Page 28 of Coincidentally Kismet

Cam

????

Will

Let’s agree to be friends, for Lo and Smith.

Cam

I know you don’t want me in your life, and frankly, I’m not sure I want you in mine. I care about you and that will never change, but I think it’s for the best if we don’t pretend this is some weird twist of fate or that it means something it doesn’t. It’s purely coincidence that we ended up living in the same city. We don’t need to be friends just because our friends are dating.

Wow, I feel like I might throw up. Cam really doesn’t want me in her life. I always knew I would have a hard time if I ever ran into her and her husband, the fictitious one that lives in my mind, back home. I never imagined that I would run into her here and that she would be single and still want nothing to dowith me. Bumping into her anywhere outside of our hometown hadn’t ever crossed my mind as a possibility. I assumed she was living in Iowa with Mr. Perfect, not living thousands of miles from home with a roommate.

I should just respond and say yes, we can forget it all, but deep down I know now that I’ve spent time with her, I can’t do that. I’m jealous of every minute my friends spend with her that I don’t. It makes my skin itch when she razzes Butler or Ruiz, or when she does something nice or gives advice to Smith. I should evaluate what that means, but it doesn’t matter. I won’t go there. I will not let myself think about the possibility of being vulnerable just to have someone walk away.

I know that I’m not the guy for her. I can give her pleasure for sure, but I can’t make her happy—not, like, truly happy, white picket fence and two-point-five kids happy. How have I been going through life without her all this time?

“What are you going to say?” Amy asks, interrupting my thoughts.

“Honestly, I have no fucking clue. What should I say?”

“Sayno! Ugh...tell her you absolutely are not going to forget it and thatyes! Fate did bring you back into each other’s lives, and you aren’t entirely sure what that means, but you’d like to try being friends,” Amy rattles out, sounding completely exasperated by this entire situation and me.

“I don’t know, maybe there just really is too much hurt there. I mean, I want to be friends, that’s why I sent the message, but if I’m being honest, I’m not sure I even really know how to just be friends with her,” I admit.

“Well duh! I swear some days I think you’re the smartest person alive and others I think you’re more on par with a caveman. You aren’t actually going to end up friends, but too much time has passed. You need to live in the friend zone for a little bit until I can get you back into the boyfriend zone, Will.”She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, just like she did when we were kids and she meant business.

“I don’t want to be out of the friend zone, though, Aims. I can’t.”

“Shut up, Will. You can lie to yourself all you want, but I see the connection you two have. It’s like watching two magnets orbit around each other until they eventually crash together under the weight of the pull. You always start out in separate corners, but don’t forget big brother”—she pats me on the shoulder—“I’ve been with you every time she’s around, and you both end up trading verbal punches as an excuse to be near each other.”

I’m probably going to live to regret it, but I let Amy type the message out and send it. I can’t forget Cam lives here, and I also can’t justify rushing back into things. Maybe Amy’s right, maybe being friends with Cam is the way to go, and maybe we can end up just being cool with each other.

She always was my best friend and it would be nice to have that back, even if it scares the living daylights out of me. I tell Amy I’m going to head to the shower and beg her not to respond to any new messages without my approval. A long, hot shower is what I need to get my mind clear and figure out my messy life.

CHAPTER 13

CAM

To say it’s been a weird couple of weeks would be a gross understatement. Of course, there was the excitement of spending some time not working when Daveed had his show, which I thought would be a good time to figure out how exactly I was going to reinvent my life, but instead it turned into a night of drinking far too much coupled with William Davenport trying to waltz back into my life.

Then there were the run-ins, first at my favorite deli with Lo, then at trivia, and finally at the Alley with Elliott. How is it possible that I’ve lived here a whole year and never seen Will once, and then suddenly I see him three times in less than that many weeks?

I can’t even picture the little green syringes or the giant blue fishbowls without facing a bout of nausea. And I don’t have any clue of what to think about this Will situation, which also makes me nauseous. Basically, I’ve spent the last ten days living in a weird space-time continuum of intensely needing to vomit and being utterly dumbfounded over my incredibly terrible luck.

The problem is my best friend is cuddled up with his best friend. Avoiding him is almost impossible at this point. I came toTampa to have a fresh start, to become the Cam I’ve always been destined to be, and I don’t know if reintroducing the Cam from my past is really helping with that mission.Hello, old friend nausea, I’m so glad you only took a five-minute break.

“What’s going on over there, sweet girl?” Daveed asks, intruding on my thoughts.

“Just thinking, nothing, I’m fine, totally cool over here,” I reply nervously.

“Mm-hmm, sure sounds like it...I’m almost finished up here. Can you take these bowls back to the galley and wash them out for me? I’ll be back as soon as I get Ms. Martha here under the dryer, and we’re going to talk it out.” He directs me with a point of his index finger and a reassuring nod.

Great! Fantastic! No biggie!I’ve tried so hard to keep it together. Coming to work, asking great questions in preparation for the hair trials I will be facing to earn my chair, and keeping my head down. I should’ve known that Daveed would poke and prod it out of me at some point.

I puff out a deep sigh and quickly round up all the dirty color bowls before making my way to the back. Maybe I can distract him with a conversation on color waste, seeing how some of these bowls are nearly full. It’s pretty apparent there’s some overmixing going on.

Rationally, I know it won’t work. Daveed is good at sussing out the goings on of his employees; he looks at us like we belong to him—not in a controlling way, but in a loving, you’re-my-family kind of way. Aside from his four fur babies, his stylists and assistants are the children he and his partner, Luka, never had.

---