Page 56 of Effortless

“I am not.”

“Camilla, I asked if you were seeing anybody lately, and you practically bit my head off.”

“Because you talk to August all the time. You know I’m not seeing anybody. I never see anybody, anyway.”

“Yes, but I didn’t talk to you.”

Camilla sighed. “Can we just get the dress and then go pick up August? She wanted to find a dress for tonight when we go out to the club. I promised she could look around with us today.”

Emma frowned, but said nothing.

She knew her mother wouldn’t push her for more.

It just wasn’t Emma’s style.

Right then, Camilla was grateful.

As it was, her phone happened to be burning a hole in her damn pocket. A single text earlier had sent her into a tailspin, and made her—as her mother put it—touchy.

Frankly, that was happening a lot lately.

Camilla could blame a lot of things to distract people when they pointed it out to her. She was getting damn good at brushing them all off when others asked about her mood. At the moment, the truth was scarier than she was willing to admit.

She was touchy.

Her emotions. Her interest. Her restlessness.

All touchy.

Tommaso Rossi was entirely to blame.

How did that presentation for your project go?

“Are you even listening to me, Cam?”

Camilla continued staring down at the screen of her phone despite how irritated August sounded. It was nothing, she thought. Nothing but a simple, stupid text from Tommaso that should not have sent her into an emotional tailspin.

Hell, it had now been three whole months since she last seen the guy face to face. Sure, they texted back and forth, and occasionally she called to actually hear him speak. That was about it, though. Their conversations were never too deep or involved.

They stuck to chatting about day to day things, and what the other was up to, if it was anything interesting. He never asked about personal shit—dating, guys, her family, or otherwise. She didn’t ask him about those things, either.

One simple text from him should not make her world tilt on its entire axis. Like the world had slowed, tipped, and then started spinning in the opposite direction all of the sudden.

Yet, there the text was.

And here Camilla’s world was.

Like a fucking Merry-Go-Round or something.

“Cam!”

Finally, Camilla looked up from her phone. “Yeah?”

August glared at her from across the bedroom. “What is up with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Like you didn’t just stare at your phone for ten whole minutes, and ignored me when I called your name over and over again?”