Page 67 of My Sweetest Agony

“I don’t know.” She places her hand over her heart, tapping it lightly on that spot. “Mother’s intuition, I guess. I just have this bad feeling, that there was a reason he didn’t come back. Something he didn’t want me to know, didn’t want me to see.”

She doesn’t know how right she is.

And I desperately want to tell her so she can help him, so she can reach out and maybe get him to open up to her about everything.

I want this chasm between them to close.

“Well, I hope he does come back soon.”

For her sake.

It has nothing to do with the fact that I don’t know what I’ll do if he doesn’t show back up at the house again. If I don’t open the door after work and smell that leather and citrus scent permeating the air. If I don’t find the little Post-it notes left all over. If I have to feel like that house is empty again without his huge presence. Because I can’t want those things.

I can’t want Camden Usher.

19

IVY

THREE DAYS LATER

I secure the cellophane wrap around the bouquet of stargazers and hand it off to the gentleman on the other side of the counter with the same smile I’ve been forcing for days. “There you go. I hope your wife enjoys them. Happy anniversary.”

He grins, and the joy reflecting in his eyes as he thinks about going home to her with the flowers makes my heart stutter and my eyes well with tears I thought I had finally managed to control. “I’m sure she will, thank you again.”

My gaze follows him as he weaves around several customers and exits the shop, but even after the door closes behind him, I keep staring at it.

Watching those little bells hanging above it.

Wanting them to ring.

Willing someone else to walk through it.

A specific someone.

The same person I’ve been waiting for the last several days, who has not made an appearance here or at the house, despite my stupid hope that he would.

But there hasn’t been any sign of Cam.

That apology written on a Post-it note is apparently all he has to say about what happened between us. I wish I could so easily push it away and go on with my life as if nothing has changed, but the massive upheaval of the last couple of months has left me desperate for something that I thought—just maybe—I might have felt that night.

Which leaves me standing here, just as lost and alone, if not more so, than I was before we drove to the shore and said goodbye to Drew.

A throat clears behind me, and I whirl with my hands on my chest, heart thundering against my ribcage.

When did she sneak up on me?

Trina leans against the counter, her gray eyes locked on me, scanning me from head to toe with the kind of look only a woman who has lived seven decades can give someone. “What’s up with you today, kiddo?”

Shit. How long was I staring at the door?

I swallow thickly, returning to the stack of orders in front of me to have somewhere else to look and something to do with my hands. “Nothing, why?”

“Because you seem distracted.”

“Nope.” I smile at her, doing my best to appear completely unaffected, like I’ve struggled to do for days. “I’m good.”

Let it go.