Story of my life, if I’m being honest. I wasn’t a priority either.
Between my mom being wife number one and Staci at number five, there were three others with various lengths of time ranging from one year to four. The woman he left mymom for—wife number two, Rosa—was the shortest marriage of them all, thanks to him cheating on her after their first wedding anniversary and getting what was about to become wife number three pregnant. Somewhere I have a brother, who’d be about ten years old. His name is Brennan, but sadly, I barely know him. After he was born, my dad realized the whole parenting thing wasn’t any better a second time around, so when he left Vicky and Brennan for greener grasses, she moved back to Pennsylvania, where she was from.
That leaves us with wife number four, who is—so far—his second longest marriage after my mom. Claudia was a widow about ten years older than him. I honestly think she was just lonely and enjoyed his company. From what I could see, they got along well, though I admit I didn’t see them very regularly. I actually thought he might stick around for that one, but alas, four years after they said I do, he was caught naked at Buckman’s pond with an equally naked Staci Jones. It was the scandal of the summer two years ago, and a month after their divorce was final, he jumped on a plane with Staci and tied the knot.
And this is only half of my DNA…
“So weird,” he mutters, having the same opinion of my dad marrying someone half his age as me. He gives me a look full of concern and hesitation as he asks, “And your mom? How’s she doing?”
I sigh and grab another chicken wing. “Still chasing love.” There’s a bite to my words, because as much as I hate to admit it, my mom is just like my dad. Except they couldn’t live together—or, as it’s proving to be true, with anyone else for that matter.
He doesn’t say anything for a while, and our attention returns to the TV. There’s something about talking about my parents that just wrings every ounce of energy from my body. I feel tired, weighted down by the heaviness of my past.
It wasn’t your typical case of abuse, not like what you see in the news. My parents fought like cats and dogs with each other, never with me. They barely noticed me. They were too enthralled in their own drama to pay any attention to what I needed as a young child. I heard the fights, listened to them spit vile, terrible things at each other, all while being completely oblivious to me within earshot.
And when the fighting stopped?
They still had no clue what their roles were as parents, and I suffered because of it.
Thank God for the Millers.
“How about you?”
“How about me what?” he asks, getting up and moving to the kitchen to wash his hands.
I wait until he returns to the living room, two fresh bottles of beer in his hand as he sits back down on the couch. “What do you see for your future? Surely Laura Fischer isn’t in that picture, right?”
Cam snorts a laugh and hands over one of the beers. “I don’t know, man. It would make me a dick if I said she’s more of a right-now kinda girl, but…yeah.”
I see a flash of hurt in his eyes he covers up before it can linger too long. It’s not my story to tell, but Cam was in love once. Hard. The kind of love we teased him about at the time, yet knew it was forever. However, after high school, everything changed. We don’t talk about it, about the woman who took his heart with her when she left town that summer after graduation.
“I date. That’s all I need for now,” he finally says, and I’m certain that’s exactly how he feels. It’s been nearly seven years since she left, and while his facade shows a carefree, charismatic guy who’s moved on, I know differently.
“Fair enough,” I reply, watching a bit more of the baseball game.
Neither of us comments on how sad we are. Me, crushing on his sister five years my senior, and him still hung up on his first love. Oh, we cover both up, choosing to live life as best we can. I mean, we are twenty-four, almost twenty-five, respectfully. We do everything you’d imagine guys in their early twenties would do.
But we both carry extra weight, on our shoulders and chest. Pressure we don’t talk about unless we’re alone and feeling the heaviness like tonight.
As I so often do, I think about Charli. Though, this time, I see her in a slightly brighter light. Something was different about our interactions today in her studio. Not only did I feel her eyes on me when she walked in and saw me standing there in my underwear, but her words held a slight change. One that danced on the side of flirting instead of our normal back-and-forth banter. The entire room felt sexually charged, a feeling I’ve never gotten from her before.
Hell, maybe I’m just imagining it because Iwantto feel that. Iwanther to look at me as a man she’s attracted to, not her younger brother’s best friend. Seeing the way her eyes dilated as she drank in my entire body like I was a cold drink of water after a long day of working outside was a jolt to my libido. It made my desire for her increase tenfold, and it was already on the verge of consuming my every waking thought. Now, I picture the way her eyes burned into me, feel the tingle across my skin from her hands.
It’s a form of hell I wasn’t prepared for.
It’s a memory I’ll never forget.
“You got it, sweetheart?”
I glare over at my friend. If I wasn’t carrying the hundredth sheet of OSB, I’d lift my hand and flip him off. Instead, I voice it. “Fuck off,” I mutter, tossing the sheet onto the stack in his trailer and ignoring the sound of his laughter.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asks, grinning from ear to ear as he takes off the pair of leather work gloves he put on before we started loading the wood.
“Nope, it was great. Just the workout I needed after a long day of lifting sheets of steel to make cabinets from,” I bark out, trying not to sound annoyed. It’s been a very long Wednesday, and I’m more than ready for a bite to eat, a shower, and bed. It’s been a week and a half since I went to Charli’s studio, and even though we didn’t make another appointment, I contemplate what to do. She may tell me to beat it, to go back to the big place in North Ridge, or she’ll tell me she has an appointment available Saturday, before we celebrate her thirtieth birthday.
The way I’m feeling, I’m going to need another massage soon.
At the end of the workday, Camden called to ask if I’d help him load OSB sheets into his trailer at the hardware store. He got his landlord’s permission to redo the interior of the old garage, reinsulating the space and replacing the interior wood that’s been there since the garage was built in the seventies. Since Camden utilizes the space often for tune-ups and small mechanical jobs, he made a deal with the landlord that if he purchased the materials, Camden would do the work.
