Chapter Nine
Camille
“He's just so private, Liv,” I muttered over dinner the following night.
I had gotten a text message from Preston earlier in the day, once again apologizing for the day before. He seemed sincere and like he was genuinely sorry for blowing me off in the parking lot like he had, but I still couldn't wrap my mind around this new Preston – the one who talked about soccer practices and Iron Man cakes.
If he had a kid – and it sure sounded like he did – he hadn't mentioned it to me. Which, of course, made me think there was more he wasn't telling me. Like, was he married? The thought of that made me sick for more than one reason. I had just been cheated on, I refused to be the one cheated with.
“You've been on what, one and a half dates?” she said, picking at her salad, frowning as she dug around looking for something other than lettuce – and apparently coming up empty. “Give the man a break.”
I hadn't even touched my sandwich yet, and my soup was still too hot. Besides, I guessed that I didn't really feel like eating anyway. Truth be told, I just needed to see my best friend, and she'd suggested we meet and talk over dinner. My stomach was in knots and I hadn't felt right all day – and the more I thought about Preston, the tighter those knots in my belly constricted. They were becoming downright painful.
“Yeah, but we were friends before,” I said. “Don't you think he should have mentioned whether or not he had a kid before we got – involved?”
She shrugged. “Why don't you ask him?”
“Ask him what exactly? If he has a secret life he's not telling me about? Yeah, I'm sure that would go over really well,” I laughed, rolling my eyes.
I looked at my soup, trying to determine if it was safe to take a bite of it just yet, or not. Steam rolled off the top, drifting away on the subtle, invisible currents of air. Yeah, probably too hot still. I put my spoon down and waited a bit longer.
“No, silly, like just ask him what that text was about,” she said.
“You agree with me that it sounds kind of fishy, right?”
She nodded. “It sounds something. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but he's obviously got some secrets, she replied. She took a sip of her wine. I'd ordered a lemonade since I was driving for the night, a choice I regretted now as the idea of getting blind drunk and forgetting the whole world and all of its problems for a while sounded more than a little appealing.
“I did already, remember?” I asked. “He just said it was sent to the wrong person.”
“Yeah, but maybe ask him who he's buying a cake for?” she said. “Life doesn't have to be complicated, Cam. Sometimes you just have to say what you mean and ask the questions you want the answers to. You might find there's less drama in the world than you imagine there to be. All you have to do is learn how to communicate.”
I sighed. “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “You're right. Again. As always. But, it's not that easy. I like him, Liv. Like really like him. I don't want to screw this up by being clingy or needy. Or by demanding answers to questions he's not ready to give yet, because we're not quite at that point of our – for lack of a better word – relationship.”
Liv rolled her eyes and gave me an, “Oh please,” look.
“You do realize that most of the time, when men complain about women being needy, it's simply because of their own commitment issues, right?” she asked “Besides, Preston has already showed you he cares about you and wants to be with you – what's there to fear?”
“Honestly?” I nibbled my lower lip. “You're going to laugh and think I'm ridiculous.”
“I already do, sweetie,” she said and laughed.
A rueful grin touched my lip. “I deserved that,” I say. “But, I worry that he's married.”
“You think you might be a side-piece?” Liv asked, arching her eyebrow. “Do you have any reason for believing that? Or, is that just your anxiety and lack of self-esteem speaking again?”
“Who's Melody?” I asked. “I heard him talking to a Melody – about soccer games.”
“Could be his sister, and the soccer games could be his nephew,” she said, giving me a smug look.
“He doesn't have a sister named Melody,” I said, shooting her the same smug look back. “I know his entire family, remember? We used to be friends back in the day and I know for fact that he has one sister named Shelby – and that's it.”
“Could you have heard him wrong? Maybe he said Shelby and not Melody?”
I cocked my head and thought about it for a moment. Maybe she was right. It was possible that I'd misheard what he said. He was moving away from me and had his back to me when he was speaking on the phone. Maybe, I had misheard the name. Shelby was older than Preston, and last I'd heard, she was getting married. She could have kids. That might explain the cake too, since his sister and him were close.
“Yeah, alright. Maybe, you're right. Maybe, I'm overreacting. Happy now?” I threw my napkin at her.
“As long as your happy, Cam, I'm happy,” she said. “What are friends for?”
“Apparently, they're free therapists,” I said, sticking my tongue out at her. “Which reminds me, why do we always talk about my love life and never yours?”
Liv shrugged. “Because my love life is far less interesting than yours.”
“Uh huh,” I said. “I'll be the judge of that. How was your date last week?”
“You mean last month?” she asked and laughed. “The guy I met online?”
I shook my head in disbelief that it had been a month already. Geez. So much time had passed by already, and I hadn't even realized it.
“Yeah, Max, right?”
“Close – Mick who worked in IT,” she sighed. “And it went badly. Like, the I wish I could have left before we ordered kind of badly. He was a total narcissistic douchebag. He reminded me a lot of Stephen actually.”
“How so?”
“Condescending, talked down to everyone we came across, treated the waitress like crap,” she said. “Just like Stephen.”
“Stephen doesn't treat wait staff like crap.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Oh really?” she asked, a hint of amusement in her voice. “How soon you forget your engagement announcement party.”
I thought back to that night but drew a blank. I had zero clue what she was talking about. Liv, of course, was always there to fill in the details.
“A little redheaded girl, couldn't have been eighteen yet,” she said. “She was tiny and had this perpetual look of fear on her face –”
“Oh God, yes, I remember her! Abby or Allie or something like that,” I said. “I remember she was a sweet girl, but I still don't know what you're talking about.”
“Stephen grabbed her ass,” Liv said, almost like I should have known.
“He what?”
“Yeah, everyone saw it. I just assumed you had too,” she said. “It caused the girl to spill the tray full of drinks she was carrying all over the table.”
“I remember her spilling the drinks, but I had no idea –”
My mouth fell open as I remembered the way he'd spoken to her. After she'd spilled the drinks, I seem to remember that he'd screamed at her, told her to get out of his sight. His suit and my dress were drenched, but it had only been water. I told him to calm down, that it was no big deal, and that we'd dry out. But, it had taken him forever to stop glowering and hurling insults at the girl whenever she was in the room. The manager replaced her with another girl and the rest of the dinner went smoothly.
“Wow,” I said. “So, not only did he chew her out, but he's the reason she dropped the ice water all over us in the first place?”
“Yep,” Liv said. “And you wondered why your sister hated him, huh?”
“Wow. Just – wow,” I said. “I honestly had no idea. The more I talk to you and my sister, the more I feel like I never really knew Stephen at all. He's just turning out to be such a different person than the one I thought I knew.”
“That happens when you're in love,” she says. “You're blind to how much of a disgusting prick that person can be.”
I leaned back in the seat, shocked and bewildered by it all. How in the hell could I have spent so much time with a man who was such a terrible human being? How could I have never seen it? How could I have been with him for years, and yet, had no idea who he really was?
I'd apparently blocked out all the bad and focused only on the good – all in the name of love or some shit. I'd been so in love with him I'd completely overlooked his flaws and faults. And all the while, everyone else could see them clear as day. I would have been lying if I said I didn't feel like a fool. A blind idiot.
I met Liv's eyes. “I wish you'd have told me all this sooner.”
“I thought you knew,” she said softly, pushing her plate aside. “We all thought you knew. I mean, it was so obvious – and yet, you kept defending him. None of us could get through to you.”
“I'm so sorry, Liv,” I said, feeling a familiar churning in my gut. “I honestly had no idea.”
“Don't be sorry,” she replied softly. “You're the one who had to put up with him.”
“Promise me something, alright?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“Promise me that if I ever date a raging asshole like that again, that you'll tell me, okay? Please?”
“Only if you promise to listen to me next time,” she teased.
“I swear I will,” I said.
We sat in a companionable silence for a few moments, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Finally, she looked up at me and smiled.
“I guess I need to meet this Preston then, huh?” she asked. “Check him out and see if he's the real deal or not?”
She winked at me, and that's when I remembered my food. My soup had gone from being a million degrees to now being cold as ice. My sandwich was mostly untouched, but it suddenly looked completely unappealing. Honestly, I felt like I might throw up. I asked the server for a doggy bag, figuring that I'd be hungry. Eventually.
My phone went off in my purse, and I dug around for it as we waited for our server to drop off the check. I pulled the phone out and saw that it was Preston. Not texting me this time, but actually calling me – probably because I hadn't responded to his texts yet. I looked at his name on the caller ID, my heart racing and my stomach churning.
“Go ahead, answer it,” she urged me. “Talk to him.”
I hit the button to cancel the call anyway. I needed to talk to Preston, but not there. Not with Liv sitting across from me. We needed to have a serious talk and I thought we probably needed some privacy to do that.
“It's alright, it's just work stuff,” I lied.
“Pretty late for work, isn't it?” she asked.
I checked the time. After nine. Yeah, she had a point – it was probably too late for work calls. I couldn't even lie all that convincingly, apparently. But, I noticed that it was pretty late in the evening for Preston to be calling me too. He always seemed to call me later in the evening. As I thought about it, it hit me that late in the evening was the only time we saw each other as well. Besides when I saw him at the office – something I couldn't do anymore.
I'd give him a few days, see if he wanted to get together, then go from there. I'd feel better asking these types of questions in person anyway. For personal matters like that, I thought that looking him in the eye was the better way to go.
Maybe it was best to give things a few days to settle down. I thought it might be a good idea to give us both a chance to cool off a bit, and get our heads on straight, before we started down that long, emotional road. After everything that had happened with Stephen, I really didn't need a distraction or to let myself get tangled up emotionally in somebody, only to get myself screwed and broken-hearted for my efforts.
It was hard, though. I felt something for Preston already, thanks to our shared past. It was hard not to think of him as the same boy he'd been back then. The truth though, was that he was a man now. A man who'd gone through college, medical school, and a few jobs already. He knew where he wanted the trajectory of his life to take him and he was doing everything in his power to make it happen.
I, on the other hand, had started a business, gotten engaged, had several relationships in there as well. We weren't the same people we'd been back in those silly, carefree days. Things had changed. We had changed. With a lot more seeming to be at stake for us, I knew we needed to slow down. We needed to think carefully before plotting a way forward. Or, not plotting a way forward, as it were.
A few days. I thought that I'd give him a few days to get his head on straight. Time I'd use to do the same for myself. After that, I figured that we'd get together, and go from there. I wouldn't tell Liv my plan, because she'd push me to meet with him sooner.
Instead, I kept it to myself and we said our goodbyes. God, it was hard not to message him back with something more, but after Liv and I had gone our separate ways, I'd pulled out my phone and looked at the screen, stilly trying on my defense. It took me a couple of minutes, but I finally settled on message and keyed it in quickly, before I gave myself a chance to think about it.
Sorry, was with a friend. Talk later this week, maybe? Goodnight.
That would have to do. For now.
***
A few days came and went, and I was like an addict craving my fix. Maybe even worse, come to think of it. Every time my phone went off, I jumped to check the messages. Preston texted me every morning – just to say good morning – and we talked on and off throughout the day. I tried to keep things short and sweet, completely non-committal and non-threatening. I thought it best to keep it all above board and friendly. As we texted back and forth all week, I kept hoping he'd ask me out again, or offer to stop by. But, I got nothing of the sort from him.
I was sitting at home, alone, on a Friday night watching Grey's Anatomy. I couldn't deny that the doctors on the show had nothing on Preston – not even McDreamy. Still, seeing the doctors on my television screen got me thinking about Preston. More specifically, it got me thinking about how badly I wanted to see him. I was on the verge of giving in – the junkie needed her fix, after all – and reached for my phone to text him. At the very last minute though, I pulled my hands away and thought better of the idea. No, this time, I was going to do something truly crazy – I was going to call him.
I dialed his number and pressed the phone to my ear. It rang a few times, and I almost feared it was going to go to voicemail when Preston picked up. The moment I heard the deep timbre of his voice, I felt my heart flutter and my breath catch in my throat. Adrenaline coursed through me and I felt a slight tremor pass through my body.
“Hey, you,” he said, his voice barely audible. “What's up?”
“Why are you whispering?” I asked, chuckling. “Are you in a movie theater or something? I can let you go –”
“I'm not whispering, silly,” he said – still whispering.
“Uh, yes you are. I can barely hear you,” I said.
“Hmm, maybe you need to get your ears checked,” he teased “Screw you,” I said and laughed, despite myself.
We both laughed, and I had to admit, it felt good. I felt relaxed and felt all of the tension I'd been carrying around for the last few days was beginning to ease up some. Talking to Preston just felt natural.
“Well then, perhaps I should bring my elderly self down to your place in say, about half an hour?” I asked, unable to keep the flirty tone out of my voice. “Maybe, you can check my ears – and other parts of my body while you're at it.”
I expected some flirty response or clever comeback. Instead though, I got nothing but silence and a muffled voice as he spoke to someone on the other end of the line. He'd covered the phone, obviously, but I could tell he was speaking to a woman whose voice I could hear, and instantly, my hackles were raised and all of those good feelings I'd had went straight out the window.
When he got back on the phone, he said, “I'm sorry, Camille. What were you saying?”
His voice was still quiet – too quiet. He was using his, “I really don't want to be overhead by anybody” voice. I'd recognize it a mile off. It was as if he was trying to hide our conversation from someone. Every muscle in my body tensed up as I began to fear the worst. Began to fear that he really was living some double life with a wife and a child out there. But, then I remembered what Liv had told me and started trying to focus on calming myself down. Perhaps I was overreacting. There were other, logical reasons for all of this. Maybe, he wasn't at home. Maybe, he was at a business dinner.
Or, maybe, he was doing his best to keep me from coming by his home because he was hiding something.
“Uh, I just said maybe I could stop by to see you sometime,” I said. “Like maybe tonight?”
“Here?” he asked, the unmistakable sound of fear rippling through his voice. “At my place?”
“Yeah. I figured you've seen my place, it's time I got the tour of Casa de Preston,” I said.
“I don't think that's a good idea, Camille,” he said. “Maybe another time? Like, we can make plans in advance?”
“Sure. Fine,” I said. “Whatever you want to do.”
My words came out a bit harsh, and even Preston could hear the simmering anger in my voice over the phone. It would have been next to impossible to miss, quite honestly. It's not like I was taking any great pains to hide or disguise it. I was pissed and felt like I had every right to be.
“Camille – my life is a little bit complicated right now,” he started to explain. “I'm busy and am usually running in a lot of different directions. I really didn't expect you to come back into my life like this and I'm just trying to adjust on the fly here.”
“Well, how about you uncomplicate things and get back to me when you're ready, Preston,” I said, my voice cracking. “Because I'm confused as hell, and I'm not really sure what to think, let alone do about it. All I know is that I can't deal with begin jerked around and having my heart dragged through the mud. Not again. I won't do it.”
“I know,” he sighed. “And I'm sorry. Maybe we can get together in a couple of weeks to talk everything through. I want to tell you everything going on and find some ways for us to work through it all.”
A couple of weeks? He was really pushing me and this conversation off for a couple of weeks? “Sure, whatever,” I said, my tone biting. “Have fun at your soccer games with Melody and enjoy your Iron Man cake.”
It was petty and childish to throw that in his face, but whatever. I hung up before he could even respond. I was hurting and wasn't interested in being mature about it all. When he tried calling me back, I silenced the ringer and went to bed instead. I was already so tired of these games. So tired of asking, but not getting any real answers. Preston's secret life was too much for me to deal with after what I'd just experienced with Stephen. I was tired of secrets. I was tired of lies.
I was just tired.
He could either tell me the truth or not. And I would deal with it, either way.