Page 37 of My Sweetest Agony

One of his black brows rises to meet the hair falling across his forehead. Accusation darkens his blue gaze the longer he holds mine. “Just happened to be hanging out in this alley for fun on a Monday night?”

He takes a long drag from his cigarette as he waits for me to respond, looking so casually sexy and dangerous in his leather jacket, dark jeans, and T-shirt reclined against the wall with one knee up, booted foot pressed flat to the brick.

The man has caught me red-handed—or red-cheeked as I feel the heat creeping over them.

My throat tightens, strangling my ability to come up with any response when I know there isn’t one that would make any sense.

“Um…”

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

There isn’t any way out of this that will allow me to walk away with my pride intact. It left the moment I decided to follow this man.

“Okay, so maybe I was following you.”

A long stream of smoke floats from between his lips, and he raises both brows slowly. “Because?”

I let out a heavy sigh, my cheeks heating so badly that I know they are candy apple red by now. Averting my gaze, I concentrate on the grainy, uneven texture of the brick on the wall immediately next to him instead of having to keep looking at him while we have this conversation. “Christ, this is embarrassing…”

He doesn’t say anything.

A second passes.

Another.

Sounds of cars passing on the streets and the smell of the smoke float over me, but Cam remains absolutely still and silent until I finally force myself to look at him again.

The corner of his mouth twitches before he shoves the cigarette back there, still watching with that consuming gaze that seems to see straight through me.

Be honest, Ivy.

It’s really the sole option. Even if I were a good liar, I don’t want to lie to Cam. That would only continue this dance, and we need to get off that floor and somewhere that I’m not spinning and spinning endlessly.

There are already too many secrets.

Too many unspoken truths.

Between Cam and Drew. Between Drew and me. And now, between Cam and me.

“I haven’t seen you in over a week, yet you’ve been at my house every day.”

His shoulders tense slightly, but he releases another puff of smoke casually, as if my statement didn’t somehow rattle him. Anyone else might not have caught that tiny muscle movement, the shift in his stance against the brick, but in so many ways, he’s so much like his brother that it seems I can read him just as well.

It was intentional—him being gone by the time I got home each night.

He didn’t want to see me.

That knowledge somehow makes acid burn in my throat, because this entire week, even if he hadn’t been single-handedly ensuring I’ve been fed and leaving me those little glimpses into Drew’s and his past, I would still know he’s been there.

I can feel it—his presence in the house.

Not to mention the fact that his scent seems to permeate the air long after he’s left.

I’ve come to expect it to be there the last week, and the thought of walking in one day and it not being there makes my eyes burn with tears I don’t understand.