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I walk down the hall, pushing the door open, and it’s a fuckingseaof red. Red curtains, red carpet, red fabric hanging from the bedposts. Cam’s bag sits on an armchair, and my toiletries are arranged in the bathroom.
When Camden finally comes in for dinner, looking sweaty and more than a little worn out, I ask him about it.
“I decided we should change rooms,” he says, shrugging like it’s no big deal.
And it isn’t—one opulent bedroom is as good as the other—but it’s still weird. Why doesn’t he want to sleep in his old bedroom? And why would he preferthatroom?
Dinner is another scattered affair, with Nelle taking a tray upstairs, Ben retreating to his office, and Libby god knows where. We eat roast chicken that Cecilia left, drink a few glassesof a gorgeous sauvignon blanc, then head up to our new room, once again much earlier than we usually turn in.
“Well,” Cam says with a sigh as he reaches for one of the throw pillows on the bed, catching it by its lacy trim and tossing it aside. “First full day at Ashby House. Impressions?”
I grab a pillow as well—there appear to be roughly eight thousand of them, arranged from the headboard all the way to the middle of the paisley bedspread—and throw it onto an armchair.
“The house is incredible,” I say. “And Cecilia is the best.”
Cam nods as another pillow hits the hardwood. “She is.”
He lifts his mismatched gaze to mine. “And my family?”
I pause, fingers still curled around the edge of a throw pillow, and study Cam. “You know, the whole time we’ve been together, I kind of thought it was an act.”
Now it’s Cam’s turn to pause, his arms folded across his chest, his expression a little closed off. “What was?”
I shrug and continue to pull pillows from the bed. Behind Cam, a giant bay window reflects my movements, the lawn and forest beyond completely dark now.
“It’s just kind of a cliché, you know? The rich kid who turned his back on his shitty family. I thought… well, Ibelievedyou, but man, Nelle is indeed a real piece of work. Libby, too. And Ben seems decent enough, but I don’t trust a man whose teeth glow in the dark.”
Cam’s face relaxes a little, one corner of his mouth lifting in that smile that’s not quite a smirk. He smiled like that the first night we met, and I was a goner.
“I don’t know whether I should be smug or apologize to you,” he says now, the bed finally clear of pillows, and I move onto the mattress on my knees, holding out my hands to Cam.
He takes them, both of us kneeling as we face each other.
“I’m still glad we came,” I tell him, and his fingers flex against mine. “Are you?”
“Hard to say,” he replies. “I needed to come. The sheer amount of shit they all let slide…”
He trails off, thinking. “She would’ve hated it,” he finally says, his voice soft, and I don’t have to ask who he means.
I lean in and kiss him, gently, almost chastely, and assume that’s as far as it’ll go, especially after this morning, but he surprises me by pulling me in closer, his mouth hungry on mine, and I let him pull me down onto that red, red bed.
Afterward, he sleeps peacefully, none of that tension I’ve sensed the past few nights vibrating through his body. Instead, it’s my turn to lie awake in the darkness, thoughts churning.
One full day in Ashby House down.
A lifetime to go.
CHAPTER EIGHTCamden
“So you’re a teacher, huh?”
Ben and I are in his truck, heading down the mountain into Tavistock. We’d spent yesterday taking stock of what needed to be done, fixing what we could with the few tools Ben had around, but today, we were pulling off the damaged paneling in the upstairs bathroom, and that took more supplies. I should’ve just hired some guys to do it—Lord knew I had the fucking money—but I’d wanted to do it myself. Maybe it was guilt, maybe it was some attempt at atoning for all the years I’d been gone, or maybe I’d just wanted to lose myself in grueling but mind-numbing manual labor.
I’m actually on my phone, trying to price new paneling despite the shitty signal, when Ben asks his question, and I briefly glance over at him.
He’s got one arm resting on the door, his elbow jutting out the open window, and the scent of earth and trees is thick in the truck. I always forget just how long it takes to get intotown, and now it looks like Ben has decided to fill the time with small talk.
“Yeah,” I reply. “Boys’ school in Colorado.”
