Page 28

chapter

fourteen

Across the Sea – Weezer

CAMPBELL

He should have been happy.

Birthday. Family. Friends. Food. Drink. Emergency cigarette in his coat pocket.

Women. Plural .

When he only wanted one.

Number one stood across the room, wrapped in a surprisingly delicious lacy froth of a dress that screamed, Take me off!

Meanwhile, number two—Rhonda, his high school lab partner—stood beside him in a silk sack, whispering pointed, increasingly graphic suggestions in his ear.

Another martini—and John Nelson didn’t fuck around when he made one—and Rhonda would start tearing at his clothing with her teeth.

There was no way Fontana’s prickly nature would allow her to approach with this charade going on.

It all came down to cross purposes and timing.

He wanted what he couldn’t have. Didn’t want what was handed to him on a silver platter .

The longing shimmering through him sure felt real, though.

Watching his assistant, Dixon, laugh at something Fontana said, Jaime throw his arms over their shoulders and pull them into a seamless circle—as if they’d known each other forever—sent a shaft of melancholy through Campbell.

Talk about pressing your nose against the glass.

If one of his cousins had been able to make it, he’d have had his own crew.

Justin had tried to rearrange his schedule but was already due at the gallery next month.

Ransom had a project going that he couldn’t leave, though he’d sent this really incredible drying rack he’d made for Campbell’s darkroom.

The wood was reclaimed pine and so gorgeous, Campbell had nearly cried when he’d unwrapped it.

As for Dallas, he didn’t know when he’d see him again, a worry that sat like a ball of angst in his belly.

Even if they were here tonight, this would have been torture.

Because he had no camera to hide behind.

Brilliant , he thought, tossing back his second scotch. He wasn’t any fun at his own goddamn party. All he wanted to do was climb the stairs to his darkroom—but they’d find him.

He was the birthday boy, after all.

Shaking his empty glass at Rhonda and holding up a finger that meant I’m never coming back , he sidestepped people he’d known his entire life as cautiously as a man swimming through sharks.

Forced by sharp teeth to stop and mingle, by the time he reached the kitchen, he was really fucking sick of talking about himself.

The back door was open just enough, a slice of moonlight spilling across the floor, beckoning like the yellow brick road.

A gust carrying the acrid scent of a Southern evening sucked him out into the darkness.

The temperature was perfect, not too cool, not too humid, the Milky Way a blazing strip, lighting his path like signals along a runway.

Night photography was challenging, he reminded himself as he crossed to an outbuilding that used to be a kitchen back when they were separated from the main house.

Not his specialty, but this—he circled his thumb to his middle finger, framing the sky— this would be worth the effort.

Never as many stars in Atlanta.

He had to get way out in the country, any country, to find this.

Vaulting atop a crumbling brick wall that had once encircled the yard, he set his glass beside him and stared across the distance. Windows glowed. Party sounds. Laughter. The clink of glasses. The scent of cigarette smoke, a delicate tease.

He glanced down at his clenched fist, understanding where the funk was coming from, like he sat on a therapist’s couch and they’d just handed him the answer. His head felt muddled enough to keep the memories at bay, but he couldn’t hold it all inside.

In a twist of fate, perhaps, the hint of honeysuckle drifted to him.

Campbell closed his eyes, drew a much-needed breath, and there she was.

He didn’t assist, and she didn’t need him to, as she hopped atop the wall with little trouble, aided by the combat boots she wore with that astonishing dress.

So very Fontana, the mix. He cocked an eye to watch the material flutter and settle around her, moonlight picking up the faintest hint of green and gold, a gossamer shimmer.

“First time I’ve seen you in a dress.” He rotated to face her, propping his ankle on his knee. Whoa , the light did magical things to her hair, bringing out hints of amber in the sable strands. “Not Jaime’s, is it?”

“I think I’m insulted,” she said against the rim of her glass, her gloss leaving a tiny smudge he desperately wanted to wipe away with his mouth before pulling her into a kiss.

She’d gone for champagne—another surprise, another notation in his mental file.

He watched her neck flex as she swallowed, her tongue darting out to catch a stray drop from her bottom lip.

His stomach tumbled, bottoming out completely.

His head was suddenly full of her: the ragged, terribly distinctive moan she made when her body closed around him, her scent lingering on his fingers, her taste on his tongue. His dreams were full of her.

“Don’t be insulted,” he whispered, the words threadbare. Without revealing anything but a modest hint of cleavage, her dress was a hand-on-cock-soon one. Stripper attire it was not. But so lovely. Enticing. It left much to the imagination, especially when his was in overdrive lately.

A hint of a smile curved her lips, but she pressed them together to contain it. He didn’t know why. He wanted her smiles; he only wished he was sure he was the guy to deserve them.

And he was so not sure.

“I hope your assistant is possibly open to it, because I think Jaime has a crush.”

Campbell laughed, his first genuine shot of happiness all day.

“Let’s just say, Jaime’s luck may be improving.

” Damn , she smelled amazing and looked even better.

He remembered the cigarette in his pocket, and his hands twitched.

Where was a mint toothpick when you needed one?

“I meant to tell you, thanks for the biography on Billie Holiday. I adore her. I can’t wait to read it. ”

“I remember. That day, my Jeep.” Fontana shrugged, fidgeting with a silver ring on her finger. “Where’s Kit run off to?”

“Sleepover. Luca, too. They had darkroom time with me, then Kevin’s mom picked them up.”

They shared a smile .

She gave her ring a spin, catching a stray beam of moonlight that glittered across her skin. “It’s a nice party.”

“My parents used to have lots of them…” he began, his words trailing off.

Because this path led to the dreary and the dank.

Gradually, so it didn’t seem like he was running atop that wall, he twisted back to face the house, those brightly-lit windows, the memories.

She didn’t press, didn’t push. It almost made him mad how patient she was, like she understood his emotions were on a ledge, considering whether to jump.

“I’d sit out here just like this. Same sounds, same smells.

I don’t know—” He ran his shoulder over his jaw to scratch an itch.

“I’d sit out here, well, until the trouble started.

My parents went through a lot of dishes. ”

She picked at a slice of splitting brick, holding the faded pink fragment up to the light. Turned it this way and that like it was a jewel. “Is that the reason you look like you’re attending a funeral instead of a birthday party?”

He reached across, took her glass from her, and drained it. “Yep, I think that’s it.”

The night broke over them. Crickets, wind cutting through trees, an owl in the distance. The clink of glasses, muted conversation. The scent of a fireplace, turned earth, honeysuckle. Moonlight flooded over them—his knee, her cheek, their hands.

Campbell felt bound up in it.

“What did you do when the trouble started?”

No one had ever asked. But then again, he’d never told anyone. “At first, I went back in. Tried to stop it. But when I got older…”

She knocked her ugly black boot against the wall and glanced at him, brow raised.

“There was this place.” He brought her glass back to his mouth, knowing there was nothing there. He tapped it against his lips just in case one drop remained. And because he knew it had touched her lips. “I didn’t love it, I didn’t even like it, but I felt calm there. Closed off from the chaos.”

She hopped off the wall with such grace that his mind went right back to the way she’d moved on top of him. She was a physical woman, in every wondrous, lithe sense of the word.

“Let’s go,” she said, holding out her hand.

Caught between rough brick and need, he hesitated, lowering the glass to his side.

“Atlanta, current state: this is going to go one of two ways.” She held up a finger.

“You stay out here, drink until you’re too smashed to climb the stairs to your bedroom and effectively avoid your own party, or”—she jacked her thumb toward the house—“you give up and accept Rhonda’s birthday present.

Sell yourself way too cheaply on what should be a special day. ”

He dropped the glass into the tall grass, ground his palms into the brick, and vaulted to the ground. “I don’t want her present.”

I don’t want her.

Fontana halted, already halfway to the house, her dress dancing around her like it had a life of its own. A spark of moonlight colored her gaze twilight-blue as she turned just enough to glance at him. “You’re not even tempted?”

“Loneliness and the memories in this town are wrapping me in a tight fist, but no, I’m not.” Not by Rhonda, anyway. He laughed, realizing what he was about to say was actually true. “I think I need a friend more than a lover.” A disgusted huff of air escaped his lips. “Imagine that.”

He held his breath, waiting for her reply. Waiting for the moment he would stop thinking she was the most stunning woman he’d ever seen, standing there on his mother’s winding garden path .

A place that had the power to shred him to ribbons.

“We’re creating another option.” She held up three fingers. “Altering your course.”