Down London Road (36 page)

I halted, my eyebrows at my hairline as I turned to face the bathroom door.

No.

They wouldn’t.

Would they?

‘Oh, wait, I think my leg cramped up.’ Joss snorted and then giggled. Actually giggled. I didn’t know she could do that.

‘How did it cramp up?’ Braden murmured.

‘Well, I don’t know if you know this about me, baby, but my body isn’t a pretzel.’

My mouth fell open and I muffled a laugh into my hand despite myself. What position had he got her into?

‘Do you want me to massage it?’

There was a moment of silence and then … ‘Oh, yeah, right there,’ she moaned.

‘Fuck,’ Braden huffed. ‘You’ll set me off again.’

‘Seriously?’ she asked incredulously. ‘I just moaned.’

‘That’s all it takes, babe.’

Joss giggled again. I decided it was a nice sound.

And then I realized I was creepily eavesdropping on their sex-in-the-bathroom-at-their-own-fricking-engagement encounter. I knocked on the door.

‘Uh, just a minute!’ Joss yelled.

‘It’s me,’ I called semi-loudly through the door. ‘Are you decent yet?’

‘Um, not yet. Wait.’ I heard clothes rustling and then a muffled ‘oof’ before something clattered to the floor. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’

Braden laughed. ‘You were the one that wanted to fuck in the bathroom.’

‘Ssssh!’ Joss hissed. ‘Jo is outside.’

‘I think she knows what we’re up to.’

‘She does,’ I offered helpfully.

Braden laughed.

The door swung open. Braden stood over me, his hair ruffled, and his shirt tucked messily back into his trousers. Joss was hopping on one foot behind him, trying to get her shoe back on. Her cheeks were flushed and the French knot in her hair was a little more than worse for wear.

‘Really?’ I asked, glancing around to make sure we were still alone. ‘The bathroom during your engagement party?’

Joss rolled her eyes at me. ‘What, like you’ve never done it somewhere a little risqué?’

My cheeks bloomed bright red as I remembered how
risqué it had got with Cam just this morning. God, it seemed like a lifetime ago already.

Bloody Blair.

Braden scrutinized me and nodded smugly at Joss. ‘She’s definitely done it somewhere risqué.’

Joss grinned, finally getting her shoe on and coming to a standstill. ‘I do believe you’re right, Mr Carmichael. Look at those pretty cheeks blush.’

I sighed impatiently, trying to cover my embarrassment. ‘I didn’t hunt you down to talk about risqué sex.’ I brushed past Braden and motioned to him to shut the door.

He raised an eyebrow but complied. ‘Everything all right?’

Trying to keep a lid on my emotions I laid it out for them. The story of Cam and Blair, and now her sudden re-entrance into his life and Cam’s troubling reaction to it.

‘Should I be worried?’ I chewed on my lip, glancing from one to the other.

Joss looked at Braden. ‘What do you think?’

Braden winked at her. ‘I think I’m looking pretty good right now.’

Joss smacked him across the arm for the both of us. ‘Not helpful, you smug idiot.’

He grunted, still smiling cockily, a smile that slipped when he turned to me and saw that I was not in the mood for his humour at the moment. He sighed, his eyes softening. ‘Jo, you’ve nothing to worry about.’

It was exactly the reassurance I’d been looking for, but I needed more. ‘Really?’

‘Look, Cameron just bumped into a girl he has a history with. It’s going to affect him. It doesn’t mean he still
has feelings for her. If Joss and I were out for a stroll and we bumped into my ex, I’d probably be feeling a bit off for the rest of the day as well, but not because I’m still in love with the bitch.’

I raised my eyebrows, wondering what the history was there. I shot Joss a look. ‘Clearly.’

Joss caressed Braden’s arm in comfort. ‘She
is
a bitch.’

I sighed this time. ‘So, you think I’m jumping the gun?’

‘Yes,’ they answered in unison.

‘I must say, though’ – Joss shook her head as if in disappointment – ‘it shows a serious lack of intuition when it comes to women that Cam wouldn’t realize that him planning to meet with an old girlfriend would bother you.’

Braden snorted at Cam’s lack of smoothness. ‘Agreed.’

I pouted a little. ‘Agreed.’ I made a face. ‘Sorry for dumping this on you at your engagement party. That was more than a little selfish. God!’ I threw up my hands. ‘This relationship is turning me into a schizo!’

Joss threw me a sympathetic smile. ‘Welcome to my world.’

When I returned to the party it was to discover that Cam had got surprisingly drunk, shockingly fast. He never drank to the point of being drunk and as the evening wore on, the little that Braden had done to reassure me was obliterated by the state Cam ended up in. Mick had to help me put him in a taxi and then help me up to the flat with him. I bade Mick and Olivia goodnight, stripped Cam out of his clothes, put water and aspirin beside his bed, and crawled in beside him to stay with him and make sure he was okay.

I didn’t sleep.

I felt like I was standing on top of the world’s tallest building, staring out on all that the world had to offer, waiting for that gust of wind to come along and blow me down, ripping me from the best view I’d ever had.

When I turned my head on the pillow to study Cam sleeping, a part of me thought I might hate him a little. I hated him for making me love him so much and for making me feel this horribly uncertain. I’d spent my whole adult life depending on men for financial security, and now I’d traded it in for Cam. I’d thought I was doing it for all the right reasons, but it seemed to me I’d traded financial security for emotional security and the risk hadn’t paid off.

Assured that the drunken twat would be fine, I got up out of his bed and pulled on my boots.

Maybe I should try just depending on myself for a while.

Where are you? x

I looked down at Cam’s text, sighed a little, and then quickly texted him back.

Took Cole out to lunch with Mick and Olivia. Hungover? x

‘I know it’s none of my business, but you seem a little out of it,’ Olivia observed softly as she strolled beside me.

Uncle Mick and Cole walked ahead of us and I could see Mick chatting away quite animatedly to Cole. We’d gone for lunch at the Buffalo Grill, this amazing Tex-Mex place behind the university. Now we were walking off our burgers with a nice Sunday stroll down the Meadows. We weren’t the only ones enjoying the large park behind the uni. Friends and families had descended upon it, playing football and tennis, chasing playful dogs, and in general hanging out and enjoying the fair spring weather while it lasted. I’d decided this morning that I didn’t really feel like facing Cam or our problems. Instead I’d pounced on Cole as soon as he’d got home and then called Uncle Mick to suggest lunch. I’d found myself breathing a little easier as soon as Cole and I stepped out of our building and had been trying to enjoy myself until Cam had intruded upon my thoughts with his text.

My phone buzzed before I could respond to Olivia’s comment.

Cam’s reply:

A wee bit. You okay? x

‘Just a second, Olivia,’ I muttered apologetically, before replying that I was fine and I’d see him when I got back.

‘Is that Cam?’ She nodded down at my phone.

‘Aye.’ I’d sadistically hoped he was suffering the worst hangover ever. He couldn’t even give me that. ‘I’ve never seen him that drunk before.’

‘Is he okay?’

I studied her for a moment. We didn’t know each other all that well, so I didn’t know if I could confide in her. I’d gone to Joss and Braden for help because I trusted them to be honest, but the welcome advice they’d given me had been blown to smithereens by Cam’s dive to the bottom of a bottle last night. I did feel the urge to talk to someone else about it, but Olivia? I just didn’t know her that well.

As if she sensed the turn of my thoughts, she gave me an understanding smile. ‘I get it. You’re not sure you can talk to me. That’s cool – but you should know I’m really good at dispensing advice and keeping secrets. If I hadn’t become a librarian I most certainly would have become an advice columnist by day and a spy by night.’

I chuckled. ‘Well, that’s good to know. Truthfully, I don’t even know what to say. I don’t know if it’s all in my head or if there really is a problem.’

Olivia cleared her throat. ‘You’re obviously distressed about something and … well … I learned a hard lesson in the past about ignoring something just because I thought it was all in my head.’

Momentarily distracted, I asked tentatively, ‘What happened?’

Her unusual eyes narrowed and I noted that she unconsciously clenched her hands into fists. ‘Mom. She was weird for a while before we learned her diagnosis. She was snippy, short-tempered, impatient. This was a woman who was pretty much the most laid-back person I knew. My gut told me something was seriously wrong, but I didn’t press her about it. And I should have. If I had, I might have got her to go to the doctor’s about the lump in her breast. Instead she was so frozen with fear, by the time she finally found the courage to do something about it, it was too late.’

‘God, Olivia, I’m so sorry.’

She shrugged. ‘I live with that guilt every day, so whatever your gut is telling you, don’t ignore it.’

I was so busy scrutinizing the dark shadows lurking in her eyes that I sidestepped Olivia’s advice completely. ‘Does Uncle Mick know how you feel about your mum’s death?’

‘Yeah.’ She nodded. ‘He worries. But I’m okay.’

‘If you ever want to talk …’

Olivia smiled sadly at me. ‘Thanks, Jo. I mean that. You’ve been really cool about me being here, and I know that can’t be easy. I can tell by the way you look at Dad that he’s important to you, and after seeing what your mom is like, I kind of hate myself for taking him away from you when you so obviously needed him.’

‘Don’t ever feel that way. You’re his daughter. And
he
needed you. I understand that. “Teen Me” didn’t, but “Adult Me” gets it. And “Adult Me” is finally all right with it.’
I watched Mick laugh at something Cole said. ‘But it’s nice to have him back for a while.’

‘Cameron must really care about you to have gone to all the trouble of finding us?’

There was a question within her question, and I knew Olivia realized that whatever was troubling me was about Cam. I felt the need to confide in her forcing its way to the fore. I’d spent so long bottling everything up and keeping it to myself, I guess I was kind of tired of shouldering every little problem in silence. ‘Cam and I bumped into his ex-girlfriend yesterday.’

Olivia sighed heavily. ‘Ah.’

‘He told me a while back he’d been in love with this girl Blair. They broke up because she left to work at a university in France, not because they fell out of love. Now she’s back and they’re already exchanging text messages. You must have seen how subdued and weird Cam was yesterday after it, and then you saw how bloody drunk he got – and he never gets drunk. So now I’m thinking the worst. Blair’s back and Cam’s head is all messed up because he still loves her.’

‘Whoa, okay, that’s a lot.’ Olivia threw her shoulders back and began counting down her points on her fingers. ‘One: you don’t know he still loves her. Two: bumping into an ex you have real history with will mess with anyone’s head. Three: he doesn’t get to just start up a friendship with this woman without discussing it with you, which brings me to four: you have to talk to him about it. Otherwise the uncertainty is just going to eat away at your relationship like a virus.’

I nodded. ‘You’re right. You are good at this.’

‘I know. So are you going to take my advice?’

‘I have a little insecurity problem, so it might take me a while to gather the nerve to approach him about it.’

‘In other words you’re afraid he’s going to turn around and say that he’s in love with this Blair person.’

I frowned. ‘You might want to add mind reader to your résumé.’

‘Yeah, I think we’ve established that I am awesome.’ She grinned cheekily.

I smiled back. ‘Agreed.’

Just as quickly as her grin had appeared, Olivia grew serious again. ‘Find the courage to talk to him, Jo, or it’ll blow out of proportion.’

‘Courage?’ I furrowed my brow. ‘Do you think I can download that from the Internet?’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me. But it’ll probably come with strings attached and a whole host of nasty ramifications.’

‘So I’m going to have to steal it from someone else, then?’

‘What do you mean steal courage? Johanna Walker, you’re one of the bravest, strongest people I’ve ever met, and that’s saying something – I come from Arizona, where about six million people willingly live in torturous heat between May and September.’

‘Cam says he thinks I’m strong, too,’ I murmured disbelievingly.

‘Girl, talk to him. I cannot believe that a man who looks at you in a way that actually makes me think that being in a relationship might be pretty sweet could possibly be in love with someone else.’

I sucked in a deep breath. ‘Okay. I’ll talk to him.’