“Because I don’t live at your house,” I say.
“You can.”
“Are you going to adopt me?”
“I should.”
I laugh. I can still smell his light scent on my skin, and I try to breathe it in. I crave it now. I want it. Leaning against the headrest, I watch him.
“See,” he says.
“What?”
“You don’t want to leave me.”
“Why would you think that?”
He grins. “You may have been murmuring a few things when you didn’t realize.”
My face blushes. I’m not exactly sure what he is talking about, but I know it’s entirely possible that I may have said something close to “I love you” at a point when I wasn’t thinking clearly.
“Well,” I say, straightening up. “Things said in the heat of the moment don’t count.”
“Who says?”
“Me.”
“You didn’t mean it?” he asks.
“Nope.”
He smiles. “You know I feel the same way you do, right?”
“You didn’t mean it either?”
He looks sideways at me, his brown eyes meeting mine. “You’re lucky I know you’re full of shit, otherwise that might have hurt my feelings.”
But I see that I did hurt him. He turns back to the road with his jaw clenched, his eyebrows pulled together. We drive the blackened streets to my run-down neighborhood.
I don’t want to hurt Cameron. Not ever. “Why do you still talk to me?” I ask. “After what you’ve seen, you can’t possibly still want to be in my life.Idon’t even want to be in my life.”
Cameron licks his lips and glances at me. “Because I love you.” He says it simply, like it’s just a fact. My eyes begin to water.
And I don’t answer because I don’t know how. I don’t know how to explain how I feel about him. Don’t know the words. So when he turns back to the road, I lean over and kiss his cheek. I stay there, close to him, knowing that things have changed; there’s no going back. He’s too important to me. There’s time for him now.
Cameron looks me over, and then, with his eyes on the road, he turns his head, letting me kiss his mouth as he tries to drive. His arms draw me closer until I’m nearly in his lap.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly between his lips, using my good hand to hold his cheek. “I love you,” I whisper, because I do. So much. I can’t lose him, too.
“I know you do,” he says, kissing me with each word. “You don’t have to say it because I know you do.”
My tongue is in his mouth and I want him all over again, but he chuckles, moving me gently back. “You’re going to make me crash, Savannah,” he says. “Maybe we should just go back to my house.”
I shift back into my seat, the panic fading. I have him. I don’t have to fight for Cameron because I already have him. “Another time,” I say. “I have to go home in case Kathy lets Evan call.”
Cameron’s quiet for a long moment, and then, “You’re like completely obsessed with me now, aren’t you?”
“Hardly.”
