Page 27 of Things We Tell Ourselves

Camille looks at the two tiny bags Buck and Easton are holding, wondering what all she could have packed in them. “I’m going to head to my room,” Camille says, glancing up at Wade.

Wade breaks his weary stare on Sadie, his mood lifting as he looks at Camille, the corners of his lips curling. “I’ll walk you.”

Camille stops one step up the stairs, bringing her closer to Wade’s height. She doesn’t know what she’s going to say to him as she faces him. Thank him, maybe, for being so kind to her. Tell him how great he looks, even in the harsh L.A. sun. She can’t hold his gaze for long.

“I, um,” she looks down at his feet, “wanted to thank you for uh…” she forces herself to look up at him. He’s staring at her. She can see him looking over her eyes, then her nose, then her lips. His eyes linger there, and he moves closer. Her stomach leaps, and she grips the handrail, words spilling from her. “Thank you for not trying to kill Leah last night.”

A smile spreads across his face. He tilts his head back, chuckling. Relaxed, he slides his hands into his front pockets. His eyes are bright in the sunlight. “You’re welcome,” he chuckles. “You don’t have to worry about that when my mom’s around. She’s got security with her everywhere she goes.”

A phone ringing in the distance jolts her, and she recognizes it as Evelyn’s ringtone. “That’s my phone,” she says, turning to look up the stairs. She’d left her phone sitting on the kitchen counter earlier.

“I’ll catch up with you later,” Wade nods, backing away from the stairs.

As she hurries up the stairs, she glances over her shoulder at him. “Thanks for lunch.”

He waves a hand in the air, heading toward the pool.

In the guesthouse, she answers her phone before it goes to voicemail. “About time,” she exhales, walking over to the windows to look out over the pool. Wade is walking past, and she wishes she could go back to the moment at the stairs. She should have stayed quiet, should have let him lean in.

“Hey you,” Evelyn says faintly.

Wade disappears under the back patio of the main house. Camille turns her back to the windows, dipping her head toward the phone.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re going to do so good at the meeting.”

Camille looks at the phone a second and then returns it to her ear. “Have you been drinking?”

She hears Evelyn make a hissing noise through her teeth. “That hurts,” she groans, away from the phone.

“You have to sit still, Ms. Sykes.”

Camille doesn’t recognize the voice.

“Lynn, what is going on?”

“I don’t want you to freak out,” Evelyn says, her voice sounding groggier by the second, “but there was a teeny tiny accident at the restaurant.”

Nine

“Evelyn was able to tell me that she was okay, but there was an incident with the fryer at her parent’s restaurant. Her burns were bad enough that she had to be brought to the hospital. When she passed out on the phone—”

Wade’s eyes widen. “She passed out while you were talking to her?”

She gives him a solemn look. “Yeah, she did. They’d given her morphine, which is why she was able to call me despite the pain from her burns. They gave her enough that it caused her to pass out. The nurse who picked up her phone explained it all to me much clearer than Evelyn had. The grease got all over her, but the burns were particularly bad on one of her forearms. To the point where the nurse said that they will have to keep her overnight, but she’s going to be okay. Her parents have already been contacted in Florida, so I wouldn’t be able to get there any quicker than they can.”

“So you’re staying,” Wade states, looking her face over.

“I think so,” she swallows. “I won’t be of any help to her once her mother’s there, and she’ll be mad if I leave before we have a chance to discuss Bloom and Bloom’s interest in our product.”

She was fishing, she knew that. Walking from the guesthouse to the main house, Camille decided that if she had the backbone to walk out of the Toronto meeting, then she had the backbone to see this deal go through on her own. Mentioning Bloom and Bloom’s interest in her product was to see if Wade would give anything away. If the company wanted more than the Oxygen Recycler.

Wade nods slowly. “Okay, then. Looks like I’m not the only person who probably works too much.” He gives her a tight grin. “I’m sorry to hear about your friend.”

“I’m sorry too,” Easton mumbles from the couch, his eyes locked on the game.

“Thanks,” Camille sighs, “she was lucky.”

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