Down London Road (On Dublin Street 2)

‘Why not? That’s a bloody good sex story.’

My cheeks warmed again and Cam laughed, snuggling me against his chest as I giggled. I was so caught up in happy la-la land with him that what happened in the next few moments was even more of a crashing, cold bump back to earth.

Cam stopped abruptly and I grabbed him to keep my balance, my head pulling back to study his face. The colour had leached from it and his eyes were wide with utter shock. ‘Cam?’ I whispered, feeling something hard begin to form in my stomach. I followed his gaze to the girl who was standing in front of us, her pretty eyes just as wide as Cam’s.

‘Cameron?’ she breathed, taking a step towards us, apparently not even aware that I was there.

‘Blair,’ he answered hoarsely.

I felt my head spin at the sound of her name, my eyes immediately examining her, processing everything about her. To my surprise she wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting. I’d pictured her in my mind as this tall, exotic stunner with an air of mystique. Instead she was shorter than Joss, her body slim and petite. She wore a T-shirt with a band on it over a long-sleeved white top, ratty jeans that fit her well and boots quite like Cam’s. She had short black hair that framed her cute pixie face. Her wide brown eyes were her best feature, framed by long black lashes. Shock mixed with longing haunted those pretty eyes, and I felt my hand fist around the material of Cam’s light jacket.

‘It’s great to see you.’ She gave him a sweet smile.

Cam nodded, clearing his throat and shaking the deer caught in the headlights expression from his eyes. ‘Uh, you too. How long have you been back in Edinburgh?’

‘A few months. I thought about looking you up, but I wasn’t sure …’ Her voice trailed off as she finally registered that I was burrowed into Cam’s side. She took me in, a crestfallen expression on her face, disappointment in her eyes. Disappointment in Cam? For choosing someone like me?

I bristled at the thought and Cam’s arm tightened around me. ‘No, you should have,’ Cam surprised me by saying.

Blair’s whole face lit up. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’ Cam dropped his arm from around me to pull his phone out of his pocket. ‘Here, give me your number and we’ll arrange to catch up.’

What?

I watched them as they exchanged numbers, Cam’s head bent over hers, and my brain just started screaming at me. What the hell was going on? He was arranging to get in contact with the ex-love of his life! What effed-up reality was this?

To make matters worse, he hadn’t even introduced me.

I stood there, attempting to appear calm and unconcerned.

He laughed softly at something she said and she gazed up at him like he was some kind of miracle. He was a miracle. He was my miracle and if he didn’t introduce me I was going –

‘Blair, this is my girlfriend, Jo,’ Cam said as he tucked his phone away. He gave me a reassuring smile that I didn’t return.

‘Nice to meet you.’ I managed to give her a small smile while inside I was flinging every swear word I could think of at her.

She didn’t smile back. ‘You too.’

When our gazes met, we had a silent conversation with each other. I resent you, she said. I think I hate you, I replied. He was mine first, she answered. He’s mine now, I growled.

Thick tension fell between the three of us until Cam broke the silence with a few polite questions.

After arranging to speak to one another soon, we left Blair to walk home via Princes Street. To my growing panic, Cam didn’t reach for me again. We walked home side by side, not touching and not talking. He seemed to have disappeared somewhere inside himself and I feared that place almost more than I feared anything else.

24

Cole knew there was something wrong as soon as I returned to the flat. I kept insisting it was nothing, which pissed him off. I knew this because he told me to my face it pissed him off. I retaliated with a lecture on swearing, which he informed me pissed him off even more, so by the time I was dressed for the party, I was mad at Cam for being an inconsiderate dimwit, terrified that I was facing the end of my relationship, and upset that my wee brother had left to stay with Jamie for the night without saying goodbye to me.

In other words I was really in the party spirit.

My depressed thoughts weren’t eased when I hurried down to Cam’s flat to pick him up and he barely registered my dress. The dress he’d found so hot pre-Blair encounter that he’d ravished me in a public dressing room.

I felt my chest tighten with anxiety as he remained quiet during the taxi ride with Olivia and Uncle Mick. Even Olivia commented on it, asking him if he was all right.

Of course he insisted he was, though we all knew (we, as in I) that he had been thrown for a loop by the arrival of his ex-girlfriend, aka the only woman he had ever loved.

We arrived at Joss and Braden’s flat on Dublin Street to find the party already in full swing. Hannah and Declan were staying with friends tonight, so Elodie and Clark were free to stay as long as they wanted. Elodie was completely smashed already – and Elodie smashed was just a heightened version of Elodie sober. She kept moving around all the guests asking them if they wanted a refill and when they said yes, she proceeded to overfill their glasses with a loopy ‘Oopsie!’

Cam, Olivia and I settled in a corner with Adam and Ellie. I tried to keep up with the conversation, and attempted to appear as if everything was all right, laughing along with the others as Adam pointed out the growing strain on Joss’s face as she was forced to mingle. At one point we watched as Joss attempted to remove her hand from the grip of the wife of one of Braden’s professional acquaintances as she peered at the engagement ring. Joss tugged politely a few times, but when that didn’t seem to get through, she actually swatted the woman’s hand off hers and then smiled prettily as if nothing had happened, leaving Braden choking on laughter while she excused herself.