Page 25 of The Stranger's Code

Levi let out a pained laugh. “You don’t see how fucked up that is, Cameron? Fuck. Is that why you let me—last night when we—did you just want to know how I would kiss you? How I would touch you? For your fucked up character research?”

“You don’t get to talk about last night,” I shot back. “You’re the one who pushed me away. You’re the one who tried to turn everything between us off like a faucet?—”

“Yeah? And you put the final nail in the coffin.” Levi moved away from the engine he’d been working on. “I trusted you, Cameron. I let you in. Iwantedyou. I was falling?—”

He suddenly cut himself off as he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. None of it matters anymore.”

“Levi, don’t do this,” I begged. “We can fix this. Just talk to me?—”

“There’s nothing to fix, Cameron Clarke,” he replied, his tone dejected. “You and me? We never had anything between us. Because I don’t know you, Cameron Clarke. I don’t know you, at all.”

“Levi? Levi!” I shouted after him, as he turned to walk away from me. A part of me wanted to go after him, but I knew there was no use.

He wasn’t going to come back to me. No matter how much I wanted him to.

I watched Levi Stratton walk out of my life, I sank down to the grass below me, my hands catching my fall. All I could think about was the connection between us, that piece of invisible string being cut and frayed, fizzling out into nothing.

Fizzling out inside my chest.

10

LEVI

I’d never feltlike this before.

Like I was hollow from the inside out, something missing inside my chest. I tried my best to ignore the feeling, to bury it down deep inside. But nothing seemed to be working and the feeling remained throughout the day and long into the night. It ached worse when I thought about Cameron, his lips on mine, his bright smile. But it only ached a little less than that when I wasn’t actively thinking about him, almost like his impact on me was impossible to escape.

Focusing on Big Sky Rescue provided some temporary relief, my thoughts too concentrated on work to be sidetracked by Cameron. It still felt like I was drowning, though, water rising all around me despite being on dry land. One of the most frustrating parts of all? I wanted to talk to Cameron about all of it, to get his opinion, and ask for his advice. I wanted to confide in the one person who held my head underwater and forced water right into my lungs.

This is hell.

“Where are you right now?” Shane’s question cut through the darkness in my head.

“What?” I looked at him from across my desk. “What do you mean? I’m right here.”

“No. You’re not.” He eyed me up and down. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Absolutely not?—”

“Fine. Then, I’ll talk about it,” he interrupted. “You’ve been moping around the ranch for days. You’ve also been moping around town, too, since Jolene says you came into her diner, ordered a single egg for breakfast, and then just left.”

“I just wasn’t feeling very hungry, but I didn’t want to insult her?—”

“No appetite. Moping around. Burying yourself in work,” Shane continued. “You’ve practically been living in your office?—”

“Since when is that a problem? Don’t you want me to get this place into the black?”

“Levi.”

“Shane.”

“Do you really need me to say it?”

“Say what?”

“This is not how you are after a breakup, if you can even call them that. You usually just drift apart, maybe have a loud argument, and never talk again. But does it ever affect you? Nope. You go back to whatever you were doing, like nothing ever happened. But with Cameron? It’s obvious that something is different.”

“I just need more time to bounce back, that’s all?—”

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