All Over You (All Falls Down #3) (16 page)

I hesitate on the threshold of Rory's dorm room before stepping inside. My gaze darts around, taking in the space. The double occupancy dorm has one small bed on each side. The room isn't small, but it's not exactly massive either. Two desks sit against the walls on opposite sides of the room, both cluttered with books, paper, pens, and all those weird things college kids collect over the course of a semester.

One side of the room is neat and tidy. A couple of small band posters hang on the wall in frames. Shoes are lined up beneath the edge of the bed in an orderly row, and a basket of folded laundry rests on top of the dark comforter on the bed. The other side of the room has clearly been rifled through, making it obvious which side is Rory's. His bed sits slightly askew on the frame, the pale blue comforter wrinkled as if someone lifted it up or sat on it. A mug on the desk is toppled, pens, pencils, and erasers scattered across the top beside the laptop. A haphazard stack of papers threatens to tumble off into the floor. Books have been pulled off the shelf over the desk and hastily put back in place.

My gaze lands on the photographs on top of a small dresser on the messy side, confirming my gut instinct that this is Rory's half of the dorm. He is pictured front and center in a few of the photos, alongside an older couple, the resemblance making it clear they're related, likely his parents. Others are candid shots of him and his friends. One of me holding my guitar sits in the middle of all the others. Mitch took that photo right before my first performance at his bar. I was so focused on tuning the guitar I didn't even notice the flash of his camera. I look ethereal, like I'm in a completely different world.

I avert my eyes after a moment, my heart aching at the thought that this kid spent so much of his time on someone pretending to be me. Someone who didn't deserve him. Because of her, he will never get to take another goofy photo with his friends or look slightly bored while his parents force him to pose for another family shot.

Does she know? Does she even care?

Cam pulls the door to the room closed and steps up beside me. He's quiet as he hands me a pair of gloves and then looks around. It takes him all of two seconds to pick out which side of the room belongs to Rory while he dons his gloves. He immediately makes his way to the desk that's been rifled through, moving the cursor on the laptop to see if it's turned on. It isn't. He moves along to the papers on the desk, shuffling through them.

I stand in the middle of the room and watch him, uncertain if I should touch anything even with the gloves on.

He looks up after a moment and notices me still standing there. "C'mere, kitten," he says, holding out a hand to me.

I quickly cross to him.

"You good?" he asks, examining my face with narrowed, attentive eyes.

"Yeah," I say, nodding.

He tugs me forward, wrapping an arm around my waist and giving me a reassuring squeeze before pulling a book from the shelf. My gaze falls on the papers he's scattered across the top of the desk. I start flipping through them. Most are class notes, each letter small and tightly spaced. One page sticks out from the others, the corner worn as if held often. Even upside down, the writing is familiar.

I tug the paper from the stack and then turn it so it's oriented properly. My throat threatens to close as my gaze scans across the page. It's a song, or a rough draft of one, and it's mine. I know because I wrote it three months ago.

"Cam," I whisper, completely stunned.

"What is it, kitten?" he asks, glancing up from the book he's thumbing through.

I hold the paper out toward him, my hand trembling. "I wrote this," I mumble.

He frowns, his gaze moving between me and the piece of paper in my hand. "It's yours?" he asks.

I nod.

"Someone copied it?"

"No." I choke on the word.

He must sense my distress because he takes the sheet of paper from me and steers me toward the bed, forcing me to sit. I take a deep breath and then another, trying to calm the nerves suddenly clamoring. My hands are shaking so hard, I have to ball them into fists to still them.

Cam sinks to his knees in front of me. "Talk to me," he says.

"It's a song I started writing three months ago. I thought I lost it," I whisper, swallowing in an attempt to work moisture back into my dry mouth. The action doesn't help. "Why is it here?"

"Where did you last see it?"

"At school, maybe?" I shake my head. "I don't remember. I was just messing around after parent-teacher conferences, waiting for some of the other teachers to finish up so we could go out for drinks, and the song came to me, so I jotted down the lyrics. When I looked the next morning, the sheet wasn't in my bag. I figured it must have fallen out at some point." Clearly, I was wrong because it's here, in Rory's room…the absolute last place it should be.

"Did anyone else know about it?" Cam asks me.

"I don't think so. I never had the chance to show anyone."

"It's a love song," he says, his eyes scanning across the page as if he's reading the words.

"Yes." It
is
a love song. Or the beginnings of one, anyway. The song is about two people grasping for more without even knowing one another. I started it after reading a novel about two people who meet in a club and throw caution to the wind. Given that I was supposedly in a long distance relationship with Rory at the time I wrote it, it's incriminating as hell, lending credence to the theory that we were dating.

Cam's smart enough to grasp what the song seems to imply without me spelling it out for him. He's silent for a long moment. Too quiet. Unease is painted across his face, hesitation plain in his gray eyes.

"It's not about Rory," I mumble, my stomach roiling at the look on his face, like he's questioning whether I've been honest with him. Like, maybe, I've been playing him this entire time.

"What?" His gaze darts to mine, his brows furrowed.

"It's not about Rory," I say again, a little louder this time. "I didn't write this for him or about him." The words feel like glass in my throat, abrading it. The thought that Cam doubts me is a crushing blow, sucking air from the room. I push to my feet, causing him to stumble back before he catches himself and rises gracefully, like a big cat.

"Kitten―"

"I didn't write this for him, and I didn't send it to him." I feel caged in, the walls pressing in on me. In an attempt to ease the panic squeezing air from my lungs, I pace around the small dorm room, taking deep breaths. My heart is racing, pounding so fiercely, I think it's going to beat right out of my chest. "I didn't do this, Cam. I
didn't
."

"Kitten, stop." He tosses the page to the bed and grabs for me, yanking me into him.

My body collides with his. He wraps his arms around me, caging me against his chest. I struggle for a moment, trying to fight my way free of him, but I can't. As always, he's too strong, too big. Too
there
. And, perhaps for the first time since he met me, he now has a reason to doubt me.

"Let me go," I cry out, desperate to get away before he says the words out loud and breaks me. I've been so worried about breaking him that I never stopped to consider that he could do the same to me. But he can. He has me, all of me. I think he has since the very beginning. And he can destroy me.

"No."

Knowing I can't get away from him unless he lets me go of his own volition, I stop fighting. A whimper breaks from my lips before I can stop it. I shudder in his arms, trying not to completely lose control as the truth crashes over me like a tidal wave.

I'm falling in love with him. And there's absolutely nothing I can do to convince him that I didn't write that damn song for Rory, not when it's here…in his dorm room.  Not when it's my writing.

"I didn't do this," I whisper, pieces of my soul breaking. "I didn't, Cam."

"Goddammit, kitten," he rasps in my ear, holding me tight. He doesn't sound angry though. He sounds…sad. Like maybe his soul is breaking, too. "You think I don't know that you didn't do this?" He shakes me a little in his arms, as if trying to make me see sense. "I know you, sweetheart. I
know
you."

I burrow my face into his throat and sob.

"You okay, kitten?" he asks when I finally stop crying.

We're on the floor in Rory's dorm, Cam holding me in his arms like he's trying to hold me together.

I nod, but don't lift my head to face him. I keep it pressed to his throat, breathing him in.

He rubs my back, pressing a kiss to my head, and then he sighs softly. Wrapping his arms around me, he rises to his feet. I cling to him, unwilling to let go. I'm a coward, but I don't want to have the conversation I know is coming. I just want to stay here, wrapped in his arms until this entire nightmare ends.

Except…it won't.

Cam sets me on the bed, unlatching my arms from around his neck.

He kisses my fingers and then sinks to the bed beside me.

"Look at me," he murmurs with his hand on my chin, trying to turn my face to his.

I hesitate for a moment before giving in to the inevitable. My eyes flutter open, gritty and swollen from crying. His expression is grim as he searches my face, his eyes filled with some emotion I can't name. He looks tired…defeated. And maybe a little bit pissed.

I half expect him to yell at me, but he doesn't.

"I believe you," he says simply.

"Okay," I whisper, my throat raw.

"No," he says with a shake of his head. "I need you to listen to me, kitten, and I need you to hear me. This thing between us isn't going to work otherwise."

"Okay."

"I believe you."

"I know how this looks," I say after a moment, not lying to him. "I'd understand if you didn't believe me." I want to believe he trusts me, but why would he? Why
should
he? If I were him, I'm not so sure I would believe me, or that I could, not after this.

"Motherfucker," he mutters under his breath and then he rakes a hand through his hair before tugging on the strands. "You are the most frustrating fucking woman I've ever met, kitten." He narrows his eyes at me. "I know you didn't do this. You aren't capable of something like this. Stop questioning whether I believe you, and accept it."

"I'm trying." I
am
trying, but every time I feel like I have my feet beneath me, the rug is pulled out from under me once again. It's discombobulating. And so is he.

He hesitates for a long moment, and then sighs, letting the subject go, though I have a feeling we'll be revisiting it soon. "I know you don't want to believe someone you care about is doing this to you," he says grimly before reaching behind him to grab the song lyrics he tossed aside to console me. "But you don't have a choice anymore, kitten. You're being set up. You have to accept that now."

He's not wrong. Someone I love is purposefully trying to ruin my life. Someone I love is a killer. And unless I suck it up and learn to deal, someone I love is going to let me go to prison for their crimes. There's no denying that anymore, not when a song I wrote is here, hundreds of miles from where it should be.

"I need to know what you want to do with this." He holds the sheet of paper out before me.

I blink at him, confused. "What I want you to do with it?"

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "If I turn this in," he says carefully, his tone concise, matter-of-fact, "they're going to issue a warrant for your arrest sooner rather than later. You'll be charged with manslaughter, and this will be used as evidence against you at trial."

The way he says the words makes my heart stall. Not because he's telling me what will happen, but because of what he's hinting at doing. "Cam," I whisper, my heart in my throat. "What are you saying?"

He doesn't answer me, and that's answer enough.

"You have to turn it in," I blurt, stunned that he's even considering doing something so monumental. Cam doesn't play by the rules, and I know that, but this is different. He isn't
just
breaking the rules this time. He's considering breaking the
law
and his oath to uphold it. There is no way I can let him do that and live with myself. He has to turn the song in, even if it means I go to jail. "You're a cop. You can't just pretend this doesn't exist, not for me."