I loved spending the night with you.
Hope you slept well.
Have a good day off.
Cam
“Pull it together, Maddy,” I mutter, tossing the note I’ve just read for the four hundredth time today onto the passenger seat of my Jeep as the light turns green. Hitting the accelerator, I crank up the volume on “It’s All Coming Back to Me.” Appropriate, considering I’ve spent much of today with last night’s phone conversation coming back at me in flashes.
I woke up this morning to my phone completely dead, buried under my covers as if I dropped it when I fell asleep. When I plugged it in and it powered on, the first thing I saw was a good morning text from Cam. Twenty minutes after that, my doorbell rang, and I opened the front door to a breakfast delivery consisting of the aforementioned note, iced coffee exactly theway I like it, and mini boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, which I finally got around to telling him was my favorite cereal.
I have no recollection of hanging up last night, which means there’s a nonzero chance Cam watched me sleep over the phone for who even knows how long after the best late-night phone conversation of my life. I should find that creepy and weird, but instead, every time I think about it, my insides melt into a puddle of goo, and I spent my entire day off reading and re-reading that damn note and protecting it like it’s the original Declaration of Independence or something. He’s sent notes every morning with his daily breakfast deliveries, but something about this one, after the night we shared, feels likemore.
A man who video calls you late at night and tells you you’re a fucking miracle and then sends you breakfast in the morning is a dangerous, dangerous man if you’re not looking to fall flat on your face in love. I’m not, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I’m heading rapidly in that direction anyway even though it’s been more than six weeks since I even kissed the guy.
That shouldn’t even be possible. And yet.
In retrospect, Celine love songs probably weren’t the best choice for driving music today.
My tires squeal as I take the turn into my parents’ driveway just a little too fast, and with a sharp gasp, I slam on the breaks because right there in my usual spot is a big black Range Rover.
A very familiar black Range Rover.
Cam’s familiar black Range Rover.
“What the fuck?” I mutter, reversing and swinging into a spot at the curb, wondering what the man I can’t get out of my head is doing at my parents’ house half an hour after the official start time for the annual Wright family Halloween dinner.
Unless it’s about work, I have a pretty fluid relationship with time.
The late October air is crisp and cold when I get out of the car, the first trick-or-treaters already starting to roam the block. My parents’ front porch is decked out in jack o’ lanterns, and thefallen leaves crunch under my feet as I make my way up the front walk. Jogging up the steps, I open the door to my childhood home, and a chorus of voices spills out of the house. One of them as familiar to me as the Range Rover in the driveway.
My stomach shimmers at the deep gravelly tone, even as my brain starts waving red flags.
“Maddy!”
I freeze just inside the front door, turning at the sound of my brother’s voice and looking straight into the living room where my parents, Brian and Olivia, my grandma, Oliver, and Cam are sprawled out, the coffee table already littered with a variety of drinks, bowls of candy, and a platter of appetizers.
Cam. In my parents’ living room. Sitting on the couch next to Brian, wearing jeans and a gray sweater that hugs every muscle like it was custom made for him, lips curving up in a smile and blue eyes swirling with something that makes my stomach swoop as he drinks me in like he hasn’t seen me in days.
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Uh, what are you all doing here?”
My mom shrugs, tossing me two mini bags of M&M’s from the table, and I catch one with each hand. Cam chuckles softly, tipping his head to me as if to sayGood catch. “It’s Halloween dinner.”
Halloween dinner is something my family has been doing since the first Halloween I lived here. That night, I got to stay up past my bedtime and have late-night tacos with my mom and her friends, and a taco dinner on Halloween night became a kind of family tradition after that. But it’s the one thing in my life that has, historically, been limited to my immediate family only.
“I know it’s Halloween dinner.” I let my gaze sweep around the room, aggressively avoiding looking at Cam, which is hard when he’s just so…there. “It’s our thing. We’ve never had guests before.”
“Your mom was sulking since Gracie couldn’t make it,” my dad says, referring to my youngest sister who is spending herjunior year of college abroad in London. When my mom elbows him—because we all know it’s for sure my dad who was the one sulking that one of his children is currently almost four thousand miles away—he just grins and wraps an arm around her. “She invited Brian and Liv since they’re kidless tonight. They brought Cam, whose kids have apparently also abandoned him to do Halloween things with friends.” He pauses, giving me a wicked grin like he absolutely knows how much this is throwing me. A quick glance at my mom shows me green eyes dancing with amusement, which means my dad told her about Cam and me.
Excellent.
Love that for me.
“And I have no clue what Rachel’s doing here, but there’s nothing new about that,” my dad finishes.
“Felt like crashing,” my grandma says with a grin. “Besides, I had to see my girl. You got a fancy new job and forgot your grandparents exist.”
