"Rough gig."
He smiled, then sighed as his thoughts invariably turned back to the Mina problem. "I guess I'm afraid it's one-sided. That I'll go, and I'll always be second to her career. That I'll always be the one making compromises."
"She's staring at her dream, Cam. You can't know right now what's truly important to her. Hell, she doesn't even know. But what you have to ask yourself is does it matter? You're pretty damn dedicated, too. Are you really going to pull out measuring sticks and try to figure out if you or work measures higher? How would you even tell?"
"Honestly, I don't know. All I know is that I want to wake up beside her. And I want to watch movies with her and roll my eyes at the way she criticizes the cinematography or the script. And I want to listen when she talks to herself while she's puttering around the house. I want a history with her, Kiki. And I think what I'm most afraid of is that her leaving means that she doesn't want one with me."
"Then you've answered your own question."
He stared at the phone. "I have?"
"Well, yeah, dummy. If that's the life you want, no way are you having it in Austin if she's moving to Los Angeles. So take a risk, get your ass to California, and figure out the answer for yourself."
* * *
The fact that Darryl was perfectly fine, with only a couple of abrasions on his calf and a mild concussion, did not ease any of Mina's fears or worries.
"I could have lost you," she said, for at least the hundredth time. "What the hell would I do without you?"
Just the thought made her want to curl up in a ball and moan. Losing Darryl. Losing Cameron. It was all too much to process, and she was compensating by going Mother Hen on him to the max.
As soon as they'd gotten back to the house, she'd made Darryl stretch out on the sofa in the living room with an ice pack on his head, a heating pad on his leg, and a big bowl of ice cream on a tray in front of him. "I'm okay," he protested again. "Although I'm happy to pretend to be an invalid if it gets me more ice cream."
"Do not even joke about this," she said sternly. "And what the hell were you doing cycling in the rain?"
"I
t wasn't raining when I went out after work. Just overcast."
"Even so," she said obstinately.
"Good point. I'll only bike when the sky is perfectly clear and little cartoon birdies follow me to provide any necessary assistance."
"Dammit, Darryl, a car hit you. You could have been killed. And why were you out with so little battery on your phone?"
She hadn't been able to reach him because his phone had run out of charge just moments after the driver who'd hit him had taken him to the ER to be checked out. Darryl had gotten his insurance information and assured the guy he was fine, then told him to go ahead and leave.
But he hadn't yet called Mina, and by the time he thought of it, his phone was dead and the driver was long gone. And while the nurses would have surely called, Darryl waited until after triage to ask them.
By that time, Mina had arrived.
"Obviously, I didn't realize it was so low on battery. But thank goodness for that last known location feature, right? I mean, technology." He held his hands out at his sides in a happy-go-lucky gesture. "Gotta love it, huh?"
"Stop joking about it." Tears trailed down her cheeks, and his expression immediately shifted from amused irritation to concerned contrition.
"Oh, hell. I'm sorry I scared you," he said gently. "All he did was clip me on a corner. Yes, it could have been worse, but it wasn't. He could have just as easily hit a pedestrian. Come on, Mina. We both know there aren't guarantees."
"I know. I'm sorry. I'm just--" She sat at the foot of the couch, careful not to bump his leg, then grabbed a tissue from the coffee table and blew her nose.
"Just having a rough day overall?"
She sniffed, then looked up at him. "What do you mean?"
He tilted his head, as if considering how to answer. "Moving to LA. Leaving me. Leaving--you know--your friends. The internship at The Fix. All of that. It's gotta be hard."
Cam loomed in her mind, and she nodded. "It really is." She sucked in a breath. Time to bite the bullet. "Listen, I've been thinking about it, and I'm not--"
She stopped, her head turning toward the entry hall. She couldn't see the front door, but she distinctly heard the sound of someone punching in the unlock code.