Page 85 of Effortless

“What?”

Very defensive.

Jesus, what was wrong with her?

“Are you pissed at me or something?” Tommaso asked.

Camilla scoffed. “No, not at all.”

“Okay, again, your words say no, but your tone says—”

“It’s fine, Tom. You came to see me, and now you have to go back to where you actually live. Don’t worry about it. I’m not. It’s not a big deal.”

“Is that it?”

“Is what it?”

“That I only came to visit, and now I have to go. That maybe it’ll be another six months before we can get a couple of days together. That you’ll be stuck waiting and missing somebody when that’s really not your style. Is that what it is?”

Camilla blinked, silenced.

Tommaso only waited her out.

Something had already started making its way through her body like a weed. Its tendrils wrapping tightly around her soul and heart to squeeze tight and suffocate her from the inside out. She did not like how it made her feel. She did not like how it left pain behind.

It was the same thing she felt the first time Tommaso headed back to Chicago. It was the same thing she felt when her brother had left New York years ago. It was the same thing she felt whenever August wasn’t around and Camilla needed her.

Like something was gone.

Something important was missing.

Something Camilla cared about.

That’s what Tommaso Rossi had done to her without barely doing anything at all. That’s what months of missing him, and messing around, and late night conversations with him had done to her already fucked up heart.

A part of her kind of hated him for it. Another part of her was scared to death to admit she felt anything at all. She didn’t do this kind of thing, and she didn’t know where to begin anyway—not serious, not commitment, and certainly not love.

As it was, she didn’t even know how to do a relationship with a guy when he lived on the next block. And now because she caught some kind of feelings for Tommaso, her stupid ass heart wanted to try some kind of relationship with a guy in Chicago?

How the hell was she supposed to explain that to him when even she didn’t understand the mess her heart and feelings were when it came to him?

She chose the coward’s way out because she wasn’t ready to deal.

“It’s fine,” Camilla said.

It was not fine.

She was not fine.

Somehow, she managed to keep the confused chaos her heart was hidden from her tone. She bet her eyes told a different story—she couldn’t hide shit there. Tommaso didn’t call her on it, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that, either.

Camilla was a damned mess.

A real, honest to God, mess.

“All right,” he said quietly.

“Do you know when you’ll be back?”