Christmas at the Riverview Inn

Or feel her.

Not think of her pretty eyes or the way she looked when the sun hit her just right. Or how her laugh, when she really got going, was like a gong that echoed through his whole body.

And now she was drunk and he felt like an absolute asshole because he was absolutely soaking it in. Like he could not get enough of her skin on his.

Dude. She’s drunk.

There were plenty of people in his life, in this town, who thought the worst of him because of his mom and dad. Who wouldn’t be surprised if he groped a drunk girl. But the Riverview folks—Alice and Max, they believed the best of him.

Max had even said it to him before Cameron left with Josie that night. I trust you with my daughter.

Cameron wasn’t going to betray that trust. Ever.

So he tried, as best he could, to put distance between them somehow.

Up the stairs. To her room. Goodnight and get the hell out of here, man.

“Cam.” Her voice was low as they made their way toward the stairs. “I need to tell you something…”

“Yeah?” he asked, trying to shift her just a little. He could feel the sweat on the insides of her arms and it was so far from gross, he wanted to run his hand from her wrist to her elbow, gathering all of it in his palm. He wanted to lick his hand.

He wanted to kiss her shoulder and taste her. God. He wanted to taste her.

“I love you.”

The words sent sparks through his body and everything he felt for her—all the pent-up shit he’d been dealing with since she was a kid—it was dry kindling. It was explosives. A barn full of fireworks.

He laughed, ruthlessly stomping out the spark. “All right, drunky. You love everyone.”

They made it to the first landing and he braced her against the wall, getting away from her as best he could.

“No,” she said, grabbing onto him. Her hands clutching his shirt. His arm. “I mean, sure. But… “ She took a deep breath. “I love you especially.”

He turned his face away. Cameron didn’t pray. His mother did and he saw how that had gotten her a whole bunch of nothing. But right now he prayed for the strength to say no to this.

I trust you with my daughter.

“Do you think of me…like that?”

All the time. Every minute. You would be horrified to know what I think of you. You would blush so hard you’d just be ash. And saying it out loud would make me blush so hard I’d be ash.

“Josie. You’re drunk. Let’s not talk about this now.” He pulled her off the wall. The room she liked to use in the lodge was three doors down. Fifty feet. If that. He just needed to get her into her room and himself away from her.

Pulled by him, she stumbled forward, colliding with his body.

“Careful,” he murmured, trying to keep her upright. And then she did the impossible. The disastrous. She grabbed his face. Forced him to look at her. Right at her.

Growing up, he hadn’t believed in love. There had been no sign of it in his house. No proof that it existed. After coming here it had taken some time to believe that all this love the Mitchells had and tossed around like it was all so easy was even real. It felt, at best, fake. At worst like a trap. And he’d believed for as long as he could that every single Mitchell was a sucker.

But then Alice had won him over.

And then Max.

And Patrick.

The rest of them.

But it wasn’t until Josie that he’d believed in real love. The kind that changed the way his body worked. And his brain thought. The kind that opened up an idea to him he had never had the guts to think about.

Cameron wasn’t cheesy, and he would never say it out loud, but he believed that he and Josie were as close to soul mates as two people could be. It was the only way he could explain not just what he felt for her, but the long and strange and totally unlikely road that had brought them together.

A thousand near misses and different decisions, and they never would have met.

“I’ve loved you for so long,” she whispered. And she kissed him.

It was every single thing he’d ever wanted. And he gave himself just one second. One impossible taste of it. He allowed his hands to touch her hair. His body to register the feel of her against him. He was an absolute asshole but he kissed her back.

He kissed her back hard.

She moaned and he could taste the booze on her, and he hated himself.

She’s drunk. This is not consent. It’s not anything but drunk.

He pushed her away.

“Josie, you are drunk and now…”