Open Your Heart (Kings Grove #4) - Delancey Stewart Page 0,24
angry as I said it. “I left for college as soon as I graduated from high school. Paid my own way through community college and then transferred to NYU. Got a job and earned my Masters during the first few years of work.”
“That’s impressive,” Cam said. “Why come back now?”
I didn’t want to tell him that very long story. I slid my legs out from beneath me, slipping my boots back on and leaning forward, letting the heat of the fire lick my face. “It’s complicated.”
Cam didn’t press, just nodded once and then seemed to let it go. Part of me wanted to tell him everything, but I’d monopolized the conversation enough for one night. I pushed down the urge to speak, to fill the strange charged space between us with words, and just leaned into the warmth of the fire and the comfort of Cam’s quiet strong presence instead.
After a few minutes of silence, I realized I didn’t know much about him, except that his sister Maddie worked at the diner and had married Connor Charles, the novelist. They were planning a wedding in August, which would be a big focus in my work life. “What about you?” I tried, sensing for some reason that asking Cam questions might not be something I was supposed to do.
His sharp eyes narrowed and I could see him tense from across the fire. He was silent a long time and I thought he was actually going to pretend I hadn’t even asked a question. When the silence reached a crescendo, pressing me to either speak again or just stand and call it a night, he answered. “Moved here a couple years ago to be with my sister. From Hollywood.”
“Cool,” I said. “Your parents . . .?”
“Dad lives in Fresno. In a home. He has dementia.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling like an ass. “I’m sorry.”
“Mom died about seven years ago.”
Oh God. Leave it to me to drag up painful memories. “I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head, pushing away my pointless apologies with his eyes closed and his lips pressed into a thin line.
“So you’ve always worked construction?” I tried again.
His eyes met mine for a brief second, and it almost felt like a probe—like that one focused glance had been engineered to glean my objective, to find out if it was advisable to tell me more. His eyes were sharp and penetrating, and when he looked away, my heart was racing and my skin had cooled, leaving me to shiver. Cam was intense—when he stared me down it felt like challenging an oncoming train, but there was something heady about it, exciting. “No,” he finally answered. “I worked in film production first. Got married. Moved up here when she died.”
My heart froze inside my chest and then melted into a disastrous puddle. “Oh Cam,” I said, sorrow for him and for my own impossibly awkward conversational skills swamping me.
“You’re going to say you’re sorry again.”
“I am.”
“Please don’t. You had nothing to do with it, neither of us can change it, and you being sorry doesn’t help things.” He paused a minute. “I am actually surprised you didn’t know already. In town, I’m the grumpy widower.”
A tiny smile came to me at that. “No one mentioned it to me.” I raised an eyebrow. “Are you grumpy? You just seem . . . calm,” I tried.
“Better calm than angry,” he said, a low chuckle rolling through the cooling air and erasing some of the tension that had floated between us.
“So, movies, huh? Did you work on anything I’d know?”
He smiled and tilted his head to one side, then reached down and took a sip of his drink before speaking. “Mostly art films, some kind of dark stuff. But I did work on one blockbuster.”
“Oh yeah?” My mind raced through the darker movies I could think of—the Batman films, some of the recent thriller hits. “What was it?”
He pressed his lips together and looked at me, his eyes sparkling in the flickering light. “Did you ever see Marry Me Ted?”
“The romcom?” My voice flew from my mouth, surprising us both with its volume and high pitch. I covered my lips with my hands.
“You sound so surprised.” Cam pretended to be serious, but I could see the humor still flushing his skin, making his eyes dance.
“That’s not exactly dark or serious,” I pointed out. “That movie was hilarious.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He grinned at me. “Sometimes you sacrifice your art for a paycheck.”