Page 27 of Be Mine Forever

Home? Was this still home? He’d come here hoping to recapture some feeling. The safeness, the rightness he’d experienced here once upon a time. But nothing felt right. If anything, the dreams had gotten worse and the nights longer since he returned.

It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel safe. It didn’t feel like home.

“For the most part until the exhibit. I’ll see you when…I see you.”

“Will you? See me, I mean.”

Her words at his back pulled him around to face her. Jo tucked one foot against her ankle, leaning a shoulder against a sturdy column, arms folded across her chest.

“Seems to me,” she continued, “you didn’t see me for six months after Christmas. Then another month since New York. No telling how long it will be this time. You used to like me.”

“I’ve got an idea.” Cam took a few steps backward in the direction of the garage, his motorcycle, and escape. “Why don’t we pretend this conversation never started?”

“Why would we do that?”

“Because of how pointless it would be.”

“Are we going to ever have an honest conversation, Cam?”

“We’re always honest with each other.”

“I used to think so, but lately…”

Jo dropped her eyes to her feet, shaking her head and dislodging one rebel curl, which broke free from the rest. Cam walked back up, stopping one step below Jo so they were eye level. He lifted her chin, trusting himself with only that much of her.

“Jo, I know things have been…strange between us lately.”

He waited for her nod. She met his eyes, and he hated seeing her tears. He slid his fingers from her chin to cup her jaw. He’d only seen Jo cry a few times in all the years he had known her. Didn’t she know by now he wasn’t worth it?

He thumbed the wetness at the corner of her eye.

“Jo, don’t. Things will get back to normal soon.”

Her fingers caged his hand against her face. She raised tear-spiky lashes, and he wished she’d kept this vulnerability to herself.

“What if I don’t want things to go back to normal?”

Cam stepped back down the steps until her hand had no choice but to let him go. He found his keys in his pocket and tossed them in the air, catching them a few times, taking care with his answer.

“Peter seems like a good guy. Youshouldgo on that date.”

She drew a sharp breath like his words had slid between her ribs, before expelling it in a long exhale. She blanched like a white flag. Surrender and resolve settled like sediment on her face, layer by layer until her thoughts were completely buried alive, and he had no idea what she was thinking. Was left only with what she said.

“You’re right. Peter is perfect for me. I don’t know why I even hesitated.”

“Well, as sappy as it sounds, sometimes we don’t know our hearts, I guess.”

“Oh, I know my heart. Now I just know better.”

He barely recognized her face, covered with this sparkling new indifference. He had put distance between them. Deliberately. Cruelly. Mercifully. It had taken him hours to undo damage the light flirtation with Etty in front of Jo had done. That girl had clung for a week, and he’d barely convinced her he still wanted only friendship, but it had been worth the trouble. If it convinced Jo once and for all that he was a triple-A asshole, then it was worth it. He should get out of here before she lost that. He walked toward his bike like the devil had a warrant for his arrest. This time, she didn’t try to stop him.

Chapter Nine

Jo spread peanut butter on white bread. Her eating was all shot to hell. And she’d skipped her run this morning.

That ass won’t keepitselfin check.

Ignoring her inner fit bitch, she sliced up bananas and laid them across her not-wheat bread and her full-fat peanut butter. Cam had introduced them to peanut butter and banana sandwiches the first time he’d spent the night. She and Walsh had devoured them, going through an entire loaf of bread in one sitting. Cam had a whole list of sandwiches he’d used to survive in Barfield projects.

---