10 Years Later
“What is it? You Cammie, me Dalton,” he mocked as he pounded his chest like Tarzan. “You my woman now.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I like it.”
“You would. Fucking caveman.” He reached down toward his feet and pulled up a bag filled with snacks.
Shrugging my shoulders, I glanced at him. “I figured I’d try and start with talking.”
“You should start with kissing,” he said seriously.
“Now who’s the caveman?”
He snorted as he pawed through the contents of the bag in his lap. “Still you. You’re just the new kind of caveman. The sensitive kind. A metrosexual caveman who cares about feelings and shit, but secretly still wants to drag her by the hair and pull her into your lair.”
“I’m not metrosexual, and you’re an idiot.”
“Yeah, but I’m your idiot.” He smiled before taking a bite of a cold egg sandwich.
“Are you in love with me? Is that what this is about?” I said, fucking with him.
He snorted again. “You wish I was in love with you.” His accent came out even thicker as his mouth was filled with food. “Right now I’m in love with this healthy egg white sandwich crap you made me eat.”
“It’s good for you,” I insisted, relieved that he liked the sandwich. Tucker ate like a Mack truck, and ever since we moved here, I’d been trying to get him to eat better things.
“I said I liked it,” he mumbled around a mouthful.
“You said you loved it. See, I’m smart.”
“I might not be as smart as you, but our guy just walked out to have a smoke.” He pointed with the hand holding his sandwich two blocks ahead at the man we’d been gathering information on ever since we transferred to California.
I reached into the backseat to pull out the department-issued camera and started taking pictures of our suspect using a long lens. Anyone who came outside to talk to him got their picture taken as well. It was like being in photography class all over again . . .
• • •
As I had walked into Advanced Photography my senior year of high school, my heart had thudded against my chest at the sight of Cammie Carmichael sitting in the back of the class alone. Her head was down like it had been so many times since that day last year, and she’d been writing something in a red spiral notebook. The shorts she wore were so short, they made her legs look like they went on for miles. Not that I minded the view.
I took the empty chair next to her and reached out to touch her arm. The contact sent a buzz through my fingertips and straight to my dick. She jerked her head up, her long brown hair spilling across her shoulders, and I thought her eyes lit up as she noticed it was me.
If it was possible to remove someone’s pain, I wished in that moment that I could do it. Cammie’s world had fractured into a million broken pieces, and I desperately wanted to pick them all up and carry them until she was whole again. I wanted that light that used to shine out of her every day to come back. It killed me to watch her pull away from life.
“You’re in this class?” Her expression softened, and I longed to reach out and run my fingers down her cheek.
“Yep,” was all I managed to say in response.
“I’m glad.” She smiled again before focusing her attention on the teacher at the front of the room.
• • •
“Yo. Earth to dickwad. Jesus, seriously?” Tucker snapped his fingers in front of my eyes, his voice breaking through my concentration as I followed the suspect with the lens of the camera, clicking the button at his every step.
“What?” I played innocent.
“You took another trip to Cammie Land.”
“You don’t know what I was thinking about.” I narrowed my eyes as I looked through the lens, making sure it was in focus.
“The hell I don’t. You get this stupid look on your face whenever you think about her. I was trying to tell you to make sure you got that guy in the gray suit too.” He pointed at some new guy standing next to Mickey.
“I’m getting everyone that comes out to talk to our perp. You think I’m stupid?” I snapped at him as our suspect sauntered back into the building.