She places her head on my shoulder, and it’s a tender gesture despite our talk of being so fucked up. “It’s not about trying, it’s about existing. And no matter what you say or do, it can’t change what has happened between us. Whether it’s three years ago, two months ago, or any other time since we walked away from our college promise. You’re married, you’ve cheated on your wife—”
“With you,” I point out with a stare of defensiveness. “Always and only you. Because I love you. Yes, more than air, Hope. No matter what you might write in some poem about your beliefs. I’ve lived half a life, all of those moments without you.”
“But I’m the other woman now.”
“And I’m always going to be the other man,” I counter. “The stakes are even, we’re both fucking jerks. Now, can we move on?”
She starts to say something, then closes her mouth, like she’s re-thinking her response.
“You always fought so hard to bury those feelings of yours,” I tell her. “If you had just let go of trying to fight me off, if you hadn’t worked so hard at trying to hate me or forget about me, maybe we could’ve worked three years ago. Because something tells me that no matter how hard you tried to bury me deep down into your past, I was always present.” I let that truth sink in for a beat. “I was always there when you had a moment, when you heard a special word or saw something that reminded you of me. I know it didn’t work, Hope, all of that wasted energy on getting rid of me.”
She allows a faint grin and shifts her position on the ledge. “You’re right,” she admits quietly, sounding a little tired. “And it didn’t work. It just made me want you more. It made me miss you and ache for you.”
I wrap my arm around her and pull her tighter against me, and I wonder if it hurts her neck because her head doesn’t leave my shoulder. Feeling her body against mine floods me with memories of our indiscretions since high school, since “moving on.” How many times have I been with her, without the fear of losing her?
“Hope,” I beg, “you can’t move out West. You can’t leave me now. We’ve come this far, and I refuse to let you get on that plane.”
“But I am, Cameron. I’m getting on that plane.”
“Then I’ll follow you,” I promise, but the way the words spill out, they sound more like a threat. “I can’t exist like this anymore, with these encounters that last a few days or months, and then you’re gone. I’d rather follow you and wear you down.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing today, goob?” she asks, chuckling. At least she doesn’t sound hateful or defiant anymore. Like she has accepted my determination and knows she can’t stop this—no, she can’t stop us from happening.
“I’m trying. But I think you’re right; I think you’ll get on that plane, because that’s what you do.” But if she thinks I’ll let another three years, even another three days lapse before we see each other again, she’s dead wrong.
At last, she pulls her head off my shoulder and narrows her eyes into annoyed little slits. Maybe she’s even more than a little pissed.
I raise my hands in peace, hoping to calm her down. “And I’m fully expecting that you’ll go, Hope. I’m fine with that, because I’m coming after you, no matter what you tell me. And I promise that this time, I won’t stop. I won’t.”
Before she can answer, Gordon steps in front of us. He’s holding his phone to his face, then says, “I’ve got him here. Yeah. I’ll tell him.” He disconnects and asks to speak with me in private. I follow Gordon a few feet away from Hope so we have a bit of privacy. He doesn’t look happy; the way his forehead creases when he shoots me with those eyes of his, I know.
“That was Landon,” he confesses. “You had some kind of derivatives investment with his firm?”
I reach into my pocket and withdraw my phone. Four more missed calls. I stuff the phone back in its place. “Japanese Yen.”
Gordon closes his eyes and shakes his head.
“I followed his system,” I admit with a sigh of defeat. “I needed the cash. It worked with the severance after Harris, and it’s how I paid for the condo.” My stomach drops at having to admit defeat to the one person who thought better of me. “I took some aggressive positions that only got more and more aggressive as the losses accumulated.”
Gordon wipes a hand down his face. “Fuck, Cam. What do you have left?”
I glance back at Hope, mostly to make sure she hasn’t left, but also to answer Gordo’s question.
He chuckles. “You’re kidding, right? Because that won’t last long.” He checks his Cartier watch. “I’d say that’s not going to last more than four more hours.”
I give an honest shrug. “It’s just money. I made a wrong turn with the Yen, but I’m not making a wrong turn with Hope.”
Hope steps into the conversation and elbows me gently. “Is that Newman?” She points across the street to the old water tower. It doesn’t take long for me to spot him, licking an ice cream cone for lunch and enjoying the warm, sunny day.
When Gordon spots my boss, he faces me with a huge grin. “The Tesla’s still downtown. Where are you two off to now?” He makes an elaborate gesture with his hands, just short of curtsying.
“Fuck off,” I say, walking away with my head bowed like Newman won’t see me if I do this. “If you had just left me with the car in the first place, none of this would be an issue.”
Gordon laughs out loud. Even a moron like Newman would’ve heard it, but I don’t chance a glance back.
} i {
Chapter 43
12:56 PM
At the Burnham Park Yacht Club, Gordon parks the Tesla next to a Range Rover and groans, “You’re fucking kidding me.”
I glance over and find Josh speaking to himself inside the expensive SUV; the muffled voice of another man can be heard over the vehicle’s speakers, through the slit in the window. Gordon flashes his friend a wave and his executive million-dollar smile, then faces me in the back seat. The smile fades in the heartbeat of an instant.
“You’ve dragged Josh into this scheme of yours?” he asks.
“Nobody else has a boat like his,” I answer. Seems obvious to me.
“We’re going out on a boat?” Hope asks from the passenger seat, turning around with a scowl on her face.
I shrug. “It’s all part of the plan. You said you’d give me this one day—”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Gordon repeats, staring past me out the back window.
When I turn around, I see the catering truck that aroused Gordon’s attention. The caterers retrieve a couple of small containers and head toward the dock entrance. “Oh,” I mutter. “That.”
Hope lets out a soft chuckle and turns back around, but Gordon’s stare remains on me. Like I can read his mind, he shakes his head that this is wrong, but he doesn’t have a chance to scold me because Josh has stepped up to Gordon’s door and knocks on the window.
Turning around, Gordo opens the window to shake Josh’s hand. Josh peeks into the car, and his eyes find me in the back. “You ready, Cam?”
“Been ready for a long time, Josh,” I reply, casting a glance at Hope. Yes, a really long time.
He simply nods back, then tells Gordo it’s nice to see him. “Are you coming along for the ride?”
I watch Gordon’s eyes in the rearview mirror. There’s a defiant glint in them all of a sudden and, despite me shaking my head and mouthing NO! at him, he smiles and says he would love to.
“We’re about half an hour out,” Josh says, checking on the marina and activity at the dock. “They’re refueling and getting the refreshments ready.”
We all step out of the Tesla together. Gordon glances back at me as he slides his arm around Josh’s shoulder in the most conspiratorial way imaginable. “We’ll catch up, Cam.”
I allow a nod, then catch up to Hope as she heads toward the docks where the caterers have just brought a few boxes.
“Great day to be out on the water,” I tell her, keeping the mood light a
s I ease into the space next to her. “If you leave next week—”
“It’s not if, it’s when,” she corrects me.
“Okay, then,” I agree with an eye roll she can’t see. “When you leave next week, I want you to have as much of Chicago in your memory as possible. I don’t want you to leave without a single thought that doesn’t belong to me in some way.”
She raises one eyebrow at me. “Why are we here, Cameron? You’ve got some kind of tension with Gordon, you’ve got a friend with a boat who’s taking us out on the lake, and a boss that will fire you before the end of the day.”
I give her a stern, absolute nod. Nothing but the truth. “Three years ago, you showed up out of nowhere and my life changed.”
Shaking her head, she responds with an apologetic look. “I’m sorry for that. I was wrong to come for you. I was wrong to let you think we could ever recapture what we had.” I wonder if she believes what she said, because I don’t.
“I would’ve lived my life thinking it was all right to split myself in two. One part that was all yours, which I buried. And the other for everything else, so I could drag my ass out of bed and escape in the career I was building. But something I’ve learned over the past couple months, since running into you, is that’s not what life is about, Hope. It’s about squeezing every last ounce of happiness from it.”
She continues to stare at the big boats. “I’m getting on that plane.”
“We only have one shot at this, and it’s no secret that I’m getting old here. I’ll be thirty next year.” I chuckle. “So much of what I want—which is what we talked about wanting, when we were together—is slipping away because you’re right. I can’t escape time; not the years we’ve let slip by, and not however many years are left for us to live. But I know that if I can’t live those years with you, then something’s going to have to change. I’m going to have to settle.”
“Riley?” she asks.
I stare out at the boats in the harbor. “I don’t know; that’s her decision to deal with. She deserves better.”
“And what about me? Don’t I deserve better, Cameron?” Her eyes look pained.
“It’s not that geriatric fuck you’re with now,” I tell her, and I mean it, too. “I know that for sure. And although I believe more than anything else that ‘better’ is with me, if I’m wrong, then yeah, you deserve better.”
She absorbs my words and then steps away from me, walking along the sidewalk that contours the harbor. I follow her, and while she doesn’t acknowledge me, I know she senses my presence.
“Maybe you deserve better, too, Cam,” she admits with a nonchalance that breaks my heart, no matter how selfless her words might sound. “You definitely don’t deserve this. None of this nonsense and mind-fucking of the past three years. I hate that I’ve hurt you, that I’ve brought you to this, to this point where you think one day with you can overthrow the past five years I’ve spent with Matt.” She shakes her head. “It won’t. I’m sorry.”
I discover remorse in her face, but I smile with the same confidence that I’ve always had when it comes to Hope. Because despite the past five years with him, I’m not wrong about what exists between us. I know she came for me three years ago. I know she brushed him off for an entire weekend so she could spend that time with me—just like I brushed off Riley that weekend. I know she came back to my apartment two months ago. I know that she’s standing right here in front of me. What I don’t know is whether or not she believes the bullshit that just came from her mouth. Even if she does, I know I’m right about us; I’ve always been right. It’s why we are here.
“Are you listening to me, Cameron?”
I nod. “I don’t care what you say. I let you go once, but it won’t happen again. If I’m moving out West to convince you that we belong together, then I’m prepared to do that.”
We engage in a staring contest, but I notice Josh and Gordon walking toward us. Time to board the boat, but I have just enough time to hear what’s on her mind. I offer her a glimpse of my confidence and determination.
“I won’t stop until you’re in my arms, Hope.”
“You talked about time, Cameron,” she says, speaking quickly because she knows Josh and Gordo are getting closer, time is ticking, and we’re running out of privacy. “How we’ve wasted so much and how little of it is left.”
“Let’s not waste anymore of it,” I suggest. “It’s as simple as that.”
Again with that remorseful expression—her forehead ripples and her hazel eyes shine with sadness. “You need to walk away from this, otherwise that’s what you’ll be doing. Wasting your time like I did after high school. And that won’t be on my shoulders, okay? It’ll be on yours.” With that, she crosses her arms and that stare hardens on her face as she locks me out.
Josh and Gordon reach us at last, and I recognize the relief on Hope’s face. Like she was saved from me. In many ways, she has been because those last words out of her mouth were fucking harsh and deserving of a response that would soften between now and the time we spoke about this again.
Slapping his hands together, Josh says, “Let’s get this party started, shall we?”
} i {
Three Years Ago
Chapter 44
Stepping through the front door of the townhouse I shared with Riley that Sunday evening after my weekend with Hope, I released a long, deep breath. Within seconds, Riley came hurrying over, the sight of extreme worry flushing her face. She embraced me without getting a response, her body convulsing gently against mine as she wept. When she pulled back, her streaked face and watery eyes begged for answers.
“Where were you?” she asked. There was no confrontation to her tone, just worry.
I opened my mouth to respond, but the words failed to come.
“I was fucking scared something happened to you, Cam,” she said, and then hugged me again. “I called Melinda and Gordon, I tried Raj, I even called you!” And then, as if she suddenly remembered the numerous calls I had ignored since Friday, she stepped back again, and the worry morphed into rage. “Where were you?”
Stepping away from her, I tried not to think about returning to Hope’s hotel room this afternoon, about finding it empty, abandoned.
I had intended on debating whether to come home to Riley and challenging Hope on her depressing view of life. I had my argument all lined up for her, and I had left no room for her to back out. We were supposed to be together. I had planned on staying in that hotel room until she agreed and saw things unfolding no other way.
“I thought we talked about this,” I answered at last, shaking the memory of Hope out of my head. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
I started climbing the stairs, surprised by how easily I was able to avoid the conversation with Riley, but I heard her footsteps following me. “Talk about what, Cam?”
Taking the stairs slowly, I tried to imagine a plausible scenario to tell her. The answer seemed obvious once I reached the second level. “The weekend with Gordo. I’m sure we talked about it.”
At the bedroom, I stepped out of my clothes and crawled under the sheets, closing my eyes so Riley would get the point. But she didn’t. Instead, she sat on the edge of our bed, on her side. I couldn’t see her, but I heard her weeping again.
“Why is she doing this, Cam?” she asked with her broken voice.
I ignored her. Because I no longer knew why Hope was doing this, or who she was anymore, let alone whether I would ever see her again. I couldn’t very well answer Riley’s question. But she knew. Riley wasn’t an idiot, and I could tell she had figured out that my heart—the important part that could love—belonged elsewhere, not with her.
The silence between us stretched so long I feared I had fallen asleep. It made sense. My eyes were closed, and I couldn’t remember my thoughts from two seconds ago. Plus, I was so exhausted from making love to Hope all weekend, the idea of a brief, unintentional snooze didn’t seem all that far-fetched, even though I figured my he
artbreak wouldn’t allow any rest at all. When I heard Riley get up and walk away, I realized that as much as I wished I had been sleeping, I hadn’t.
Before walking out of the room, Riley turned around at the doorway. “Open your eyes, Cam.”
I opened them. I hated seeing her upset—the messed up makeup, the streaks down her face.
“I don’t care what you did,” she declared, sniffling and wiping her sleeve across her suddenly determined and strong face. “I don’t care where you were. I just want to know. I want to know what I’m up against here, because this thing of ours? For the past few weeks or months, it’s not been the happy place it once was. It’s been hell, and I want it to end.”
I didn’t spend too much time watching her. I simply rolled over, curled my legs up toward my chest, and wondered why Hope had disappeared without saying her final goodbye.
} i {
Chapter 45
Thursday morning, the doorbell rang. From my desk in the second bedroom, I heard Riley open the door and carry on a muffled conversation before shouting upstairs at me that it was Gordon. I hadn’t heard from him all week, and his absence had been something of a break for me, allowing me to wallow in my state of depression and agree to an interview with Raj and some middle-management types who would underpay and over-abuse me at a small financial services firm known as Second City Financial.
“Get dressed!” Gordo yelled upstairs.
I saved my resume, then showered and donned a pair of jeans with a black collared shirt. When I hurried downstairs, I saw that Riley had invited Gordon into the house and poured him a cup of coffee while he waited for me. She kept him company, packing herself a light lunch and getting last night’s dishes loaded into the dishwasher.
When I appeared downstairs, Gordon seemed to do a double-take, but he hid the surprise at seeing me. I had possibly lost a few pounds. My pants were loose around my waist, and my shirt was a little baggier than normal.
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