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There’s no missing the hesitation before she answers. “Matty just fell asleep and I think I’m going to try and grab some myself while I can. Raincheck?”
“Yeah, for sure. Get some rest and tell Matty to feel better.”
I mean it. She needs a break.
But there’s a part of me that keeps seeing the way she looked at me—or more like didn’t look at me—when she turned down my offer to stay. And that part can’t help wondering if she would have said yes if last night hadn’t happened.
* * *
Cammy
“Four days!But you’ve talked to him, right?” Julia demands through the line. She’s in LA again and watching the game with me over the phone. “You didn’t just kick him out and then go radio silent. Right?”
I roll my eyes, taking it on faith she can sense it. “Yes, I talked to him. Mostly texting though. I was exhausted from staying up with Matty puking for two days.” That much is true. “Our schedules were off and then he had to leave.” Technically, also true. Though I could have made it work. A week ago, I would have. I’d have been waiting by the door for him to show up after the game, my heart racing, my body aching for the chance to get close to him. To feel his arms around me, his heart beating against mine.
“Okay. Besides, this is Rux. More than two missed calls and he would have the whole team involved. WAGs posting flyers, the fire department breaking down your door and some tactical team swinging in through your windows.”
I try to laugh, but Julia must hear something off with it because suddenly her voice is serious, quiet. “Hey, Cammy, what’s going on? Everything okay with you guys?”
My mouth opens to tell her yes, but the words won’t come. I take a breath. “I want it to be. But Julia…what am I doing?”
God, I wish she was here right now. I love what she’s doing with her career, and I love that she and Greg are setting the bar for relationship goals. But the little sister in me misses the nights when we’d sit and talk until we were too tired to talk anymore. I miss the comfort of her arm around me when I’m anxious and knowing that before she was anyone else’s she was mine.
It’s selfish. But I miss her.
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?” she asks. “I thought things were good with you guys. Fun and sexy and… all the good stuff.”
“It is. It’s amazing.” I shake my head, suddenly overwhelmed by emotion I can’t account for. “He makes me feel like I’m alive in a way I haven’t been in seven years.” Maybe ever. “Like all the things I started wondering if I would ever find… are suddenly within reach.”
“But that’s good, right?”
“I’m not sure it is. I mean, it feels good.” So good. “But Matty was never supposed see us together like that. What if he starts getting his hopes up about Rux and I getting serious when it can’t happen?”
Juliahmms through the line. “Okay, first, it’s time to face facts. You’re already serious. No matter what your official relationship status is, you and Rux have been serious from way before you started whatever it is you started.”
“But—”
“Second, the only thing that’s going to hurt Mattyifthings don’t work out, isifhe loses Rux. I mean, so what if the kiddo catches you and Rux K.I.S.S.I.N.G.? It’s not like it was with Mom cycling through her losers, going from zero to moved-in-with-us in the course of one night.”
“Handing over our lunch money so he could grab some smokes the next day.” I close my eyes, hating those memories. The confusion and fear when the next guy showed up. Wondering how long he’d last, and whether I’d wish it had been shorter by the end.
Restless, I walk over to the windows and look down to the snow-covered streets. Matty’s going to need boots tomorrow. “I know it’s different with Rux.” Aside from Julia, he’s as close to a constant as we’ve had in our lives.
“Good. Because that brings me to my third point… I’m not sure it’s just Matty you’re trying to protect. I think you’re falling for Rux. I think this thing between you has gotten more real than either of you expected, and now that you’ve stopped to think, you’re terrified of what that means.”
I close my eyes and rest my head against the cool glass.
Of course, she’d see what I’ve been trying not to.
“I know better. Julia, I don’t want to keep making the same mistakes. Rux isn’t looking for forever. He’s made it clear from the start he isn’t interested in being anyone’s happily ever after.” I know this. I understand it.I agreed to it.
“But you said you weren’t interested in anything more either. Isn’t it possible he might have changed his mind too? Believe me, he wouldn’t be the first commitment-phobe to convert for the right girl.”
The right girl.
What if I could be the one? What if my happily ever after has been right in front of me all this time? What if Rux has already fallen in love with our family?
I blink, my breath catching almost painfully on the what-ifs I never let myself consider.
