Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m so conditioned to fulfilling everyone else’s needs, I never stop to fulfill my own.
So I lick my lips, slide my hand down between my waistband, and close my eyes. I’ve still got four days and that’s plenty of time to pack…
I slowly build a rhythm, squeezing and pumping, and just…let go a little bit. My muscles loosen, my breath hitching.
I don’t think about anything, because I can’t. Just this… just breaking my routine and giving in to what feels good for once is enough.
My hips thrust of their own accord as my thumb slides over my weeping slit, and I groan. Loudly, because I can.
I lose myself for a moment as I chase my pleasure, until I can’t hold off anymore. I ride out the wave of my orgasm, feeling like every bone in my body has turned to Jell-O, and relief hits me hard.
Just as I get comfortable, the light goes off on my phone, the familiar chime of a text ringing through. One glance at the clock shows it’s barely ten o’clock. Savannah couldn’t have landed yet…
I wipe my hand on the sheets before I grab the phone, figuring it’s probably just a porn bot or some spam text, but when I see the name on my screen, my eyes widen.
Cam.
I swipe up immediately. One word stares at me.
Hey.
I wonder for a moment if it was a mistake. If maybe he meant to text someone else. But then I realize if he’s showing up in my notifications, it means two things.
One, his number is still the same.
Two, he didn’t delete my number.
He didn’t delete my number.The thought brings a smile to my face and my heart swells with hope.
So I text him back, the momentary pain dulled.
Hey.
And as I watch those flashing dots on the screen, I can’t help but smile.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cameron
My night doesn’t quite go as planned. I do fall asleep, but I wake up an hour later, tossing and turning and feeling way too awake for the lack of sleep I got. My phone lights up on the end table, and I grab it—which is my first mistake. I should leave it alone and force myself back to sleep.
The notification is an email, so I go through them since I haven’t most of the day and I don’t need them piling up. There’s already over fifty. A good number of them are spam, but a few are from my agent with possible jobs. I won’t go through them right now because I don’t want to deal with work.
I love my “job,” but sometimes it’s a lot. All I am to these people is a piece of meat who looks good in a suit or sweatpantsor underwear. No one cares about me and who I am, and that was fine for a long time. But something about seeing Austen has me all fucked up. It’s exactly why I shouldn’t have come here. I knew seeing him was a possibility—a very high possibility. And if I’m being honest with myself, maybe I did that on purpose.
I suddenly feel bad for being so mean to him. What happened between us was seven years ago. We were young and stupid. I messed up that night, too. Though what he did was worse, I’m not innocent in the matter. I knew we were both drunk and knew it was wrong. But I did it anyway because I was being selfish. He was right about that. But this has never really been about just that. It’s the way he blamed me for it and refused to take any accountability. It’s the way he made it seem like I was a predator and took advantage of him when I would never do that to him or someone else.
Opening my contacts, I stare at the one right on top.
Austen Brewer.
He’s always been there, right in the number one spot. I should make friends with people who have A names to knock him out of there so I wouldn’t have to see it.
There have been times over the years when I’ve considered texting him, just to see how he is. Times when I really missed him and wanted to give in. But the more I held out, the easier it was to ignore. But now that I’m here and he’s not far away, and we saw each other and he wants to apologize… it’s making it all a little too hard.
Making it all seem like maybe my anger isn’t only about what he did, but more about what I lost that night. What I fucked up, too. We both made a mistake.
Maybe if I allow him to give his side of the story, if I hear him out, let him say his piece, I can move on from this. Let it go. Forget about all of it. Things will never go back to how they were, but I don’t want to keep harboring this anger over somethingthat happened so long ago. Before I know it, I’m going to be a bitter old man who hates the world and everything in it just because I can’t find it in me to forgive someone who used to be my best friend.
