Page 81 of Lucky Star

Chapter Thirty-One

Sarah

“You are not going to believe this!” I shouted to Cameron as I launched myself up the stairs.

After I summarized Shanna’s offer, we looked over the email she’d sent, surprised to see that not only would she be bringing me on in a fairly senior position, but the pay was significantly more than I would ever make working for Broderick (bribe money notwithstanding).

When Cameron finished reading through the document, he had a strange, confused look on his face. Passing the laptop back to me, he asked, “Is this what you want to do?”

“That’s the funny thing. If you had asked me two hours ago, I would have said no. But I have to do something. The more I think about what Shanna wants to do with her studio, the more intrigued I am by how it could play out.”

He looked away, and several seconds went by before he turned back to me. “I’m trying to think how to say this without upsetting you.”

“You don’t want me to do it.” It wasn’t a question.

Now that he’d dropped his mask, I could tell he wasn’t as thrilled with Shanna’s offer as I was.

“It’s not that. Not really.” Cameron ran his hand through hair that was still rumpled from sleep. “Promise you won’t be mad?”

I figured there was a high likelihood that was exactly how I’d feel once he told me what was on his mind. But since we’d finally gotten to a place in our relationship where we were being completely open and honest with one another, I didn’t want him keeping his true bottled up inside either. So even if what he was about to say made me angry, I’d do my best to control my response. “Sure.”

“I don’t want you to take the job.”

I waited to see if he’d elaborate. He didn’t.

“You’re going to have to give me more than that. This is a big deal. I just got fired, and Shanna is offering me an even better job than the one I lost.”

He fidgeted with the end of the sheet. He was naked under that thin layer of cotton, but I tried not to get too distracted by the thought as I watched him bunch and release the material. The action gave me frequent, if fleeting, views of the trail of dusky blonde hair that led to one of my favorite parts of him.

On a beleaguered sigh, he said, “I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time saying this. I guess I don’t want you to see me as some male chauvinist pig or something.” He shifted so that he faced me, his right leg brought up against him. “It’s just that when we talked about what came next for us, you never mentioned wanting to pursue anything like this. I thought we were on the same page. I’d make the money and you’d …”

He trailed off, but I knew exactly where the statement would have landed if he’d continued. He’d be the breadwinner, while I’d stay home to take care of him and our family. Eventually. Although the longer we waited to get starting on that, the harder it might be. That said, I didn’t see why I couldn’t have a job like the one Shanna was offering and still have kids.

I reached over to still his fidgeting hands. “You’ll make the money, while I make the family is what you meant to say. The thing is, when we talked about us starting a family, that was in the future.”

I tried to keep my tone neutral so that he understood I wasn’t angry. In truth, there was a decided lack of any strong emotion going on in my head or my heart, which told me perhaps I wasn’t quite as excited by Shanna’s job as I had initially thought. Maybe, what I struggled with most was that I was used to doing what I wanted, when I wanted, and having to consider how my plans impacted our life would take some getting used to.

“Sarah.”

I heard the frustration in that one word, but let it slide.

“I know, I know. I’m thirty-three. Trust me, my advanced age is not lost on me. But when we made those plans it was under an entirely different scenario. The first movie would be a big hit, you’d be a huge international star, we’d finally get married, and then I could step away to paint and raise our family. I don’t know about you, but in my mind, that wasn’t for a few years yet.”

He leaned back in bed and brought me with him. Tucking me up against his body, I rested my head in the crook of his neck.“We could get married now.” He spoke softly, his voice filled with yearning.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, and yet … I was.

I also didn’t completely reject the idea out of hand either.

Thinking it over quickly, I found I rather liked it. A long engagement was the exact opposite of what I wanted.

“When we get back to L.A.,” I said, skimming my fingers over his washboard abs, “I’ll look into everything. Maybe we’ll skip the whole big wedding and just have a small ceremony and then a reception at home. I could probably pull something together for the end of the summer, once everything dies down and all the vendors have time in their schedules. Filming should be wrapped by then, so we’ll only need to work around publicity, and maybe some re-shoots.” I hadn’t been one of those little girls who’d planned on a fairytale wedding, so it didn’t matter to me what we did or when we did it. The only thing I cared about was becoming Mrs. Scott.

I scooted away to gauge his reaction. Not that I hadn’t learned the hard way that Cameron could be a master at locking down his emotions.

“I don’t want to wait that long.”

“Okay,” I responded, mentally calculating a break in his calendar that accommodated his desire for something sooner but still worked with his schedule. Since I no longer had a job—unless, of course, I decided to take the one with Shanna—my schedule was flexible. Still, I didn’t see a way to make an earlier date work unless we went down to the Justice of the Peace, and I really wasn’t thrilled with that idea. And with Cameron about to become incredibly busy for a prolonged period of time, I didn’t think Broderick would be willing to give him a break to run off and get married. Especially given all the grief Cameron’s personal life had already cost him.

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