Secondhand Heart (18 page)

“They didn’t teach you how to start a fire or anything?” I smiled against his lips, giggling at my own joke.

“You tell me.” Cam bit my lip, his hand hooking into the waistband of my shorts and pulling them down, stroking and teasing. I scooted over on my back so he could climb on top of me and finish his mission, just like a real boy scout.

When we were done, we laid there, listening to the water and the wind. Someone had lit a bonfire far down the beach, and the flames jumped and danced in the breeze. Even though we weren’t sleeping, something about this felt like we’d entered a different dimension. Like when the yoga teacher talked about floating away on the magic carpet.

“Do you want to stay out here all night?” I asked. “You’ll finally get your camping trip.”

“Please. I would have had to bunk with my friend Pete, who farted in his sleep. I’m not looking to recreate that.”

I burst out laughing. “No. Please don’t.”

“This is going to be fun, you being here. Being with you.”

“Yeah.” I hadn’t expected that it was going to be as weird as it was tonight, before Cam came home. I needed to get comfortable here, if it was going to be my home.

“I might be off, but that didn’t sound like excitement.” Cam picked up on my uneasiness.

“Yeah,” Even in silhouette, I could see the doubt all over his face. “It’s just a little lonely when you’re not here.”

“You’ll get used to it.” He traced his finger along my jaw. “I want you to make this your home. Invite your friends over. Have fun here.”

“Can I decorate?” I asked, cringing a little at my own words. I’d been here six hours and I already wanted to take over. What a nightmare. “It just doesn’t feel done.”

He chuckled. “It’s not done. I’d love that.” Thank God. “I don’t know the first thing about that stuff.”

“I’m going to be perfectly honest with you, I’m not very good at it either.” In Tucson, all we could afford was superstore garbage that we had to put together ourselves. We collected bags of spare parts from every piece like trophies. We weren’t really there long enough to get anything cool, and we didn’t want to have a ton of stuff to lug to the next place. Can’t take it with you. Jordan always used to joke. I never thought it was funny, especially not now.

“Better than me,” Cam said. “Ashley took care of all that stuff in the last place.”

Of course she did. “Did you like what she did?”

“She didn’t do anything besides hire a decorator. But yeah, it was alright.”

I relaxed once Cam confirmed that Ashley didn’t have a creative bone in her body. I wasn’t sure if I did, either, so at least I didn’t have to live up to that.

“Well, I don’t really have any money.” Might as well put it out there. “So I’m not going to be able to do anything on that scale.”

“I’ll leave you my credit card when I go to Nashville, and you can go shopping,” Cam offered.

“Won’t you need it?”

“I have more than one. I won’t miss it. Just don’t go too crazy.”

“I won’t.” I didn’t think, anyway. Cam trusted me with not only his money, but to make his house a home. This was pretty huge. I wanted to make sure I got it right. “I’m excited.”

“Good.” Cam snuggled in against me, his eyes growing heavy. “I can’t wait to see what you do with the place.”

“I
think you need to apologize to Ev,” Bree said as she pulled out a curtain panel from the wall in The Christmas Tree Shop. The boys were climbing on the furniture in the middle of the display, and jumping off. A few shoppers glared in our general direction, but Bree had learned to block those judgy bitches out long ago. She looked at me through the sheer fabric. “Would these work? I don’t even know what we’re looking for.”

“I think they’d be pretty cute.” They were cream colored with a monochromatic floral pattern embroidered throughout. They’d soften the place up without looking too girly, I thought. This was harder than I expected. Cam didn’t give me any guidelines. This project was truly all me. “And she can apologize to me.”

“Just make peace with her, we’ve got the bridal shower coming up and I don’t want it to be all weird.” Bree dug through the bins. “How many of these do you think you need? Four?”

“Yeah. If the shower’s weird, it’s not going to be my fault. It will be because Ev serves nothing but field greens and my mom tries to sell people shit.” I sighed, annoyed at always having to be the one who admitted to being wrong. “I’m not giving her a hard time about marrying Roger. And I hate Roger. She likes Cam. She needs to chill the fuck out.”

An old lady’s eyes grew wide with my F bomb. She looked down at the kids and shook her head. That’s what she got for eavesdropping.

“It’s not Cam that bothers her. It’s Jordan.” Bree blurted out, and now I had the same look on my face as that old broad who I offended with my language.

“Why would Jordan bother her? He’s not here to bother her anymore, if you haven’t noticed.” I didn’t understand this at all. She and Jordan were friends. I never knew there was a problem, and this seemed like a hell of a time to bring it up.

“She was always jealous of Jordan, Daisy. Because you guys were just so good together.” Bree looked down at the curtain package. “And she’s got to try so hard for everything. She knows that her marriage isn’t going to measure up. But just forget I said anything, okay?”

How the hell was I just supposed to forget that? Ev didn’t think she could measure up to me? That was crazy. Ev had talent and passion, and I’d had a husband. Had. Was that why she was giving me such a hard time about Cam? Why did Bree drop this on me in the middle the curtain aisle?

“Why are we even here? Did Cam give you a budget or something?” she asked, throwing the curtains in the basket. They landed on Lucas, who’d climbed in to ride along. He thought that was great, and picked up one of the packages to hit Landon over the head with.

“Guys, don’t do that.” I put a stop to that. We were probably close to getting kicked out without those two pulling out their WWE moves, and I was more than thankful for the change in subject. I just didn’t know what to say to her claim. “No, he didn’t. But sometimes there’s cute beachy stuff here.”

“You’re insane,” Bree pointed out the obvious. “If I had carte blanche, I wouldn’t be shopping here with all the blue hairs. Do you really want these? Because I say screw this place, let’s go to Pier One. Or wherever else is better than this. I don’t know. Half my crap comes from Savers. Or whatever my mom buys for me on her home shopping channels.”

“I feel dirty spending his money.” I lifted Lucas out of the basket. “Something about it feels little whorish.” Especially after just talking about Jordan.

“Don’t. He’s made more money than we can even comprehend since he won The Spotlight. Whatever we think is going to be extravagant won’t even make a dent in his bank account.”

“You don’t know that.” I shot Bree a look as she backed out of the parking space. Her preoccupation with Cam’s money rubbed me the wrong way. “And I don’t want him to think I’m just with him so I can shop all day. I feel like he’s trying to get away from that.”

“Well, what I’m saying is that he grossed four million dollars the year he won The Spotlight. Four Million.” Bree sounded like Dr. Evil, the way she emphasized the amount. “And that was five years ago. So—“

This needed to stop. Now. Bree was hyper-aware of money, since she had absolutely zero, but whether or not Cam had money didn’t change anything. I wasn’t asking him for any. I thought of this as doing him a favor. It was still his stuff. “So that doesn’t mean shit. It could be all gone. Do you think if he was on top of the world, he would have opened a bar in Plymouth? I don’t see Tim McGraw opening restaurants.”

“Toby Keith has a bunch of them.” Bree shrugged. “And he’s huge.”

“Maybe it’s something that country people do. I don’t know. But it’s a little creepy, the way you keep coming up with all these fun Cam facts. Stop stalking my boyfriend, Bree.”

“I only ever pick up losers. I’m living vicariously through you. The last guy I dated stole my EBT card.”

“Anthony? What a dirtbag. Not surprised.” I never understood why Bree attracted such jackasses. I’d call it a talent if it were a good thing. I’d given up encouraging her to date because some variation of that always happened.

“You shouldn’t be. At least I had the good sense to not let that one move in.” Bree shuddered. “I’m getting better.”

“I guess.” Baby steps, right? “Listen, I don’t want you to tell Ev about Cam giving me his credit card.”

“Why?” Bree’s mouth dropped. Crap, I hoped she didn’t already.

“Because things are weird between us about it anyway, and what you told me just made it even weirder. I don’t want her to think I’m doing this for the wrong reasons. More than she already does. And I don’t know how much Cam is paying her, because I don’t think anyone actually pays Ev for her publicity work.”

“Really? How does she survive?”

“Like any other O’Brien girl does, she mooches off her parents.” I laughed, but Bree didn’t. “I might be totally off. I just know she was asking for rent money a lot. Cam wouldn’t screw her over if he could pay her.”

“We hope.” Bree was right. Cam and I still had way too much we needed to talk about. “Good thing Roger got that job.”

I rolled my eyes behind my sunglasses. “I’m sure that’s going to come with a whole new set of problems. He’ll be way too busy to help Ev with the baby, but he’ll give her a hard time if she wants to quit her job. No matter what she does, he will find some way to make her feel like shit.”

“Daisy, he’s not that bad.” Bree looked at me once we pulled into the spot in front of Pier One. Lucas had fallen asleep, and Landon hadn’t made a peep since we’d got in the car. Baby sedation.

“I hate him.” I folded my arms and looked away from her. Want me to go from zero to pissed off? Bring up Roger.

“Why?” Bree asked as we pulled the boys’ sleepy, limp bodies from the car. I laid Lucas over my shoulder until we could grab a shopping cart. Landon looked dazed and confused, but he could at least try to put one foot in front of the other. “He’s not hurting her.”

Bree hadn’t always been so lucky. Neither of us said anything for a minute, I let the gravity set in of how different my idea of a good guy was from hers. I wanted someone who made me better. Bree wanted someone who didn’t make her worse. On paper, it might seem like the same thing, but the reality of it couldn’t have been further apart.

“No. But he finds all these subtle ways to keep her down.” I was sick of talking about Roger, and glad to be looking at pretty furniture. “Because he sucks at what he does.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. It’s just weird. But this is cute. Would this work in the condo?” Bree leaned down to run her hand along a light blue shag rug. “I’ve always loved these, but mine would be caked with fruit loop crumbs and boy snot in a day.”

“It would work.” Cam already had some blue accents, the color just made sense in a beach house. “But anyway, I hate to think of Ev wasting her life with Roger.”

“You can’t take it out on her. She thinks you’re trying to sabotage the wedding.” Bree hoisted a rolled up rug into the cart.

“What?” She couldn’t be serious.

Bree looked sorry she said that. “She said she thinks that you want to ruin the wedding somehow. I don’t know. I just wish you two weren’t fighting. It’s stupid, Daisy. We have so much to be happy about right now.”

I put down the mirror I’d been considering. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so much like shopping anymore. “I’m not trying to ruin her wedding. If her life sucks, it’s her own fault.” I headed out of the store. I’d come back on my own.

“Daisy!”

I leaned against the car for fifteen minutes, sweating as the hot afternoon sun beat down on the asphalt. Bree tried to talk to me on the way home, but I didn’t answer. I was sick of fighting with Bree and Ev over men. Wasn’t there a rule about that somewhere, not to let men come between girlfriends? Yet, we were letting them tear us into pieces.

N
ow that I’d finished my classes, I had a lot of time to myself. Still in the habit of waking up at seven, and with Cam in Nashville and therefore unable to keep me up past my bedtime, I started walking on the beach in the morning.