Page 113 of Bring You Back

“Well, tell all those girls whose beds you hop in to stop shitting in your throat,” I retort.

“Hey, they hop intomybed,” he corrects me, like there’s a difference. “And what’s with you and shit?” He points at me. “You’rethe one who’s into shit.”

I open my mouth for another retort, but Mitch comes up from the back of the shop with, “Camille. A word?”

I chuckle as he disappears again, not waiting formyword. “You two have fun,” I deadpan. “I know I will.”

“If you get fired, I’ll never forgive you,” Reyna says, a small smile around her serious tone.

“Don’t worry,” I say, giving her a smile of my own. “You’re stuck with me.”

She rolls her eyes at my tone, the underlying message that I’m not going anywhere with Mitch wrapped so tightly around her finger.

I stalk to the back, head held high, ready to hear my word of the day.

25

Ready or Not

Julian

I’m not ready for what I could possibly find when I open the door to the guest room, but for some reason, Grumbles isn’t it. I forgot all about that damn cat. She’s staring at me from the bed, her eyes squinted in judgment like I just stormed her fucking castle. A practical stranger coming into the room, uninvited, to snoop around.

To get answers,I remind myself, which I wouldn’t have to do if Camille wasn’t Camille.

I close the door behind me to keep Grumbles from escaping, because every piece of this room has to be in place when I leave, and I’m not in the mood to play capture the cat.

And the less time I have to be in here, the better.

With one glance around, I realize how much it was Camille who had my attention the night I stood just outside the open door, basically admitting to her that she’s always on my mind. The space looks almost unlived in. Like she’s trying not to leave her mark.

I scoff at the thought. She knows she doesn’t need a room to stain.

Camille’s not a messy person, but if it weren’t for her smell—faint, but lingering, you could say she was never here.

Oh, and that damn cat who’s taken an interest in licking herself. Good. I don’t know if I could go through with this with her yellow eyes stalking me around the room.

I breathe in the soft rose scent as I cross the room, stopping at the foot of the bed when I spy Camille’s duffel bag hidden from view on the other side. The top is open, clothes shuffled around. She’s barely unpacked.

I have a brief moment of shock, a twitch of alarm that Camille doesn’t plan to stay. My head tells me she’s going to leave again, and the alarm sounds, reminding me just how much I don’t want her to.

I need to breathe, find rational thoughts. She moved in here before she got to talk to me, to feel out my head. Before she knew what I was thinking. With the reaction I gave her when she showed up at my front door, and the way I’ve treated her since, she’s probably been expecting me to kick her out, which I had thought about doing. And it doesn’t look like she even brought muchtounpack. Then again, she’s never needed much to begin with.

I’m not seeing anything but clothes in the duffel, and I’m not about to rifle through them—that’s a huge distraction waiting to happen—so I move along. Her laptop sits on top of the dresser, black and blending into the wood, but I look past that, as well. She’s always kept her computers password protected, like most people with common sense, and I wouldn’t even know where to begin if I managed to crack it.

There are no other places to check but the dresser and nightstand. I start with the dresser, pulling out drawers and shoving them back in. Most are empty, except for one housing extra sheets for the bed, and another housing extra lightbulbs, and the one on top … stuffed with napkins, straws, cups, a couple pens, brushes, some old coasters and glasses from the kitchen, my mother’s camera. . .

I’m so glad it’s helping.

Just give it a try.

I need some new videos to watch.

It clicks. ASMR. My mom started watching those videos a few months back. I’ve learned that’s something a lot of people do when they need to be relaxed.

Like Camille.

She hates cameras. Never used them. She always complained whenever she had her picture taken. Now she’s reaching for one.

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