“Tate—”
She ripped herself from his grasp and grabbed her phone out of her pocket, not looking at the caller ID as she answered it.
Her voice was shaky when she answered. “Hello?”
Both of them were silent as the voice on the other end spoke. Tate’s face slackened as the color drained, and then it roared back to life as she clenched her jaw. “Are you fucking kidding me, Jamie? Hold on, I can’t hear you. I’m going outside.” Without looking at Cam, she took off, albeit a little wobbly, for the door.
Cam told himself to stay put. Not to get involved in Tate’s personal life. But she’d said Jamie. That name tugged on his heart. Jamie had been like his little brother for years, and breaking up with Tate had felt like a divorce because of the kid. Cam wanted to know how he was, what he looked like.
And that was why Cam’s feet began to move after her. Why he stuffed down the resentment he still felt over what she did. He did it because of Jamie. And because Tate looked half dead on her feet and her eyes were in shadows.
Cam followed her outside, where she was shouting into the phone. “You’re lucky! You’re so goddamn lucky they let you off with a warning. What the hell, Jamie? And I have to pick you up now? Right this minute?”
A pause and then Tate let out a frustrated growl, bracing herself with a hand on the side of the brick building. “Fine, I’ll be there as soon as I can. I should let you stew in a holding cell. You owe me!”
She dropped the hand holding the phone at her side, her back to Cam, and he watched her slender shoulders rise and fall with deep breaths. Her shoulder blades poked through her thin shirt. Was she eating? Damn, she was thin.
And then she reared her hand back, like she was going to throw the phone, and Cam stepped in. He grabbed her elbow and cupped the phone in her hand so she didn’t hurl it.
A gasp escaped her and she whirled around, Cam’s hand on her elbow.
“Oh my God, what are you doing following me around? Looking for all the ways to save me?” The tears were there in her eyes now. “Big, smart, important Cam relishing how far Tate has fallen, huh? Is that it?”
Her words were furious, each one a fastball to his sensitive flesh, like he was naked at home plate and she was pitching them as hard as she could.
“Stop it,” he said, slightly shaking her arm. She snapped her jaw shut and glared at him as he kept talking. “You think I . . . what? You think I came back here to gloat or something? I’m not gonna lie, I’m not over what you did. And I’m not gonna lie and say I’m ever gonna be. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care. And that doesn’t mean that when you need me, I’m not gonna step up and be there for you. Like right now.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket. “Where we going?”
Tate started to shake her head.
He cut her off. “I gather we gotta go pick up Jamie?”
She stared at him mutinously before giving him a small nod.
“Okay, and you’ve been drinking, so you can’t drive. I can. Just let me tell Trev I got to go.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the street.
“Wait right here, okay?”
Another nod.
Cam ran inside the bar, let Trev know he had to leave early to drive Tate and then tore back out of the bar, convinced Tate wouldn’t be there.
But she was right where he had left her, looking deflated and not at all willing to battle him. When he reached her, he slung an arm around her shoulders and directed her to the car. “So, where to?”
CAM DROVE, SNEAKING glances at Tate. She was silent on the drive, but not still. She fingered a lock of hair at her shoulder, twirling it in her fingers. She rubbed her knuckles on the leg of her jeans, and slipped her feet in and out of her heels.
She sighed a lot, and sometimes she opened her mouth like she was going to speak, but then shut it again and stared out the window.
But her head kept drifting toward him and he could feel her eyes on him. His face, his hands, his arms.
Then, a featherlight brush on the arm of his shirt and she pulled up the fabric to look at the tattoo on his biceps. It was a simple set of wings he’d gotten with a couple of friends after they’d graduated basic. He and Tate used to talk about how they would get tattoos together when they were older and had money. It had been one of his fuck-yous to her he wasn’t necessarily proud of. But girls dug it in college so it ended up being all right.
Finally, she turned to him. “So how long do you plan to be in town? What’s going on with your mom?”
Cam tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he halted at a stop sign and looked both ways. He began talking once the truck was rolling again. “She’s got fibromyalgia. Some days are good and others are bad. She’s on a new mixture of medication, so we are hoping that helps her out with the pain, mood and sleep issues.”
“I’m sorry to hear about that. I didn’t realize.”
That was nice of her to say in light of her rocky past with his mom. “It is what it is.”
She was silent for a minute and when he glanced at her, she was biting her lip. “So how long will you be in Paradise?”
“Not sure. I have a job offer in New York at a security firm. So as long as Mom is okay by then, I hope to take it.”
“New York.” Tate’s voice was soft, almost reverent. “Good, that’s good. You should take that job.”
This conversation about his future, with the girl he always thought would be in it, was uncomfortable. They fell into an awkward silence, and Cam fidgeted with the radio, turning it up to drown out his thoughts. When that didn’t work, he turned it back down. Finally, he spoke. “What’s going on with Jamie?”
When Cam left for basic training, Jamie had been thirteen. He’d grown out of that weird preteen stage, and although he had his rebellious moments, he loved his dad and worshipped Tate. She was the mother he never had, since their mom had passed away from a heart attack soon after Jamie was born.
“He was drinking at a friend’s house and a neighbor called the cops. The friend is a judge’s son so that’s the only reason we aren’t picking him up at the police station right now.”
Cam wasn’t dumb, and he knew a lot could change in four years, but he never thought Jamie would be that seventeen-year-old kid caught drinking at a high school party by the cops. “Seriously?”
Tate stared out the window and when Cam glanced at her, she was rolling her lips between her teeth. “Tate?”
She started and glanced at him, then looked at her hands in her lap. “He’s . . . having a rough time.”
“Drinking? What the hell, Tate?”
Her head whipped to face him and those almond-shaped eyes were fierce. “I’m doing the best I can.”
Cam held up a hand. “I never said you weren’t. And what do you mean I? What about your dad? Shit, I’m just trying to get caught up on everything that happened since I’ve been gone—”
“There’s really no reason you need to be caught up—”
“Damn it, Tate!” He banged a hand on the steering wheel and she jumped in her seat, but shut her mouth. “Why won’t you let me help you?”
Her lips were pressed in a thin line until she spoke. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “You have to know it’s killing me to be near you again.”
He didn’t know how to interpret that. All he knew was that he was conflicted. Because while he still wasn’t over her betrayal, he also wasn’t over how he felt about her. What a shitty situation—that he could never again be with the only girl he ever truly wanted. So he stayed silent. And Tate stared out of the windshield as they drove through the night to pick up her brother.
The house where they needed to pick up Jamie was on a good side of town, where a lot of people lived who commuted from higher-paying jobs in the city. They pulled up outside a large, two-story brownstone. Two cop cars were parked in the driveway, and a couple of kids were sitting on the curb, two cops standing behind them.
“I’m going to kil
l Jamie,” Tate mumbled, staring at the cluster of teenagers with bowed heads.
It took Cam a minute to spot him. The porch lights from the house glinted off his dark blond hair. It was long, bangs hanging in his eyes, so when he looked up, he had to toss his head to the side to see.
They made eye contact, and if it wasn’t for his unmistakable Tate-like face, Cam wasn’t sure he’d know it was Jamie. Because those eyes, which were usually full of contentment, with a touch of snark, were full of anger and hurt, and Cam had to tense so he didn’t flinch. What the hell had happened to this family?
And finally a thought occurred to him. “Wait,” Cam said, turning to Tate as she placed a hand on her door to get out of the truck. “Why isn’t your dad here?”
Tate froze, then opened up the door. “Can we just get him and go home, please?” she shot over her shoulder, and slammed the truck door behind her.
Cam winced and patted the dashboard. He’d have to talk to Tate about being nicer to his baby.
He hopped down out of the truck and strode toward Jamie as Tate spoke to the police officers. She seemed to sober up since the situation called for it.
Cam stopped in front of Jamie and crossed his arms over his chest. The kid stared at up at him, eyes narrowed, lip curled into a sneer. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
It took every ounce of Cam’s strength not to falter back a step at the force of Jamie’s words. He was no longer a sweet young teenager who thought Cam and Tate walked on water. He looked like he wanted to drown them instead.
Cam leaned down slightly so he didn’t have to yell. “You watch your mouth.”
Jamie snorted. “I don’t have to listen to you. You’ll be gone again soon anyway, I’m sure.”
Cam frowned. These poison barbs Jamie threw made no sense. “What the hell—?”
“Come on,” Tate said, appearing beside Jamie and hauling him up with a hand wrapped around his biceps. “You’re damn lucky this party was at a judge’s house so these cops let you all off with a warning. I don’t even want to know what would have happened if you lost your license.”
Jamie didn’t say anything but shot another glare at Cam as he walked by, allowing himself to be dragged by his sister. She directed him into a seat in the cab of Cam’s truck. Cam slid into the driver’s seat and looked in the rearview mirror. “Seat belt, Jamie.”
Jamie didn’t move.
“Put on your fucking seat belt, Jamie, or I’ll have those officers handcuff you and put you in the back of their car,” Cam said.
When Cam heard the click, he put the truck in drive and headed for Tate’s house.
It was muscle memory, all the turns he had to make, which potholes to avoid. He managed to make it there in fifteen minutes, despite the tension so thick in the car he could barely breathe.
When Cam pulled into the driveway, Jamie was out of the truck before Cam had it in park. “Hey!” he called after Jamie sharply, but the kid was already sprinting into the house. Tate followed more slowly, her heels in one hand, her purse dangling from the other.
Cam got down out of the truck and walked in front of her, checking the ground to make sure she didn’t step on anything, like broken glass or a nail or a rock.
She followed along behind him hesitantly and when they reached the front door, she didn’t open it right away.
“You need help with anything? Want me to do damage control with your dad?” Why was Cam volunteering to get so involved again in her life? He wanted to smack himself; at the same time he wanted to offer more, get on his knees and do anything so that she would let him chase away the shadows in her eyes and the anger in Jamie’s.
She shook her head vigorously.
Cam looked around their yard and frowned. “Is the Civic your dad’s car?” The Ellisons didn’t have a garage, so Tate’s old Jeep and the Civic sat in the driveway. Tate’s dad drove an old Crown Victoria.
Tate shook her head. “No, that’s Jamie’s. We got rid of the Crown Vic.”
Cam cocked his head. “What does your dad drive now?”
Tate bit her lip and looked down at her bare toes. “Look, it’s been a long day, okay? I need to get inside and check on Jamie and . . .” She let her voice trail off. And Cam knew she was hiding something.
He took a step closer and gripped her chin lightly, tilting her head back so he could look in her eyes. She continued to worry her lip, her gaze darting back and forth between his eyes.
“I’m going to be here the whole summer. And as much as I wanna say, ‘Screw you,’ I can’t. Because you’re Tate and I’m Cam and this is what we do. Help each other.”
It’d been that way since they were kids, when Cam didn’t have a dad and Tate didn’t have a mom. So together they made their own little family of sorts.
Her eyes closed slowly and then snapped back open. He wondered what it would be like to kiss Tate again. She’d been his first kiss. She’d been his first everything.
Why was he torturing himself like this?
Because his heart gave him no other choice. He saw something wrong with a family who’d been everything to him once. And he had to do everything he could to fix it.
He closed the gap between them and rested his forehead on hers. Maybe they could do this. And just be friends. They’d been best friends once.
“You’ll let me help?” he whispered.
She licked her lips, and he felt a slight swipe of her tongue on his bottom lip. “Why do you want to?”
He shook his head, still connected to her with his hand at her chin, his forehead touching hers. “I don’t know. But it feels like that’s what I should be doing.”
She inhaled sharply and then exhaled slowly. “Okay.”
And before he did something crazy like kiss her or let his hand wander, he pulled back. “You know where to find me. And tell Jamie he and I are going to have a chat.”
She nodded and he turned to walk down the porch steps.
“Camilo,” she said softly, and he looked over his shoulder. “Drive safe.”
He smiled. “Sure.”
Chapter 6
TATE BLINKED AT the TV in her dark room, running her fingers over the button of her Catharsis controller.
The opening screen of Utope flashed in front of her eyes, little characters on the screen making dinner and shopping and diving into their backyard pools. In Utope, players created characters from scratch—choosing their hair, eye and skin color; their wardrobe; their jobs.
She hadn’t played this game since Cam left for basic. She hadn’t been able to look at the house they created together, a two-story with a two-car garage and roaring fireplace.
A dog and a cat.
A swimming pool with a grotto.
And that rain forest with colorful poison dart frogs.
She dug her nail into the plastic seam of the controller and bit her lip. This had been their escape, when the pressures of school and no money and racist assholes got to them. It was where they dreamed of what they wanted, once they graduated college.
But then Tate’s dad got sick, and she made a bad decision and those dreams were gone.
Except they weren’t erased. Because they were here, in this stupid video game.
Tate straightened her spine and hit the START button, pulling up her saved games. She clicked on the saved Ruiz game, typed in the password—pinkiepie, after her favorite My Little Pony character—and then there it was. Their blue house with the yellow gerbera daisies in the front garden.
All the characters could be controlled by the same user. Or, since the game was connected online, they’d often played together when Cam was at his house and she was at hers. It was fun to “talk” to each other through the characters.
As Tate stared at the TV with her stomach churning, the game resumed where they’d left it the day before Cam left. Their two characters sat on the front porch swing, drinking beer together, Tate’s head on Cam’s shoulder.
She laughed, because Cam wore only a pair of
camo shorts and work boots, which was the closest they could come to a military uniform in the game. She wore black pants and a black shirt and a black veil, “in mourning” because he was leaving. Cam had laughed when he’d seen her outfit, and then his character kissed hers, and then they kissed in real life and it’d been a while before they’d picked up their controllers again.
She pressed the A button on her controller, which brought up suggested dialogue, as well as a blank box for her to type in her own. She hesitated. If Cam signed in to the game, he could see anything she did, replaying previous scenes with a click of a button. But he probably didn’t even have the game anymore. And if he did, there was no way he’d sign in.
There were many things she wanted to say to Cam, but after last night, she knew what she wanted to say most at this moment. She clicked on it.
Her character in the game raised her head, looked at Cam, and said, “Thank you.”
Afterward, Tate saved the game and shut it off, then crawled into bed and hugged her pillow. She closed her eyes and pictured Cam’s face when he had looked at her on the front porch, so close to hers, his lips parted. She swore he was going to kiss her, and there was no way she’d recover from that.
Seeing Cam again made her want all the things she couldn’t have. And that was a distraction. She needed to stay home and take care of her dad and Jamie. She couldn’t live that life with Cam they’d dreamed of.
But Cam deserved those dreams. He was a good man. A brilliant, determined man. And he should have that cute house and dog and swimming pool. A girl he loved who loved him back.
He shouldn’t be here in this town. The thought of him living here again, working as a bouncer after everything they’d been through, made her blood pump hot with anger. She hadn’t realized his mom was struggling. Not that his mother would let Tate know anyway since she never liked Tate in the first place.
Accepting Cam’s help wasn’t an easy choice. She wanted to resist because, come fall, he’d probably be gone, starting his future in the Big Apple with his fancy job. And she was happy for him. But she’d still be here in this town, with only a high school diploma, working at a diner while trying to keep her dad alive and her brother out of jail.
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