by J. Kenner
She trailed off, hating the words she had to say.
“What?”
“It’s just that I don’t really want to do movie night tonight.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Oh, fuck.” The word burst out of her, as harsh as cannon fire. She was such a damn coward.
“Mina? What—”
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” she blurted. “And if I don’t spit it out, I’m never going to say it. I got a job in LA. An amazing freaking job. And I’m going to take it.” She drew a breath as she glanced at his face, but she couldn’t read a thing on it. His expression had gone completely blank.
“I see. Well, congratulations.” His forehead creased and his lips moved, as if trying to form either words or a frown and not managing either. Then he walked toward the window, giving her his back.
She took a step toward him, but didn’t go any closer. “Cam, please. Can’t we talk about this?”
When he turned toward her, she saw the flash of anger before he smothered it, his features once again turning bland. “Sounds like the time for talking is past. From where I’m standing, this sounds like a done deal.”
She said nothing.
His shoulders drooped. “How long have you known?”
“I got the call on Sunday when you were at The Fix. It’s a big deal, Cam, them calling me on a Sunday. It’s not a hire through Human Resources. I’m going to be a personal assistant to one of the studio’s top execs.”
“Fetching his coffee and picking up his dry cleaning. Sounds like exactly what you want.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Probably not,” he agreed, then cupped his hands on his head as he faced the floor. He looked back up again a moment later, his eyes narrow. “You knew before we went to Graffiti Park. You told Lydia before you told me.”
She nodded.
“And you’ve already accepted?”
“It was too good to pass up.”
He didn’t respond to that. Instead, he asked, “And the job here? You’re just blowing them off.” He didn’t say, The way you’re blowing me off, but she heard it anyway.
“I’m going to go talk to them tomorrow morning. I want to tell them in person. I don’t want to burn any bridges.”
“No, you wouldn’t want that.”
“Cam,” she began, but he cut her off with a sharp glance. She wished she could flip a switch and make him understand how amazing this was. This incredible job that she got on her own. Without her father or her brother or anyone pulling strings for her or stepping in as her safety net. Just her and her resume and the skill she brought to the table.
“How long before you go?”
Her stomach twisted. This felt like a job interview. Or a police interrogation.
“My plane leaves Wednesday morning.”
She saw the impact of her words reflect on his face.
“You’re blowing off The Fix? The contest? You’re not even going to say hello to Kiki?”
“I didn’t set the time frame,” she protested.
“No, you didn’t have anything to do with any of this.”
She said nothing. His words were true, but they hurt.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, then took a breath. And when he took a single step toward her, she felt her heart fill with hope. “Baby, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because they needed an answer right away. Because it’s my dream job. Because I knew you wouldn’t be happy for me. And because as much as I want the job, I don’t want to leave you.” She brushed away a tear, hating herself for crying.
His expression was gentle, but when he spoke the words sliced through her. “So your dream job has less responsibility than the one you have here?”
“You have no idea what responsibilities the job has.”
“I may not work in your industry, but I’m not an idiot. And I know that dry cleaning and coffee isn’t even close to an exaggeration. What happened to development? To being on the front lines?”
A hot wire of anger shot through her. “Don’t tell me what job I want.”
“I’m not. You’re the one who’s been telling me and Darryl for years. But you’re not looking at the job. If you were, you’d see that you already had the dream job. You’re just looking at the location.”
“Hollywood? A studio job? Hell, yeah, I’m looking at the location. And you know what? You should, too.”
“I should—what? What are you talking about?”
“You’re laying this all at my feet, but you’re not exactly tied to Austin. Kiki lives part time in LA, right? And you don’t have a job yet. But you’re making this all about me leaving you. Why don’t we make it about you coming with me?”
It should have occurred to her before, but she’d been so wrapped up in the horror of leaving him that she hadn’t thought it out. But it made perfect sense, and she told him so, relief flooding through her at having found a solution.
“And that’s what you want?”
“Are you kidding? Of course. Do you think I want to lose you? It’s perfect. I mean you could probably get a job at The Getty Center in a heartbeat.”
“And the fact that I’m starting work on my doctorate in the fall?”
“There are universities in Los Angeles. Excellent ones with programs in rare books and manuscripts.”
“And they’d probably even let me in. After I apply and wait a year. And what about my scholarship? It’s not like I can afford UCLA or USC without one. Especially since I wouldn’t have a job anymore.”
Kiki would pay, she knew. But she also knew he’d never accept. Going through school on his own was important to Cam, just like getting to Hollywood was important to her. If she saw that about him, why couldn’t he see it about her?
Frustrated, she sighed, then sat on the ottoman. “Well, then what do you want?”
It was a stupid thing to say, since she already knew the answer.
“I want you to stay here. I want you to work at the job you already accepted. The one that’s going to give you so much hands-on responsibility. I want you to sit down with me and tell our families that we’re dating. I want you in my bed every goddamn night. Hell, I just want to be with you, Mina. And I thought you wanted that, too.”
“I do,” she said, her voice so raw and hoarse she was afraid he couldn’t even hear it. “I do, but I want LA, too.”
“How exactly does that work, Mina? Because it seems to me that one cancels out the other.”
“I don’t know,” she said, tasting the flood of tears she’d been fighting. “All I know is that I want you. But I also know that I have to go.”
Chapter Fourteen
Tuesday brought overcast skies and a generally yucky weather. Although that assessment might have had more to do with Mina’s mood than actual meteorological conditions.
Even though she knew she needed to get out of bed and pack, Mina couldn’t seem to manage anything more vigorous than thrusting her arm out every seven minutes to hit the snooze button, each time giving it a slightly harder whack.
After half an hour of that, she turned the alarm off entirely, then fell into a dreamless sleep and didn’t wake up again until a crack of greenish light illuminated the room, followed by a deafening clap of thunder that shook the entire place.
She checked her clock, saw that it was already after six p.m., and tried to work up enough energy to even be frustrated with herself for sleeping through the entire damn day.
But no go. The day was gray, but her mood was grayer.
Usually, she loved Austin’s frequent summer thunderstorms. They’d always seemed cozy before, as if inviting her to curl up on a couch with hot cocoa and a good book. Today, it just seemed depressing.
She didn’t want to think about Cam or about leaving. And so, of course, that was all she was thinking about.
Cam didn’t know a thing about the assistant position she’d taken, of course. So his dire predictions were nonsense. Sure, there’d be coffee a
nd dry-cleaning. But she’d be making important connections in Hollywood, and that was key in the industry.
But even so, she’d called Griffin last night and asked him to make some phone calls to people he knew in Hollywood—just to make certain that her new boss didn’t have a reputation for being an asshole who hit on women or abused his assistants or anything gnarly like that. Not that she was really worried. The job was exactly what she was looking for and she was sure her boss was a good guy.
Which begged the question of why she couldn’t even get out of bed to start packing for the biggest adventure of her life.
The truth was, she didn’t need to take much. She knew her dad would hire someone to pack and ship the rest of her things once she found an apartment in LA. But, of course, she still had to get up and get dressed, because she needed to go give the bad news to her new-and-soon-to-be-former Austin boss.
Except she didn’t, because the day was gone.
She’d have to call tomorrow, after all.
She frowned, knowing that in-person would be better, but also relieved that she wouldn’t see that look of disappointment on the team’s faces—just like the expression she’d seen on Cam’s.
Dammit, she wasn’t supposed to be thinking of him.
That was the promise she’d made to herself last night. Today she had only one goal. Get ready to catch tomorrow morning’s nine o’clock flight. That was it. Simple. Once she was on that plane, she’d have at least four hours to think about everything else before she landed. And Cam was at the top of her agenda.
Naturally, she blew that plan all to hell as thoughts of Cam filled her head when she finally peeled herself out of bed and made it into the shower.
The thing was, she loved him. She was certain of it. But if she stayed because of that, then she was making love a prison, and how could that be good? After all, her mom had loved her father, and when it fell apart, she was left with nothing.
Mina couldn’t risk being like her mom. And if she stayed because Cam wanted her to—or even because she loved him—sooner or later, she’d resent him. And he’d feel the same if she begged him to move to LA, even though yesterday she’d shamelessly begged him to do just that.
So how did they work it out?
Was it even possible?
What she really wanted was to talk to Darryl, but she’d dug her own grave there by not clueing him in from the beginning.
Then again, what did she have to lose now? She’d already lost Cam—or she was in serious danger of it. And she’d sacrifice one hell of a lot more than her pride if she could figure out a way to get him back and make their lives mesh.
Her big brother had always been her savior before—and she’d always resented the hell out of it.
Now, as she thrust her arms in her light summer rain jacket, she desperately hoped that he’d put his arm around her, kiss her forehead, and make all the hurt go away.
“Darryl!”
Mina wandered the rooms of her family home, realizing for the first time in her life that the place was ridiculously big for only three people. What had her father been thinking? And how the hell was she supposed to find anyone in these walls?
She scowled at the intercom button mounted near the entrance of every room, and wished that she and Darryl had been a little less rambunctious as kids. But they’d pushed that button with such abandon that her father had ultimately disconnected the entire system, vowing not to restore it until they were both adults.
Either he still considered them both children or he’d forgotten to get the system repaired.
Not that it mattered, the bottom line was that she couldn’t find Darryl.
Since he’d started his clerkship, he’d left work promptly at five and come straight home. He’d told her this was the only law job that supported bankers’ hours, and that his judge actually encouraged an eight-to-five schedule. So she expected him to be in the house.
But maybe he’d gone out for a drink with his co-clerks. Or grocery shopping. Or anywhere.
Which would make sense on any other day. But he knew this was her last night in town. So why wasn’t he home to see her off?
Worried, she pulled her phone out and dialed him—which, actually, she should have thought of before, since calling or texting was a handy way of finding him in the house—but the phone went straight to voice mail all three times she tried.
“Fine,” she muttered. “You want to be overprotective? I can, too.”
Darryl had insisted they share their locations years ago. “You’ll be walking around campus after dark,” he’d said. “Don’t be stupid.”
She trusted him to not track her on a date, and she’d never looked up his location either, except for the one time he showed her how to do it.
Today, however, qualified as an emergency. And not just because he wasn’t there the night before she left. No, a growing knot of worry had taken root in her stomach. She didn’t know if it was paranoia or a twin thing. But she was certain something bad had happened to him, and she stared at the phone screen, waiting for the little dot to place him somewhere.
When it did, she cringed.
Dell Seton Medical Hospital.
And although she couldn’t know for sure, she was desperately afraid that the little red dot that represented Darryl was right smack dab in the emergency room.
Chapter Fifteen
“I wish I had better advice,” Kiki said, her voice sounding far away through the speaker of Cam’s phone.
“That’s okay,” Cam assured her. He was in his too-soft bed leaning against the dingy gray co-op wall that matched his mood. “I shouldn’t be calling you with personal stuff before you have to perform, anyway. I should have just waited until you get here tomorrow.”
“From what you’re telling me, she’ll be in California by the time I make it down from Dallas.”
“Yeah,” he said, then put his forehead on his knees and sighed.
“Cam?”
“Just feeling sorry for myself. How do you and Noah handle it?”
“What? Our crazy careers? It’s hard work, I won’t lie. But we respect each other’s goals, and at the end of the day we both know that the other comes first, before all the work stuff and everything else in the world. Even you, little brother.”
He knew that was supposed to make him crack a smile, but all it did was twist his insides up again. “That’s what I want,” he told her. “That’s how I feel.”
“Is it?” she asked. “I don’t see you packing up for LA.”
Her words brought him up short. “You think I should?”
“No. But I’m also not saying that you shouldn’t. You’re the only one who can answer that.”
He grimaced. “What the hell is the point of having an older sister if you don’t boss me around?”
She laughed. “I don’t know. To send you stupid text messages at least once a week and buy you lame Christmas presents?”
“Really? Damn. I thought there were more perks.”
“Rough gig.”
He smiled, then sighed as his thoughts invariably turned back to the Mina problem. “I guess I’m afraid it’s one-sided. That I’ll go, and I’ll always be second to her career. That I’ll always be the one making compromises.”
“She’s staring at her dream, Cam. You can’t know right now what’s truly important to her. Hell, she doesn’t even know. But what you have to ask yourself is does it matter? You’re pretty damn dedicated, too. Are you really going to pull out measuring sticks and try to figure out if you or work measures higher? How would you even tell?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. All I know is that I want to wake up beside her. And I want to watch movies with her and roll my eyes at the way she criticizes the cinematography or the script. And I want to listen when she talks to herself while she’s puttering around the house. I want a history with her, Kiki. And I think what I’m most afraid of is that her leaving means that she doesn’t want one with me.”
“The
n you’ve answered your own question.”
He stared at the phone. “I have?”
“Well, yeah, dummy. If that’s the life you want, no way are you having it in Austin if she’s moving to Los Angeles. So take a risk, get your ass to California, and figure out the answer for yourself.”
The fact that Darryl was perfectly fine, with only a couple of abrasions on his calf and a mild concussion, did not ease any of Mina’s fears or worries.
“I could have lost you,” she said, for at least the hundredth time. “What the hell would I do without you?”
Just the thought made her want to curl up in a ball and moan. Losing Darryl. Losing Cameron. It was all too much to process, and she was compensating by going Mother Hen on him to the max.
As soon as they’d gotten back to the house, she’d made Darryl stretch out on the sofa in the living room with an ice pack on his head, a heating pad on his leg, and a big bowl of ice cream on a tray in front of him. “I’m okay,” he protested again. “Although I’m happy to pretend to be an invalid if it gets me more ice cream.”
“Do not even joke about this,” she said sternly. “And what the hell were you doing cycling in the rain?”
“It wasn’t raining when I went out after work. Just overcast.”
“Even so,” she said obstinately.
“Good point. I’ll only bike when the sky is perfectly clear and little cartoon birdies follow me to provide any necessary assistance.”
“Dammit, Darryl, a car hit you. You could have been killed. And why were you out with so little battery on your phone?”
She hadn’t been able to reach him because his phone had run out of charge just moments after the driver who’d hit him had taken him to the ER to be checked out. Darryl had gotten his insurance information and assured the guy he was fine, then told him to go ahead and leave.
But he hadn’t yet called Mina, and by the time he thought of it, his phone was dead and the driver was long gone. And while the nurses would have surely called, Darryl waited until after triage to ask them.