7 Years Ago—August
CAMERON
It was the night of Josie Mitchell’s high school graduation and she was drunk as an adorable skunk.
And Cameron was in the tenth circle of hell. Did hell have that many circles? Whatever, he’d found a new one. Charting undiscovered hell territory—of course he’d be good at that.
“That was a great night,” she said, looking up at him from the passenger seat of his car.
“I’m glad you had fun. Do you…need help?” He opened the passenger side door to help her out.
“No,” she said indignantly, and then all but fell out of the car.
“Okay, I gotcha,” he said, getting her to her feet and propping her up against the front fender. Where she slid, like she had no bones, toward the front wheel.
“I had fun because of you,” she said. “You made it possible, Cameron.”
“Well…” He didn’t know what to say to that so he let the word trail off, grabbed her by the waist, and shut the passenger door. The sound of the slamming door sent some animal scurrying off in the bush and he hoped he hadn’t just woken up the whole family.
“You give the best gifts,” she said, turning to look at him, which meant her face was very close. He could turn his head and…
Do not turn your head.
His graduation present to her had been chauffeur service for her and her friends from the Riverview Inn—her family’s lodge in the Catskill Mountains—to all the graduation parties. So she could have fun and be safe.
“Well, you’re no slouch either,” he said. The only way he knew how to take a compliment was to deflect it.
“Okay, five questions,” she said.
“Josie.”
“No. It’s my turn. You five question me all the time.”
“Fine. Go.” He pretended to be annoyed. But mostly he was just nervous, not sure what questions might come out of drunk Josie’s mouth. This was a game they’d started playing the summer the ground had been broken on Haven House. Top five favorite movies. Top five favorite television show finales—those were her type of questions. Top five ways to eat potatoes. Five worst things you’ve ever eaten—those were his.
“Best gift you ever got?”
“The coffeemaker you got me on my birthday.” It was this high-tech, expensive camping thing that fit in the palm of his hand. He loved it so much. He loved that she knew he would love it. “But the year you got me all the Bourdain books. That was a good year, too.”
“I need to replace those. You’ve read them to pieces and…” She paused. Hiccupped. They stopped, a stone clattering off his shoe.
“Are you going to throw up?” he asked.
“Totally not,” she said like she was offended. Which meant there was a fifty-fifty chance she was going to puke. He got them walking again. A little faster now.
Tonight, all he’d done was drive her and Helen around playing Beyoncé at top volume. He’d wanted to take her camping, to this place he’d found way up in the mountains behind the lodge, where there was a lake so clear and blue it looked like a sky. A place he knew she would love. But then he’d thought about being in a tent with her and rejected the idea.
He’d thought this would be better.
Stupid me.
“You are such a good guy,” Josie breathed. Her breath was, like, eighty percent alcohol; he was getting drunk just being close to her. “Did you know that?”
“Yep,” he said, trying to keep her on her feet and also open the back door. But she kept melting. Against him. Against the door. She was a puddle of Josie, in the way of everywhere he was trying to be.
“No.” She grabbed his face.
Ouch. A little rough, there, Jos. And he thought she might be going for some kind of stern look, some kind of serious I mean business type look. But she was too drunk. And too dear to manage it.
God. She is beautiful.
As quickly as he thought that, he stopped. He was good at that after all these years. Thinking a thing he shouldn’t and then just…not. Just stopping.
“You’re my best friend,” she said.
“I know.”
He got the door open, managed to get them inside the dark and cool kitchen. No one there, waiting up.
Thank God.
But they were all sleeping here at the lodge. Alice and her husband Gabe. Max and Josie’s mom, Delia. If they weren’t quiet he’d have a million Mitchells in here.
“Cameron,” she said. “You have to listen to me.”
He actually laughed. “Josie. I’m listening. I’m a good guy and I’m your best friend. You’re mine, too.” These were things they didn’t actually say out loud. Like saying them out loud might tip the chemistry of their friendship into that place he was trying to avoid. Trying not to look at. Trying to pretend didn’t exist.
And, frankly, pretending was easier when they weren’t touching.
He stepped away, setting down his bag, and she leaned back against the wall looking… Jesus.
“You need to drink some water,” he said, and quickly turned away to get her a glass.
“Cameron,” she said. “You could do literally anything. You know that, right?”
This again. “You Mitchells are really into telling me that these days.” It was like they were trying to get rid of him. He’d turned twenty-two and suddenly his future was all anyone wanted to talk about.
Which was weird, because in so many ways he still felt like the shitty sixteen-year-old kid he’d been. He’d skipped school and gotten caught stealing a car and no one at home had given a shit. He’d been surprised the judge had—and had sent him to the Riverview for community service with Max instead of to juvie.
Max, Josie’s adopted dad, had been his first boss here. But then he’d met Alice, who was in charge of the kitchens, and he’d traded Max and constant wood chopping for Alice and the kitchen. And it changed his life.
But years later, he still didn’t know what he was supposed to do without the Mitchells. Alice. This kitchen.
Josie.
“Another one of my five questions. I still have some left.”
“Not really.”
She ignored him. “What do you want to do with your life?”
This. Right now. The Riverview Inn kitchen and you. Every day, all day.
“What do you want to do?” he asked, deflecting again. His great talent.
“Write amazing television. I want to make people cry. And change people’s minds. And make them stay up all night to just watch one more episode.” He smiled at her passion. “But the question is for you,” she said.
His silence was possibly damning. But if he opened his mouth, the words he could not say would come out. Love you.
“You are smart. And funny. And you work hard and you’re a great chef.”
“Thanks, Josie,” he said and brought her the water. “I’ll put you down as a reference if I ever get another job.” She took one gulp, most of which splashed down her neck, and handed the glass back. He ignored the water dripping across her chest into the top of her dress. It was yellow and short. She looked amazing in it.
“You…you could come to New York with me. You could get a job in a kitchen. Alice would give you a letter of recommendation and I’ll go to school. And we’ll be broke, but it would be fun? Wouldn’t it? You and me? The big city?”
The words were quiet but they went through him like arrows. Piercing his brain. His chest. His dick. He was embarrassed even thinking that word around her. But he couldn’t stop.
With you how? he wanted to ask. As your boyfriend? As your friend?
Again, after long, long, looooong practice, he thought the thought and put it away.
“That’s more than five questions,” he said.
“Cam—”
“Let’s talk about this in the morning,” he said and smiled at her. “You need help getting upstairs?”
Please say no. Say no. Please.
He’d touched her more on the way from the car to the house than he had in years, and the whole left side of his body was raw and electric, and his dick was half hard. He felt like an animal and the luckiest guy in the world.
“I’m fine,” she said, and pushed off the wall, overcompensated and nearly fell into the stainless steel table in the center of the room.
“Sure you are. Come on.”
Girding himself, trying, like it was even a thing that could be done, to remove all sense of feeling on the side of his body touching her, he put his arm around her back and lifted her until she was standing.
“Hi.” She smiled at him and his heart bobbed.
“Hi.”
He walked them through the dark kitchen into the big main room with its fireplace and the wall of windows. Moonlight slid in great blocks across the floor, making their skin seem ghostly.
Cameron was painfully, excruciatingly aware of Josie’s body against his side. The press of her leg. Her arm around his shoulders. He could smell her. Summer night and sweat and whatever sweet thing she’d been drinking. Something with cherries, probably. And green Jell-O shots. If he kissed her she’d taste like an artificial fruit salad.
When he’d had this brilliant chauffeur idea, he had not considered this. This being alone with her. Soft and pliant and happy and smelling so sweet. He had not considered the hell of the bright red filaments of her hair stuck to his neck in the heat.
And he knew it had never occurred to him because he’d gotten so good at not noticing this stuff about her. Because he’d done everything in his power the last year to not be with her like this. To be just friends.
Not touch her.
Not be close enough to smell her.
Or feel her.
Not think of her pretty eyes or the way she looked when the sun hit her just right. Or how her laugh, when she really got going, was like a gong that echoed through his whole body.
And now she was drunk and he felt like an absolute asshole because he was absolutely soaking it in. Like he could not get enough of her skin on his.
Dude. She’s drunk.
There were plenty of people in his life, in this town, who thought the worst of him because of his mom and dad. Who wouldn’t be surprised if he groped a drunk girl. But the Riverview folks—Alice and Max, they believed the best of him.
Max had even said it to him before Cameron left with Josie that night. I trust you with my daughter.
Cameron wasn’t going to betray that trust. Ever.
So he tried, as best he could, to put distance between them somehow.
Up the stairs. To her room. Goodnight and get the hell out of here, man.
“Cam.” Her voice was low as they made their way toward the stairs. “I need to tell you something…”
“Yeah?” he asked, trying to shift her just a little. He could feel the sweat on the insides of her arms and it was so far from gross, he wanted to run his hand from her wrist to her elbow, gathering all of it in his palm. He wanted to lick his hand.
He wanted to kiss her shoulder and taste her. God. He wanted to taste her.
“I love you.”
The words sent sparks through his body and everything he felt for her—all the pent-up shit he’d been dealing with since she was a kid—it was dry kindling. It was explosives. A barn full of fireworks.
He laughed, ruthlessly stomping out the spark. “All right, drunky. You love everyone.”
They made it to the first landing and he braced her against the wall, getting away from her as best he could.
“No,” she said, grabbing onto him. Her hands clutching his shirt. His arm. “I mean, sure. But… “ She took a deep breath. “I love you especially.”
He turned his face away. Cameron didn’t pray. His mother did and he saw how that had gotten her a whole bunch of nothing. But right now he prayed for the strength to say no to this.
I trust you with my daughter.
“Do you think of me…like that?”
All the time. Every minute. You would be horrified to know what I think of you. You would blush so hard you’d just be ash. And saying it out loud would make me blush so hard I’d be ash.
“Josie. You’re drunk. Let’s not talk about this now.” He pulled her off the wall. The room she liked to use in the lodge was three doors down. Fifty feet. If that. He just needed to get her into her room and himself away from her.
Pulled by him, she stumbled forward, colliding with his body.
“Careful,” he murmured, trying to keep her upright. And then she did the impossible. The disastrous. She grabbed his face. Forced him to look at her. Right at her.
Growing up, he hadn’t believed in love. There had been no sign of it in his house. No proof that it existed. After coming here it had taken some time to believe that all this love the Mitchells had and tossed around like it was all so easy was even real. It felt, at best, fake. At worst like a trap. And he’d believed for as long as he could that every single Mitchell was a sucker.
But then Alice had won him over.
And then Max.
And Patrick.
The rest of them.
But it wasn’t until Josie that he’d believed in real love. The kind that changed the way his body worked. And his brain thought. The kind that opened up an idea to him he had never had the guts to think about.
Cameron wasn’t cheesy, and he would never say it out loud, but he believed that he and Josie were as close to soul mates as two people could be. It was the only way he could explain not just what he felt for her, but the long and strange and totally unlikely road that had brought them together.
A thousand near misses and different decisions, and they never would have met.
“I’ve loved you for so long,” she whispered. And she kissed him.
It was every single thing he’d ever wanted. And he gave himself just one second. One impossible taste of it. He allowed his hands to touch her hair. His body to register the feel of her against him. He was an absolute asshole but he kissed her back.
He kissed her back hard.
She moaned and he could taste the booze on her, and he hated himself.
She’s drunk. This is not consent. It’s not anything but drunk.
He pushed her away.
“Josie, you are drunk and now…”
She tried to kiss him again and he stepped back.
He watched her face go white and he realized she was embarrassed. That she thought he was rejecting her because he didn’t like her. Didn’t want to kiss her or touch her.
When that’s all he’d wanted to do for so long now.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered and started down the hallway.
“No, Josie. It’s not like that.”
“This is embarrassing,” she said, pulling her hand away when he grabbed it. “Just…let me be embarrassed.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. Come on. You’re drunk, Josie.”
“Well, drunk was the only way I could do this, so…whatever.”
He took a deep breath. Because he understood that. Needing the fake courage to break through the walls of their friendship. Of their age difference. Of being a kind of pseudo family.
And the truth was—he might never have made the first move. He’d been telling himself for a year he was just waiting for the right time. But now she was leaving leaving. For New York City and college.
Drunk and messy may not have been his plan, okay. But this was the start of something. Something they could talk about tomorrow. Figure out—tomorrow.
She’d gone into the room and was struggling to take off her sweater.
He was not—no matter what—going to go in there and help her.
“Josie.”
“What?” she snapped and turned to face him in the doorway. “What do you want?”
“I have waited a year to tell you how I feel and I won’t be bullied into doing it when you’re drunk.”
She sucked in a breath and held it.
“How do you feel?” she whispered.
“Your five questions are up,” he said with a smile. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. When you’re sober and you feel like roadkill.”
“This isn’t funny, Cameron. I love you. I have loved you forever.”
Oh, she was crying. And this shouldn’t be sad. This was good. What was happening right now was good. But Josie crying was his kryptonite.
“Hey.” He broke his rule and came into the bedroom. He lifted his hand, reaching for her face—so he could wipe away her tears. Because this beautiful girl should not be crying. Not today. “It’s okay, Josie. Let’s talk tomorrow.”
She threw her arms around him and aimed her mouth at his, but ended up just under his nose. A little correction and she was kissing him again.
He could feel her heart pounding against his chest and he was sure she could feel the hard press of his dick against her hip.
He pulled away, and she stumbled and then overcorrected and fell sideways onto the bed, and since her hands were wrapped up in his shirt he went with her. He braced himself on an arm, so he didn’t land on her. But their faces were inches apart.
She kissed him again.
He’d lived for so long locked inside the rules he had for his feelings about Josie and now they were everywhere. Like when the chickens got out of the run over at the farm. And everyone ran around trying to catch the damn things, which seemed somehow to multiply every second they were free.
As she kissed him, his feelings were multiplying. There were so many he was overrun.
He leaned back, pulling himself away from the never-ending temptation of her.
“Josie, I’m leaving before this goes any further.”
“Sure you are,” she said with a smile and then leaned up to kiss him again. He could feel her spread her legs. And he was aware, though he was trying hard not to be aware, of the fact that her skirt had ridden up. And she was very nearly naked from the waist down.
Yeah. This is over.
He put a hand on her leg. “Josie. Stop—”
She kissed him and he felt himself melting. His hand sliding up her leg.
“Cameron?”
It was a voice out of a nightmare. It was the voice of the worst possible person to witness what was happening. It was the voice of the only man whose opinion of him mattered.
I trust you with my daughter.
Cameron scrambled up off the bed and practically flew to the far side of the room.
Max stood in the doorway.
Cameron had seen Max mad plenty of times. When he first got to the inn, he’d made a point of pissing the man off. But this…the look on his face. The rage and the disappointment.
Oh god.
And there was nothing Cameron could say. He could say he was trying to stop. He could say it wasn’t going to go any further and he was just making sure she got to her room safely. But the fact that Max had caught him lying on top of his seventeen-year-old daughter, Cameron’s hand on her leg—all while she was clearly drunk. And mostly naked…
Cameron had never been so embarrassed. Never been so angry at himself.
Josie sat up—she was saying something, probably trying to explain, but she was drunk. And it didn’t matter. And then she gagged, and out of instinct Cameron stepped forward to help her.
“No,” Max barked and lifted his hand like he would step forward and stop Cameron from touching Josie. And Cameron stopped, and then, because he couldn’t stand the look on Max’s face, he closed his eyes. And even that wasn’t enough.
He’d see that rage and disappointment his whole damn life.
“It’s not…what it looks like,” Josie said. She stood and her skirt fell down around her legs, and Cameron imagined she tried real hard to look sober, but then she bolted for the garbage can and started to throw up everything she’d put in her body over the course of her night.
“Why don’t you come outside with me, son,” Max said.
“I can’t leave her like this,” Cameron said, imagining all those rock stars who’d passed out, thrown up, and ended up choking to death.
“I’ve got her,” Delia, Josie’s mom, said, tying up her robe as she came sailing into the room.
There, Cameron thought. They don’t actually need me.
He caught Max’s eye and wished more than he could say that the floor would open up and swallow him. It was alarming to realize he would quite literally rather die than talk to Max.
“Come on,” Max said.
But the floor didn’t open up and he had no choice but follow Max out of the room and down the hallway and stairs into the kitchen.
Where Alice was standing, spreading cheese over tortilla chips, taco meat, and beans in a pan.
She’s making me nachos, he thought. Which meant she’d been planning this. A late night thanks for the gift he’d given Josie. It was so late and she was making him his favorite.
“Hey! The chauffer brought her home safely,” she said with a smile, but with one look at Max’s face the smile dropped. “What happened?”
Max blew out a long breath and looked over at Cameron. He was scared to open his mouth in case the ball of sick in his stomach came out.
“Somebody better say something right now,” Alice said.
“I kissed Josie,” he blurted.
“Oh, well.” Alice looked at Max. “That doesn’t seem so bad.”
“We were on her bed and her skirt had gotten pulled up and my hand was on her knee.”
“That sounds worse.”
“She’s very drunk,” Max finished.
“Oh no,” Alice breathed. “Oh…”
“I know what it looked like,” Cameron said. “I do. And I can’t change that. And I know I made a promise to you but…” He ran out of steam. “It wasn’t going to go any further.”
Her saying yes while that drunk wasn’t a yes at all, he knew that. Alice and Max had taught him that.
“You don’t believe me.” It wasn’t even a question and he couldn’t even blame them. If he’d walked in on some asshole on top of Josie like that, he’d have killed them. Straight up.
Max and Alice shared a quick look.
“I believe him,” Alice said quietly. “I know the kind of guy Cameron is, and you do, too.”
“You didn’t see it,” Max growled. “And as a cop I saw the aftermath of that way too often.”
Oh god, he was lumping Cameron in with rapists. Abusers. Guys who took advantage. Assholes who hurt girls.
Am I that guy? he wondered. Did it matter what he thought when Max seemed so sure?
“I’m so sorry,” Cameron said, and he felt sudden tears in his eyes. He grabbed his bag and his keys. “I’ll go.”
“Stop,” Alice said. “Cameron, stop.”
He didn’t, and Alice jumped out from behind the counter and got between him and the door.
“I would like to leave,” he said quietly. “I think it’s best.”
“I don’t. And it’s my kitchen.” Of course Alice would do this. Alice always did this, pushed him and pushed him. She reached out for him and he flinched away. Feeling like he had when he was a teenager, like if she touched him something might break. His skin might slide right off revealing some part of himself he was too scared to see.
She looked up over Cameron’s shoulder at Max. And Cameron was sure in that moment he would be unable to look that man in the eye ever again. Which meant, really…he needed to leave, like…for good. Not just for the night. But he had to get gone.
“Max,” Alice said. “Put away your cop brain for a second.”
Max shook his head and Alice sighed.
“We know how those two feel about each other. We’ve known for years. This kind of thing was always going to happen.”
“That doesn’t make groping her while she’s drunk all right!” Max said.
“No,” Cameron said in total agreement, and he could try and explain what happened, but the explanation was lame. Because he’d felt himself melting on that bed. And he’d promised to take care of her. He’d failed this family. “It doesn’t.”
“Max,” Alice said. “This is Cameron. Whatever happened…whatever you saw…I think it’s safe to say there was more to the story. If there’s one thing the Mitchells know it’s that there is always more to the story.”
Cameron heard the scrape of a stool and Max’s heavy breath as he sat, and Alice sighed and gave him a brief quick smile.
“Sit down,” Max said. “Tell us what happened.”
Cameron didn’t sit and he didn’t talk because he could see in Max’s face that his opinion was set. And Alice kept herself busy putting the nachos he was never going to eat in the oven under the broiler. Delia came down, looking worried and resigned.
Cameron felt his face get hot and red, and he looked away. The guilt squeezed his chest so tight he could barely breathe. Part of him wanted to be mad again. But mad was too easy. Mad was what his father would have done. Mad was what he would have done years ago. Slipping into that skin…so easy. Standing here and trying to explain how he’d made one mistake but truly wasn’t going to make another one…impossible.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Delia said, kissing her husband’s cheek and sighing. “Our daughter got just drunk enough to finally tell Cameron how she feels. She said she kissed him. She said she accidentally pulled him onto the bed.”
“Is that true?” Max asked.
“Does it change anything?” Cameron asked. “Does it make my part in it okay?”
“Maybe,” Alice said.
“No,” Max said.
Delia rolled her eyes and smacked her husband’s shoulder. “Stop.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I won’t. Cameron knows what he did was wrong.”
“Cameron?” Delia asked. “Do you love Josie?”
“It doesn’t matter. Because it doesn’t change the fact that I trusted you,” Max said to Cameron, and that was really what it came down to. Every bit of it. He’d betrayed Max. Josie. The whole family. “And then I found you on top of her.”
“Max…” Delia started to chastise him but Cameron hadn’t said a word to anyone about his feelings for Josie. Not until tonight, and it didn’t seem right to talk about his feelings with anyone but her, but he couldn’t have Max thinking what he felt was…cheap. Or convenient.
“I love her,” Cameron said.
“And she’s been watching him with her heart in her eyes since she was fifteen,” Delia said
Max looked unconvinced. He looked like he was still ready to murder Cameron.
All of a sudden, Cameron remembered being a kid in his father’s home. And being too young to understand that what he needed he’d never get, but being scared to leave. It had seemed, even suffering his dad’s neglect and abuse, easier to stay and be hated and miserable than it was to leave. So he’d waited too long to leave. He’d wasted years festering in a garbage situation.
“I think…I think it’s best if I just leave,” Cameron said.
“And go where?” Alice asked. “You live here.”
“But maybe I shouldn’t anymore. You’ve been on me for months now about what my plans are for the future.”
“Well, this isn’t a plan. This is just running away. Max!” Alice cried. “Help me!”
“I don’t know,” Max said. “Maybe this is for the best.”
“What?” Alice and Delia both turned on him, aghast.
“Maybe…” Max shrugged. “Maybe this was the push we all needed to help him figure it out.”
“This isn’t helping anything,” Delia said. “It’s kicking Cameron out.”
“It’s not,” Cameron said. “I think…Max is right.” He even managed to smile at Max, like they were on the same side. Like the relationship they had wasn’t over.
You were the only father I really ever had. He wished he could say that, but his words were shit. He knew that. Max didn’t care.
“He’s not.” Alice shook her head.
“You’ve been on me for months now. A year, even. To figure out what I was going to do next. I’m doing that.” Cameron shrugged, like it was all no big deal.
“No, you’re leaving because Max is scaring you and you’re upset and freaked out. This is not the time to make that decision.”
Max was silent, and even Delia was quiet and he got that. He’d burned through the trust they had for him. Now he just needed Alice to understand.
“If I stay,” Cameron said, feeling that sick ball in his stomach climb up in his throat. If I stay in the only home I’ve ever known, with the only people I’ve ever loved and who ever showed me kindness… Oh fuck. He couldn’t say that. “If I stay tomorrow you’ll have a job for me and then another job. You’ll do everything you can to make me stay—”
“No, I won’t,” Alice lied. Smoke was coming out of the oven so he walked over, grabbed the tea towel, and pulled the blackened nachos out of the oven. He set them on the counter and knew in his gut that he would never be able to eat nachos again.
“You will. And I’ll let you. And…I would stay and learn everything you can teach me and not once think about learning anything else. Or experiencing anything else. I would have…” He swallowed and shook his head, and it was so hard to say. So hard. “I would have loved Josie and never learned to love anyone else.”
“Oh Cameron,” Delia whispered.
“I mean, if one thing was proven by tonight it’s that…” He looked over at Max. Please, he thought, please give me this. At least give me this. “I need to grow up a little away from this place. Away from all of you. Away from Josie.”
He one hundred percent didn’t mean any of this bullshit. But he had to get out of there.
“I’m twenty-two. An adult,” he said. “And maybe it’s time I acted like it.” Or felt like it.
And then, suddenly, Max nodded.
Alice sighed.
And the whole vibe in the room changed and…well, it was happening.
Holy shit. I’m leaving.
“Okay,” Alice said. “Tomorrow come back here. Gabe and I have saved some money for you over the years. For college or travel. Whatever. It’s yours. I can send some letters of recommendation to some colleagues. You could go work for Andreas or Jerome in France.”
There. Now Alice was on board.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll come back tomorrow and we can figure it out.”
He even smiled as he headed for the door. His car. And whatever came next.
“You have to talk to Josie,” Delia said. “You can’t leave things like this. She’ll be devastated.”
“Of course,” he said. And say what? he wondered. I love you and I ruined everything? I love you and your family wants me to leave? What good was that going to do? Go be amazing, that’s what he would say to her. Go be the writer you dream of being and I’ll be all right.
“Okay,” Alice said. It killed him to lie to her. But there wasn’t any other way. “Sorry about the nachos,” she said.
Tears burned in his eyes and in his throat, and he nodded and waved goodbye and got the fuck out of there. He was halfway to his car before he realized Max had followed him.
“Cameron,” he said.
No. Nope. No way. “I’m leaving Max…I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“We both know that’s a lie. I know what leaving looks like.”
Cameron stopped. “Don’t try to stop me. I know you don’t mean it.”
“I’m not here to stop you.”
The bitter laugh clawed its way out of his throat and broke like a sob.
“Here,” Max said. “Take this.”
Cameron turned to see Max holding out a wad of money. “I’m not taking that.”
“Yeah you are,” Max said and just shoved it into Cameron’s backpack. “You’re gonna need it.”
He stared up at the moon, refusing to cry and refusing to look at Max. “You would have stopped,” Max said. “I can’t let you leave here thinking that you might not have. You are a good man.”
“That’s not what you were saying before.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to forget what I’ve seen,” Max said, and it only made Cameron more angry. “She was drunk. About to throw up—”
“And I was on top of her. I get it. I was there.”
“Josie—”
Yeah. He wasn’t going to stand there and talk about Josie with Max. How she was better off away from him and this place, when all he’d ever wanted was this place and her. He turned and started walking to his car.
“What should I tell her?” Max asked. ‘Tomorrow when she wakes up and feels like garbage. What should I tell her?”
I love her. I’ve always loved her. I will always love her. She deserves the world and everything in it, and if anyone ever dares to hurt her I will personally come and destroy their life.
But one look at Max’s face and Cameron understood she already had a person for that. And Cameron was on the other side of it. The other side of everything. He’d let down the family and now he was on the outside in every way.
“Tell her this is for the best.”