AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I-I would like you to see someone,” I managed.
“I have no interest in meeting your sluts,” she said, slamming the door so hard it echoed down the hall.
I raised my fist to knock again, but Shae took me gently by the wrist, stopping me. We may have only been cousins, but she could read me like a blog. She frowned at me when I looked at her and shook her head.
“I’m really sorry about that,” I said, letting out a big sigh and turning back toward my apartment door.
“It’s fine. I’ve heard worse than that, and she didn’t really mean it.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“That wasn’t anger,” Shae explained.
“It wasn’t?” I asked, pretty sure I knew anger when I saw it.
My cousin rolled her eyes at me like I was an idiot. “No, it was passion, the girl in 4B either really hates you or really loves you to give that kind of reaction. I don’t think she hates you, or you wouldn’t have tried to reintroduce us.”
I was stunned into even more profound silence by the thought that Camilla might really love me. Lust was one thing and something she had made clear with her recent behavior, but love?
Shae was right, of course. When I thought about it, Camilla didn’t really look mad, more hurt and defensive. And it wasn’t only because she would have reasonably assumed that Shae was my girlfriend or at least a one-night stand. I wondered if Cooper had told her about my man-whore past. If he had, his little sister’s reaction made even more sense. I tried to deny it in the moment, but I knew in the back of my head that it was futile.
“Love? You think?” I asked.
“Definitely,” Shae said, taking off her coat.
“Beer?” I asked, heading towards the fridge.
“Please, I’m not nearly drunk enough to erase the day I’ve had.”
“Want to talk about it?” I asked, getting a bottle of stout out of the fridge.
“No. I’d rather know what’s going on with Camilla. What the heck did you do to her?”
“Nothing that I know of,” I lied, popping the lid and sliding the bottle over to her as we sat at the dining room table. The same table I had taken Camilla on just hours before.
“Hooey.”
“Okay, you got me.”
“So, spill,” Shae said, before taking a long sip.
“Well, I can’t be sure, but I think Camilla might have had a crush on me since we were kids. I mean actual kids. She was seven, and Cooper and I were eleven when we all met. Even then, she would always try to hang out with me. I didn’t notice her then, of course, and she was still only fourteen when I left for the army, so I really didn’t think much about it. I mean, Cooper told me, but I thought he was kidding.”
“Apparently not,” Shae said.
“Right. Anyway, the new owner of the office brought Camilla in as the new receptionist a couple of days ago. She was insatiable and wouldn’t take no for an answer. That doesn’t make it right. I still shouldn’t have done it but—”
“You fucked her, didn’t you?”
I sighed. Shae had always been pretty blunt. Sometimes she was even too direct, but to be honest, it helped to have a cousin I could talk to about anything.
“Today, right before I came to meet you.”
“So, that’s why she looked like she was crying.”
“Most likely, yeah. I didn’t mean for it to happen. Any of it really.”
“I believe it,” Shae said, much to my surprise.
