Page 170 of Fault Lines
We fell into a routine that was part couple, part cautious roommates. I started cooking again, just simple things—pasta with red sauce, eggs with fresh herbs from the tiny pot on the windowsill. Cam insisted on doing the dishes, even when it meant battling an avalanche of pans I’d “soaked” and left for him to discover.
On the third night, he popped his head around the den and said, “Hey, wanna go out to dinner? As friends?”
I considered, then shrugged. “Why not? I could use a change of scenery.”
He said, “No pressure. Dress code: whatever keeps you from freezing to death.”
Twenty minutes later, I stood by the door in jeans and my favorite old sweater. Cam had thrown on a flannel and a battered pair of Chucks. He held out my coat like a gentleman, and I snorted, “Chivalry’s not dead after all.”
He grinned. “Only in matters of outerwear.”
The restaurant was nothing like the places we’d gone in the bad old days. No valet, no reservation, not a single sommelier in sight. It was a corner diner with scratched Formica tables and a menu that hadn’t changed since the Reagan era. The sign out front read, “Eddie’s: Breakfast All Day,” but I suspected the place came alive after dark.
We slid into a booth by the window, the condensation on the glass blurring the neon from across the street. Cam looked at me, waiting.
I scanned the laminated menu, then said, “I never liked those five-star places you took me to. The food was always cold and the portions were… barely existent.”
He laughed, loud enough to draw a look from the next table. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you liked them,” I said. “And I liked you.”
He shook his head, still smiling. “I like this better. Feels like us.”
We ordered two burgers and a basket of fries, and when the food came, we tore into it like castaways. Cam dipped his fries in both ketchup and ranch—an unholy combination I’d mocked for years—and offered me the plate with a little flourish.
I dipped, tasted, made a face. “Still disgusting.”
He wiped his hands on a paper napkin. “Still the only way to eat them.”
We talked about everything and nothing. I told him about Rachel’s latest dating drama (“She’s convinced Jackson is hiding a secret family, because he’s ‘too good at folding laundry’”), and he told me about the weirdos on his conference calls (“One guy does every meeting from his hot tub, camera off but you can hear the bubbles”). We reminisced about our early days together, the night we spent six hours assembling an IKEA bookshelf, only to realize we’d built it upside down.
Cam said, “I think that’s when I knew I wanted to marry you. You didn’t murder me for losing the tiny wrench thing.”
I laughed, real and unguarded. “I think I almost did, but you bribed me with cinnamon rolls.”
He looked at me, a long, thoughtful look. “That’s all I ever wanted, you know. Just to make you laugh.”
I felt the words settle inside me, warm and dangerous. For so long, I’d equated happiness with waiting for the other shoe to drop. But tonight, there was no shoe, no impending doom. Just food, laughter, and a maybe that didn’t scare me.
The check came, scribbled with a smiley face. Cam insisted on paying, then slipped me a butterscotch candy from the bowl by the register. “For the road,” he said.
On the walk back to the car, I shivered in the wind. He noticed, and without thinking, draped his arm around myshoulders, pulling me in close. It felt natural, not forced or desperate, and I let myself lean into him.
We didn’t talk much on the drive home. The city lights flashed by, and I watched them blur, feeling the gentle, stupid hope that maybe things didn’t have to be perfect to be good.
When we got inside, Cam hesitated at the threshold. “Thanks for coming out with me. I know things are… complicated. But I really like this. Us.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded, still holding the butterscotch.
He stepped closer, and for a second I thought he might try to kiss me, but he didn’t. He just reached up, brushed a strand of hair from my face, and said, “Goodnight, Livi.”
I watched him go, then stood in the silent hallway, my heart beating fast and slow at the same time.
I went to bed, the butterscotch still in my hand. I unwrapped it and let it melt on my tongue, tasting sugar and nostalgia and the possibility of something sweet.
For the first time in a long time, I let myself believe it might last.
Chapter Forty-Four
