Camille wondered how much Elise knew. She and Lou had been friends for years—had Elise noticed the way Lou looked at Camille across the locker room? Had she guessed at what was happening between them, the stolen moments and secret touches and the relationship that had grown in the shadows? The possibility that others had seen what they'd tried so hard to hide made Camille's stomach churn.
Camille drank the cold water without tasting it. Her phone burned in her pocket like a brand.
"I need some air," she said finally. "Going to grab coffee at Lavender's. Clear my head."
Elise nodded. "Want company?"
"No. I—no. Thank you."
The walk to Lavender's on her crutches was supposed to help. The morning air was crisp despite the Phoenix Ridge sunshine, the kind of weather that usually lifted Camille's spirits. Palm trees swayed gently along the sidewalk, casting shifting shadows on the concrete, and somewhere nearby a sprinkler system hissed as it watered a manicured lawn. Normal sounds. Normal sights. A normal morning in Phoenix Ridge, while Camille's entire world was collapsing.
But her crutches made the journey awkward and slow, and every step sent fresh jolts of pain through her knee that mixed with the ache in her chest until she couldn't tell which hurt more.
She pushed through the coffee shop door, the familiar bell chiming overhead with cheerful indifference to her misery.
And walked straight into a wall of cameras.
"Camille! Camille, over here!"
"Is it true you're dating Lou Calder?"
"Sources say you've been seen together multiple times—care to comment?"
The reporters were everywhere—four, five, six of them crowded into the small coffee shop, phones and cameras thrust toward her face like weapons. Lavender behind the counter looked horrified, frozen mid-pour with a latte she'd never finish. The other customers had scattered to the edges of the room, watching the spectacle unfold with the particular fascination of bystanders at a car crash.
Camille's stomach dropped.
"No comment." She tried to back toward the door, but her crutches made her clumsy, her injured leg refusing to cooperate. "I'm just here for coffee."
"Is Lou Calder your girlfriend?"
"Are you a lesbian, Camille?"
"Does Mario know?"
The questions came rapid-fire, each one landing like a blow. Camille's vision tunneled, the faces of the reporters blurring into an indistinct mass of hungry eyes and flashing lights. Her pulse thundered so loud she could hear it in her ears, drowning out everything else. The coffee shop suddenly felt too small, the walls pressing in, the smell of espresso and pastries turning her stomach. Someone's phone camera clicked rapid-fire, the sound like a machine gun.
This was her nightmare. This was the exact scenario she'd been afraid of since the moment she'd kissed Lou in that shower—the exposure, the questions, the public dissection of something private and precious.
She wasn't ready for this. Wasn't ready to answer questions she hadn't even fully answered for herself. The relationship with Lou—whatever it had been, whatever it might have become—was supposed to be private. Protected. Theirs.
And now it was being dissected in a coffee shop by strangers who didn't care about her pain, only her story.
"I have no comment on my personal life." Camille's voice came out steadier than she expected, years of media training kicking in despite the panic clawing at her throat. "Please respect my privacy."
"But the photos?—"
"There are no photos." Even as she said it, Camillewondered if that was true. Someone had talked. Someone had seen something. How else would they know?
"Our sources are very reliable, Camille. Multiple witnesses have confirmed?—"
"I said no comment."
She pushed past them, her crutches catching on someone's foot, nearly sending her sprawling. A hand reached out to steady her—one of the reporters, the recognition hitting her with a jolt of revulsion—and she jerked away so violently that she almost fell anyway.
The door. She needed to get to the door.
Camille burst out onto the sidewalk, the morning sun assaulting her eyes after the dim interior of the coffee shop. A cab was idling at the corner, dropping off a passenger, and she lurched toward it with the desperate energy of someone fleeing a burning building. Her crutches caught on the uneven sidewalk and she stumbled, nearly going down, but adrenaline kept her upright. She couldn't fall. Not here. Not in front of them.
