Camden
I wake up again with a violent hangover and hate myself for drinking so much. I hate myself for what I said to Kendall, too, how roughly I made love to her. She doesn’t deserve to be treated that way, but it was like I was possessed. I’d felt like I needed to own her, like I needed to show everyone how she’s mine.
She’s carrying my baby, for god’s sake, how can she not be mine?
So, there’s this part of me that feels like she is, that doesn’t want another man touching her, but there’s this part of me that wants to go back to my old life. That wants to go back to fucking three women a week, to not knowing any of their names the next week.
That’s the life I’ve always lived. My safe life. A life without risk. Without hurt. And I can’t imagine living any other way.
Or, rather, I couldn’t. Now I can easily imagine living with a beautiful woman who smiles at me, her hair mussed from sex first thing in the morning. That’s the problem. Now I know there’s another way, but I don’t know how to move forward and I don’t know how to go back.
I hear someone banging around in the kitchen and can’t believe that Kendall is up and making breakfast.
“Do you want sausage or bacon?” she asks, and I think she’s been cooking a lot for someone who told me she doesn’t know how to very well.
“Neither,” I say. “Just toast.”
“You can make that yourself,” she says flatly, and makes her own plate, sitting down at the dining room table.
“Listen, Kendall,” I start, but she doesn’t even look at me.
“Jimmy’s coming today,” she says, and I look at her for a long moment.
“Kendall, I’m sorry,” I say softly, and she shrugs.
“It’s fine,” she says. “Don’t worry about it.”
She continues eating as if nothing’s wrong, and her blase attitude is beginning to anger me, but I can’t say why. Did I expect her to be sobbing all morning? Not really. But I didn’t expect this as well.
I open my mouth to apologize again but then Jimmy knocks on the door and I groan, getting up to let him in.
Kendall leads him into the bedroom so that he can do a quick exam on her, and I wait in the living room, bile rising in my throat from the hangover. I eat my toast and that helps a little, and make myself a cup of coffee.
Jimmy nods at me when he leaves, and I’m grateful for his discretion.
“What’d he say about resuming our activities?” I ask, hoping to lighten the mood just a little.
“He says we’re all systems go,” she says, but there’s something oddly flat in her tone.
“Do you… do you even want to?” I ask.
“Well, we already did, last night, remember?”
“Who could forget?” I ask, grinning, but she doesn’t smile back.
She just walks out to the pool and takes off her clothes, wearing a one-piece that I’d bought for her on our last supply run together.
Kendall jumps into the water and I frown and go back inside, clearing the dishes from breakfast.
What’s going on with her? Is she really still mad at me? If she is, why isn’t she yelling at me? Why isn’t she telling me I’m a selfish sonofabitch?
Kendall comes back inside after a while and I’m sitting on the couch, staring at the television but not really watching anything.
She starts to walk by me but I grab her wrist, stopping her.
“Are you still mad at me?” I ask.
She pauses for a long moment, and I feel a sense of relief, thinking that now she’ll yell at me.
But she doesn’t.
“No, I’m not mad.”
“Something’s clearly wrong,” I say dryly.
She shakes out of my grip. “No, I just had the wrong idea. Things are different than I thought, that’s all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, frowning.
“I thought maybe I meant something to you. Now I know that I don’t,” she says plainly, and walks into the bathroom.
I walk in behind her as she strips off her one-piece and gets into the shower. I huff out a breath and take my clothes off, getting in with her.
“We’re not done with this conversation,” I warn.
“Could have fooled me,” she says, turning away from me.
“Kendall,” I say.
“Principessa.”
“Don’t call me that!” she barks, turning around, her brown eyes flashing, and there’s a spark. Some signs of life.
“Finally,” I say, and she glares up at me.
“Finally, what?”
“Finally, you say something,” I say, frustrated. “You’ve been dancing around the subject all morning, and I’d rather just have things out in the open.”
“What is there to say?” she asks. “What is there to have out in the open? It’s simple. You want me to be yours but you don’t want to be mine. You’re just territorial. You want to go back to your old life. I’ll go back to mine. That’s what will happen when we go back home.”
“And until then?” I ask, my heart dropping.
“Until then, we’re stuck together,” she says, and pauses, rinsing out her hair without missing a beat. She looks back up at me when she’s finished, her hair long and slick down her back. “Or I could go to Dante’s.”
“You said it was too dangerous,” I say, my heart dropping even further.
She shrugs. “And you said it isn’t. Just be careful taking me, and we’ll be all right,” she says.
“Kendall,” I say softly. “That’s not what I want.”
“Well, it’s what I want,” she says finally. “I want to be back home. If this is all temporary, I’d rather it be over sooner rather than later.”
“You don’t mean that,” I say, staring at her incredulously, but she doesn’t answer, just getting out of the shower and grabbing a towel.
I follow her, again, grabbing a towel and slinging it around my waist as I follow her into the guest bedroom.
“You’re wrong, you know,” I say.
“Wrong about what?” she asks, putting on a nightie that I’d bought her.
I grab her wrist, turn her around. “You mean a lot to me.” Her eyes search my face. “You’re the mother of my child.”
Her face falls and she looks away. “Yeah. That’s all I’ll be to you, from now on. Just the mother of your child, right?”
“Quit putting words into my mouth,” I warn.
“That’s what you said,” she says stubbornly.
“That’s not what I said,” I argue, annoyed.
“So then, what did you say, Camden?”
My head is spinning from the hangover and the argument and I’m not sure how to respond. She’s right, I want to go back to my old life. But thinking about her with someone else, ever going on a date with someone else, ever letting someone else touch her… it makes me crazy.
“What do you want from me, Camden?” she asks softly, tears welling in her eyes.
“I don’t…” I pause. “I don’t know,” I say finally, dropping her hand, and she nods, sniffling, and heads into the living room. I don’t follow, sitting down hard on the edge of the bed.
Where do I go from here? Is she really done with me? Is this really the way that things end?