“There are things that happened that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to share with you, Lakin. But I need you to know that what you did for me this evening, the cake, this gift…it’s overwhelming. It reminds me of all the things I never had while at the same time, it makes me so thankful it’s you here to offer me these things.”
I take the token from her and place it back into its case. Her body immediately relaxes as I alleviate the pressure of the moment. “Thank you,” she exhales when she hears the box snap shut.
I rest the box in her palm and then lightly lift her chin with my fingers. I need to see her eyes; she needs to see mine. They are the windows to my soul, and I want Campbell to look through to see my sincerity.
“Cam, I’m not going anywhere,” I say softly. “This…me...us, it’s yours when you’re ready.”
She smiles and leans into me, instigating a kiss. A needy, scorching kiss that only Cam could deliver. I would forever walk through fire to be on the receiving end of her attention.
I only hope she forgets me not.
Campbell
I shoot a text to Jen and settle back into the sofa in the lounge area of the bridal shop. That girl is notoriously late; she’s lucky we love her anyways.
“What did she say?” Vivian asks as she sits next to me and rummages through her giant mom bag. “I don’t know how long they’ll hold our appointment,” she adds when she finds her lip gloss and lathers her lips in shimmer.
Standing next to a rack of fluffy bridesmaids dress, Carly pulls one off the rack and holds it up to her frame. “Why don’t we just start picking things out so she has some options when she gets her?”
Olivia pulls down a dress for herself, ripping it away from the hanger. “Ohhh, pretty, Momma,” she says, rubbing the silky fabric between her petite fingers.
“Liv, honey, look don’t touch. Let’s put it back on the hanger,” Carly patiently reminds her as she takes the bridesmaid dress from Olivia’s hands and places it back on the rack. I’m zoned into the interaction between the two when my phone vibrates in my hand, alerting me of a text message.
I casually look down, expecting Jen’s name to flash across the screen, but instead Lakin’s is there.
“Is that Jen?” Vivian asks, attempting to peer at the message. “Tell her to get her ass here pronto.”
When she looks at Carly to apologize for her foul language, I try to hide my phone as nonchalantly as possible. I can feel my face flush and I take a deep breath to compose myself. I swipe the lock screen and the text brings a smile to my face.
Lakin: Just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you. Have a good day with the girls.
“Well? Is she almost here?” Carly inquires.
“Um, yeah, like fifteen minutes away,” I lie. She rolls her eyes and goes back to searching through the racks of dresses. Vivian then stands and catches up to the sales woman who is supposed to help us today.
I direct my attention back to my phone and hover my fingers over the keypad to send a message back to him, unsure of what to say. My phone buzzes again before I get anything typed.
Lakin: Dinner tonight.
Me: Shouldn’t you be working?
Lakin: Avoidance, just like that, huh?
Me: I’m proficient at only a few things, avoidance happens to be one of them.
Lakin: I’d say you scored advanced in many categories last night.
Whatever flush I had before, is now flaming red. My ears are on fire from the embarrassment his words provoke. My eyes scan the boutique, pinning the location of everyone, making sure my conversation isn’t discovered.
Lakin: Dinner, it wasn’t a question. I’ll see you at 7, Cam.
I can’t help but grin. This man has turned everything upside down. He goes against everything I tried to protect myself from, but I’ve found him to be the hardest thing to resist. Lakin has aggressively pursued a relationship and I have aggressively avoided one. But no matter how hard I struggle out of his grasp, he’s captured me and claimed my heart. My fear of him letting go of us is stronger than anything I was ever afraid of before him. I let my heart lead, and type the words it demands.
Me: See you then.
Lakin: Nabac dom gan, mo ghrá.
And there it is, the affirmation I needed…‘forget me not, my love.’ He gave me the necklace last night, but it’s tucked into a pocket in my purse. I feel it beckoning me to put it on, those words calling to me, but I’m not brave enough to wear it. Not yet.
Commotion at the store entrance pulls my attention away from my thoughts of Lakin. Jen’s voice reverberates through the establishment. She has no concept of the other people in the store. Today is her dress day and apparently, everyone at this bridal shop needs to be aware of that fact. It’s Jen’s world and we are just living in it.
“Sorry, I’m late, girls!” she shouts from across the store. Carly’s eyes widen and she ducks behind the rack next to her in mortification. Vivian bows her head and shakes it, acknowledging Jen’s antics will never change. An engagement, kids, none of it has mellowed our spunky spitfire.
“Jen, there is a store full of other people, and their day is getting messed up by your entrance,” I say, hushing her.
She looks around and scrunches her face in understanding, but then shrugs her shoulders and moves closer to us all, pulling us each in for a hug. Yup, teachable moment is over and forgotten.
“I had to drop off the kiddos with Casen and the guys so we could just have us girls today,” she says before turning to Carly and Olivia. “I thought this was an adult day?” she adds pointedly at Carly.
Carly diverts her eyes. “I didn’t have childcare. I thought it would be more important that I was here with Olivia, than not at all.”
“I call bullshit,” Jen responds quickly. “You know Casen, Brooks, hell any one of the guys would have watched her today. I’ll let it slide, chica,” she says, pointing her finger at Carly. “But you better arrange a sitter for my bachelorette party. It’s all planned…Vegas, baby,” she says, nodding her head at each one of us, grinning widely.
“No way, not happening,” Vivian interjects. “I have four children, including an infant. There is no way I can run off and leave Brooks with the kids all weekend.”
“What do you mean? Brooks is coming too. It’s a joint bachelor-bachelorette party!” Jen exclaims.
“Did you sustain some kind of brain injury on the way here? What in the world would make you think we can all just drop everything, including our children, and run off to Vegas?” Carly asks. “Besides, the wedding is several months away, why have it now?”
Jen looks to me for my opinion, and I know she’s not going to like my answer. When I stall in my delivery, her brow scrunches in disappointment.
“Please, you guys. I feel like we are all getting so wrapped up in our individual lives. Our men, our kids…” she looks to me and adds, “our careers.” She grabs my hand, her eyes pleading with me. “I just want one weekend for us, like old times. In college, we didn’t have to give a shit; we had no responsibilities. We only had to worry about ourselves and each other. I want that again for just one weekend.”
I search each of my friends’ expressions. They are all looking to me for direction on this one. “Fine,” I say, exhaling loudly. I look at both Carly and Vivian. “It’s one weekend. Fly in Friday, be home by Sunday, surely we can pull that off.”
“I’ll have to talk to Brooks, but I’m sure between Katie and our parents keeping the kids, we can go,” Vivian resigns.
Carly nervously bites her lip, unsure of what to do or how to respond to her friends. Her expression is pained. I know she doesn’t want to let anyone down, but she also doesn’t want Jack to think she’s not being a good mother either. That’s exactly what he would think of her if he found out she ran off to Vegas for the weekend, bachelorette party or not.
Vivian must sense the same uncertainty I am, because she quickly offers an out for her mental indecision. “If Jack isn
’t around to keep her, Olivia can always stay with our kiddos. No one will mind a bit.”
Carly’s body relaxes and her frown softens into an easy smile. “Thank you for that, Viv. If it isn’t a bother, I would rather her go with you guys than Jack. I really don’t even want him aware of the trip. He’ll only make a big deal out of it.”
Vivian tilts her head, reading between the lines. “How’s everything going with Jack? Is he making everything more difficult?”
I look around for Olivia to make sure she’s outside of earshot. She doesn’t need to hear the verbal bashing that her father is about to receive. Carly, I can see, is thinking the same thing because she doesn’t speak until she confirms Olivia is too far away and too engrossed in the dresses she’s looking at to hear the conversation.
“You know at first, he tried to make me feel stupid, like it was nothing and I just misunderstood an innocent friendship. He insisted the vasectomy was his way of taking the pressure off of me to have more children, so we could look into other options like adoption. He wanted us to go to counseling and work things out,” she explains.
“Bullshit. There is no mistaking what we saw on that video,” Jen insists.
She is absolutely correct. The video I gave Carly was edited. There was plenty more to show if necessary, but I felt that was enough to give her the push in the right direction. I didn’t need to shove the affair in her face; she saw what she needed to.
“I agree. He’s just trying to take advantage of my emotions, and if he really thought he could talk his way out of any wrong-doing, then he must have never had too much respect for me, or my intelligence, in the first place.”
“Fuck him,” Jen spouts off. Vivian immediately glares at her and then searches the store for any eavesdropping ears. When Carly shows offense for her use of language, Jen relents and apologizes.
“Yeah, well, once he realized I wasn’t going to take him back, he’s gotten rather nasty about things. He criticizes me any chance he gets. He tries to guilt me into thinking the divorce is my fault because we had a less than stellar sex life. That I’m homely and I’ll never find any other man, so I might as well come back because he’s the only one who would be all right with the way I look.”
Her shoulders sag, and it’s evident this man has completely torn down every bit of her self-confidence. I maintain a cool demeanor; however, I want to hunt this man down and make him pay for ever hurting my friend this way. After I’m done with him, he’ll regret ever treating a woman this way.
“I’m going to kill him,” Vivian steams, her rage rolling off her. She is typically the most sensitive, caring woman, but if her fiery temper flares, Hell hath no fury.
“It’s fine. I get that I’m not much to look at right now. I’ve been in mommy mode and let my appearance go,” Carly tries to explain her mom jeans, lack of make-up, and pony tail, but I think there is more to it than that. She’s always been the self-conscious one in the group. She’s curvy in a way that men usually love, but the average female hates. While she hides her figure because she’s insecure, men drool over her cleavage and bubble butt. She has no idea how truly beautiful she is, and it sounds like Jack helped to trap her in that box of self-doubt.
“Well, girly, we are going to fix this situation, ASAP,” Vivian declares wrapping her arm around Carly’s shoulder and giving her a light squeeze.
“What do you mean?” she asks, bracing for the devious plan Vivian and Jen are obviously hatching.
“We love you, chica, and you’ve got a lot to work with.” Jen waves her hands around Carly’s body, highlighting her assets. “But I’m thinking at little less Ally Sheedy from the Breakfast Club and a little more hot momma from the burbs.” Jen circles her hands around Carly’s mess of a hairstyle. I cover my mouth to hide the small laugh that escapes my lips. Jen has absolutely no filter, but in this case, it’s our job as friends to help Carly make the transition into single life again. How the girls at her spa haven’t gotten a hold of her, I’ll never know, but the girl needs to be dolled up a bit.
“You know, Jen, just because you add an ‘I love you’ at the beginning, it doesn’t make your comment any less insulting,” Carly huffs and plops herself next to me on the couch.
“Sorry. It’s just that, well…” She stalls, collecting her thoughts. “I always say the best way to get over a man is to get under another one. I’m your friend and you need me to help get your mojo back, whether you think so or not.” Jen looks to Vivian, who is one step ahead and is on her phone booking an appointment with her salon for Carly. “We are going to have you so smokin’ that you will be the object of every man’s affection in Vegas. You will have your pick!” Jen lightly claps her hands and bounces on her toes in excitement.
“The last thing I need is another man,” Carly declares. “I just want to feel better about myself, and I don’t need a man to do that.”
“Maybe not, but you do need a little hair product,” Jen laughs, attempting to pat her hair down. “Girl, you are one hot mess right now.”
Carly swats Jen’s hand away and looks to me seeking I don’t know what…approval, maybe a safety line, neither of which I’ll give her. Instead I offer a smile and the only words that make sense. “It’s time to find our Carly again.”
She understands and smiles back, a smile we haven’t seen from her in years. “Okay,” she murmurs.
Vivian tapped on her smartphone and throws it into her purse. “All done,” she announces. “You have an appointment at my salon. We will have you all fixed up and feeling good in no time.”
Lakin
I don’t know what I did in a past life to deserve the life I have now, but I’m guessing I was some awesome kind of dude. Success in school and business have always came easy for me, and in the women department, well, I never had any issues. However, I had never upgraded any of those exchanges to relationship status. They were exacting that…exchanges. Somehow, though I have found myself in a relationship I never thought I wanted until I met her, and I couldn’t be fucking happier to be tied to her. Campbell is everything I never knew I wanted.
Tonight is going to be a first for both of us.
I told her to wear a pair of her most comfortable jeans and a t-shirt. I refused to tell her where we were going so she was a little apprehensive. As I pulled up to her apartment to pick her up, though, she bounded down the stairs in the attire I requested with a bright smile ready for whatever I planned to throw at her.
“I was going to come up and get you,” I say as I open the passenger side door for her. Shit, I’m trying to be Prince Charming here, and she stole my thunder. This is a date after all.
“Sorry,” she says sheepishly. “I’m just so excited. You have been very elusive about what we are doing tonight.” She kisses me on the cheek and settles into her seat. I pause momentarily, letting her affection absorb into my skin, savoring every second of the feeling.
I rub my hand across the skin that her lips touched, before making my way back around the car, and sliding into the driver’s seat. I look at her once again before throwing the car in drive and speeding out of her building complex.
I smile to myself as she stares out of the window.
She’s right. I have given her absolutely no clues about tonight and I offer nothing more on the way to our final destination. The traffic is heavy and as we approach the swarms of people crowding the downtown streets, I assume she has figured out where we are going. However, as we pull into the stadium, I realize this really is a night of firsts.
“Wow, is there an outdoor festival or concert or something going on?” she asks. “The streets are packed.”
“No,” I chuckle. “There is a Rockies game tonight.
“Oh, I don’t really follow basketball,” she shrugs.
My head whips around to looks at her. Did she really just say that the Colorado Rockies were a basketball team? I shake my head and laugh.
“Baseball,” I simply say.
“Same difference,”
she says nonchalantly. “They are both played with balls.”
I now remember why I’ve never taken a woman to a ballgame. Unless they can truly appreciate the game, the most fun they have is during the seventh inning stretch when the crowd sings “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” I’m hoping that this brilliant attempt at a fun date, doesn’t completely crash and burn.
I find decent parking near Coors Field and we briskly follow the crowd. I thread my fingers with hers and lead her along the sidewalks, weaving around the people lingering on the path. It feels good to have her tucked into my side. If I have my way, it’s a place she’ll never leave.
It isn’t until I’m handing our tickets to the gate attendant that she puts it together.
“Do they have other events here or are we actually going to the game?” she asks, not exactly thrilled at her prospects for the evening. “You know I know nothing about sports, right?”
My smile widens. Tonight is going to be so much fun. This is her first baseball game and will be a night neither of us will forget. I don’t answer her, instead, I pull her toward our seats before she can change her mind about our evening.
I usually watch the game from my company’s box seats, but tonight, with Campbell in tow, I bought tickets along the third baseline. I want her to experience the game as a true fan would. Mingling with the crowd, the smell of the beer and hotdogs, taking part in the wave, she needs to be immersed in the action.
We find our seats and I immediately flag the guy selling beers.
“I know you’re not much of a drinker but baseball games and a cold one kind of go hand in hand,” I explain as I hand her the plastic bottle of beer. She nods and offers a tight smile, before taking a small, sampling of the ale. I know that is probably the most that she’ll drink of it, but it is still worth the eight bucks even if she just holds it all night.
Her unease at the situation is evident. Campbell likes having the upper hand. She like being prepared for any situation. Baseball is not her cup of tea, and there is no way that she can fake it.
Deliver Her from Evil Page 9