“Actually...” Her tongue darted out of her mouth to moisten her lower lip. “I was hoping we could talk.”
For a split second, hope began to swell in him, but he tamped it down. Lenny had probably told her she was selling the store. Cami likely just wanted to ream him about that. “Uh, sure. We should do it outside, though.”
He led her to the perfunctory garden out front of the trauma building. It was sparsely decorated with a few hot weather plants and cacti, mulched to discourage weeds. Nothing that would require heavy attention like you’d find at the main entrance, but it had a little bench and was deserted enough to provide the illusion of privacy. At least he wouldn’t get his ass handed to him in front of an audience.
He hadn’t realized how tired he was until he looked at that bench. He’d been standing, moving, or too tense to relax for hours now. Beside him, Cami vibrated with energy, or nerves, maybe. He understood that she needed to confront him about everything, and he’d respect that, but he could be sitting when she did it.
He sat. As soon as his weight shifted, his feet started to throb. If he was going to hack it in a hospital setting again, he’d have to get some stamina back.
In front of him, Cami did a little half-pace, then faced him, hands clasped together at her belly. His brow furrowed. He could understand being nervous at having to be alone with him when she thought he’d seduced her for personal gain, but this didn’t seem like that brand of nerves.
“Do you...want to sit?” he asked carefully, gesturing with one hand to the spot next to him.
Her warm brown gaze shifted to the empty space on the bench, but she shook her head. “No. Sorry, it’s just hard to get my thoughts together.”
He waited. Silence stretched thin between them, undercut by the rustle of plant life in the breeze, the buzz of insects feeding in the garden, and the far-off voices of people entering and leaving the hospital. For someone who wanted to talk to him, Cami seemed to have forgotten how to use her voice.
Given everything he’d put her through, the least he could do was throw her a bone. “So you talked to Lenny?”
She nodded, glancing down at her hands. “Yes. She— She’s my grandmother.”
“She told me,” Des said quietly. “How long have you known?” He’d been wondering ever since Lenny had told him that afternoon.
“A few days.”
“You never said anything.” Part of him felt scummy even pointing it out, given everything he’d kept from her over the last few months, but it stung that she’d made such a momentous discovery and didn’t tell him. She just tried to deal with it by herself. Nobody should have to process that kind of news on their own.
“I know. I—I found out and didn’t know how to handle it. So I didn’t. I just pushed it to the back of my mind for a while.” Her gaze skimmed over him for a beat, then slid away, focusing on some unspecific point behind him. “It was easy to pretendeverything was fine and normal when we were—” She chewed her bottom lip. “You’re good at distracting me.”
He was a distraction. He loved her, but he was her distraction.
“Glad to be of service.” His voice was flat and lifeless, all the emotion sucked out of him in one fell swoop.
The lack of animation seemed to draw her attention, and she finally focused on him, brows drawing together as she frowned at him. “That’s not what I?—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He gave a harsh shake of his head. He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and biting the inside of his cheek. “It’s no less than I deserve anyway. I should have told you from the start what my real job was, or at the very least, told you before I took you to bed. But I liked you so much and wanted to keep spending time with you, and it never seemed like the right time to bring it up. It got away from me. And then the next thing I knew, I was in love with you, and I had to find a way to tell you without blowing it, which was, obviously, impossible. So if all I was to you was a distraction, then I can’t blame you for that.”
He said it all in a rush, the words spilling out of him in spite of the ache they caused under his ribcage. The last thing he wanted was to be one more bad memory of Cami’s time in Santa Monica.
She sighed, letting his words rest for a moment, then finally met his gaze. “If you were only a distraction, Des, your lies wouldn’t have hurt so much.”
He inhaled slowly, then swallowed. “Well. That’s nice to hear, even if it doesn’t matter in the long run.”
“Why doesn’t it matter?”
“You’re leaving. Going back to Tennessee.” He only noticed then that she didn’t have the bags she’d carried when she’d arrived at the hospital, but she’d probably just left them inLenny’s room. Easy enough to pick up when she was ready to hit the road. When one of them left this hospital, Cami would be well and truly gone from his life. It made him feel hollowed out inside like a house infested with termites. “Lenny told me.”
“Well,” she started, shifting her weight to one foot and back in an undeniable fidget, “I’m not.”
He straightened. At first, he was certain he was misunderstanding her. Surely, she didn’t mean she was staying in California. But she didn’t add any caveats, didn’t specify that she was only going to stay for an extra week for Lenny’s sake. No other shoe dropped. “You’re not?”
“No. I’m going to stay and get Lenny set up with an online storefront. I’m not sure where I’ll live after she sells the store, but...” She trailed off, shrugging.
“I’m so sorry, Cami.” He’d lost track of how many times he’d said it at this point, but he’d say it as many times as he needed.
“It’s not your fault. You were just doing your job. The lying, that was your fault. But the rest of it?” She unclasped her hands at last, and slid her fingers into her pockets, her stance shifting into one more casual than he’d seen on her in days. “If Lenny wants to sell the store, then she should. I’ll figure it out.” She gave a little half-smile that tugged on his heart. “Besides, I’ve got family now. Maybe I’ll couch surf with her for a while.”
Their conversation was drawing to a close, and while he loathed to let her walk away from him again, there were bigger concerns right now than his feelings. He stood.
