Page 123 of My Sweetest Agony

I just can’t seem to stay away.

Drawn like a moth to a flame.

And that’s what Cam is—a dangerously beautiful inferno that burns brilliantly bright but will also consume all the oxygen and sear your soul.

Why else would I be here except that, for some reason, I like the exquisite pain. I crave it. It’s so much easier to live with than the crushing agony of living alone without Drew.

“Camden?”

His name echoes off the high ceilings and metal beams as I take a second step in with my heart in my throat.

The soft clink of glass hitting the floor hard draws my attention to the far-left corner of the loft, near where the windows overlook the street.

Cam sits shirtless with his back to the brick wall, skin brushing against the rough material, knees up, bare feet planted on the floor, a bottle of whiskey dangling from his fingertips. A needle and a packet of something that makes my stomach turn sit a few feet away from him, next to his lighter and cigarettes.

All well within reach.

With his head dropped down, thick, dark hair tumbling across his face, I can’t get a good look at his eyes.

But I don’t need to see his face to understand the gravity of the situation.

Oh, shit…

My heart plummets into my churning stomach, my steps faltering. “Cam?”

Slowly, he lifts his head, and his red-rimmed eyes meet mine. Shadowy circles sit under them, tear stains running down his cheeks.

Bile threatens to gag me, and I force it down, trying to process what’s happening without losing my shit. Because that’s what he looks like at the moment, as if his entire world has imploded with him inside it, crushing him under the cataclysmic weight.

He doesn’t say a word, just lifts the bottle to his lips and takes a long pull from it. Watching the amber liquid disappear slashes at my heart like a knife, flaying away parts of it as I watch him drink away his hard-won sobriety.

My eyes shift to the drugs on the floor near him, but I can’t tell from here if he actually used them yet.

Fuck.

I move in cautiously, keeping my gaze locked on him, afraid that if I look away, he’s going to drown in that bottle or pick up the needle and do something very stupid.

“Cam, what’s wrong?”

Something drove him to this.

After over a year of not touching drugs or consuming any alcohol, I can smell it now, that sweet and spicy scent mixing with that of the paint and desperation clinging to him.

And it is desperation I’m seeing.

He looks utterly destroyed.

This isn’t the same man who left my house last night with a sexy grin on his face and promises to see me tonight after his meeting.

This is someone completely different.

This is the Cam he warned me about.

One corner of his mouth twitches slightly, but there’s absolutely no humor in the half-smile he gives me. And he doesn’t answer my question, just uses his free hand to motion absently to a small, partially crushed box open on the floor in front of him that I can’t see into from my position barely inside the door.

I narrow my eyes on it as I approach. “What is that?”

He swallows another gulp of his liquor and watches me warily. “It came in the mail. Apparently, the reroute from my place in London took a while because it got lost along the way somewhere, stuck in some facility. They finally delivered it today…”