[Kendall]
Alberto and I play cards and sign while we’re playing.
First, we talk about Marco.
“We’re doing everything we can to find him,” he signs.
“I know,” I sign back.
“He’s like a ghost,” he comments, and I nod in agreement. It doesn’t take long for him to win three hands in a row and I curse out loud.
He grins at me, gesturing to the cards as if to say we should play something else.
I shake my head, and he looks at me for a long moment.
“Do you have brothers and sisters?” he asks, clearly happy to have someone to communicate with.
“None,” I answer. “You?”
He nods his head.
I smile a little. “I’m going to have a family, though. A baby,” I sign.
Alberto’s eyes widen and he grins. “I love babies. I have three brothers and a sister, all younger.”
We sign for a while longer, talking about his family and talking about my baby, and then Camden comes in the back door.
Alberto stands, looking a little sad, and I stand up to hug him.
“You made me feel very welcome,” he signs, and tears burn at the backs of my eyes. It must be so hard to be unable to communicate.
I sign goodbye after hugging him again and he walks out, past Camden who’s glaring at me.
“What were you two talking about?” Camden asks.
“Nothing. Well…Everything,” I laugh, and then I notice that Camden’s still glaring. “Are you… are you jealous? Of Alberto?”
Camden scoffs. “Why would I be? Just because you were clearly flirting with him?”
I roll my eyes, annoyance washing over me. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I? He’s the first guy you’ve seen since me and you’re all over him-”
“Stop it, Camden,” I warn, stalking into the living room. It’s pretty irritating, especially since Camden and I haven’t even talked about what we are to each other, not even after I told him about the baby.
He follows me. “I just think it’s interesting how interested you were in Alberto,” he starts, and I huff and whirl around.
“Let me ask you something, Camden. Are we exclusively seeing each other?”
“Of course we’re exclusively seeing each other,” he says, exasperated. “We aren’t around anyone else.”
“You know that’s not what I mean,” I say staunchly. “I mean, will that change when we get back home?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Camden hedges, but he clearly does.
“Are you going to go back to having three skanks in your bed a week once we’re back at home?” I blurt out, anger rising in me, and Camden blinks at me.
“You’re the one being ridiculous,” Camden says.
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. You’re jealous over Alberto, who was only here to protect me so that you could go out with Dante and do god knows what, and you can’t even tell me that we’re going to be exclusive when we get out of this.”
“I never made you any promises,” he accuses, and I stare at him, blinking.
“So you’re not going to be seeing me exclusively when we get home? This is what? Just all temporary?”
“Don’t say it like that, Kendall,” Camden says, looking away and rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “I told you that I’d protect you and the baby.”
“Protecting isn’t the same as being together, Camden.”
“I never said that we’d be together,” he says, looking right at me, and tears start to burn at the backs of my eyes.
“Wow,” I say, shell-shocked. I didn’t know exactly what feelings Camden had for me, but I assumed that he actually had some feelings for me. I guess I was wrong. “I guess that makes sense.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Camden asks, taking a step closer to me.
“Nothing,” I mumble, backing up toward the bedroom. “You know what? It doesn’t matter because this is all temporary, right?”
“Kendall-”
“So, if I did want to talk to Alberto, flirt with him, that’d be okay?”
Camden sets his jaw, glaring at me. He doesn’t answer.
“That’s what I thought,” I say, heading into the bedroom and slamming the door. It’s only lunch time, but I plan on going to sleep. I crawl under the covers and I hear Camden curse and stalk around the house.
I lie down for a few minutes but it turns out that I’m too angry to sleep, so I stand up and yank the door open. Camden, predictably, is pouring himself a big glass of whiskey.