Page 29 of A Matter of Time
Oh, Cam. Sweet, helpful, unable-to-say-no Cam. Was that the scene I had seen through her bedroom window, with her ranting and raving and him embracing her afterwards?
“So, nothing happened between you before prom?” I clarified, just to make sure I had understood her correctly. “You never slept together?”
Marley blushed as she shook her head. “Absolutely not. He never even kissed me. He hugged me a few times, but only in a friendly way. And even after you broke up, nothing happened then either. He just didn’t think of me that way, ever.”
I really couldn’t believe it. Why didn’t he tell me any of this? Why didn’t he tell me before I heard it from someone else, and why didn’t he tell me afterwards, when he saw how heartbroken I was?
“He asked me not to say anything about prom until he had a chance to talk to you,” Marley continued. “He stayed at my house that night and he went home in the morning to shower and get ready, and he planned to go and talk to you as soon as you got to school, but I… I let it slip. I got to school early and ran into Kara Beckett, making her usual backhand comments about how no one would ever take someone like me to prom, and I just said it. I didn’t mean to; at least, I don’t think I did. I just wanted to see the look on her face, but then of course she ran off and told you, and… well, you know the rest.”
I certainly did. I knew what I said, and I knew what he said, and at that moment, I had a few more things I wanted to say to Cameron Bailey.
“Do you know where he lives?” I asked Marley, and her eyes widened in surprise.
“Cam?”
Who else would I be talking about? “Yes, Cam. You said you talk to him. Do you know where he lives?”
She nodded, still looking confused. “It’s not far from here.”
“Give me the address.”
“Are you going to tell him I told you…”
I didn’t care what promise she’d broken or why he’d asked her to stay silent about it in the first place. “Just give me the address!”
Wincing, she pulled out her phone and texted the address to me while I grabbed a ten-dollar bill from my wallet and slammed it down on the table to pay for my untouched drink.
“I’m really sorry, Tonia,” she said as the text buzzed on my phone. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Like I said, I didn’t even know you…”
I walked away before she could finish. I could apologize to her for my abrupt departure later, but my mind had already moved on, completely focused on what I planned to do next.
It didn’t take me long to find Cam’s building, and I had to admit to being impressed. He was obviously doing just fine for himself, if I hadn’t already guessed that from his office at Barnly Oil. Silence greeted me when I buzzed up to his apartment, but someone else came out while I stood there waiting, so I grabbed the door and let myself in. Unfortunately, the elevator required a keycard to gain access to his floor, so just going and knocking on his door didn’t seem to be an option.
The lobby contained a few comfortable-looking chairs, so I went to sit on one of them to send him a text, but before I could figure out what I wanted to say, I saw him come in, flooding my whole body in nervous anticipation. He wore a suit, but not the one he’d been wearing in the office earlier that day, and he had a dark-haired woman hanging off his arm, looking a little tipsy as they made their way to the elevator.
A reasonable woman would have said nothing. He hadn’t seen me, and if I just left, he would never have known I was there.
However, I never claimed to be reasonable.
“Cam?” I said his name as I got to my feet, and a look of dismay crossed his face as he turned around and saw me.
“Tonia?” He glanced back at the woman at his side. “This, uh, this isn’t what it looks like.”
I didn’t care about that. I didn’t care about the woman and what he may or may not have been about to do with her. What I cared about happened six long years ago.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I walked right up to him, so close the woman beside him had no choice but to step back. “All these years, you let me think you cheated on me. You broke my heart over something that wasn’t even true.”
Surprise, confusion and a touch of anger all flashed through his deep brown eyes. “How did you…” He quickly put it together, before he’d even finished asking the question. “You talked to Marley.”
“I shouldn’t have had to hear it from her. Why didn’t you ever say anything, you complete and utter moron?!”
“Why didn’t you trust me?” The bitterness in his voice bled through just as strong as mine did. “You want to talk about broken hearts? Why did you immediately jump to the worst conclusion rather than asking me if it was true? Why did you never once just ask me what happened?”
“Ididask you,” I reminded him, my voice still sharp. The woman who had been with him had begun backing away, clearly deciding that whatever she might have been about to have with him wasn’t worth it. “I asked you if you knew her and you looked me in the eyes and lied to me.”
“Because it had nothing to do with you then,” he pointed out. “Once you had been hurt, I would have explained it, if you’d ever just given me a goddamned chance to!”
I didn’t even remember deciding to slap him, but suddenly my hand was raised. Suddenly, we were back at Dex’s wedding, the hurt between us bubbling right there beneath the surface, but unlike that time, there in his apartment building, he saw it coming. His hand shot out to grab my arm, stopping me in my tracks, and when I tried to pull it back again, he wouldn’t let go. His eyes burned into me, blazing with the fire that had always burned between us. In the next instant, his grip on my arm tightened as he pulled me close to him, and once again, my body took over.
