Christmas at the Riverview Inn

“I have been known to cyber stalk you,” he confessed.

“Well, I suppose that’s fair. I have been known to binge your YouTube videos.”

“That’s how you knew Mateo would be good.”

“You have a real ability to click with people. You do a pretty good job of faking it when you don’t have chemistry with a guest—which is rare,” she said. Because Cameron could create a connection with a couch. “But when it’s real, it’s really fun to watch.” There were some things he could do to increase his chances of making a connection. Pre-planning and pre-interview stuff. But his was a bare-bones operation. She got that. His empathy and curiosity were enough to get him through.

“I don’t…I don’t know what to say to that.” He sounded like he didn’t often get compliments. Which was bullshit; the guy was a success, people had to be coming out of the woodwork to praise him.

“There’s nothing to say.” She shrugged. “It’s a statement of fact.”

“How about you? How was your work emergency this morning?”

She opened her mouth and then shut it. Opened it again, shut it again.

CAMERON

Tell me, he thought. Please. Tell me.

It was astonishing how much he wanted her to tell him what was bothering her. How much he wanted to be let into her life. To occupy that space with her—to be someone’s confidant. Friend. Amazing how much he missed that.

And he’d never really realized it until right now. Until being back with her in this damn truck.

Finally, she blurted, “Meaningless. My job really only has meaningless emergencies.”

She shut her mouth again, like she hadn’t meant to tell the truth.

“Meaningless?” he repeated, and she shot him a sideways glance.

“Nice try.”

“What?”

“I remember you told me how all the counselors and therapists you went to when you were a kid tried to get you to open up.”

“I did?” Of course he had. He’d told her all his secrets. The teenage Cameron had been a real blabbermouth.

“Repeat the most important word in the sentence, but like it’s a question.”

“Question?” he asked.

“Stop!” she cried, and he finally smiled. “It’s…you know, a little telling that you thought the most important word in my sentence was meaningless.”

The heater was doing enough of its job that she pulled off her mittens and worried the wrist of one of them with her fingers.

“I’m trying to change things,” she said and then shook her head like she hadn’t been planning on saying that. “Make the show into something else. Something we could all be proud of.”

“And?”

“They’re reviewing my pitch,” she said, smiling a little. And he could tell she was hedging her bets. “But signs look good. It would be for next year.”

“What’s your pitch?” he asked.

“It doesn’t…you can’t be that interested.”

He was interested in everything about her. “Of course I am. Lay it on me.”

She explained her idea of putting people with different ideas and philosophies and religions and backgrounds in a series of booths so they couldn’t see each other, and instead of answering questions about what made them different, they had to answer questions about what made them similar.

“Things like their favorite food their mother made, the name of their first pet, what they did on summer vacation when they were young. What they wanted to be when they grew up. Things they’re scared of, things like that.”

“So they talk about what they have in common, rather than what they stand in opposition to.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I feel like we’re all so divided.”

“You’re assuming people have the same kind of childhood,” he said. And he could feel her focus. “I didn’t have a pet. My mom didn’t make me food I loved.”

“You’re right. I’ve thought about this, but I’m not sure how to resolve the issue. Except maybe to just let it be an issue. Maybe that is how we open people’s eyes to how privilege works.”

“That’s a lot to ask of reality television. It’s really ambitious.”

“I think there’s room to ask more of television. We’ve sunk down to the lowest common denominator. I think we can ask more of television and more of our viewers.”

“That’s the Josie I remember,” he said with a smile.

“I’m calling it Common Ground. And maybe it is too ambitious or big, but I’m ready for something exciting, even if it means making it on my own.”

“Josie,” he said and then didn’t know what else to say. Or how to put what he felt about her into words. “It’s a complicated, amazing idea.”

You’re amazing.

“I feel like your show manages to bring people of different backgrounds together over food and coffee,” she said.

“I don’t have a show.”

“Come on, Five Questions is totally a show. You have, like, a million subscribers, Cameron.”

“I really don’t know how that happened.”

“Oh my god, that you somehow stumbled into YouTube success is the most Cameron thing I’ve ever heard.”

She was smiling at him and he was smiling at her, and for a moment, bright and hot, it was like every moment since she kissed him on her graduation night to now had never happened. And those things that had happened to the two of them over the course of living their lives had been shared.