Page 139 of Effortless

“You better stop that,” she whispered against his lips, “or we won’t be going anywhere.”

“Starting to think that might not be a bad thing.”

Camilla patted his cheek, and then pushed him away. She stood from the couch, and gathered the brochures she had been looking over. One fell out of the pile, and Tommaso quickly picked it up. He glanced at it, and then did a double-take.

“Wait, is this—”

Camilla snatched it out of his hand. “It’s nothing.”

Tommaso stared at her for a long while, silent. “That’s a brochure for a nursing school in Chicago, Cam.”

“So?”

“You didn’t tell me you were looking at schools here.”

She fiddled with the edge of the brochures, unsure of how to explain the thoughts running through her head at the moment.

“I just … wanted to look,” she said.

“Look, is that all?”

Camilla peered at him through her lashes. “It’s inevitable, isn’t it? Me moving here, I mean. You’re not going to come to New York to live. It’s getting harder and harder for us to find time to spend a couple of days together. I don’t mind—it’s what we have to do, right?”

“Yeah, I know, Cam.”

He rounded the couch, and reached for her. In a blink, she found herself wrapped in his comforting embrace. He rested his chin on the top of her head, and she sunk into his hold. Here, nothing was ever wrong. With him, everything was perfect and still.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Tommaso told her. “Not move here, or start a new school. None of it, Cam. You don’t have to do anything for me that you’re not ready to do. Okay?”

She nodded.

And loved him even more because of it.

“Maybe I’m not completely ready to let go of New York, but I am ready to start looking.”

“Set stuff up, you mean.”

“Yep,” she said, sighing. “I talked to my parents about it a couple of months back, too. They didn’t even seem surprised. Everybody always sees shit coming before I ever do.”

Tommaso’s chuckles rocked them both. “That’s … a little bit true.”

“I guess I should finally admit, though, that Chicago is slightly better than—”

“Yes.”

Tommaso’s shout echoed in the house. Camilla’s laughter followed right after.

She leaned back in his embrace to look up at him. Cocking one brow, she tried her damnedest not to laugh or smile.

“You’re terrible,” she said.

“Maybe so, but I won.”

“I think you won when you got me.”

Tommaso made a noise in the back of his throat. “That, too, but the Chicago versus New York thing was big to me.”

She smacked his chest lightly. “Ass.”