Page 76 of Feels Like Coming Home

Could Cam love me longer than just this trip? A voice inside my head was trying to convince me that he couldn’t. Or that he wouldn’t.

I was sitting at the office table with my laptop opened in front of me, chin in my hand, when I heard Piper say something.

“Hello? Earth to Haley? Helloooo, you in there?” She started to wave her hand in front of my face. Shaking my head and snapping out of my thoughts, I looked at her.

“Oh, yeah. I’m here, sorry. What were you saying?”

Piper sighed deeply and pushed the pile of papers away from her and set her pen down on top of them.

“Hays. What’s going on with you? You’ve been distractedall week.Caught in a sexy daydream?” She wiggled her eyebrows at me. Piper had demanded I tell hereverythingevery time I came home from being with Cam. I didn’t tell hereverything, but I did tell her a lot. She would know what would be included in my sexy daydream if I had been having one.

“No.” I sighed. “I was just thinking about how soon the conference is and how soon we’ll be heading back to Wilmington. It’s crazy, we’ve been here for over a month now…”

“A lot has happened in a month…” Piper mirrored my apprehensive tone. “How are you feeling?”

I took a deep inhale and let it out slowly. Deborah would be proud. “I feel…unsure. But good. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. I’m so happy, and things with Cam are so good. But the voices in my head keep telling me I'm a horrible wife for moving on so quickly after losing Connor and that once the trip is over, everything with Cam is going to blow up in my face.” I dropped my head into my hands and slumped over the table.

“Okay, well, for starters…we’ve talked about the feelings connected to Connor and I know you’ve talked to Deborah about them too. Yes?” Piper was speaking in her lawyer voice and suddenly I was annoyed. I wish she would just wallow with me for once.

“Yes,” I started. “You and I have talked about them before and I’ve talked with Deborah about them too.”

“Okay, and what does Deborah say about it?”

“She says that we all move on in our own time and if I feel like it's my time to move on, then it’s okay to move on. She keeps reminding me that Connor wouldn’t want me to be lonely forever and that I'm not being unfaithful by being with Cam.”

After the night Cam told me he loved me, I booked a last-minute appointment with Deborah the following day. We spoke for over an hour—and she charged me as such—because there weren’t enough deep breaths I could take that would help me calm down. By the end of our session, Deborah had made me feel better even though she hadn’t told me what I was supposed to do next. When I asked her if I should tell Cam I loved him, she told me she couldn’t give me that answer and then laughed when I whined about how annoying it was that no one would just tell me what to do.

“I couldn’t agree with her more. Now, onto item number two. Cam hasn’t given you any reason to believe that once it’s time to leave this place”—she swung her arms, making a motion that referenced the bungalow—“things are going to fall apart.”

“This time,”I interrupted her. “This time he hasn’t given me any reason to think that, but in the past, he has. Remember freshman year? He told me he loved me then ran away the next morning without even saying goodbye.”

It was her turn to interrupt me.

“Oh my god, Hays, I love you, but you have got to let. That.Go. It was years ago and we were young and stupid. He was young and a boy, which means he was extra stupid. You can’t seriously be letting the decision of an eighteen-year-old boy be the reason you won’t let something amazing happen with a thirty-two-year-old man, will you?” I sat up again and blinked at Piper, stunned by her words.

“Piper, you were there. You saw what he put me through!”

“Yes, sweetie, I was there and I remember all of it. But that was a long time ago and I think you need to let it go if you don’t want to be the one who burns it all to the ground this time. History doesn’t repeat itself if we don’t let it.”

History doesn’t repeat itself if we don’t let it.Her words sunk deep into my brain and I started to chew on the inside of my lip. My brain was starting to get tangled in my thoughts when I felt Piper squeeze my right index finger. Looking toward her, I saw a small smile on her face, which I returned.

“You know I love you, Hays. I just want you to be happy.”

“I know, Piper. Thank you.” I squeezed her right index finger back. “I don’t know about you, but I’m kinda done for the day. Wanna go for a walk or something?”

“I would love that. Why don’t you invite Cam over and we can all cook dinner?”

My smile grew at the thought of Piper, Cam, and I cooking together. It would be nice to have my two favorite people together for once. Normally, I went to Cam’s because we didn’t want Piper to feel uncomfortable, so it was nice that she was the one who invited him over.

“Yeah, I like that idea. I’ll text him. But first, let’s go for that walk.”

Rising from the table, Piper and I cleaned up the papers and closed our laptops before getting ready for our walk. It’s moments like this that I was grateful to have a friend like Piper. One who will listen to me talk, but also call me out when I needed it. She kept me honest and genuinely had my best interest at heart.

And I loved her for it.

Always right on time,Cam arrived at the house at six just like I’d asked him to hours earlier. I opened the front door of the bungalow to find him carrying two bags of groceries and looking as sexy as ever. There's just something about a guy wearing a pullover and a backward hat that did it for me.

As he leaned in to kiss me, his scent swarmed around me and I happily breathed it in. There were certain things about Cam that I wanted to remember forever. His deep emerald eyes, his strong arms, and jawline, and how he smelled.

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