stomping up the stairs and slamming more doors as he eased carefully inside. She went straight to her room, the one she'd stayed in only one night so far. He knew this wasn't the best time to mess with her, but he didn't have anything else to do, so he strolled up the stairs.

  The sound of glass breaking in the bathroom followed by a cry of pain caused him to pause. "Livy?"

  He rushed forward. When he reached the opened doorway to the private bath, the breath whooshed from his lungs. He came to a dead stop.

  It was like stepping ten years into the past. As fresh as if it were yesterday, the vision hit him suddenly of Sienna lifting her face with guilty triumph and flipping over her wrists to show him her knife work. He'd nearly fallen to his knees when he'd seen the blood
.

  "Oh, God, Sienna. What have you done?"

  "Just let me go," she said weakly as she glanced down awe-struck by the red stream pumping from her veins.

  He grit his teeth, not even aware tears were flowing down his cheeks. "No." His voice was hoarse as he flew to her side. "No!"

  But he didn't use such dramatics with Olivia. It only took a moment to take in the situation. The wall mirror was shattered and pills from an opened container had been spilled out and were scattered among broken glass.

  Cameron lifted accusing eyes. She held a large chunk of mirror in her shaking hand; it dripped with red ooze. Blood squirted from her wrist.

  Her face went sheet white as she looked up with wide, scared eyes.

  Oh, God.

  Not again.

  Without saying a word, he grimly marched into the bathroom and went to work. Snatching a white hand towel, he pressed it against the wound on her wrist, mummifying her entire arm as he wrapped her. When blood instantly soaked through the terrycloth, Olivia let out a gasp, and her knees gave way.

  Cameron cursed and caught her before she hit the floor. She grabbed his shirt and held on for dear life.

  He took her free hand, manually setting it over the wound. "Hold this," he said. "Press it tight."

  Olivia followed his directions but looked away as she did, tucking her face against his chest as if seeking comfort.

  Not wasting a second, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her downstairs and out to his car. Refusing to feel anything, Cam set her in the passenger seat and buckled her in.

  Other than his two gruff instructions, he didn't speak to her. He merely drove fast all the way to the hospital. Looking too scared and pale to talk either, Olivia held her hand over the towel, trembling, and refused to look at all the blood. Cameron glanced over once to see the sticky, red wetness seeping between her fingers. He pressed his foot harder on the gas.

  All the while, he shook his head and gnashed his teeth. Explosive words bubbled to the surface, but he kept swallowing them back down. This woman wasn't his problem. He wasn't going to waste any time lecturing her. It didn't involve him. He kept repeating that to himself even as the anger turned to panic, and he felt like crying for the fate that had been handed to him.

  Why? Why had she done it?

  ~ * ~

  Olivia felt like a complete nimrod. She'd never been so foolish and asinine in her entire life. She was just lucky Cameron had been there to keep a level head and get her to a hospital.

  Like a knight in shining armor, he'd swept into the bathroom and taken control of the situation. And now she was sitting in an emergency room, waiting for someone to come back and release her. Eight stitches had patched her wrist back together.

  Glancing down at the gauzy square bandage, she shuddered. It was amazing that such a tiny suture held together what had seemed like a huge gaping hole only an hour ago. Just thinking about all the gore that had come out of that hole made her woozy all over again. She reached out a hand to brace herself against the wall just as a nurse walked in.

  "Whoa. You okay there?" The nurse caught her shoulder.

  "I'm good," Olivia murmured. Considering.

  "Well, don't try to stand up so fast. You haven't quite got your land legs back yet."

  She hadn't been trying to stand, but Olivia didn't mention that. Slowly, she eased off the cot, hating the sound of the sterile padding crinkling under her as she stood. She'd never been a fan of hospitals. They reminded her of death and sickness, and thinking of death always brought up a picture of her father slumped in a bloody pile on the floor.

  She winced and swallowed down more nausea.

  "So…" The nurse asked curiously, glancing down at Olivia's bandaged arm. "How in the world did this happen?"

  Olivia nearly groaned. What could she say? Well, you see, I was throwing a fit because the man I want to stay married to refuses to give me the annulment I've been demanding. So, I was slamming doors and flinging shoes left and right. When I shut the medicine cabinet too hard, glass went flying and voilà...

  "The mirrored cabinet door in my bathroom broke when I was closing it."

  "Hmm." The woman's stare was dry. "Fragile door," she finally answered.

  Olivia groaned. "Okay, okay," she gave in. "I was being a drama queen after having this fight—" if the event could even be considered a fight—"with my husband. I went to the bathroom to get an aspirin, because by this point, I had a raging headache."

  "Uh huh," the nurse said, urging her on and nodding because she obviously knew about men-induced headaches.

  "So I snatched out the bottle and opened the cap, but when I tried to lift the handful of pills to my mouth, my arm bumped into the still open cabinet door, and I spilled all the aspirin down the drain." Olivia let out a sigh of relief, glad that moment of frustrated anger had passed.

  "So you glared at the door for causing you to spill all your drugs and slammed it shut," the nurse continued for her, able to summarize Olivia's tale. "Causing it to shatter into a million pieces and take a nice chuck out of your arm."

  Olivia's shoulders slumped. "Exactly."

  The nurse treated her to a sympathetic smile. "Bummer."

  "I never did get that aspirin either," Olivia complained as she pressed a palm to her aching forehead.

  "Well, I've got good news," the nurse smiled and handed her a slip of paper. "The doctor wrote out a prescription for some nice, hefty pain killers."

  "Oh, thank God." Olivia snagged the sheet from her hand.

  "And you've been released. So, you're free to go."

  ~ * ~

  Cameron sat in the waiting room. He probably would've been pacing with worry—if he hadn't been so steeped in the past. But horrors from another lifetime consumed him, so he sat as still as a statue, thinking of his first wife.

  They had been married four months the first time Sienna tried to commit suicide. Well, that was the first time she tried since Cameron had come into her life. He hadn't been expecting it, and he hadn't been prepared.

  The fight had been about nothing really. They were always coming to a confrontation over the stupidest things. This time it had been about arranging the living room. They'd bought a new television, and Cameron wanted to move something to better fit it into its spot. But his new wife didn't like change. He hadn't even raised his voice as he disagreed with her and told her why he thought the placement should be the way he suggested. But she started crying anyway, making him immediately apologize. In return, she ran to their room and locked herself inside.

  The next afternoon, she took too many of her prescription pills for depression and started to convulse. When Cameron came home for work to find her passed out on the bedroom floor, he freaked. He had the presence of mind to call an ambulance, but that was about it. They took her away and pumped her stomach. Afterward, a psychologist came in and did an evaluation. He decided Sienna wasn't stable enough to be in society, and within hours she was sent to a mental institution for three weeks' evaluation.

  Cameron visited her daily and told her how sorry he was about the fight. He'd never let it happen again. He'd change; she'd see.

  But the stress of having to constantly be so accommodating, to always be on the ball and smiling for her, wore on him. After they'd been married six months, Sienna must've realized what she was doing to her new husband.

  Spring break came and, happy to ditch classes and college for a while, Cameron took her away. They went to the Bahamas and basked in the sun for a week. But Sienna noticed he didn't try so hard to make her laugh anymore because she mentioned it to him and told him it was okay. He knew it wasn't but didn't argue.

  She told him he could leave her. He rejected her idea, of course, and worked extra hard not to let any of his exhausted frustrations show. He didn't say anything to get them into a fight, and he was constantly nice. Sometimes, all he could do was hold her in his arms and stroke her hair, telling her he loved her.

  But she caught h
im sneaking some of her sleeping pills. When she asked if he was having trouble sleeping, he tried to shrug it off, assuring her he was fine. But she must've known better. He couldn't do this much longer. He couldn't smile all the time. So Sienna took matters into her own hands. She slit her wrists.

  Again, Cameron found her and carried her to the hospital where they stitched her up. This time, she stayed in a mental institution for six weeks.

  He went to see her as she lay strapped to her bed. Crying over her, he asked, "What did I do? What did I do wrong this time?"

  She merely looked up at him with dull, lifeless. "You're trying too hard."