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“Nice, Cam. Real nice,” she says, her stare suddenly cold. It breaks away and she focuses instead on my cheek and jaw, cleaning up my skin while her jaw flexes from holding in all of the words she probably wants to scream at me.
After a minute, I can’t take the tension between us anymore, and I wrap her wrist in my hand, willing her to look me in the eyes again. Her arm flexes when she freezes, and her eyes narrow with the brewing storm behind them.
“This is all a bunch of grade school cafeteria drama, Cam. What is wrong with you?” She starts to back away, but I hold her hand in place, our eyes locked as I do my best to wordlessly express how sorry I am. When I feel her relax, I let go. She dabs at my lip again softly, and all I want to do is kiss her touch.
Her gaze skims my face, her mouth set in a disappointed frown, faint but there, as she purposely avoids direct eye contact again. I don’t always think before I act. In fact, I rarely do. My mom says my impulsive nature comes from my dad. But I think even he thought through what he was doing when he walked into a bank as a barely legal adult with an unloaded gun and ski mask. He was thinking he had no other way out. He was young and in love and desperate to hold on to the fragments that made him fucking happy.
“You said you wanted pistachio,” I say, my eyes unflinching as I wait for her gaze to meet mine. She stops moving, but she doesn’t change her focus. Her lips part with a soft breath as her tongue peeks out. She bites the tip.
“What?” she whispers. I can tell. She remembers.
“Earlier, when I mentioned your thirteenth birthday party to your dad . . . I’ve been thinking about it all day. You had every ice cream flavor at the tip of your spoon, but you wanted pistachio.” I lean back a little, laughing quietly at the memory. “You tried so hard to pretend you were happy. Shoveling spoonful after spoonful of mint and vanilla into your mouth.”
Her lashes flutter as she looks down, the corner of her mouth twitching with the threat of a smile.
“You mashed up almonds and mixed them in coffee flavored ice cream as an alternative.” She remembers . . .almost.
“They were cashews, but close,” I say.
Her lashes flit like butterfly wings before she peers up at me and stops my heart.
“Why did you care so much? I was acting so entitled.” Her brow draws in, denting her forehead.
I smirk.
“You weren’t entitled. You were spoiled,” I say.
She scoffs and looks out at the near-empty garage.
“Thanks,” she grumbles.
I reach forward and brush my fingertips along her arm, and her gaze darts to the spot.
“You know why I did that?”
She shakes her head no.
“There are so many reasons—I didn’t want your parents to cancel the party, I was curious what my concoction would taste like, and Theo dared me to see if I could make pistachio ice cream,” I say.
“All very good reasons,” she jokes. She leans against the door frame, just on the other side of my knee. If I had any guts I would pull her in front of me to stand between my legs so I can run my hands up her curves and push her hair back as I kiss her. I just got my ass kicked by a bleach-blond urban cowboy, though, so tonight I’m going to have to use my words.
“There are two other motivations that truly marked me,” I say.
“Yeah? What are they?” Her head falls against the metal of the car, and I breathe a little easier knowing she’s relaxing.
“You’re not ready for one of them,” I say.
Her eyes narrow as we have a mini stare-off.
“I think I know what I’m ready for,” she says.
I breathe out a short laugh and smile on one side before shaking my head.
“Not tonight,” I say.
“Fine. What’s the other one?” she gripes.
I push my lips together, testing the pain, wishing I could chew on them a little before sharing something so big with her. I’m completely lucid right now—no pot in my system, no drinking, zero adrenalin. I’m about as flat as I’ve ever been and things in my life seem so clear. My gut is rarely wrong. I’ve always felt Brooky is the one I can trust. I need a person, and she doesn’t have to see me the way I see her to hold my secrets. She only needs to understand them—to help me carry them a little.
