Page 13 of Trade It All

“Of course you were,” she says. “I swear, Dean, you spend more time humoring her than anybody in this building.”

There’s something about the way she says it that makes something in me go still.

“She was working.”

Camille gives a little shrug and glances toward the door like the whole conversation already bores her. “Please. Pointing a camera at men in expensive suits and posting it online is not exactly life-saving work.”

The room changes. It’s subtle. The kind of shift most people would miss if they weren’t inside it. One second I’m irritated. The next, I’m done.

“Stop.” The word lands flatter and harder than anything I’ve said to her in months, and it’s enough to make her blink. “You don’t get to talk about her like that.”

Her chin lifts slightly, and I can see the calculation start behind her eyes—the quick mental adjustment as she tries to decide whether to laugh this off, push harder, or act like I’m overreacting.

“I didn’t say anything that isn’t true,” she says, cooler now.

I hold her gaze and wonder, not for the first time, why I stayed in this as long as I did. Convenience, maybe. Familiarity. The ease of being with someone who asked for very little emotionally as long as I showed up the right way in public. Maybe I liked not having to explain myself. Maybe I liked that nothing about Camille touched the parts of me I keep locked down. Maybe it just filled space.

Whatever it was, it’s gone now.

“You don’t get to decide what her job is,” I tell her, my voice steady in a way that makes hers feel messy by comparison. “And you don’t get to decide what it’s worth.”

Camille laughs softly, but there’s no amusement in it. “Wow. You’re serious.”

I don’t answer right away. I don’t need to. The silence between us does the work for me, stretching just long enough for her to realize I’m not going to backpedal and not nearly long enough for me to lose my nerve.

“I think you should go.”

For a second, she just stares at me. Then she smiles like I’ve made some kind of dry joke she’s expected to appreciate. “Okay,” she says. “Very funny.”

“I’m not joking.” Her smile falters. I should feel bad about that. I don’t. What I feel is the clean, immediate relief of finally saying something I should have said weeks ago. “I’m done, Camille.”

The words don’t scrape on the way out. They don’t stick. They don’t even surprise me, which tells me everything I need to know about how long they’ve been sitting there waiting.

Her face hardens in stages. First confusion. Then annoyance. Then a disbelief so complete it almost loops back around into confidence. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“It’s game day,” she says, like that explains everything. “You’re in a mood.”

“I’m not in a mood.” I brace my hands on the edge of the desk, not because I need the support, but because it keeps me from pacing. “I should have ended this already. We both know that.”

“No,” she says, the word coming quicker this time, sharper. “You’re stressed and looking for a fight. That’s not the same thing.”

I almost laugh, because that would be easier for her, wouldn’t it? If this were a fight. If this were heat and temper and something temporary that would cool off after the game. But there’s no heat in me where she’s concerned. That’s the whole problem. There hasn’t been for a while.

“We were never going to have a future together.”

The sentence lands harder than the others. I can see it in the way her shoulders stiffen.

“That’s bullshit.”

“It’s honest.”

Her nostrils flare. “You don’t get to decide that right now.”

“I’m not deciding it now,” I say. “I’m saying it out loud now. There’s a difference.”

For the first time, some of the polish cracks. Not much. Just enough to show the steel underneath. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”