Chapter 13
My jaw drops,and I shake my head in disbelief, trying to string meaning together from the words he just spoke.
“I’m sorry. Come again? What do you mean, you can’t be with us?”
Cam leans heavily against the wall of the kitchen, slumping down like a weighted stone onto the floor, head hanging in defeat.
“Lisa,” his voice thick with emotion as he clears his throat audibly. His face has turns ghost-white, with almost a grayish hue. “She wants to travel the world with this surfer dude.”
Okay…that doesn’t come as a surprise. I suppose in her mind that can’t be easily done with a young child in tow. And from what we know about Lisa, she wouldn’t want Taylor compromising her fun.
London sits down next to Cam on the floor, a hand placed on his forearm that rests on his bent knees.
“Lisa is giving up her parental rights? Is that what it means? So, Taylor will live with us fulltime?”
His lips thin in a scowl and he shakes his head, his eyes cast downward, avoiding our gazes.
“Not us. Justme.”
London’s eyes flash up to me and then return to Cam. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
Cam scoffs impatiently. “Lisa’s condition is that for me to have custody and for her to drop the suit entirely, I can’t raise him in this relationship.”
He points an accusatory finger in a triangle between us.
While not many, except for Cam’s mom, Doreen, and London’s family, know about our unique polyamorous relationship between the three of us and our plans for the future, it’s pretty easy to assume that Lisa has figured things out. And is pissed.
Whether it’s out of jealousy or spite, or just plain hatefulness, she’s trying to keep Cam from living the life he wants. The life he deserves. How very hypocritical of her.
“That bitch!” I shout, slamming a hand down on the table, the vibrations flipping over the salt and pepper shakers and rattling the mugs of coffee. “She’s an evil, backstabbing bitch. We can fight her on this, Cam. Don’t let her have this control over you and Taylor.”
I’ll beg and plead and get down on my knees to make him see how manipulative this woman is being and that there are other options for keeping things status quo with Taylor. He doesn’t have to give up his right to love the way he sees fit because she’s an envious evil witch.
Cam plays with the phone in his hand, flipping it over back and forth as he works through the logic of my words.
“I don’t know. I detest fighting. I had enough of it overseas.”
London jumps in, uncharacteristically adamant. “Youhaveto fight this, Cam. Don’t let her take everything from us. From you. From Taylor. We love him, as much as we love you. He deserves to have everything. I’ve seen far too many kids in such bad situations, where their parents don’t give two-shits about their well-being. I know you aren’t like that and you want to protect him. But Lisa is just plain wrong and is asking for something you shouldn’t be willing to give up.”
“I know. I just need some time to think this through.” Cam looks up, his stare unseeing as if looking straight through us.
His mouth tips down in a frown as he presses his lips in a flat line. I know he would do anything for his son, as he should. But that doesn’t mean giving up his own life and love in order to comply with a crazy-bitch’s demands.
He rises to his feet, helping London stand with a hand at her elbow. Everything seems to move in slow-motion as if this is a fleeting moment and one that will take us down a road that we can’t come back from.
Cam gestures for me to stand up and I step toward them. He wraps us in his warm embrace – his hug like an apologetic farewell - the contact sending shivers down my spine. His touch is so familiar; just another extension of my body. And it feels like I’m losing a limb.
Dropping his hand from where it was wound behind my head, he places his mouth over London’s, his tongue sweeping over her lips and surging into her mouth. I watch with a hungry thirst, desperate for my own taste.
She is his, and mine, and he is ours. We are one.
Cam releases London and moves onto me with a sad smile, planting his calloused hands over my jaw, his thumb flicking at my lips that part to taste him. I suck his thumb into my mouth, my cock growing thick and hard at the sensation. He slowly withdraws it and replaces it with his mouth, which I kiss greedily. I want to linger and enjoy the feeling of his wet lips on mine for as long as I can. The full pressure and glide; the minty taste of his tongue against mine. I fear that once he walks out of this house, it could be the last. And it terrifies me.
The kiss ends too soon as he backs away, his hands dropping to his sides with weighted decision; as if retreating from a predatory animal. Eyes weary and conflicted with regret.
“I’m going to go up and pack and head to my mom’s. Please let me figure this thing out on my own, okay? Don’t interfere. Just…”
His gaze snaps away from us as I slip my fingers through London’s, squeezing her hand in an unspoken solidarity. It’s so hard to let him go through this hell Lisa is putting him in alone. Our instincts tell us he should be with us, so we can support him. To be his buoys when he’s drowning. He thinks he has no control in how this situation with Taylor plays out, but what he doesn’t realize is that London and I will help him. If he just lets us.
Cam stubbornly refuses help when he most needs it. I saw that struggle within him when he was going through his recovery. He denies our help and is obstinately inflexible.
The same way he’s acting now by walking out that door alone.
Three is better than one.
What I learned through his recovery process, however, is that Cam needs to come to his own conclusions on his own time; but he’ll always come around sooner or later.
He just needs to be in the driver’s seat and takes the long and winding route before he gets there.
