Oh, yes it was. Shelby had never before taken the initiative and done something responsible like find herself a job. Maybe there was hope for her yet.
Eva wanted to hug her—oh, what the hell. She moved around the coffee table and pulled her sister into her arms. “Good for you, Shel. I’m really happy for you.”
“Didn’t believe me when I told you I’m turning my life around?”
“No. But can you blame me? We’ve both heard that line so many times from Mom, and it never happened.”
“Mom’s not well. We both know it.” Grief strained Shelby’s usually bright smile. The purples around her eye had faded in the week since their mother’s visit, leaving the bruise several ugly shades of yellow. “And I don’t want to end up like her any more than you do. We’re not so different, Evie. We’re just taking alternate routes to the same place.
“And, okay,” she admitted before Eva could form a reply, “I went a little too far trying to prove how I’m not Mom, only to realize I was turning in to a punk rock version of her.” She stepped back and pressed a picture frame into Eva’s palm. “But you? Evie, you haven’t gone far enough. You’ve played it safe, dating wimpy, passive-aggressive men like Preston, the exact opposite of the asshole boyfriends Mom brought home.”
“I know.”
“And then there’s Cam.”
“No, we’re not talking about him.”
“Yeah, we are. Think about it. Who did you call as soon as we had Mom under control the other night?”
Dammit, did she have to acknowledge it?
Shelby nudged her when she stayed silent too long and she muttered, “Cam.”
“And that’s not the first time you turned to him. Who do you call whenever you’re sick or sad or lonely?”
“Of course I call Cam. He is—was my best friend. Now, I don’t know.” And that killed her. She missed what they used to be, but at the same time, she didn’t want to go back to plain old friendship. She’d gotten too comfortable with Cam as a lover. “Dammit. Having sex with him was such a huge mistake.”
“Oh, God.” Shelby rolled her eyes, the gesture highlighting her fading bruises. “You’re such a dunce sometimes. He’s not your best friend. Honestly, he never was. He’s the guy who’s wild for you, who would do anything for you. He’s nothing like Mom’s boyfriends, yet you pushed him to the back burner. And still, he stuck. He’s always going to stick and everyone with two eyes—hell,” she gestured to her bruises, “with one eye—can see how much he loves you. So why can’t you see it?”
Eva moistened her suddenly dry lips and looked down at the framed photo from her dresser that showed her and Cam after a Tough Mudder event, arms looped around each other. They were both soaked head-to-toe in mud and grinning at each other.
“Look at it,” Shelby told her.
“I’ve seen it before.” She’d had this photo for three years, had seen it every morning as she readied for work.
“But you’ve never really looked at it. Look at his expression.”
She did and saw exactly what Shelby wanted her to see, what Shelby had probably seen all along. Love. His eyes were soft and crinkled at the corners, and his smile was one of complete adoration. She thought of Cam’s ring in her pocket, the vibrant red gems speaking of the out-of-control fire and passion they shared in the bedroom. And, if she was honest with herself, out.
“He scares me,” she admitted, stroking a finger over his face in the photo.
“Why, because you can’t control him?”
“Because I can’t control myself around him.”
Shelby gave a soft laugh and poked her in the ribs with one finger. “You ask me, Evie, that’s a really awesome problem to have.”
…
He’s the guy who is wild for you, who would do anything for you.
The truth of her sister’s words bounced around in Eva’s skull all night, until she finally gave up on sleeping and settled on the couch to watch TV with a box of old photos. In every single one, she saw the same thing as in the picture on her dresser: Cam loved her. And as the photos progressed, she started to see that adoration reflected in her own eyes and smile.
Oh, hell. Why had she never noticed it before?
Shelby joined her around 2:00 am, but said nothing more about Cam or Preston or any of it. She just snuggled in beside Eva like she had when they were kids and entertained them both with snarky commentary on the late-night infomercials. Her imitation of the 1-900 phone sex commercials was eerily spot-on.
Eva narrowed her eyes at her little sister. “Shelby, you didn’t ever…”
“Some things are better left unknown, sis.”
“You’re shitting me.”
Shelby shrugged. “You do what you gotta. And it’s not as risqué as you think. Those women? They’re mothers and sometimes grandmothers, sitting at home in their pajamas with the TV on mute tuned to a sappy Lifetime movie, and their dogs or cats—or in my case, bird—snuggled up next to them.”