“Oh, yes, sorry. I guess I just wasn’t expecting that. Does Trey know you’re inviting us?”
“Of course,” she replied easily. “We’d love to have you, and Alivia would have a great time with the kids. You can come for the day or stay for the weekend. We have plenty of room.” Sensing my hesitancy, she went on to say, “I’ll send you my address, and you can decide either way. No pressure if you’d rather pass. I understand.”
“Okay, thank you, Leila. I appreciate the invite.”
“My pleasure. Have a good night.”
“You too.” I stared at my cell long after the screen went black, with so many questions bouncing around in my mind.
Should we go?
Would it send him the wrong message?
Wasn’t all this happening too soon?
I had no idea what to do. The thought of meeting the entire band and their families scared the living crap out of me. But refusing the invite could send a message that I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to send. I liked getting along with Trey these past two weeks. We were in a much better place, and declining would no doubt upset him.
“Shit,” I said to myself, not knowing what I should do. Guessing I’d taken too long to call her, I shouldn’t have been surprised to see a text from Debbie.
Dying here.
With a sigh, I tapped her contact info. “Sorry, I was just going to call you back.”
“First off, you better not be replacing me with Leila Lair. I can’t compete with that kind of perfection… and I need to remind you that you love all of my flaws.”
“Shut up. I’m not replacing you.”
“What did she want?” I relayed my brief but mind-boggling call with Leila, including my response to her invite. “You have to go,” Debbie stated matter-of-factly.
“Part of me agrees, but I’m worried this is all happening too fast.”
“What is?” At my long pause, she went on. “It’s been seven years since that night, Cam… that’s a long time coming and not too fast.”
Sure, not when it came to Trey spending time with his daughter, but that wasn’t what I worried about. Then again, I couldn’t very well admit that lately I’d been thinking of him in ways other than as my daughter’s father.
“Camilla, please stop overthinking this. You can’t keep fighting the fact he’s in your life now.” She was right. Saying no would piss him off, shove him back into a defensive mode. Regardless of what the future held, at the very least I now knew co-parenting with Trey was a reality. “You need to accept that invite.”
I expelled a conceding breath over the line. “I know.”
Chapter 15
Trey
We were an hour into the drive down to the Shore, and I could count everything Camilla had said on one hand.
I glanced over at the way she sulked while staring sullenly out the window. With Alivia sitting between us, I couldn’t ask her to enlighten me as to why she had a giant stick up her ass. But the moment we had a minute alone, once I pushed the right buttons, I’d no doubt get an earful.
At first, I was shocked to learn that Camilla had accepted Leila’s invite. Originally, I credited her decision to the progress we’d made over these past few weeks. But a few days ago, when we got around to discussing the upcoming weekend, she was right back to her old self, fighting me on every suggestion I made.
Wanting Alec to drive the three of us down the night before the Fourth, she argued that she’d rather drive herself down the morning of. I wanted her and Alivia to stay over that night, but she argued it would be way too awkward.
Turned out I could be a stubborn bastard when I wanted to be. It may have taken a while, but I finally broke her down. Not only were we heading to the Lairs’ in the back of our security company’s SUV, which Alec was driving, but we were also cruising down the parkway on July 3 with luggage holding a few days’ worth of clothing.
We had been getting along nicely—finally—until something caused her to retreat back to her pissy old self. And I suspected it didn’t have anything to do with my pushing them to join us for the weekend. If it had, Camilla wouldn’t have given in without a bigger fight. Something else was definitely up.
After we had spoken on the phone just yesterday, I hung up, determined to figure out, one way or another, whatever it was that had caused her to get into her own head. Because going back to the combative relationship we’d started with wasn’t an option in my book.
Meanwhile, Alivia, while oblivious to the battle of wills between us, happily played a Hello Kitty app on her new tablet, another argument I won.
“Mommy?” she asked, her sweet voice slicing through the tension-filled air.
“Yeah, baby?”
“Are you mean to Trey because you like him?” Instantly, our heads snapped toward our daughter and our eyes connected.
Camilla was first to look away, responding, “I’m… I’m not mean to Trey.”
“Sometimes you are,” Alivia countered. “It’s okay, because you were right about Griffin.”
“Didn’t I tell you to stay away from him?” I asked with a pretend scowl on my face before tweaking her nose.
She giggled adorably. “Yes, but I only talked to him to tell him I know he likes me and that’s why he’s mean. After I did, he started being nicer to me.”
“Sweetheart, I don’t—”
“Oh… I get it,” I rudely cut Camilla off, to which she sighed. “So, Mommy should be nice to me too.”
“Right.” Alivia finally looked away from Hello Kitty and met my eye. “And then you’ll know that she likes you… and you know what else?” she asked me.
“What?”
“Well, when two people like each other, my friend, Elizabeth, said they kiss a lot… and then they get married. So, then we can be a family, and you can be my daddy.”
My eyes widened, Camilla’s breath hitched, and our daughter went back to playing her game, completely unaware that her innocent little statement had just ignited a tsunami of emotions between us.
If there had been tension between us before Alivia’s pronouncement, afterward our tension was on steroids. Thankfully, driving up to the spectacular estate Jack had bought for his wife distracted both mother and daughter.
Once Alec stopped the car, I requested he bring our bags inside for us. Camilla slowly exited her side before distractedly helping Alivia out. I couldn’t help but smile at the way their mouths hung open, taking in the surroundings. Salt water scented the humid air while a billowy breeze eased the heat.
I’d never really appreciated the tranquil paradise my friends had created until recently. It has now become somewhere I long to be, and usually I could go only a few weeks before needing to pay a visit.
“This is one house?” Alivia asked.
I chuckled with a nod. “Yes, Squirt. And guess what?” She lifted her face to stare up at me. “They have a swing set on the beach, and it has three slides.”
“Three? My park swing set only has one.” Her mouth continued to gape as she pressed her hand into mine. When I caught Camilla’s eye, she quickly averted her gaze.