Page 38 of My Sweetest Agony

He watches me, as if he’s expecting me to expand upon my observation. When I don’t, he takes another long drag from his cigarette, then languidly releases it. “Do you not want me to come anymore?”

My gut tightens painfully, and I press my trembling hand over it. “No, it’s not that. I just…thought maybe you were avoiding me.”

His eyes never leave me as he inhales more smoke and lets it go in a round plume like the damn Cheshire Cat. Slowly. Deliberately. As if he’s trying to drag out my agony and leave me standing here longer looking like a complete and total idiot. “I haven’t been avoiding you, Ivy.”

Something tells me that isn’t completely true.

The slight downward turn of his lips and the steely set of his jaw. The way his shoulders tensed when I brought it up in the first place. The tightening of his fingers around his cigarette…

“What have you been doing then?” I glance at his bike behind me on the street and scan the area, still completely clueless what he would be doing in this area of town since he had already parked his bike and disappeared by the time I got through the stoplight that delayed me and found where he ultimately parked. “What are you doing here?”

The corners of his mouth twitch, the tiniest hint of humor dancing across his blue eyes. “If I told you that, it would kind of defeat the entire purpose…”

“Defeat the purpose? What the hell are you?—”

Oh, shit.

Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit.

I squeeze my eyes closed and bury my face in my hands. “Shit. I am such an asshole.”

Cam clears his throat, the sound as rough as the brick fencing us in on two sides. “You have never been, nor could you ever be an asshole, Ivy.”

Letting my hands fall, I force myself to open my eyes and look at him again. Really look at him and that torment in his gaze. And think about all the little comments he made that day at my house about high school and how he spent his time. And the things Drew alluded to at times, about Cam being dangerous whenever I tried to bring him up. “You were at a meeting.”

He nods cautiously. “NA. I’ve been clean and sober for a year.”

Oh, God…

“Do you go…every day?”

It would explain why he’s been leaving before I get home every day. He would have to in order to get here in time for it to start.

Glancing away to the other end of the alley, he places the cigarette between his lips and inhales deeply. Like he needs a moment and the nicotine to come up with his response. A few seconds later, he releases the smoke, still watching something on the street opposite me. “Lately, yes.”

Lately.

“Since Drew died?”

He swallows painfully and nods as he returns his attention to me.

Fuck.

And I’ve been annoyed with him for always leaving before I came home.

I thought he was trying not to see me for some reason. That I had done or said something wrong. I made it about me when it was about him and what he’s been going through. “I’m sorry…”

He snorts a laugh and sucks on the cigarette that’s burning precariously close to his fingertips now. “For what?”

“For being here. It’s none of my business.” I shove my hands through my hair, embarrassment and guilt mixing into a volatile concoction in my bloodstream. My legs tremble, begging me to bolt, to make a mad dash for my car to escape the sheer mortification I’m feeling under his scrutiny. “I shouldn’t have followed you. I shouldn’t have…inserted myself into your life when you clearly don’t want me in it.”

Cam’s back stiffens, and he drops the butt and his foot from the wall, grinding the toe of his boot into it.

He turns and steps closer, until the smell of his jacket, citrus, the wind, and the light smoke clinging to him floods each breath I take. “You don’t want to be anywhere near me or my life, Ivy. Trust me.”

Tension vibrates through him, and Cam tips his head back and stares up at the thin strip of appearing night sky visible between the tall buildings on either side of us.

A minute passes.