I could only watch.
“Taking advantage of my brother’s state to extort information?” While he had spoken from the
darkness, I had listened for traces of anger but deciphered nothing like that. I exhaled just a
little.
“He offered,” I corrected and went to investigate him in the darkness. From what I could see,
he was standing with his arms casually resting over the side of the rail, looking toward the
shadows of the trees. Other than the lights coming from Carly’s house, the landscape was
blackened, and I could barely make out Cameron’s face—just his dark eyes that twinkled under
the stars.
“So what were you doing there in the first place? In the projects, I mean,” I probed, trying
to keep my voice casual.
“Checking up on you. Making sure you were safe,” he answered, his voice mastering casualness.
“Did you do that … often?” I asked him.
Cameron didn’t answer.
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Since Bill died.” His tone was still unbearably unruffled.
I gasped. “That was six years ago, Cameron! You’ve been doing this for that long?”
Cameron took his time. “Bill made me promise a long time before he died that I would look after
you if anything ever happened to him. I kept my promise.”
I was trying to analyze his intonation again. This was even more difficult when I had nothing
but a darkened face to match the voice with. “Is that the only reason?”
Cameron remained silent again and kept his dark eyes fixed on the imperceptible landscape.
“If Meatball hadn’t gotten away from you that day, would you have ever introduced … shown
yourself to me?”
Cameron turned and faced me. I couldn’t see his eyes anymore.
“No,” he said without an inch of doubt. “You had your own life.”
“Not much of a life,” I mumbled and pouted.
“Better than this.”
“So you just decided all of this on your own, without consulting with me. You had no right to
make that decision for me.”
Cameron chuckled, but I caught a glimpse of his uneasiness. “You would have never known the
difference, Emmy. Your life would have gone on without ever knowing that I was there or that
this … life even existed. It’s not like it was easy to do, especially after you moved into
that hellhole in Callister.”
“It must have been inconvenient for you to have to spy on me in a grubby part of town,” I
quipped.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “At least if you would have done what you were supposed
to and gone off to a good college, lived in a nice place, and eventually met a good guy, I would
have felt a lot better about letting you live your life. But imagine what it was like for me to
see you so miserable and not be able to do anything about it.”
“So why didn’t you do anything about it?”
I felt Cameron’s hand move smoothly over my cheek, displacing a strand of hair that had fallen
out of my ponytail.
“You and I are just too different.”
I didn’t know if it was the wine that I had shared with Carly or the fact that Cameron and I
stood in the darkness, hidden from the world and each other, but I suddenly felt very brave.
“So is Rocco right? Do you love me?” I brazened into the night, though disbelief still encased
my voice.
Cameron chose silence.
“Answer me,” I demanded.
But Cameron would not be ordered.
It was surely the wine, because I stood on my tiptoes and searched in the darkness and found his
face. He moved his head forward in instinct, and his face all of the sudden emerged from the
dark. He looked as nervous as I felt. It was the way he looked at me, like he was searching for
something—like he had just found it, that made my fingers tingle with ants. With his face
inches away from mine, Cameron paused for an instant, and his darkened eyes stayed fixed on
mine. He closed in, my eyes closed themselves, and he parted my lips with his. He kissed me too
softly at first, like he was expecting me to break into pieces. But I was quite suddenly strong
and inched myself closer to him. I felt his hand loop around to the small of my back while the
other gently pushed my head toward his.
I was overwhelmed, too overwhelmed to notice the patio door open—but Cameron noticed. Footsteps
approached; he grabbed my shoulders and pushed me away. He rushed past me. I was left blurry.
Griff was standing over Rocco. He was startled when Cameron emerged from the darkness and
fleetingly glared at me when I followed Cameron, attempting to rapidly fix my disheveled
ponytail.
“Get away from him!” Cameron ordered.
Rocco, who had been awaken by Cameron’s loud voice, sat up and skimmed confusedly from Griff to
Cameron and me.
Griff looked terrified and angry. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t see you … standing there. I just
came to check on the Kid.”
“You’ve done enough for one day. Leave,” Cameron commanded.
“Sir … I wanted to apologize for what happened earlier today …” Griff stammered.