“I still do.”
I closed my eyes tight. “How? How could you possibly feel that way after everything I’ve just told you?”
He kept his voice low. “I know I’m not good for you right now, Camille. I can’t be there for you like you need me to be, and probably can’t for a long time. It’s hard to blame you when I know that our relationship is based on sporadic phone calls and texts.”
“But you told me that when we met. You said it would be this way, and I told you that it was okay. That I was willing to make it work.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Sticking to your word?” T.J. searched my eyes for a moment, and then sighed. He drank the last bit of his white wine, and then set the empty glass down on the side of his plate.
“Do you love him?”
I froze for a moment, feeling like a cornered animal. He’d been giving me the third degree since the server set our dinner on the table, and I was becoming emotionally exhausted. Seeing him for the first time, and then being alone with my thoughts all day . . . it was too much. I was a runner without anywhere to go. My flight didn’t leave until the next morning. Finally, I covered my face with my hands. Once I closed my eyes, the tears were pushed over my lower lids and down my cheeks.
T.J. sighed. “I’m going to say that’s a yes.”
“You know how you know you love someone? You get that feeling that doesn’t go away. I still feel that for you.”
“I feel the same way. But I always knew this would be too hard on you.”
“People do it all the time.”
“Yes, but they talk more than eight or nine times a month.”
“So you knew it was over? Why bring me out here, then? To tell me it was okay that I couldn’t make it work?”
“I thought maybe if you were here, with me, we could both get a sense of what was really going on with you—if it was just too hard because we hadn’t seen each other in a while, or if you really had feelings for Trenton.”
I began to cry into my napkin again. I suspected people were surely staring, but I didn’t dare look up to check. “This is so humiliating,” I said, trying not to sob.
“It’s okay, honey. It’s just us.”
I lowered my hands just enough to look around. He was right. We were the last two customers in the restaurant. I was so preoccupied, I hadn’t even noticed.
“Can I get anything else for you, sir?” the server said. I didn’t have to see her face to know she was curious about what was going on at our table.
“Bring us the bottle,” T.J. said.
“Of the white?”
“Of the white,” T.J. said in his confident, smooth voice.
“Y-yes, sir,” she said. I could hear her shoes tap the floor as she walked away.
“Aren’t they closing soon?”
“Not for twenty minutes. We can kill a bottle by then, right?”
“Not a problem,” I said, faking amusement. At the moment, all I felt was sad, guilty, and ashamed.
His small, contrived smile faded. “You’re leaving tomorrow. We don’t need to make any decisions tonight. Or even tomorrow. Let’s just enjoy our time together.” He reached across the table, and intertwined his fingers in mine.
After a moment’s pause, I pulled away. “I think we both already know what’s happened.”
With sadness in his eyes, T.J. nodded.
My eyes popped open when the airplane wheels touched down, and I looked around, seeing everyone around me pulling out their cell phones and texting friends, family, or colleagues about their arrival. I didn’t bother turning my phone back on. Raegan would be at her parents’, and my family didn’t even know I’d been gone.
T.J. and I went to bed as soon as we got back to the town house the night before, knowing we both had to be up before sunrise to get me to the airport on time. He held me in his arms all night like he didn’t want to let me go, but the next morning at the airport, he hugged and kissed me good-bye like he meant it. It was forced, and sad, and distant.
I pushed the Smurf’s gearshift into Park, and stepped out onto the asphalt. Part of me hoped Trenton would be sitting on the cement in front of my door, but he wasn’t.
San Diego had been nearly balmy, and now I was back where my breath was visible. The air actually hurt my face. How does air hurt your face?
I unlocked the door, pushed through it, let it slam behind me, and then trudged to my bedroom, falling face-first into my wonderfully messy bed.
Raegan padded down the hall in her bare feet. “How was it?” she asked from the doorway.
“I don’t know.”
The floor creaked under her as she walked to my bed and sat next to me. “Are you still together?”
“No.”
“Oh. Well . . . that’s good, right? I mean, even though T.J. hadn’t spoken to you until Trent kissed you, and suddenly he bought you a ticket to California . . .”
“Not tonight, Ray.”
“Trenton came by the Red tonight. He looked pretty awful.”
“Yeah? Did he leave with anyone?” I peeked out from the pillow.
Raegan hesitated. “Right before last call. He was sloppy drunk.”
I nodded, and then buried my face in the pillow.
“Just . . . tell him,” Raegan pleaded. “Tell him about T.J.”
“I can’t,” I said. “And you can’t, either. You promised.”
“I still don’t understand what all the secrecy is about.”
“You don’t have to,” I said, looking up at her, straight into her eyes. “You just have to keep the secret.”
Raegan nodded. “I will.”
It seemed like I’d barely closed my eyes when Raegan was shaking me awake.
I groaned.
“You’re going to be late for work, Cami! Get your ass up!”
I didn’t budge.
“You just took off two days, last-minute. Cal is going to fire your ass! Get up!” She clasped her hands around my ankle and dragged me until I fell off the bed, hard.
“Ow! Damn it, Ray!”
She leaned down. “It’s eleven thirty! Get up!”
I looked at the clock and then jumped up, racing around my bedroom and swearing repeatedly. Barely brushing my teeth, I resorted to a bun and glasses. The Smurf didn’t want to wake up, either, and she whirred like a dying cat before finally starting up.
The clock on the wall at Skin Deep said 12:07 when I walked through the door. Hazel was already on the phone, and Calvin stood next to her, frowning.
“What the hell are you wearing?” he asked.
I looked down at my plum skinny jeans and black-and-white horizontal-striped long-sleeved shirt. “Clothes.”
“I hired you to be the hot piece of ass at the counter, and you look like my cousin Annette. What is this look?” he asked Hazel.
“Hipster,” she said briefly before returning to her conversation.
“Yeah. Like my hipster cousin Annette. Next time you come in, I want to see cleavage and sex hair!” he said, holding up one finger, and then two.
“What the hell is sex hair?” I asked.
Calvin shrugged. “You know. Messy, but sexy. Like you just had sex.”
Hazel slammed the phone down. “Everything that comes out of your mouth is offensive. Hot piece of ass? Cleavage? You’re a walking sexual harassment lawsuit!”
Calvin wasn’t fazed.
“Is it the shoes?” I asked, looking down at my favorite black combat boots.
“The scarf!” he said, pointing all four fingers at me. “What is the point in having a nice rack if you’re going to cover it up?”
Hazel smiled. “It’s a cute scarf. I need a black one like yours.”
Calvin frowned. “It’s not cute! I don’t want cute! I hired a sexy, edgy bartender, and I got a hipster in a bun with no tattoos! I can handle you taking off and coming in whenever the fuck you feel like it, but it’s just wrong walking around here with a clean palette for skin. It looks bad if our own employees don’t trust us enough to ink them!”
“Are you about finished?” Hazel deadpanned. She looked at me. “He started his period this morning.”
“Fuck you, Hazel!” Calvin snapped, stomping down the hall to his office.