Page 81 of Challenge
“Hey, Hayden, how are you?”
“Good. You okay?” he asks, frowning at me. It’s the first time I realise there may be some physical representation of the lack of sleep I’ve been getting the last few nights.
“I’m good. Just need to talk to your baby mama if that’s all right.”
“Hey, I’m making an honest woman of her eventually.” His grey eyes flick to the balcony where she must be sitting. He smiles fondly. “We just mixed up the order a bit.”
I offer a polite smile. “As long as you keep her happy, that’s all that matters. We won’t give you the Harris Shakedown if you keep that smile on her face.”
Hayden chuckles. “I’m highly familiar with the Harris Shakedown. I think it was five days straight you guys stalked outside my home last time Vi and I disagreed.”
“It was more than a disagreement,” I grumble defensively. The bastard nearly broke her heart.
He sighs and pins me with an intense stare. “Cam, I was an idiot. Without question. But sometimes a bit of perspective changes things. That time was a vital part of our story.” He reaches down and grips the thick leather cuff wrapped around his wrist. “And you know what? I wouldn’t change that now.”
“You wouldn’t?”
Shaking his head, he replies, “Nope. I’ll win your sister back as many times as I have to.”
“I’m out here!” Vi yells from outside, interrupting our impromptu heart-to-heart.
Hayden tilts his head with a smile and moves aside for me to walk by. “I’ll let you get to it.”
“Cheers, Hayden.” I move through the living room and step onto their huge terrace. The shrinking London sun casts a grey haze over the incredible view. “Bloody hell, I want to move.”
“Well, you should,” Vi says and I glance over to find her stretched out on a lounger, book in hand, looking like the epitome of happy and healthy. “It’s not like you don’t have the money.”
I shrug. “I’ve never cared much because we’re never home.”
She shoots me a puzzled look. “But you care now?”
I exhale heavily and sit down across from her. “That’s what I’m here to talk to you about. I need you to stay calm, Vi. And I need you to know that I’ve thought about this long and hard, and nothing is going to change my mind.”
She sits up to face me so we’re knee-to-knee. Clasped fists to clasped fists. Pensive expression to pensive expression.
“I’m not going to have the surgery next week.”
“What?” she nearly screams.
“Hear me out,” I remind her. “Because you’re the only one I’m going to say it to this way, and I want you to know the truth.”
“Okay,” she grinds through clenched teeth.
“I don’t want the surgery next week because I’d rather live with this graft in my knee and never know if I can play as good, rather than get the graft out and find out that I can’t get back all that I lost.”
She exhales heavily three times like she’s doing Lamaze breathing. “Vi, calm down.”
“Camden, no.”
“Vi…it’s my decision. This is what I want.”
“So you’re scared? Why? What changed? You weren’t scared to have the first surgery,” she says, her blue eyes wide and watery.
“I didn’t have time to think about it,” I reply.Plus, I had Indie by my side.
“Did something happen between you and Indie?”
Her question doesn’t surprise me. I knew she’d go there. She’s been calling or texting almost every day, asking how things are with her. “No. This has nothing to do with her. It has to do with me making a decision for myself and not for anyone else.”
