Page 27 of Lucky Star

Steve: How convenient for her.

Carl: You held out for Sarah? Do you need your head examined?

The final text came from Cameron’s younger brother, Daniel, and it might have hurt worse than all the previous ones combined.

Daniel: You’re a star now, man. You can get any piece of ass. No way that’s who you want to fuck for the rest of your life.

I staggered toward a stool before my legs gave out. Dropping my head into my palms, I closed my eyes to banish the images from my mind, but it was no use. They were burned vividly behind my lashes.

I’d been worried about the public’s reaction, but never in a million years had I thought our friends and family would say these cruel things. Surprise, ridicule, disgust, and even anger. Could they really be that upset? Why did they care so much who Cameron loved? How did it impact them?

But I knew the answer to all those questions. Some of these guys were Hollywood Hangers-On. Now that Cameron was a bonafide celebrity, they wanted to bask in the aura of his new-found fame. If he wasn’t out trolling for pussy, they couldn’t tag along to soak up his sloppy seconds. The fact that they expected Cameron to go buck wild and turn into a partier told me how little these guys actually knew him. If I hadn’t been so hurt by what they’d said, I might have laughed at the ridiculousness of it all.

Truthfully, I could almost understand the questions about whether or not I was pregnant. Jumping into an engagement at warp speed would appear suspicious under any circumstances. Surprise pregnancies and shotgun weddings no longer went hand-in-hand, but guys like Cameron would still feel honor bound to offer it as a solution. Perhaps his friends figured that while we’d been telling everyone, “Oh goodness no, we’re just really good friends,” we’d been secretly getting it on, and the result of those sexy times was a pregnancy.

The longer I sat there, the worse I spiraled. I tried to tell myself Cameron’s friends were fools and that their comments wouldn’t matter to him, but the more my mind protested against it, the more worried I became. What if because of those messages decided that he’d been too hasty in proposing.

With everything that was happening in his life at the moment, I worried that someday down the road he’d regret opening up and telling me how he’d felt about me. Or worse, that he’d think being with me would tarnish his image and hold him back from even greater success. But most of all, I feared that as awesome as I was, I wouldn’t be able to hold his interest while truly gorgeous women threw themselves at him. Was our love strong enough to endure that level of attention? Had we been doomed from the outset.

“Fuck.” I slammed my palms down, furious that I finally had the one thing I’d wanted most in life, and already I could feel it slipping through my fingers.

“What’s wrong?” he asked from behind me.

I turned to face him and whatever he must have seen on my face had him immediately on alert. “Is everyone okay?”

It took me a second to process his words, but then I realized he must have assumed there’d been some sort of tragedy. Which was a sobering thought. His asshole friends not approving of our relationship wasn’t a tragedy. It was an annoyance. We could get past it. I hoped.

“No one died,” I answered, my voice thick.

He blinked with relief. “You’re white as a sheet. What happened?”

“I shouldn’t have, I know … but …” I passed him his phone. “Here, just read these.”

He looked down at the device in my hand and then his eyes flicked back up to me. “What?”

I waved the phone between us. “Just read your text messages. The response to your little announcement.”

Cameron scratched the stubble on his chin, obviously not following, but took the phone from my hand anyway. “Text messages have you this upset?”

He went to punch in his code, but when he realized he didn’t have to, his gaze bounced to mine. “You went through my messages?”

“Your friends think I’m a joke,” I said, avoiding the accusation.

He looked back down at the screen, and his eyebrows furrowed into a deep vee. “No one is saying anything bad.”

“Not the congratulations,” I explained. “Those are wonderful. I’m talking about the other ones.”

Slowly, he shook his head—like he thought I was a lunatic—but then his head dropped forward and he scrolled through the messages as directed. I knew the moment he’d gotten to the ones that had me acting like a crazy person. His jaw clenched and then he sucked in a furious intake of breath.

When he reached the last one, he slammed the phone down onto the counter, shattering the screen. Cameron’s mighty chest rose and fell with rapid breaths and his eyes found mine. “You read that shit?”

His body was strung tight with suppressed violence, but I wasn’t sure if his rage was directed at me for having read his private communications, or at the indelicacy of those texts

“I didn’t mean to.” My voice cracked with emotion and a series of nonsensical words tumbled from my lips. “I shouldn’t have. I know that. They were private, for your eyes only. Not mine. Confidential.”

“Jake’s an asshole,” Cameron responded dismissively, not addressing the rest of them.

“It’s not just him, Cameron.”

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