Page 79 of Coiled Tight

“Everything okay, darlin’?”

“Um. Hi. Sorry, I’m…”

His voice sounded oddly scratchy, his eyes watering when he caught my gaze.

“What happened?”

Cam averted his gaze for all of two seconds. I noticed more freckles across his face that hadn’t been there when he’d first joined us.

“Kara texted.”

Fuck.

Truth be told, I hadn’t taken the time to come up with a plan for this. I hadn’t thought his friend would reply. I thought he’d have to deal with the uncertainty of not hearing back. I hadn’t figured out how to make him live with it yet, but it had seemed closer to the realm of possibility at the time. Clearly, I misjudged her and their relationship.

“Want to head inside, and you can tell Daddy about it?”

Cam whimpered. I’d referred to myself in third person for this reason. Things might be moving slowly between us, but Kara’s text must’ve sent him back to square one, thinking he didn’t deserve a Daddy or anything else. I wouldn’t be doing a good job as one if I didn’t remind him I was still here to take over, would I?

“You read it first.”

Given that he shoved his phone in my hands, I didn’t have achoice not to.

The screen was unlocked, showing Kara’s text.

And his response.

waffles_and_whips

i’m sorry

cats are awesome. what are their names?

my boss just let me adopt three dogs

they’re awesome too

two of them are babies

okay, sorry, i’ll stop

sorry

I sighed.

All in all, I supposed it was better than I could’ve predicted. Then again, I didn’t know Kara—or,soft_and_sweet. I couldn’t tell if her nickname was an accurate representation or a random choice. I didn’t know what tone Cam would’ve read beyond the words on the screen, and I didn’t have a way to convince him it was the wrong interpretation.

“Let’s get you inside, darlin’.”

“Why?”

I ignored the question. The bubbly tone said everything I needed to know—everything I’d already gathered from his reply—about where his head was. I just lifted him up and pretended I struggled more with the action than I did just to hear the tiny snort that came out of him.

He wrapped his arms loosely around my neck and didn’t make a fuss because someone might see. It was a good thing. Besides, if someone happened to be driving around here and got a glimpse of it? And they wanted to give him trouble?They’d have another thing coming. I couldn’t quite stop them, but I could enforce consequences.

“I’m useless.”

The words were mumbled against the neck of my shirt. The mumbling didn’t stop the lance digging into my heart.