He stepped away, setting down his bag, and she leaned back against the wall looking… Jesus.
“You need to drink some water,” he said, and quickly turned away to get her a glass.
“Cameron,” she said. “You could do literally anything. You know that, right?”
This again. “You Mitchells are really into telling me that these days.” It was like they were trying to get rid of him. He’d turned twenty-two and suddenly his future was all anyone wanted to talk about.
Which was weird, because in so many ways he still felt like the shitty sixteen-year-old kid he’d been. He’d skipped school and gotten caught stealing a car and no one at home had given a shit. He’d been surprised the judge had—and had sent him to the Riverview for community service with Max instead of to juvie.
Max, Josie’s adopted dad, had been his first boss here. But then he’d met Alice, who was in charge of the kitchens, and he’d traded Max and constant wood chopping for Alice and the kitchen. And it changed his life.
But years later, he still didn’t know what he was supposed to do without the Mitchells. Alice. This kitchen.
Josie.
“Another one of my five questions. I still have some left.”
“Not really.”
She ignored him. “What do you want to do with your life?”
This. Right now. The Riverview Inn kitchen and you. Every day, all day.
“What do you want to do?” he asked, deflecting again. His great talent.
“Write amazing television. I want to make people cry. And change people’s minds. And make them stay up all night to just watch one more episode.” He smiled at her passion. “But the question is for you,” she said.
His silence was possibly damning. But if he opened his mouth, the words he could not say would come out. Love you.
“You are smart. And funny. And you work hard and you’re a great chef.”
“Thanks, Josie,” he said and brought her the water. “I’ll put you down as a reference if I ever get another job.” She took one gulp, most of which splashed down her neck, and handed the glass back. He ignored the water dripping across her chest into the top of her dress. It was yellow and short. She looked amazing in it.
“You…you could come to New York with me. You could get a job in a kitchen. Alice would give you a letter of recommendation and I’ll go to school. And we’ll be broke, but it would be fun? Wouldn’t it? You and me? The big city?”
The words were quiet but they went through him like arrows. Piercing his brain. His chest. His dick. He was embarrassed even thinking that word around her. But he couldn’t stop.
With you how? he wanted to ask. As your boyfriend? As your friend?
Again, after long, long, looooong practice, he thought the thought and put it away.
“That’s more than five questions,” he said.
“Cam—”
“Let’s talk about this in the morning,” he said and smiled at her. “You need help getting upstairs?”
Please say no. Say no. Please.
He’d touched her more on the way from the car to the house than he had in years, and the whole left side of his body was raw and electric, and his dick was half hard. He felt like an animal and the luckiest guy in the world.
“I’m fine,” she said, and pushed off the wall, overcompensated and nearly fell into the stainless steel table in the center of the room.
“Sure you are. Come on.”
Girding himself, trying, like it was even a thing that could be done, to remove all sense of feeling on the side of his body touching her, he put his arm around her back and lifted her until she was standing.
“Hi.” She smiled at him and his heart bobbed.
“Hi.”
He walked them through the dark kitchen into the big main room with its fireplace and the wall of windows. Moonlight slid in great blocks across the floor, making their skin seem ghostly.
Cameron was painfully, excruciatingly aware of Josie’s body against his side. The press of her leg. Her arm around his shoulders. He could smell her. Summer night and sweat and whatever sweet thing she’d been drinking. Something with cherries, probably. And green Jell-O shots. If he kissed her she’d taste like an artificial fruit salad.
When he’d had this brilliant chauffeur idea, he had not considered this. This being alone with her. Soft and pliant and happy and smelling so sweet. He had not considered the hell of the bright red filaments of her hair stuck to his neck in the heat.
And he knew it had never occurred to him because he’d gotten so good at not noticing this stuff about her. Because he’d done everything in his power the last year to not be with her like this. To be just friends.
Not touch her.
Not be close enough to smell her.