Well, as soon as they left, I let Campbell in through the back door since the front door had a camera on it that Hal watched, and we spent the entire weekend having sex all over the house. It was one of our better weekends.
Then, halfway through their big Fredericksburg wine tour, Hal had gotten sick. They’d driven the six hours home to find me and Campbell watching Titanic in the living room. If anything, I was lucky that I was wearing clothes. Campbell was shirtless in sweats and had just gotten up to refill the popcorn bowl when the front door opened.
My eyes widened to saucers as Pamela and Hal sailed in. Campbell was smart enough to get his shirt from the bedroom before coming out with the popcorn, as if everything was all right.
Mother had looked at Campbell with a flat stare and said, “Young man, I believe it’s time for you to go home.”
And he did. He yes, ma’am-ed his way out of my house so fast.
Pamela claimed it was normal teenage rebellion, but I hadn’t broken any rules. She put me on birth control the next week even though I’d lied and sworn we weren’t sleeping together. Then, she amended her rules—no parties and no boys.
I’d broken the second rule more times than I could count.
“Sorry to hear that.”
I shrugged. “I don’t talk to her much…or at all. She’s, well, you know. How are things with your dad?”
“Better, I guess,” Campbell finally said. “We’ve been working on coexisting.”
“That’s good.”
“I was in therapy for a few years and tried to get all this anger straightened out. I don’t know if I succeeded, but I know that everything that happened wasn’t Dad’s fault. Blaming him for the fights that led to Mom’s death only made things worse, but it was easier to blame him than grieve.”
“I get that,” I said. “I think I blamed Pamela for Dad leaving, too. It wasn’t the same, but it hurt so much to have him go. When we’re already so tired from the fighting, the wounds hurt so much worse.”
His head tilted to the side. As if I’d said something profound. When I’d really been speaking to myself. And all the pain I’d gone through with my family. It was one of the reasons Campbell and I had connected so intensely. We understood each other’s pain.
“I’ve never written about my mom,” he said softly. “That just…it made me think about a song for her.”
I almost laughed. “More songs?”
“I swear I haven’t been able to write music in years.” He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “What are you doing to me?”
I froze at the ease of the contact. “I’m not doing anything.”
“Yes, you are.”
And the words wrapped around me, tight and constricting. Binding me. As if I were a witch of old, tying him in knots like this. But I was just a girl.
“Campbell,” I whispered as he took another step closer.
His hand pushed up into my hair, tilting my face up to his. I was pliant and weak in his arms. The place I most wanted to be and desperately feared.
A firework cracked in the distance, illuminating the midnight-black sky beyond. But neither of us turned to look at it. I was too lost in the deep blues of his eyes and the wonder within them. The want within them.
Then, he dropped his lips down onto mine, just a soft, questioning kiss. One full of uncertainty. He didn’t know if I wanted this, if I’d allow it. And he was testing the waters. His lips tasted like heaven. Like ambrosia nectar from the gods. Like everything I’d wanted in all of my years in one exact place.
When I didn’t pull back, he gripped me tighter, dragging my body against his. And then he covered my mouth firmly. It was a knowing kiss. One full of years of desire. It exploded through me, and suddenly, I was kissing him back.
I couldn’t get enough. I wanted all of him in that moment. Every single drop of Campbell Abbey. I wanted him the way I’d wanted him in high school when there was only an empty house and sex all weekend. I wanted no consequences and no choices and just the here and now.
But that hadn’t been reality then. There were consequences and choices. The here and now was a lie. A perfect lie that I’d told myself so that I could have the man I loved.
I couldn’t lie to myself now.
I broke away, stumbling backward from Campbell.
We were both panting with exertion from utter need. His pupils were blasted out, and he looked ready to pounce on me. If he did, if I let him, we’d go downstairs, and we’d fuck all night in his hotel room like the idiotic children we’d once been.