He let out a rough exhale. “I don’t understand.”
I didn’t, either. I didn’t understand why he was so upset, unless perhaps he hated being left in the dark or caught off guard. Perhaps he felt betrayed by me not telling him that he was walking around with a ticking PR bomb. After all, I was a meme, a viral thirty-second clip, a face used to sell energy drinks. Choose entertainment over dignity. I was every single thing he was running away from.
“There’s nothing to understand,” I said.
“Explain the video to me anyway,” he pleaded, and now I could hear it in his voice. How hurt he was. How frustrated. “Please.”
I averted my eyes. “What clip did you see? The techno remix? Or the one with classical music? Or perhaps you saw one of the choreographed dances or the theatrical reinterpretation of the audio. People are really talented nowadays.” I shrugged. “Or maybe you saw the ad with my face. I’m sure it shows up under my hashtag by now.”
“There is an ad,” Cameron said very slowly. As if he couldn’t even speak. “With your face?”
My stomach twisted. I was pretty sure I was going to be sick, but I managed a nod.
There was a long stretch of silence until Cameron spoke again. “What did he do?”
I felt my brows twisting, my eyes narrowing with doubt. That had been the same question my mother had asked. “He didn’t do anything. It wasn’t Sparkles’s—or Paul’s—fault. I did that.”
Once more, Cameron didn’t utter a single word for what seemed like an eternity. That was probably why my eyes found their way back to him. His face. He looked so utterly lost. Helpless. I hated putting that there. “I wasn’t asking about the mascot. I was talking about your father. He’s the owner of the club. What did he do about this?”
I blinked at him. He already knew that. “My father sent me here.” Cameron’s expression hardened. I fumbled with my hands. “The clip had gone viral in under a day.” I pointed at the phone as it rested there, in his fist. “I was a PR problem for the club. Heck, I was a problem for him, and so I was sent here, on an assignment.”
All that anger dissolved. “Don’t say that.”
“Say what?”
“That you’re a problem.” His voice cracked. “You’re not a fucking problem, Adalyn.”
Those guards I had been neglecting for the last days engaged, coming up at full force. “Don’t pretend that you never saw me as a problem, Cameron.” My words weren’t harsh or accusing. I was simply stating a fact. And I wasn’t mad or angry about that. I understood why he did. But that didn’t mean I was able to stand here and listen to him taking my side when there was no such thing as sides in this. “What would you have done in his place, huh? Wouldn’t you want to protect the team? The franchise? The empire he has built? His own name? Because I would. I was jeopardizing all of those things. I was a running joke—still am, for that matter. So, really, what would you have done instead?”
“Christ, Adalyn,” he said. “I would have protected you. Not anything else. I would have done anything to protect you.”
His words clashed against me with such force that I thought I might stumble backward. I braced a hand on the back of a stool. “And how exactly would you have done that, Cameron? Going door-to-door telling every person watching to stop? Snatching their phones from their hands and smashing them against the floor? Or perhaps shouting at the press not to pay me any attention and focus on the un-shockingly lackluster season the team was having instead? Or—”
“Yes,” he interjected. And the single word was suspended in the air for what seemed like an eternity. “I would have done all of those things.” He crossed the distance separating us. “I would have done anything I could.”
My next breath didn’t make it in. Or out.
Cameron’s hands came around my face, the contact of his skin against mine dizzying, overwhelming in a way I wasn’t ready to process in that moment. But a way I didn’t want to let go of. Not yet. I leaned into his touch.
“I would have done everything in my power to protect you.” His thumbs brushed my cheeks, and as angry as he still looked, his voice was so soft, so gentle. “The internet was fucking bullying you, so I would have tried to fix this. And I would have never—fucking ever—treated you like a problem and shoved you aside to get you out of the way.”
My chest was heaving at this point, and whatever I thought I’d felt disappeared, turning into hurt. A hurt I didn’t want there but couldn’t help. “But you wanted me out of here, too. And I don’t blame you. I’m not mad or resentful.” My throat tightened. “When I arrived in Green Oak, I was an inconvenience for you, and you wanted to shove me out. And I’m not blameless, but that’s not that different from what my father did.”
A strangled sound left him, his forehead falling on mine. My hands rose, and I wrapped my fingers around his wrists. Showing him that I wanted him right where he was. “I would have fucking cared, love. And I’m going to show you, okay?”
I couldn’t imagine how, but I gave him a small nod.
Cameron seemed to breathe a little easier. “I’m not your father, and I don’t really know him. But that’s not…” His head shook against mine. “I hate what he did. His reaction.” His hands moved down my cheeks, settling on the sides of my neck. “And if you think I’m not stubborn enough to go door-by-door, smashing phones against the ground, then you have me figured out all wrong.”
A strange puff of air burst out, but I couldn’t tell if it was a sob or a laugh. Probably neither. Because this was too much. It was too intense. And I didn’t think I had the tools to process it. I wished I could keep my eyes closed until everything heavy and complicated inside my chest disappeared. I didn’t want to turn back time and not have this conversation, because it had always been meant to take place, but I wished I could magically pop up in bed and will the rest of the night away. Wake up tomorrow, buried in the comforter of Cameron’s guest room.
And, of course, this man who was still holding my face between his hands like his life depended on it seemed to somehow read my mind, because I was wordlessly being lifted off the ground and then, I was being deposited in the soft and plush cushions of the couch. I sighed, half happy to be granted the wish and half sad that this meant he was walking away. But then, a large body was curling along mine and what I knew was Cameron’s arm was coming around my middle, curling over my waist, and dragging me to his chest.
“I know you hate being carried everywhere,” he said into my hair. “But I’ve been stopping myself all night. Maybe all week.”
An avalanche of contradicting feelings rioted and clashed inside me as I buried my hands between our bodies, letting my palms fall on his chest and my forehead rest against his chin. “I don’t hate it.”
I really didn’t. I resisted it—him—because I liked being in Cameron’s arms too much. Enough to remind myself that Green Oak was a bubble, and there was a life waiting for me back in Miami. One that I had fought hard to go back to but was starting to feel I didn’t belong to anymore. Not like I thought I did.
And where did that leave me? Where did that leave us?
* * *
We spent the night on the couch.
Or so I thought. Now that I was blinking at the empty space beside me, I wasn’t exactly sure if I’d slept alone.
Willow popped her head out from beneath the couch. The only warning she gave me was a mew before she curled in my lap. I petted her behind her ears, just like I’d learned she liked, wondering what time it was but not wanting to leave the safety of the couch or the blanket wrapped tightly around me.
Had I imagined everything? Had last night been a dream?
I dropped my hand to the side and felt the cushion still warm.