Page 58 of Effortless

Although, none of those things had ever made a difference for her in the past. If she wanted to go out and have a good time, then that’s exactly what she did. If she wanted to go out and pick up some guy or girl to make her night a little better, then that’s what she did when the desire arose.

Truth was, Camilla just hadn’t been in the mood. Not for partying, or for random sex with a stranger.

“I guess it has been a while,” Camilla said as she shrugged on a trench coat. The wide belt would cinch tight at her waist, and show it off beautifully. “All the more reason for me to enjoy it tonight, right?”

August smiled. “Right, babe. So hey, who was texting you earlier? Was that why you were acting like aliens had eaten your brain?”

Camilla laughed. “It was nothing, so let’s go.”

Not nothing, her heart whispered.

Tommaso had remembered a project presentation Camilla mentioned she had coming up. She randomly brought it up in a conversation to him almost two weeks earlier when she had to let him go to head out in order to work with a partner on the project.

Today, it had been due.

Camilla decided to go out to her friend’s party at the club with August as a way to celebrate finally getting it done, and the great initial remarks from the professor.

But what really made her day? The thing that made her world tilt on its axis?

Tommaso remembering without prompting. Him asking.

She added it to the growing pile of things about Tommaso that kept making her like him more and more. Another thing to make her hesitate on deleting his number in an attempt to break the habit he was now becoming to her. Something else about him that made her think there was far more to Tommaso than she really knew.

More things she might want to learn.

Camilla wasn’t supposed to be that girl. The girl that got heartsick over a guy she barely even knew.

But fuck …

Here she was.

Camilla sipped on the green Grasshopper martini at the bar as she mulled over the text on her phone. She should be out on the dance floor with August working off some of the calories from the sweet drinks, or upstairs in the VIP room with the rest of their friends celebrating Jill’s twenty-second birthday.

But nope.

Instead of doing those fun things, Camilla was leaning against a bar, ignoring the dancing crowd behind her, and staring at a text. The same text Tommaso had sent her earlier, but she had yet to reply. She didn’t give him a response to his message, but he also hadn’t prompted her again, either.

Like he was the hunter, and she was the prey.

The guy was waiting on her.

Just like he said.

Sighing, Camilla set the phone down and emptied the rest of her glass without hesitation. Already, she was two drinks beyond the limit and wouldn’t be driving home.

“Hey, are you going to come dance with us, or what?”

August’s too-high voice told Camilla her friend was also feeling a little too tipsy to be driving them home. Camilla spun around just in time to see August winking and waving her fingers at a guy, gesturing for her to come back out on the dance floor.

Then, her friend’s gaze was back on her in an instant. “Well?”

“I’m good. My feet are sore.”

August looked down at the heels Camilla wore with a raised brow. “Really? Because you wear higher heels than those to workout, Cam.”

Jesus.

Why did August have to know her so damn well?