Page 60 of Brazen Being It

I reach for her hand, callused fingers brushing hers. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Cambria. You showed me what I was missin’. Gave me family when I thought all I had was history.”

Her eyes shimmer, full of hope and fear and everything in between. “Drew...”

“You think maybe, someday soon... you’d wanna do this for real?”

She grins through her tears. “You gonna ask properly or just talk around it?”

I smirk. “Patience, woman. Barbecue’s comin’. Gotta make it count.”

She laughs, light and real and beautiful. “Then hell yes. I’m in.”

That night, after the sun sets and the club’s gone quiet, I sit outside on the steps of the trailer, Cambria beside me, our fingers entwined. The stars are bright overhead, the night air cool and clean. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

I look over at her, the woman who changed everything, and I know—whatever comes, whoever tries to tear us down, we’ll face it together.

Because this? This is home. This is family. And I’m never letting her go.

FIFTEEN

CAMBRIA

Time moves even when we want to savor every second.

One month later,the world has stopped spinning so fast.

It’s not that life is easy—far from it—but something about the way I wake up with Little Foot’s arm wrapped around my waist and the smell of coffee drifting through the trailer makes everything feel… calm. Like I’m finally allowed to breathe.

I used to wake up with my heart already racing. Always worried. Always behind. Always tired.

But now—God, now, I wake up in a quiet that doesn’t feel empty. It feels earned.

I blink my eyes open, stretching slowly so I don’t wake him just yet. He sleeps like he’s fighting off the world in his dreams, brow furrowed, jaw tight, but when he’s awake, he softens. For me.

I still don’t know exactly when we fell in love, but I know the exact moment I stopped pretending and it became more.

It was the night I let him in. Really let him in. No more performance. No more lies.

And he stayed.

He always stays.

By 7:30, I’m out the door in jeans that still don’t quite fit right and a hoodie I stole from his closet. It smells like him even after three washes. I think I secretly like that.

Community college isn’t glamorous. It’s a small brick building off the highway with questionable vending machines and linoleum floors, but when I walk into that GED prep class, I feel like I’m finally doing something that belongs to me. Something that says I’m not giving up on my future just because my past tried to bury me.

The other students are a mix of age, some barely older than high school like me, others pushing forty, but everyone’s got the same look in their eye: determination with a side of don’t-ask-me-why-I’m-here.

Mrs. Ledbetter, the instructor, reminds me of a sitcom grandma. Cardigans. Crocheted scarves. But she’s got the kind of steel in her spine that makes you sit up straighter when she talks.

“You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Cambria,” she tells me after class. “Keep showing up.”

I nod and smile and tuck that compliment away like a precious stone. No one’s told me that before.

By lunchtime, I’m at the diner. The uniform is unflattering and the pay isn’t great, but I get to move, to smile, to drop off hot plates of pancakes and feel like I’m earning my keep. Again, it’s something for myself. I like knowing that I’m making my own money.

It’s just enough to pay for the gas to get to rehab once a week. The rest, Drew handles.

I never expected Drew to step up the way he has. Hell, I didn’t even expect him to still be around after the whole fake-marriage-turned-real rollercoaster. But he’s the one who found the rehab facility for Mom. He’s the one paying for it. Quietly. Without keeping score.

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