Four Night Stand, page 27
He drops into a chair and crosses his arms. The silent treatment will have no effect on his sisters, but their intervention will go faster if he doesn’t interrupt with his own thoughts. He wanted a break from Jules-shaped thoughts. He suspects from the flat line of Carrie’s lips, and the disappointed twist to Chloe’s mouth, that this conversation won’t be it.
‘You screwed up with Jules.’ Carrie says.
Yep. There it is. His insides shrivel up as Carrie stares him down. ‘How—’
‘Matteo told us.’ Chloe drags his half-eaten dinner toward her and steals a dumpling from his plate.
‘Hey.’ He steals the plate back from her.
‘Sorry,’ Chloe says with her mouth full. ‘It’s a long drive and we didn’t stop. I’m starving.’
Cameron sighs and pushes up from the table, heading to his kitchen. He pulls out crackers from his cupboard and grabs a tub of hummus from his fridge.
‘So what’s the deal?’
‘Fuck!’ Cameron fumbles the crackers. His sisters have followed him into the kitchen. It’s only a small rectangular space to begin with, now it feels claustrophobic. He’s penned in at the far end by the sink with his sisters between him and the door.
Chloe takes the crackers from his hands and rips them open, shoving one into her mouth without bothering to get any hummus on it.
‘Matteo was light on the details,’ Carrie says, popping open the hummus and dipping a cracker into it, before passing it to Chloe. ‘He said you had some sort of falling out.’
‘Is he spilling all my secrets now?’ He presses a fist to his chest over his racing heart. He needs to have a talk with Matteo about his honesty pledge, and how it doesn’t mean he has to spill everything about other people.
Carrie leans a hip against the countertop to his right. ‘He’s concerned about your wellbeing. As are we.’
‘Thanks. But you don’t need to worry. I’m fine.’
Chloe scoffs, digging a cracker into the hummus and coming away with about a quarter of the tub piled onto it. ‘You’re eating takeaway dumplings on a Thursday and there’s two completed paint-by-numbers drying on your coffee table. Plus, your living room is more spotless than normal. Like you’ve been cleaning as an avoidance tactic.’
She’s got him there.
‘I’m fine,’ he repeats as she lifts herself to sit on the counter next to the fridge, opposite Carrie.
‘If you don’t want to talk about Jules, what about Braden then?’ Carrie says.
Cameron crosses his arms over his chest and widens his stance, trying to convey authority. ‘I don’t want to talk about her either.’
Carrie lifts an eyebrow. ‘Because?’
Clearly, posturing doesn’t work on an older sibling. ‘Because it’s in the past. I got my closure, or whatever.’
‘Hey.’ Chloe beams at him and swings a foot out to tap his leg. ‘That’s great.’
‘Whatever.’ He shrugs off her sincerity but warmth blooms inside his chest. It was a big deal for him and he feels better for it, but it’s been smothered by what’s going on with Jules. Or not going on.
‘So guess it’s back to Jules then,’ Carrie says. ‘Did you end up asking her out? Were you dating? Your texts have been evasive.’
Cameron shuffles his bare feet against the tiles. ‘No.’
Chloe gasps. ‘But you were so into each other! Carrie said you were holding hands at the symphony.’
‘Holding hands doesn’t mean I like her.’
‘You liking her isn’t what we’re discussing here,’ Carrie says, reaching across to Chloe for a cracker and dip. ‘We all know you do. Including you, so I’m not sure why you’re trying to convince us you don’t.’
‘Yeah,’ Chloe agrees. ‘How’re we meant to encourage and support you if we don’t know what’s going on and if you lie to us about your feelings?’
‘You want to know what’s going on?’ He swings his head back and forth between his sisters. ‘Fine. Yes, I like her. But we weren’t dating. I didn’t ask her out. We had a fling. We were having sex. And now that’s over.’
The shock factor doesn’t shock as much as he was hoping. His sisters are as immovable as boulders in a creek.
‘So you were two consenting adults having sex,’ Chloe surmises without hesitation.
Carrie grimaces and casts her gaze to the ceiling. ‘So much information I didn’t need to know about my younger brother.’
‘I’ve had flings before.’
Carrie winces. ‘Yet more information.’
‘Hey. You’re the ones who started this conversation.’
‘We weren’t expecting it to end up here,’ Chloe says through a mouthful of food.
Carrie drops her gaze to him. There’s something in her expression that resonates with Cameron, a knowing that makes the hairs on the back of his arms stand up. ‘You haven’t had a fling before with someone you actually like as much as you do Jules,’ she says. ‘It’s different when you already care for them.’
He doesn’t know with who, or when, but he’d swear she’s talking from experience.
Seeing the empathy in Carrie’s eyes erases his desire to say as little as possible during this intervention. His sisters have come all this way and, he realises, watching them pass the crackers back and forth, he’s missed their company. His heart feels lighter, even as they take him to task. Which is saying something with how heavy it’s felt these past few days.
And maybe—maybe—there’s a small part of him that’s not yet been ground down into nothing. That’s survived his self-flagellation and now yearns, hopeful his sisters come bearing answers for him and Jules.
Cameron deflates, leaning back against the sink. ‘Yeah. It is different.’
‘We thought you’d asked her out in a more romantic sense,’ Chloe frowns. ‘You don’t think making it a fling was a little … self-sabotaging? Maybe?’
He doesn’t tell them the fling was Jules’s idea. She wouldn’t want his sisters to have that knowledge, and he has culpability too. She mentioned it in passing. He’s the one who actually made it happen because he wanted her so damn bad, and wanted to appease her even more. ‘What’re you saying?’
Chloe shrugs a shoulder. ‘I’m wondering if you were giving yourself an out if things didn’t go well. Because then you could do exactly what you’ve done and compare her to Braden and justify letting her go for the sake of your job.’
Cameron frowns, his skin tightening. It sounds cheap hearing it. Ending a relationship because of a job? No, worse, not even trying for one because of a job. ‘I didn’t say that’s why I ended things. I didn’t even say I was the one who ended things.’
‘Matteo,’ Chloe offers in explanation. ‘And no, he didn’t tell us those details. But you’ve been vocal about not dating someone you work with, so it’s pretty easy to join the dots.’ Chloe puts down the crackers and focuses her attention on Cameron. ‘Am I right?’
Cameron scrubs his hands over his face then drops his gaze to the floor.
His pulse beats thick at his wrists and he leans on the solid support of the kitchen counter. His sisters are forcing him to face the actions he made and take a hard look at the motivations behind them. It’s uncomfortable, but he needs to have this conversation, because Canberra this week has sucked for more reasons than the Jules thing.
It’s cold here. Lacking. He doesn’t have connections or people to hang out with, someone to invite over so his house doesn’t feel so empty. He tried Steven and Fredrich, but they’re on holiday up north. He’s missed Matteo. He’s missed his sisters like he missed Sydney. He’s missed their teasing and stealing his food and elbowing into his life. How they can cut through his bullshit excuses to the fears he’d rather hide away.
‘You’re partly right.’ He keeps his head dropped. It’s easier to talk when he’s not seeing their expressions. Still feels like he’s pulling parts of his insides out. ‘It was only meant to be at the conference anyway, but I ended it early because I freaked out. Shit had happened and I saw too many parallels with my relationship with Braden. I saw my career tanking because I’d fallen for the wrong woman, so I ended things. Brutally.’
‘Cameron.’ Carrie’s harsh tone has his head snapping up to look at her. ‘What did I tell you right from the start. She’s not Braden.’
Carrie’s anger is alive in the air between them and he holds her stare, facing her judgement because he knows in his gut, his heart, it’s warranted.
‘God, we thought you’d gotten over this.’ Carrie fists her hands onto her waist. ‘This seeing Braden in everyone you interact with. You just told us you got closure.’
Cameron swallows roughly. ‘I have. I do. But that was after all the Jules stuff. The damage was done. I’d lied to Jules and diminished her and what we had because I was trying to push her away to protect myself. I hurt her.’
His hands go clammy recalling their fight. Fuck, it feels like he’s taken a baseball bat to his chest for every shit thing he spat at Jules the other day. His disgust with himself runs deep as the Mariana trench. The clamminess spreading to his neck, chest, the dip of his back.
‘Have you explained any of this to her?’ Carrie asks.
‘No.’
‘Apologised?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m fucking scared!’ His voice cracks but Carrie doesn’t back off.
‘Of what?’
‘Take your pick.’ Cameron throws his arms out. ‘Rejection. Falling back into being distrustful of her intentions. Hurting her again. Feeling like this.’
‘Like what?’
He groans, the sound torn from his soul. ‘Like my insides are grinding together, constantly. Like my lungs are filled with sand. This sucks.’ He slaps his palm onto his chest and his heart batters against his ribcage below it. ‘This sucks and we were together for less than five days. What’s going to happen to me if it doesn’t work out?’
The words hang in the kitchen, no one speaking while they float there like a storm cloud. He hears the words ring in his head and they sound like more excuses.
Excuses to run.
Cameron’s chest rises and falls sharply beneath his palm. Carrie’s still staring at him with an inscrutable gaze while his heart attempts to fracture his ribcage it’s beating so hard and fast.
Chloe slides off the counter, the sound of her feet hitting the floor loud in the stillness. She focuses her attention on Cameron and tilts her head. ‘What happens if it does work out? Do you want long-term with Jules? Forget about all the other factors and answer that.’
‘I do.’ It’s what he’s been dreaming about all week.
Chloe smiles, nodding slowly. ‘It’s not too late to fix this, then. You’ve just got to let your walls down. All the way, not a little bit. All the way.’
‘What does that mean?’ Cameron lets his hand fall to his side. He doesn’t mean to sound so desperate, but that yearning part of him swells, injected with new hope.
‘It means you’ve got to be honest with her, not just about what happened at the conference, but everything before that too. Your no-dating a colleague thing, and the Braden stuff, and why you agreed to the fling in the first place,’ Chloe lists, Carrie nodding along. ‘At the very least, you gotta make her understand she shouldn’t feel guilty about the fling.’
‘She knows about the Braden stuff already.’
‘All of it?’ Carrie asks.
He shrugs. ‘Most of it.’
‘Then tell her the rest. Start there.’
‘Matteo already did. It’s why—’ Cameron snaps his jaw shut.
‘Why what?’
Cameron averts his gaze but there’s not many safe places to look in the small kitchen.
‘The silence is implying it won’t look good for you,’ Carrie says. ‘Spit it out.’
He stares at his bare feet. His sisters already think he’s been a dick. Spitting it out will only make things worse.
Or they could help him figure a way out of this funk. Chloe said it wasn’t too late for him to fix things, but if he wants their help—which they’re clearly here to give whether he asks for it or not—they need to know the full story.
He sighs. ‘It’s why she told me she wasn’t interested in only a fling.’
‘Cameron.’
‘I know. I know.’ He scrubs his hands over his face then folds his arms over his chest, trapping his trembling hands beneath his biceps.
‘And?’ Carrie says. ‘I can see you’re holding something back.’
‘How do you—’ Cameron sighs again, every confession still raw like he’s pulling his insides out into the open. ‘She told me she’d liked me for months and wanted all of me. Not just my body. She said—’ His throat constricts and he has to swallow four times before he can speak again. ‘She wanted the chance to fall in love with me.’
‘Ah.’ Chloe lifts a finger into the air. ‘There it is.’
‘There’s what?’
‘The real reason you ended things. We know,’ Chloe gestures between her and Carrie, ‘your job doesn’t come into it. That’s an excuse. It’s really about protecting your heart.’
Cameron’s stomach swoops. ‘Protecting my heart?’
‘Yeah, you know. Your thing with the wall.’ Chloe prompts.
‘And your trust issues,’ Carrie adds.
Cameron looks back and forth between them. ‘You’re saying I broke up with Jules to protect my heart?’
They both nod.
‘You did basically say as much when you were yelling a minute ago,’ Chloe reminds him.
‘Well I did a shit job of it because I’m pretty certain my heart is crumbling in my chest.’
Chloe makes a wounded noise and lunges to wrap him in a hug. He holds stiff for a few seconds before sighing and wrapping his arms around her. It doesn’t make the raw pain go away, but it helps.
‘I’m sorry you’re hurting, Cameron.’ Carrie walks over and lays a hand on his back. ‘You obviously care a lot about Jules. I know we’ve been pushy about this and I’m sorry if that complicated things.’
‘Thanks,’ he grumbles. ‘But pretty sure I made it complicated all on my own.’
Carrie laughs softly and bumps her knuckles on his shoulder. ‘I’ve got one more pushy thing to say.’
He sighs, pulling out of the hug. ‘Of course you do.’ He takes a deep breath and rolls his shoulders back and down before facing Carrie. ‘Let’s hear it.’
‘If our parents have taught us one thing, it’s—’
‘No phones at the dinner table,’ Cameron and Chloe say in unison.
Carrie rolls her eyes but her lips quirk. ‘It’s that clear communication is important in relationships. You think me and Jesse are still together because we didn’t talk through the hurdles along the way? ‘Course not. It sucks sometimes, but you’ve got to be that vulnerable with your partner if you want the long-term. Hard conversations are worth it for what’s on the other side. Your heart may take a bruising here and there, but it’ll recover stronger for it.’
There’s nothing but sincerity in her words. Cameron wants to scoff, and maybe a week ago he would have, but not tonight. He wants to be on that other side with Jules. He wants to be with Jules.
‘That was truly sappy,’ he can’t help but say.
‘It was true.’ Carrie lifts a shoulder. ‘You should talk to Jules. Apologise and explain and give her space to process. Then ask her out.’
‘Romantically,’ Chloe clarifies.
‘It’s not too late.’
‘Isn’t it? I fucked up. The things I said to her …’ Cameron shakes his head, wishing he’d done things differently that day. ‘I don’t deserve her.’
Carrie raises an eyebrow. ‘Shouldn’t she get to make the choice about who she deserves?’
‘And won’t you regret it if you don’t tell her how you feel?’ Chloe adds.
He already regrets it. They promised each other honesty and he trampled over their vow, acting a fucking hypocrite because he was scared. He sees Jules’s face in his mind, the way it crumpled and her eyes filled with tears before she walked out of his hotel room. He groans and drags his hands through his hair, realising his sisters are right, yet again. He’s already taken the choice away from her once. Twice, if he counts the time he ran to her room to explain himself and she’d already left. And he should count that. He does.
‘You’re right. Of course she deserves that. She deserves anything she wants.’ He’ll count himself blessed if she decides that includes him after he tells her the full story. ‘I need to tell her. Everything. All of it. I can’t let her go without giving us a chance. I don’t want to live the rest of my life wondering ‘what if’.’
‘Of course we’re right,’ Chloe says. ‘You love her, right? Or at least, you want that same chance to?’
There’s a hollowness in his chest that feels Jules-shaped. It’s been part of him since before the conference. Time to see if he can fill it in. ‘I want the chance to love her.’
‘Come on then.’ Chloe starts shoving the food back into the fridge. ‘Do you know where she lives? Let’s go.’
‘What? No. Why?’ Cameron’s heart falls over itself, pulse skittering, then racing. ‘I only just decided this.’
‘You’ve got to go tell her everything. Now.’ Chloe slams the fridge door shut. ‘We aren’t going to let you chicken out of this like you apparently did at the conference when you went for the temporary fling instead of asking her to date you.’
‘Well that was before I realised my feelings.’ His heart is in his throat. ‘So you don’t need to hold my hand now.’
‘Oh no, this isn’t hand holding.’ Carrie grins with a wicked glint in her eye. ‘This is pushing you down the gangplank.’
‘Geez. Alright.’
‘So?’ Chloe prompts. ‘Jules’s address?’
‘I don’t know. But it’s Thursday, so she’s probably at trivia at the Blue Alcott, anyway. I’ll do it tomorrow.’
‘Did you say trivia?’ Chloe perks up like a puppy hearing the word ‘treat’.
‘Yes.’
‘Perfect. No time like the present. Come on.’ Chloe grabs his hand and drags him out of the kitchen, through the living room, and down his front hall. She’s stronger than he remembers. Or maybe he’s not putting up much of a fight.
