“So Cam isn’t joining us?” Pat asked slowly, his arm wrapped around Thea’s shoulders.
Danger, Will Robinson.
“No,” I replied with a soft smile, because I couldn’t help but smile when I thought about him. “He has the psych eval for his dad’s case right now, and then he has to get up to the mine.” And I had this lunch, and maybe this lunch only, to get Pat on Cam’s side so we could start swaying public opinion. We being myself, Thea, and Charity, since Cam refused to play politics.
In an election year in Alba, public opinion was everything.
June twentieth had been circled on my calendar since Cam told me he’d been given a court date a few weeks ago. We were two weeks away, and the tension among the locals was about as thick as it could get.
The tourists, of course, couldn’t have cared less. They came in waves, trickling in on weekdays like this, only to hit us by a thousand or more a day on the weekend. Business was good.
“How’s that going?” Pat asked, his smile tight.
“The case, the mine, or Cam?” This had the potential to get super awkward super fast.
“Uhhh—” Pat suddenly found his napkin incredibly interesting.
“Oh, stop it,” Thea chided but tugged his tie playfully. “Come on, Pat. That’s still Willow.”
Pat rolled his eyes but finally met mine. “I’m sorry. It’s just…odd.”
“The case, the mine, or Cam?” I teased him with a repeat.
“All of it,” he answered truthfully, then let out an oof as Thea elbowed him. “What? We’ve been friends for long enough to tell her the truth, honey.”
“We have,” I agreed as Tillie appeared with our drinks.
We all thanked her, but she only responded directly to Pat as she moved to another table.
“Well, then truthfully, I have a hard time with the guy. You know that.” He shrugged in apology.
“He’s still pissed that Cam wouldn’t let him into the hot springs party his freshman year,” Thea jibed.
Pat side-eyed his wife. “That’s not it. Look, Willow, you’ve been put through more than your fair share, and I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“And I appreciate the concern.” I swirled my straw around the ice cubes in my lemonade, making them clink. “But Cam isn’t going to hurt me.”
His eyebrows shot up, and he leaned forward. “You’ve only been together for, what? A couple months? Cam isn’t known for being easy on anyone or anything.”
I folded my hands on the table and looked him straight in the eye. “You were Sullivan’s best friend, so I get the protective bit, and I’ll let that one slide. That one, Pat.”
He opened his mouth like he wanted to say more but then shut it instead.
“I love Cam. Cam loves me. He has never once hurt me, unless you’re thinking about the summer he may have bruised my feelings.”
Pat’s mouth set in a way that told me that was exactly what he’d been thinking about.
“Trust me, I bruised his deeper. There’s a hell of a lot of backstory you’re not privy to, and no, I’m not going to tell you, because it’s none of your business.”
“Never once hurt you? He saved you from the fire he started.” He said it gently, so I didn’t kick him under the table.
“That was ruled accidental,” Thea hissed.
“Sure, as in he accidentally knocked over a tiki torch while he was accidentally slipping it to Olivia Maxfield,” he countered.
Yeah, I wasn’t about to go there.
“Regardless of how that fire started, it was Sullivan who left me in the bunkhouse and Cam who ran in to get me out.”
Pat startled, and I almost did, too. I’d never once laid blame at Sully’s feet for leaving me there.
“I never thought of it like that.” He glanced away. “God, you must have been so pissed at Sully.”
“Not really,” I answered honestly. “I was terrified for a minute, and the smoke was so thick…” I trailed off, feeling the heat of the flames ghost over my skin and dry out my mouth. “And honestly, if we hadn’t been asleep in that back room, we would have gotten out sooner. Sullivan would have gotten us out.”
“But he only got himself out.” Pat ran his hands over his red hair. “And you didn’t beat the shit out of him after? I mean, I don’t even remember you being angry. You just said something about getting separated, not him leaving you.”
I looked at Thea, and she lifted her eyebrows. There had been only one person truly privy to my feelings back then, and true to the code, she’d never spilled—even to her husband.
“Honestly, the support beam came crashing down between us, and when he saw that I was on the other side, he said he would go for help. I hit the floor to get to the good air. I saw Sully’s feet make it to the door, and yeah, I was a little…disappointed. But I also knew Cam would come for me, even if it was only for Sully’s benefit. Deep down, I knew.”
Pat blinked. “Willow, I love you. You know that. But you simply knew that the biggest asshole in Alba was going to risk his life to come help you? Cam never helped anyone…back then,” he amended with a tilt of his head.
“I knew.” My shoulders lifted in a shrug. “There are three things you can count on when it comes to Cam.” I held my fingers up as I began to list them. “One, his family is first. He always cleaned up Sullivan’s messes so nothing bad ever stuck to him.”
“Hey,” he snapped; then his focus went hazy for a second, as if he was thinking. “Huh. Okay, I’ll give you that one.”
“Two, he’ll self-destruct at the first opportunity. And three, he shows up for me. I didn’t always see it back then, but it’s true. There was no chance that he wasn’t coming in after me if he knew I was in there.”
Pat leaned back, absorbing what I said.
“Cam has saved my life four times and has always been there when I’ve needed him.”
“Okay, but just think about this for a second, please, and don’t hate me for asking. Did you ever stop to think that the only reason you were in danger in the first place—at least as a kid—was because you were around Cam?”
I waited his requested second only because he was married to my best friend and I’d loved his. “No, Pat. I get that you might not understand this, but I’m his, he’s mine, and that’s not going to change. Ever. And I guess you have to choose between joining the rest of the old Alba gossips at the barbershop or opening your mind about Cam. Remember just how much Sullivan loved him. And no, he didn’t get Sully killed. By the time Cam got there, he’d already been shot. That”—I held up two fingers—“is now two, because that’s none of your business, either, but I know how much you miss Sully.”