Page 87 of Effortless

That Band-Aid being him.

She could indulge the idea that they might possibly be something someday, or she could just face the hard facts head on.

Camilla didn’t live in delusions.

It was very unlikely that they would go anywhere together. Not being apart like they were, not with Camilla living her life like she did, and not when she was terrified to even admit she cared about this man.

It wasn’t his fault.

Not really.

This was all her.

“I can’t go to Chicago,” she told him one last time.

The hard set of Tommaso’s jaw told her that his defenses had come out to play now, too.

“Can’t or won’t?” he asked.

“Tom—”

“I mean, at least be honest with me, Camilla. Be fucking real with me. Tell me what it actually is so that I know, and I can make a choice where you and I are concerned. You could give me that decency. I would respect that, babe.”

She tried as hard as she could to let his words bounce off her. They were just words, after all. Not weapons, or something that should feel like they were physically assaulting her heart and soul. Still, they hurt.

It all hurt.

When she didn’t respond to him as fast as he wanted, Tommaso spoke again. His next words hurt just as much as the last because once again, he was making her take a hard look at things she wasn’t ready to see just yet.

“Why won’t you try?” he asked. “With us, I mean. Take a risk, Camilla, and figure out what this is, or if it’s going anywhere. If it’s not, then fine. We had some fun, and fuck the rest. We can go our separate ways, and let it be done. But we can’t even do that because you won’t—at the very least—try.”

“It’s not about trying, Tom.”

“I think it is.”

No, it really wasn’t.

It was about her restless heart and not being ready. It was the fear of the unknown, and a future that seemed uncertain because she didn’t believe stability was a real, tangible thing. It was about him pulling her in, and her pushing him out. It was the monster of her habits that liked to bite at her back, and the comfort of the familiar which never let her down.

It was a lot of things, but it was not about her inability to try for him. After all, she had been trying for six whole months.

Look where that got her.

Here.

Fighting with him.

In her fucking kitchen.

Like lovers; like they were something.

Instead of saying any of that to Tommaso, or explaining the swirling chaos inside her head, Camilla chose another coward’s way out.

It was just easier.

She turned away from the counter and her coffee, and reached for him. Fisting his shirt, she pulled him into her, and kissed him hard. It took a second, and then two, before he started to respond. Shocked, likely.

Camilla didn’t care what it was.