“Well, I didn’t want to hurt you,” I say, brushing my thumb back and forth over her arm. “I still feel like that sometimes.”
“Well don’t,” she whispers and kisses my chest again. “Never hold back with me, Andrew. I always want you to be yourself.”
I grin and squeeze her arm again. “You know you’re giving me permission to ravage you whenever I want, right?”
“Yeah, I’m fully aware of that,” she says, and I hear a matching grin in her voice.
I kiss her on the top of her head and pull her over on top of me.
“Happy birthday,” she says again and slips her tongue into my mouth.
*
Thank God for Florida in the winter. After my very surprising—and satisfying, I might add—birthday this morning, Camryn and I spend the day practicing our new song. Well, it’s not technically ours, but to mix things up a bit we’ve adopted Stevie Nicks’s kickass hit “Edge of Seventeen.” Camryn is getting frustrated with the way the lyrics blend so fast into each other, but she’s determined to get it right. This is her song, the one she wants to sing on her own. That’s a huge step for her, because we’ve always done songs together.
And I admire her for it.
She looks so frustrated, but underneath it, all I see is my Camryn coming back to me more every day. Her soul seems lighter, the light in her eyes brighter, and every time she smiles it reminds me of when we first met.
“You can do this,” I say sitting on the windowsill with my electric guitar resting against my chest. “Don’t try so hard, baby, just own it.”
She sighs and throws her head back, plopping on the chair by the small round table next to me. “I know all the words, but I always get tripped up on those last few verses. I don’t know why.”
“I just told you,” I say. “You’re thinking about it too hard, because you start the song already expecting to mess up when you get to that part. Don’t think about it. Now try again.”
She takes another deep, aggravated breath and stands up.
We practice for another hour before we head to the nearest steak house for a late afternoon lunch.
“You’ll get it right. Don’t worry about it,” I say, as the waitress brings us our steaks.
“I know. It’s just frustrating.” She starts to cut her steak, knife in one hand, fork in the other.
“It took me a little while to get ‘Laugh, I Nearly Died’ down,” I say and bite a huge chunk of steak off the end of my fork. I chew a little bit and then say, with my mouth still full, “My next must-learn song is ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ by Bill Withers. I’ve always wanted to learn that song, and I think it’s about time I retire the Stones.
She seems surprised. She points her fork at me and swallows and says, “Oooh! Nice choice!”
“You know that song?” I’m a little surprised too, considering she wasn’t much of a classic rock or blues buff when we met.
She nods and takes a quick bite of mashed potatoes. “I love that song. My dad had it on a playlist he liked to listen to when he drove out of state on business. That Withers guy can sing.”
I let out a ripple of laughter.
“What’s so funny?” she asks, looking at me confused.
“You sounded so country just now.” I take a swig of my beer and laugh a little more, shaking my head.
“What? Sayin’ I sounded like a hick?” Her eyes are all wide, but her smile couldn’t be any more obvious.
“More like a country bumpkin. That Withers guy can sang! Oooh-weee!” I mock her, throwing my head back.
She laughs with me, though trying her damndest to hide her red face. “Well, I’m definitely with you on that,” she says, taking a swig of her own beer. She sets the glass back down on the table and adds, with narrowed eyes, “The song choice, not the country bumpkin thing.”
“Of course,” I say with a grin and finish up my steak.
The first steak we ever had together was just like she promised, a few days after I got out of the hospital after my surgery. And like that day and every steak she’s had since, she only manages to eat half. Just means more for me. When I see her give off signs of being so stuffed she’s getting nauseous, I reach across the table and slide her plate toward me.
She keeps glancing at her phone, and at one point she starts texting a reply to someone.
“Natalie on you again about coming home?”
“Yeah, she’s relentless.” She puts the phone away in her purse.
Camryn is a horrible liar. Horrible. She couldn’t lie to save her life, and right now, the way she keeps gazing off at the log-cabin-style wall, she’s definitely lying. I pick my teeth clean with a toothpick and study her.
“Are you ready to go?” I ask.
She smiles weakly at me, obviously hiding something, and then I notice the screen on her phone illuminate inside her purse. She checks the text message and suddenly she’s more eager to leave. Her smile gets bigger, and she stands up quickly from the table.