"You okay?" I asked. She nodded, sliding out of the bed and walking over to the steps. I watched her leave. I got up and followed her down. She was in the kitchen, rinsing her cup out.
"Natalie?" I asked.
"Hm?"
"Is something wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, Cameron," she said shortly. She didn't want to eat anything, okay, fine, whatever. It wasn't the end of the world just because of that, but she seemed a little off. She had been okay just minutes ago, but then I had asked her when she had needed to leave, and she had done a total one-eighty.
"Are you sure you're okay?" She turned the water off and turned, facing me as she dried her hands.
"It's nothing, okay?" she huffed, walking away from me, towards the living room.
"It doesn't sound like nothing," I said, watching her. "What's the matter with you?"
"How long were you planning on staying up here? Realistically. How long did you think you'd be able to run away from your real life back in Salt Lake City?"
"What?"
"Remember what you said? Before you came here?" she asked. "I was there when you told Brett that you just wanted some time to think. You told me you were going away for a while, but you'd be in touch. You weren't running away from responsibility; you just needed a minute to get back on your feet."
I frowned, looking at her. "I know what I said, Natalie. Why are you bringing it up now?"
"Because the clock’s been ticking, Cameron, even though you weren't there to hear it." No, I thought as it came together. Yesterday I had asked her why she had come here and she hadn't given me a straight answer.
"Did Brett send you?"
"The other stockholders have been breathing down his neck to communicate with you. Brett is paralyzed. He needs an answer. He needs to know what is going to happen with Porter Holdings and whether you're going to be part of it going forward." I had turned away from her, walking towards the kitchen.
Motherfucker, I thought. It had been minutes since I had been down here thinking about her, about us. Everything I had thought about the two of us, what I had been feeling lately... shit, even thinking how much easier it would be to see her if we were in the same area. Fucking moving, I had thought about moving to be close to her again, back to Provo. My heart was pounding hard enough for me to hear it. I couldn't believe it. Natalie Cooke, just full of surprises, huh? She had almost had me.
"Stockholders, huh?” I asked, turning to look at her again. “They had a meeting then, is that it? When?"
"Cameron, I—”
"Tell me when, Natalie," I snapped.
"It was the week after you left," she admitted. "I sat in
on the meeting, and it didn't go well. They all wanted to see you, hear from you; what Brett had to say to them wasn't good enough. He asked me that day to come see you." I did the math in my head. She had showed up exactly a week since I had left Provo.
"When you showed up here and said it was because of the storm," I said.
"That was true, Cameron. We knew you were out here without a means of contacting anyone and you'd be in trouble if you got stuck without any supplies."
"You were here a whole week," I said, thinking out loud more than wanting her to say anything to me. "You talked to Brett while you were here."
"He wanted me to talk to you about it then, but I couldn't. It didn't feel right."
"But you can now? What changed?" I challenged.
"There wasn't any time before. I just stretched my luck as far as I could, and it finally ran out. Brett wants an answer from me. Today." My eyes almost bugged out of my head.
"Today? Fuck. You had an entire plan, didn't you? Come out here, stay the night so it was worth the drive, and finally get your answer."
"It wasn't like that, Cameron; I wanted to see you."
"So you could fuck me before you screwed me over?"