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Maddie and Connor drank and then put down their glasses and kissed, causing a ruckus of cheering and hooting to erupt from the crowd. Once Maddie had thanked her brother, the music came on again, and the DJ called for the happy couple to take the floor for their first dance. I watched as they did, both of them smiling, their faces flushed and happy. They held one another close as they spun and twirled to Ed Sheeran’s voice singing “Thinking out Loud.” Toward the end of the song, though, the DJ began spinning something else, letting the first notes of the new song weave through the end of the first. The space quieted to listen because the two songs didn’t exactly mesh, and I watched Maddie’s face turn from mild confusion to surprise and maybe a little annoyance as Europe’s “The Final Countdown” blasted through the space. She whacked Connor on the shoulder, laughing, as he grinned down at her, and after a minute they stopped dancing altogether and were kissing as if no one else in the world was around.
My heart melted a bit inside my chest, and that was how Cam found me, pulling me from my seat by a hand and guiding me to the far edge of the deck to stand beneath the twinkling lights we’d strung under the ancient trees. The speakers were aimed away from us and it was quieter here. Cam held me lightly by both hands, our bodies close but not quite touching. “Do you mind if I occupy you for a few minutes?” he asked, his eyes darker than usual as he looked down at me.
“Of course not,” I said, my heart hammering fiercely in my chest.
“First of all, I owe you an apology.”
I felt my eyebrows draw together in confusion. “For?”
“For a lot of things. Mostly for being too afraid to be honest with you. For letting that feel like a rejection.”
I waited, hope bubbling inside me.
“You were never anything but honest with me, Harper. From day one, you were clear about your feelings, about your hopes for what might happen between us. And I was a coward, and I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for the time I wasted, the time I let go by when we might’ve been together. And I’m sorry that it might be too late now, but I can live with that, I guess. What I realized—too late, maybe—is that I can’t live without telling you exactly how I feel. I can’t let you leave believing me a coward, or worse—believing I don’t feel anything for you.”
He stopped a minute and I didn’t say anything, though the part of me that knew how to comfort people wanted to fill the space with words, wanted to alleviate any uncomfortable feelings. I knew Cam needed my attention. And I knew I needed to hear whatever he might be about to say.
“From the moment you arrived here, you challenged me, Harper. In all the best ways. You questioned the way I shielded myself, my heart. You pushed at the walls I’d put up and helped me see how useless they were, how they kept me from really living.” He took a deep breath. “You kept coming close, even when I pushed you away—God, I’m a moron. Why would anyone push you away?” He let his eyes run down me then, holding me before him and really looking at me. I felt the brush of his gaze down the length of my body, felt my skin tingle and react as if he’d touched me. “And then,” he said, his voice a little sad now. “You were smart enough to tell me you’d had enough and strong enough to move forward with your life. You weren’t going to wait around and put your life on hold.” He shook his head. “And you have no idea how I admire that. It nearly killed me, knowing you were leaving, but God, I admire it.”
His eyes bored into mine, and a faint buzz began in the back of my head.
“The thing is, I can’t let you go. I mean—if you want to, of course, I’ll let you leave. But I need to tell you first that you’ve changed my life. I’m a better person for having known you, and no matter what happens now, you’ve forced me out of the cage I’d made. You’ve made me realize I want to live again, even if it means there’s a chance I’ll get hurt.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, as if searching for strength, and then he said. “I’m falling in love with you, Harper. I am in love with you, actually. And I just needed you to know that. In case it might affect your decision to leave. And of course I know it might be too late, and I’d never want to get in your way. I just…I needed you to know.”
I stared at him, the shock of the evening compounding, making it hard for me to sort one emotion from another. “And what does that mean if I stay?” I asked.
He smiled, an uncertain but no less handsome smile. “I hoped maybe you’d be willing to spend some time with me. Maybe let me take you out? I hoped maybe we could play some more cards some time.”
“You want to play cards with me?” I asked, feeling a smile begin to tug at my own mouth.
He stepped closer, an arm going around my back. “I’ll even let you win,” he said, his voice low and taking on an edge of suggestion.
I tilted my face toward his. “Nobody lets me win,” I told him. “I’ll kick your butt with no help at all, thanks.”
“I look forward to it,” he said. “Does this mean…?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I don’t know what it means. For right now, it means you’d better kiss me.”
And he did, his lips meeting mine tentatively at first and then more possessively, our bodies pressed together and a kind of sweet relief washing through me as we kissed. I honestly didn’t know what this would mean, how my plans might be affected—I’d made promises, made commitments. But I knew that in that moment, in Cameron’s arms under the big broad Sierra sky, I was happy.
Chapter 21
Cameron
Kissing Harper there under the twinkling lights with music playing around us, and my words finally out, finally where they belonged, it was one of the best moments of my life. When I took her in my arms, held her against me and felt her softness meld against me, when her mouth opened to mine and her arms clung to me, pulling me nearer, I was happy. Not just happy, but like I could climb out of my skin and die in this moment fulfilled.
I’d wanted Jess. There was a time when we’d been in love—or at least in deep lust. And Jess was a good person who didn’t deserve to be married to someone who hadn’t been sure of his feelings in the first place, and she didn’t deserve to die.
But as I kissed Harper, though most of my mind was incapable of actual thought in those moments, part of me knew this was different. This wasn’t even on the same planet.
Jess and I probably shouldn’t have gotten married, but at the time, my yardstick for measuring the intensity of my feelings only went so high, and it seemed big—what I felt for her.
But as I held Harper in my arms, the world condensed around us, and this was all that mattered. The intensity of my desire astounded me, shocked me. I didn’t just want the physical part of her, though I absolutely wanted that—every inch of it and as soon as possible—I wanted so much more than that. I wanted everything. I wanted her bright open smile, the thoughts that went through her head. I wanted her early morning primal need for coffee, and her discomfort with being alone in big spaces at night. I wanted her triumphant grin when she beat me at cards, and the way her eyes shone when she laid the truth out for me, asking me to acknowledge it. I wanted everything she was and whatever she would become, and it felt like it would be the greatest privilege I’d ever enjoyed just to have her permission to be at her side.
Harper broke off the kiss with a sound between a laugh and a sigh, and I caught her eyes with mine, not wanting to let her go.
“What about your curse?” she asked, still holding my gaze.
I shook my head slowly back and forth, my eyes never leaving hers.
