Page 46 of When You Are Mine

“I know, baby.” His voice dipped a little lower. “I need to speak to you alone.”

“Okay. Mer, go on back to sleep.”

“Just holler if you need me,” Walsh heard Meredith say before the sound of her feet shuffling off reached his ears.

“I had a lap dance tonight.” Cam’s abrupt confession sounded sharp and clear.

“Okaaaaaay.” Walsh could almost picture Kerris’s delicate features crinkling with the question before she asked it. “Did it make you realize you’re not ready to get married or something?”

“No!” The fierce denial disappointed Walsh. “Just the opposite. I didn’t…feel anything. I mean, you know, I’m a guy. So I was aroused.”

“I think we can skip certain details.” Walsh heard a smile creeping back into Kerris’s tired voice.

“I just didn’t want us to go into tomorrow with that between us,” he mumbled. “Guys were taking pictures and stuff, and I didn’t want that to get back to you. For you to think I’d done something wrong. She just sat down and started grinding on me.”

“Again with the details, Cam.” Kerris’s husky laugh made Walsh want to run up the stairs and tickle her sides like he had at the birthday party, so she’d laugh some more.

“I just want you to know I won’t hurt you that way.” Walsh had never heard Cam so solemn. “I’ve never been faithful to anybody, Kerris, but I will be to you. I promise.”

“I believe you, Cam.”

“I love you, Ker.”

And then it was quiet. Walsh gripped the edge of the bench, cutting off the blood flow to his fingers. Cam was kissing her. And he had every fucking right, but Walsh wanted to rip his head from his shoulders.

“Time for you to go.” Kerris accompanied the admonishment with a laugh. “I’ve heard it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding,”

“We already had all our bad luck. Tomorrow’s a fresh start for us.”

“A fresh start. Yeah.” Walsh could hear the smile just beneath her words. “See you in the morning.”

“G’night.”

It was Cam’s last word before he stomped down the stairs over their heads. Hearing Kerris excited about her fresh start with Cam had sobered Walsh. He still believed she was making a mistake marrying Cam with this attraction between them, but hearing his friend’s desperate grasp at the happiness that had always eluded him, and was now so close at hand, convinced Walsh that he could not be the reason it slipped away. He blinked a few times, wishing the pain would shift. It felt like a rock lodged under his heart.

He noticed for the first time that Jo had tears in her eyes. She blinked several times, but a few managed to trickle down the keen lines of her face. A realization started unfolding in his mind, at first questioning and then, as he saw her still holding back tears, it hardened into certainty.

“You’re in love with Cam,” Walsh whispered, awestruck that he had been so close for so long and never seen it. It was skywritten all over his cousin’s face.

“That’s ridiculous.” Jo swiped at a tear, reining her mouth into a stiff line.

“I know what I saw, Jo, so don’t try to play me off. I know you.”

She was silent, rubbing her palms up and down her slim thighs, biting her lip.

“Why torture yourself planning their wedding?”

“I don’t—”

“Please don’t insult me,” Walsh cut in. “I didn’t see it before, but I do now. So why’d you do it?”

She hesitated, closing her eyes before finally speaking.

“Because he deserves to be happy. And she makes him happy.”

“Did you ever tell him? There’s still time to stop this.”

Jo lasered her eyes on him, pointing one long finger in his face.

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