Secondhand Heart (19 page)

Most days, I just brushed my hair and washed my face, heading out in my pajamas with a cup of coffee in hand. I’d never had a chance to really look at the beach before, the broken shells and the wave patterns the tide left behind in the sand made me feel like I was walking on the moon. Only a few other early birds shared my ritual. We nodded and smiled as we passed each other by, like there was a secret between us.

The walks gave me time to think. God knows I had a lot think about.

I didn’t know if it was because the classes were during the summer, or because they were requirements I wasn’t totally invested in, but I’d struggled so much this semester. I’d kept with my plan of becoming a teacher because that’s what I’d decided to do when I was sitting in my bedroom with Jordan, planning out our lives as a military family before we’d even graduated from high school. It made sense for me to teach if we were going to try to live overseas. Now, that was obviously off the table. I didn’t want to live in another country without Jordan.

Did I really want to be a teacher anymore? Sure, I hadn’t been passionate about anything lately. It was time to get excited about something. I was ready.

Now that I was out of my parents’ house, I could breathe again, think. I didn’t have to fall into all my old routines, their routines. When everything around you was the same, but you were completely different, it was like being stuck in a too small box that someone forgot to punch holes in.

Now, I could do any damn thing I pleased. I hadn’t seen much of Cam since moving in with him, but this was the most
me
I’d seen in, well, forever.

It felt good. So much better than I’d expected. For so long, I’d been scared to really let my mind wander, and listen to what was going on in there. Why didn’t anyone tell me that listening to myself would probably solve all of my problems? I wasn’t eating my emotions, either, probably because food was freaking expensive. It had only been a couple days, but my shorts already weren’t pinching at the waist like they were before.

I’d only started taking classes when Jordan got deployed. This had been my first semester back at it. I’d checked the fall schedule, and they were offering a couple classes in my concentration. I’d give those a try, and if they didn’t rock my world, I’d do what my dad would suggest. Drop back and punt.

That was the easy stuff. I had control over it. Fixing what I’d fucked up with Ev was going to be harder. I didn’t even know what to do about what Bree had told me. Was it worth even bringing up? Ev was still being short with me on text, and she blamed the wedding and the baby for not coming down to visit. Bullshit. She made it down here just fine before I moved into Cam’s. I could go up there, but I was at the beach and she was in the city. And it was July. So she needed to come to me. One of us would have to apologize, the thought of which made both of us nauseous. Normally, I wouldn’t worry about it, we disagreed all the time. When you were as close as Ev and I, you said what you thought or went nuts. But you couldn’t hold a grudge. This was going on too long, and the divide was getting wider.

Everything with Bree was still weird since our last shopping trip, too. She kept acting stalkerish about Cam, and getting me in trouble with Ev. It didn’t exactly encourage me to want to talk to her.

And then there was one.

Much to my surprise, I was really getting in to the decorating thing. Who knew that stuff could be so satisfying? I’d been hanging curtains, looking at Pinterest boards, I even painted a couple things. I got sand in all of my painted projects. Authentic, right? Okay, amateur.

“Wow, did I break into someone else’s house?” Cam looked around, wide-eyed, when he came home. Shit, maybe I went too far. “It looks great in here.”

Ev had rubbed off on me, and coupled with online inspiration, I’d picked up some end tables at the Salvation Army, and I’d been out on the deck transforming them when Cam came in. In my excitement, I dipped my fingers in my paint and then smeared it on my face and into my hair. “I didn’t think you’d be home until tonight.”

“I left on an earlier flight,” Cam approached me with a look in his eye that made my knees weak. Like he hadn’t had a drop to drink since he boarded that plane out of Boston at the beginning of the week. “I missed you.”

I leaned against the wall as he approached me. My breath caught in my throat. “I missed you, too.” He leaned in, his arm against the wall, his face just inches from mine. I reached up and pulled a stray curl from his hair. “You got a haircut.”

He startled, like I’d broken the spell, then chuckled. “Yeah. I like my guy down there. Do you like it?”

“It’s okay, but I liked it longer better.” I pushed my fingers into his hair and pulled his face into mine, so I could kiss him. Being this close to him after he was away, the need to taste him overwhelmed me.

His lips, still curled in his crooked smile that I’d missed so much, covered mine, his tongue stroked mine, slowly, like he needed to tell me something and this was the only way I’d ever understand. His hands ran up my ribcage, flipping the underwire of my bra up to free my breasts. He just pushed the fabric out of the way so he could lazily drag the rough skin of his fingers across my nipples, which greeted him enthusiastically. I sucked in a breath when his tongue took over for his fingers, which had dropped to my shorts, unzipping them and letting them drop. Wedging his thigh in between my legs, his foot moved mine one at a time, kicking the fabric away from my feet.

He stopped, standing up straight and locking eyes with me, I froze under his spell. He brushed his fingers against my bottom lip, so slowly it almost tickled, pulling the skin down just so slightly with the motion. Once my lips parted, he explored the inside of my mouth as I sucked his fingers. Cam moaned softly, his lips against my neck. I was so wrapped up the feeling of his fingers in my mouth and his hot breath against my neck I never noticed he freed himself from his jeans. I cried out in surprise when he entered me, his thrusts speeding up to match the rhythm of me sucking on his fingers.

Cam’s urgency sent my body into overdrive. My muscles clenched and spasmed and my breath became ragged, but he didn’t slow down. His hand had fallen from my lips to my shoulders, his upper body slumped against mine. One of my legs curled up against his ass, trapping him inside me. He ran his hands down the length of my body, clutching my ass, pulling me closer than I realized we could ever be.

My head thrown back, my eyes were open but they saw absolutely nothing. All my senses had been suspended and all I could do was feel. Cam’s fingers curling into my skin, his heart beating against my chest, the sweat dripping from his face down my shoulder. My body throbbing and squeezing around his, not wanting to ever be two separate entities again. The fire built and ignited, threatening to swallow me whole, but Cam didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop.

“You’re crying.” Cam wiped a tear away from my cheek. His body now spent, he breathed slow and heavy, his lashes weighed down his eyes.

“I am?” I had yet to put all the pieces back together. Cam still had me pinned against the wall, probably because neither of us knew what to do as an encore. Running my fingers over my face, I was surprised when they came away wet. I stared at them and laughed. “I guess I am.”

“Come lay on the couch with me.” Cam found the strength to push himself away from the wall and adjusted his jeans. Watching him, I don’t think I’d ever take him for granted.

My legs felt rubbery when I stood up straight, I didn’t realize if it hadn’t been for the wall, I would have fallen flat on my ass. I started to adjust my bra, since my boobs didn’t need a visor, and Cam put his hand over mine.

“Just take it off.”

No one ever had to tell me twice. “Okay.” I started with the complicated maneuver that every junior high girl mastered to change their clothes in front of another person. It felt kind of dumb, since I didn’t have anything to hide. Then I’d just pull my T-shirt back down and put my shorts on.

Cam laughed. “All of it.”

I cocked my head at him, like my dog did when she was confused. We’d just had pretty epic sex, and there was no way he was ready for more. As amazing as Cam was, he was a mere mortal. I expected him to pass out once we laid down. But I did as I was told.

Cam sprawled out on the couch, still fully dressed. My heart started pounding again. I had no reason to be shy around him, if there was something Cam didn’t know about my body, I had yet to discover it myself. But there was something about being the only person naked in the room that truly felt
naked
.

I sat on the edge of the cushion, and he scooted in to make enough room for me to lay with him. I tucked my feet up, and immediately Cam tangled his legs in mine. His arm came around my waist, and he kissed my shoulder.

Once Cam picked something to watch, some reality show about buying and selling offbeat antiques, his body relaxed and grew heavy with the need for sleep. His hand now rested on the curve of my stomach. The Achilles’ heel of any girl carrying around some extra baggage, my soft white underbelly was accentuated by my tan lines. I couldn’t relax, I kept waiting for him to be grossed out that his fingers were resting against useless, ugly fat. Somehow, Cam was blind to my flaws, but I didn’t want him touching them, either.

Every time he jolted himself out of semi-consciousness, he’d brush his fingers against my stomach. I had to dig my fingers into the edge of the cushion not to squirm.

Cam sat up straight and looked around the front of my body. He must have sensed something was wrong. I looked up at him, slightly horrified, my hand instinctively covered my belly. At first he looked confused, but then his expression softened, and after he grabbed a blanket and threw it over us he laid back down, his hand going right back to that spot. This time he laced his fingers in mine.

“Goodnight, gorgeous,” he murmured into my hair. That was the last thing he said before falling asleep.

“T
his new producer, he seems to get my style, and I think it’s going to be really good.” Cam told me about his trip during our morning beach walk. I surprised myself by really wanting to do it, even with him sleeping next to me, I still got out of bed. Because we were still so new each other, Cam knew nothing of my former sloth like ways, and got right out of bed to come with me. “I’m excited about this.”

“That’s awesome.” I looked up at Cam, his face glowing in the early morning sun. He was still rocking bedhead hair. “So forgive me if this is ignorant, but I don’t know any other rock stars. What does all of this mean?”

Cam’s eyebrows shot up. Either he was surprised by my question or he just wasn’t used to anyone asking about the nuts and bolts. “It means that I’m going to write some songs, and he’s going to help me put them together.”

“I kind of know that.” We walked slowly in the soft sand. High tide had swallowed the easy terrain and lapped at our ankles. The water was finally warm enough not to make me scream on contact. Earlier in the summer it was still so cold it actually hurt. “But how? I don’t know how someone writes a song.”

“I’d started setting up a small studio in the basement, but I can only do acoustic stuff here because we share walls with the neighbors, but it’s enough to at least get the ideas down.” If Cam thought my question was dumb, he didn’t let on. “But once it’s time to work with a band and record things, that happens in Nashville.”

“That makes sense.” Even if I missed him already. “When do you think that’s all going to happen?”

“We have studio space reserved in three months,” Cam said, stopping where a thin but furious canal fed into the ocean and split White Horse Beach in half. A flock of seagulls held court here, and they didn’t fly away just because we were standing there. They gave zero fucks about us. This was their space. And I loved that about them. I’d started to look forward to this part of the walk every morning. “So I have to get my ass in gear. I need about twenty songs in pretty good shape to go in with.”

“How can I help you?” Of course I didn’t think I was going to help Cam actually write songs. What a disaster that would have been. Just because I painted a couple of tables with questionable results in no way made me an artiste. But there had to be something that I could take off his hands, like laundry.

“You can help me.” Cam took my hands in his, and leaned down to kiss me. My toes sunk into the sand as I rose up to meet his lips. “I wanted to talk to you about that. I don’t know what your school schedule is going to be next semester, but I could really use some help at the bar.”

“I haven’t signed up for classes yet.”

“Don’t change your plans on account of me.” Cam stopped me before I even had a chance to say but. “I know you’ve never worked in a restaurant before, so I’d promote some people from within but I need someone there to represent me when I’m not around, does that make sense?”

“It does,” I chuckled. “This was all a big job interview after all.”

Cam bumped against me, sending me into an approaching wave. “Yup. You’re on to me. This is how I vet all of my new employees. I just thought maybe it would good be good for you—“