Page 143 of Bring You Back

When he walks out the door, I feel flimsy, flighty in my chair. I need something solid—normal—to cling to.

“Told you you’re a dick, dude,” Banks says to Julian with a mouthful of pizza, and my boot reconnects with his very solid shin.

34

You’re a Tease

Julian

I stand outside Camille’s open door for a solid five minutes, just breathing. Debating on whether or not to step inside.

She knows I was in the kitchen, cleaning up the mess everyone left, including her when she retreated to the guest room after Tommy walked out. She knows I’ll see the door, open like an invitation. She wants something from me.

Yeah, she wantsyou, dumbass.

I’d love to crawl into that bed and sink inside of her, find myself again in her skin. Everything’s already shot to shit, I might as well.

But I won’t. We’d have to be quiet so my mom wouldn’t find out, and fuck that. When I finally have Camille—and I will—I want to hear every sound she makes. How loud she can get. And call me romantic, sentimental, or whatever, but I haven’t even kissed her yet. We were supposed to start there and that’s where I want us to start. I want us to go back where we ended and make a new beginning. I want us to happen the way we were meant to.

So, I might not exactly keep my hands to myself, but I’m keeping my dick to myself. I want to talk to her. We haven’t justhung out, as friends, in so long.

There’s a flurrying in my chest at the thought of just sitting and laughing with Camille. Even if she’s expecting me, I feel like I need an excuse to go in there. Offer her something besides just my body walking through the door. I laugh to myself. For a second, I think the way I used to, deciding to give her a book my mom has lying around the house to read, but I threw all of them out after Camille left. It was part of my culling. The books were just here for her, and without her. . .

I’d find new ones all the time. Whether I bought them from the small bookstore up the road, or I found them while rummaging through Tommy’s mother’s library at his house—which I’d often find Camille doing herself. I’d hope it’d be one she hasn’t read, and I’d leave them in known places for her to find.

I can’t believe I forgot about that until just now.

I haven’t seen Camille read since she came back. I haven’t seen her do much of anything she loves since she came back. She probably hasn’t since her brother died.

I’m thinking too much, and so loudly, I’m pretty sure she can hear me.

“Stop thinking so hard and get in here.”

Her order makes me smile until the thickness in her voice registers and I swing around the frame, stopping just inside. She’s sitting under the covers with her back propped against the pillows, her laptop open in front of her, giving me a pointed look tinged with a smile. “I could smell your hesitation.”

I chuckle. “Does it smell like leftover pizza?” I match her stare. “Thanks for leaving me that mess.”

“It wasn’t mine,” she says, raising a brow, and I don’t miss the double meaning. She circles a finger around her wet face. “This isn’t mine, either.Thiswasn’t supposed to happen.”

“A lot of things weren’t supposed to happen,” I lament as I step closer, stopping next to her at the bed. “But sincethisis my fault,” I say as I rub her cheek with my thumb, repeating the plea I gave her the last time we were both in here. “Let me help.” I don’t let my touch linger, pulling away before it slides right over that scar on her lip.

“Why do you think I left the door open?” She wipes at her face, scoots and flings the covers open for me to join her. From the look on her face, she senses that I want inside her head more than I want inside her body tonight. “Be my friend, Julian.”

I laugh at her reference to my claim of her needing a friend when she’s this way, then scoot in next to her, tucking myself in. She shifts her laptop between us and I see female hands paused over what looks to be a palette of makeup. If you didn’t know of Camille’s recent interests, you wouldn’t know she’s watching ASMR.

“You’re really gonna do this, huh?” There’s a slight tease in my voice.

She shrugs. “Still thinking about it. Right now, I’m more into letting everyone else do the hard work.”

A smile pulls at the corner of my mouth as I hold a stare on her. “How’s the toe?”

“Healing.”

“And how’s Humphrey?”

She snorts. “Livin’ the detached life.”

I laugh, a fast shake of my shoulders. After I yanked her nail off the rest of the way and set it aside to clean her up, she told me she wanted to keep it. So I got her a plastic bag to store the guy inside and she named him Humphrey. It’s not the strangest thing she’s ever done.

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