Page 96 of Feels Like Coming Home

As a matter of fact, coming to this little bungalow felt a lot like coming home.

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CAM | NOW

If you had told me eight months ago that I would be driving back to Wilmington with Haley Jones in the passenger seat of my car, I wouldn’t have believed you. If you had told me eight months ago that Haley Jones and I would bedating,I would’ve told you that you were hooked on some kind of drugs and needed to seek professional help.

But here we are.

And there she was, sitting next to me in the passenger seat, singing loudly to a Taylor Swift playlist.

She didn’t even ask if we could listen to it but instead, just plugged in her phone and turned the volume all the way up. I didn’t care though. I was happy to let her be happy like this. Shit, I would learn every word to every Taylor Swift song if she asked me to.

As we packed up and left the bungalow, I couldn’t believe how far we’d come. When I ran into her last August in Charlotte, I never imagined this would be where we were eight months later.

Together and in love.

And watching her now out of the corner of my eye, I don’t think I could’ve asked for anything better. Her cinnamon-colored hair was blowing in the wind because she insisted on having the windows down until we got out of town and her freckles shined off her skin. I always thought Haley was beautiful. Ever since that day in ninth grade when she was walking toward me in that denim skirt, I thought she was the most beautiful person in the world.

I looked at her again as she sang loudly and without shame and my heart skipped a beat. She must have felt my eyes on her because she turned and looked at me with an inquisitive look.

“What are you looking at?” She smiled and I could feel the blood rush to my face when she did. Before answering, I paused to really take in what I was looking at.

A woman who had fully consumed me and changed me forever. The girl I used to run around with on the playground and try to catch a glimpse of from across the cafeteria. My better half and the person I would move mountains for just to make her smile.

“I’m just looking at you, beautiful.” I grabbed her hand and pressed it to my lips, kissing the back of it. “And I can’t wait to look at you like this, forever and always.”

EPILOGUE

HALEY | ONE YEAR LATER

Cam’s hand was on my knee as we drove down the two-lane highway that took us to the place where we fell back together just a year ago.

The place where he borderline stalked me just to get the chance to see me one more time. The place where he bought me coffee, gave me piggyback rides, and told me he loved me. The place where we had fallen in love all over again.

This past year had been totally insane. The She Who Thrives Live! conference went off without a hitch and we’d already sold out this year's event which was in another month. I told Cam I was too busy to make the trip here but he insisted that we come at least for the weekend.

After the conference was over last year, Cam had to head back to Charlotte to start spring training and I went with him for the first few weeks. It was so fun to see where he lived, explore his city, and spruce up his loft—which was really an apartment, but he called it a loft. I was surprised to see how well it was decorated until he told me that he had paid someone to do the decorating for him.

Men.

Over the summer months, Cam and I traveled back and forth between Wilmington and Charlotte in order to spend as much time together as we could.

Being back home was nice until after a few weeks, the feeling of two invisible hands around my neck started to creep in and consume me. I listed the house Connor and I once shared by the end of that week and moved into a new, smaller, but still nice, condo by the end of the month.

Piper helped me move into my new place, which was in the same neighborhood as hers since Cam was tied up with training. We FaceTimed that night so I could show him my new place and then promptly had a round of long-distance phone sex.

Once the season started, I was in Charlotte for every home game. I would drive up a few days before the game, stay with Cam, and then watch his game with the other player’s wives and girlfriends. I finally got to meet Harvey and loved sitting with his wife and kids during the games. Whenever Cam traveled, he offered to fly me out to wherever he was playing, which I did whenever I could.

It wasn’t an easy situation and I missed him like crazy when we were apart, but we made it work. Every day we were together, Cam would pull me into his arms and tell me he loved me and that he was never leaving me. On the days we were apart, he would call me and tell me the same thing. I’d stopped needing the reminder to know it was true but I never told him to stop saying it.

Even with all the travel, game days, conference planning, and business running, I still made it a weekly priority to meet with Deborah. Not because my anxiety was bad or I was still in the darkness of grief, but because I knew it was good for me. Plus, I liked Deborah and didn’t like the idea of not seeing her anymore. When I told her about Cam and me, she told me how proud she was of me, and I cried.

“We’re here,” Cam said, tapping my thigh with his hand, pulling me out of my thoughts.

As we pulled up to the bungalow, I couldn’t help but smile. This little house on the coast changed so much of me when I was here last year, and being here now felt like being home. I looked at the chipped, white picket fence around the front and the big mahogany front door. Memories from last winter filled me up and made my insides swirl with joy.

Cam turned the car off and quickly came to my side of the car to open my door for me. Reaching out, he offered his hand to me and I took it, pulling myself out of the car with his help. We stood in front of the car and took in the bungalow together.

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