“If you’re planning on telling me that I was just another one of your mistakes, don’t
bother. I’d rather live in ignorance of it.”
“No, you don’t understand,” he said with frustration. “That’s just it. Everything is
different because I love you. Now I was your first on top of that. I don’t think I could have
screwed this up anymore than I already have.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t let some frat boy mount me before I got here,” I mumbled heatedly.
“That’s not funny,” he said.
“I’m not laughing.”
His eyes turned to the ceiling and his voice trailed off. “I warned myself that this might
happen if we were alone together for too long. I definitely set myself up to fail this time.”
“You’re acting like you were the only one there making the decision. As far I remember, I was
around for the whole thing too. Cameron, I wanted this. I made up my own mind a long time ago.”
My eyes were tearing up.
“Emmy, I’m worried that we won’t be able to go back to the way things used to be.”
“Good.”
“You’re being impossible about this,” he argued.
“Why would I want things to go back to the way they were? Until a few minutes ago, I was
smiling so much my cheek muscles were burning.” When I looked away, a drop fell from my eye.
Cameron enveloped me into his naked arms. “I’m sorry. I completely ruined the moment as usual.
I just don’t know how to fix this.”
“You can start by not talking about this anymore.”
“No, I mean I don’t know what we’re going to do when we have to go back out there. We can’t
stay hidden here forever.”
I struggled out of his arms and glared at him. “Why do you over-think everything? Can’t you
just turn your brain off, even for just a little while? It works for me all the time.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think I can do that. My brain has had too many years of practice at
constant juggling.”
I leaned toward him and kissed his cheek. “How about now? Still juggling?”
His eyes smothered me. “Still juggling—a mile a minute.”
I kissed him on the lips. “And now?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, his voice croaking slightly.
I shrugged and proceeded to get up. He had tackled me back into bed before my toes ever touched
the floor.
Whatever dilemma was raging inside him would be pushed aside, for a while. I was grateful for
this, even if it would be short-lived.
In the late morning, Cameron grudgingly got up to let an impatient Meatball outside. His cell
phone started ringing as soon as he got back into bed. He nuzzled in close to me and sighed.
After a minute of incessant ringing, the phone went quiet. Then the ringing started up again.
Cameron didn’t move.
“Um, are you going to get that?” I wondered.
“No,” he said sleepily.
The ringing eventually stopped … and started again a few minutes later.
He huffed, whipped the blankets off in annoyance, and stomped toward his jeans. He dug his cell
phone out, looked at it, threw it back in his pocket, and rushed back, closing his eyes.
I waited.
Not a word from him.
The suspense was killing me. “Do you have to call anyone back?”
“I turned it off so it’ll stop bugging us,” he said.
“Won’t you get in trouble for doing that?” I asked ingenuously, avoiding the real question.
“I’m the boss, remember? If I don’t want to pick up the phone, I don’t have to.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed.
Cameron chuckled and finally quenched my curiosity. “It was Spider, no big deal. Whatever’s
going on, he’ll have to handle it himself.”
“Where is he?”
“Don’t know. Somewhere with Carly, I suppose. They’re doing the same thing we are,” he
explained.
I raised my eyebrows and he blushed. “Not that. I meant that they’re hiding out too. Everybody
is. We have a rat in the gang. Nobody’s safe until we figure out who the traitor is.”
“What makes you think someone sold you out?”
“Someone told Shield where you were, when we’d leave for the city, and that half our guards
were out of commission because of the flu. It was all a little too convenient for him to decide
to attack that night. Somebody from the inside warned him.”
“You have doubts about Spider and Carly,” I said matter-of-factly.
“No, of course not.” Cameron looked confused. “Why would you say that?”
“They’re hiding from us, we’re hiding from them. Why would we need to hide from them unless
you suspected them or they suspected you?”
His cheeks grew deep crimson. “I was looking for an excuse to be alone with you, for once. This
was as good of an excuse as I was going to get. I told Spider that you needed some quiet time to
recover.”
“He bought that!”
He smiled sheepishly. “Not at all, but I wasn’t asking his permission either.”