Just For You (29 page)

"Let's go, Cam." Alex was out of his seat already, waiting on Cameron to finish nursing his arm. This was the first semi-exciting thing to happen to them during the entire trip so far. He'd come down here with his brother for an adventure, and by God, it was about time the adventure started.

When Alex and Cameron were safely in their rental car, following the two men back to the jobsite, Alex turned to his brother. Moments passed in silence, until Cameron became unnerved.

"Why are you staring at me?" he asked, looking out the driver's side window as if eliminating Alex from his own sight would make him invisible.

Alex smiled and shrugged. "You do realize you're doing something romantic, right?"

Cameron grimaced. "This is not romantic. At all. I don't do romantic."

Alex raised an eyebrow and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Don't deny it. For the love of God, you flew all the way to Louisiana to look for this girl with no warning, no planning ahead whatsoever. You don't even know where she is. Do you even know what you're going to say to her when you do find her?"

Cameron couldn't help but smile at the confidence his brother had in him. He'd asked him what he would do
when
he found Imogen, when really Cameron didn't even know
if
he'd be able to find her. Still, Cameron didn't have an answer to the question. He had absolutely no idea what he would do, or what he would say, should the two of them come face to face.

He shrugged, making a right turn onto a side street, as his tour guides did. He parked the car and turned off the ignition, waiting for his next queue. Suddenly Cameron realized his stomach felt lightweight and sick at the same time. Swallowing to wet his dry throat, Cameron recognized the feeling.

He was nervous.

The younger man got out of the car in front of them first. As he closed the door, the older man pointed toward the house, where a team of four people were helping to lift up a slab of wood which would later become part of an outer wall of the house.

"Mike," the older man said. "She's right there. Go ask him if that's his girl."

Cameron, hearing this, followed the man's finger with his eyes. All he could see was the back of a head, but his pulse jumped to life when he saw the lines of the woman's back and her long legs in a pair of light washed jeans.

Mike tapped on Cameron's window with the knuckle of his middle finger, and Cameron rolled it down.

"You can get out and have a look, if you'd like. The girl's that-a-way."

Cameron didn't need to follow Mike's arm, now outstretched toward her. He already knew. He didn't have to see her face to know. Every cell in him was sure. It was Imogen.

He swallowed again and told Alex to stay in the car.

"Screw you. I didn't travel all this way with you just to stay in the god damned car." Alex pulled on the door handle and had the door halfway open before Cameron leaned over his lap and slammed it shut again.

"You're staying here. If it's her, I want a few moments of privacy. You'll know when the right time is, but it's not now."

Something in Cameron's dark gaze told Alex not to push it. He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his seat. "Whatever, dude."

Cameron ran his tongue along the sharp edges of his top teeth and licked his dry, cracked lips. God, why was his heart pumping so fast?

"Thanks," he breathed to Alex as he slammed the door.

"I'll walk with you, if you'd like," Mike said.

Cameron gave it a split second's thought. At first he was going to say no but then he decided it might be better to have someone with him for a few moments before. Just in case he fell down dead for being the bigger person first.

He nodded in agreement and Mike's hand was heavy on his shoulder.

"It's no big deal, bro," Mike said in an easy, conversational tone, using his free hand to gesture in the air as they walked. "Just go right on up to her and say the first thing you can think of."

Cameron scrunched his face. "What happens if the first thing I can think of is criminally stupid?"

Mike nodded, considering Cameron's question. "Think of something else, I guess."

"You sure your day job isn't as an inspirational speaker? I feel leagues more prepared for this."

Mike laughed. It was a booming laugh, loud and full. "I can tell you're great with the ladies."

"Is that sarcasm I detect in your voice?"

By now they were near the lady in question, her back still turned to them. She was squatting down, hammering a nail into a large piece of wood. Cameron felt a lump in his throat and tried to swallow it down, but it persisted.

Mike's eyes twinkled with genuine kindness as he looked Cameron straight in the eye. "Not at all," he answered, smiling. Then, turning from him, Mike addressed the girl. "Yo, Im. You got a friend here to see you."

"What?" she asked, keeping her eyes on the block of wood still at her feet. She rose, wiping the back of her forearm across her forehead, ridding it of the sweat beads there against her hairline.
There was no longer any doubt about her identity. Something in Cameron's body reacted to the sound of her voice, sonorous and musical even when she wasn't trying. His mind went blank. The babble was gone. All was calm.

Imogen turned fully to look at Mike, but her attention was arrested when she saw something from the corner of her eye: curly brown hair. It was a ridiculous sort of curl, wild and out of control, and she would know it anywhere. Without having to see the rest of him, Imogen knew whose it was. Her eyes met with Cameron's, and she looked at him hesitantly, not able to discern whether or not he came to her angry, serene, or with a plan for vengeance which could only end in her death. She couldn't quite make out the look on his face; it was placid and smooth but something of Cameron's usual brooding was evident in his eyes. His mouth was in a hard, straight line, and his body was straight and rigid, his hands shoved into his back pockets. Mike, with his large arm around the length of Cameron's shoulders, looked almost hilariously out of place standing next to Cameron, looming over him by at least three inches and wearing a smile so bright that not even a thousand watt light bulb could contend with it.

"Cameron." She breathed his name.

He didn't say anything in return, only gave her a half-hearted smile which made her heart sink. She didn't have a good feeling about this. She wanted to ask him a hundred questions all at once, but couldn't find it in herself to speak all of them with Mike standing there like some sort of chaperone.

"How did you find me?" Imogen asked after a moment or two of silence, pulling the head scarf from her head, her long hair falling over her shoulders now that it was unrestrained. "I didn't really tell anyone where I was going."

Cameron furrowed his brows and scratched the back of his head. Imogen could see a sliver of skin on his smooth belly as the hem of his shirt raised with his arm. He sucked in the air between his teeth. "Alex sorta let the beans spill."

"Oh," Imogen nodded. Yes, she had told Alex. "Yeah. I'm not staying here. I mean, I only came here for a little while. I didn't expect him to tell you."

"Would you rather he didn't?"

Cameron's gaze was piercing. He was searching Imogen's face for something, but she couldn't be sure what. She cleared her throat and clapped her hands together, smiling up at Mike.

"If you don't mind," she said, "I'm going to steal him away from you. Private time and all."

Mike shrugged nonchalantly. "Don't be too long, we need you." He sauntered off as Imogen took Cameron by the elbow and led him to a more secluded spot, where they could talk with relative privacy.

Before she could open her mouth, Cameron was speaking. Her surprise wouldn't have allowed her to speak for a moment, even if she wanted to.

"Look, I'm sorry if you came here to get away from me, but I have something to say, too. Ask me why I'm here and I can't really give you a straight answer because frankly," he shrugged his shoulders, "I don't even really know that. I do know that I feel like shit about how things panned out between us. It's just that…"

He paused, not sure if he should say what it was that he really wanted to say. If he said it, she might laugh in his face. But he had to try, didn't he? He couldn't have made his way all the way down here not to be honest with her. The point of this was to clear the air between them, and for that to happen, she needed to know what he really thought.

"What happened between you and I at my parent's house, look, I wasn't expecting that to happen, either, but it did. We have to face the consequences of that. I know I haven't been Johnny Sunshine in the time you've known me but for some God-forsaken reason that night was significant for me in some ways."

Imogen wasn't sure what emotion was raging through her veins but she did know that it was overwhelming. She was elated, elated to know that however bad she messed up, Cameron was still there. He was standing in front of her, right now, only inches away from her, telling her words she never thought she even wanted to hear. Only after they were out in the open did she realize that all along she'd been so blind. She was amazed at how she'd missed it, when all the time, it was staring her back in the face.

She opened her mouth to speak but Cameron stopped her, holding a hand up so that he could finish.

"I'm letting you know right here and now, though," Cameron said, "I haven't made a complete 180. I'm not even promising a 180 in the future, but I am here to ask you if maybe you can settle for a 90. Because I'm trying, Imogen. Believe it or not, and trust me, it sounds crazy to me, too, but I kind of, sort of want to be your friend. Maybe one day in the future, when we both get our heads on straight," he qualified, "we might decide we want to be more than friends. I don't know, it doesn't really matter right now. This is not some romantic, overzealous declaration of my love, Imogen. This is me, letting you know, right now, right here, the way I'm feeling. I like you. I know that's shocking coming from me, but it's true. You know how hard I've tried not to. So I was thinking," he said, stepping forward and taking both of her hands in his own, "you might like me, too, just enough to put the past in the past. We don't have to start over, but I'm proposing that we wipe the marks off our slate. Neither of us have exactly been upstanding to each other all the time, but I'm willing if you are."

Neither of them missed the way they both seemed to fit perfectly together, like human versions of corresponding puzzle pieces. Imogen squeezed Cameron's hands in her own.

"I was an idiot for leaving. I was an idiot about everything." Her voice soft and she dropped her chin, looking at her toes. She tried to be brave and look him in the eye but she couldn't. Imogen was shaking her head, thick strands of hair caressing the curves of her cheeks with the movement. "I was only trying to save what little we had while I could. I know, it was already too late, because I just screwed it up even more." She took her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed, pondering what she would say next. Imogen breathed deeply through her nostrils and looked up at Cameron. "The brutal truth is, I like you, too" she shrugged. "A lot. I'm more than willing to work on this if you are, Cameron."

Those were not the words Cameron expected to hear.

He smiled the rare bright smile he used only for special occasions. It was the smile Imogen loved, the smile she prided herself on being able to illicit twice now, and this time she provoked it without his having had any alcohol whatsoever beforehand.

Taking his hands from her, he said, "I have something for you, too." One of them disappeared behind his back and he slid from the waistband of his jeans her journal, with its faded, brown leather edges and its string ties. Imogen had to hold back tears as he handed it to her and she took it from him, holding it to her chest as if it were a fragile newborn child.

"That's yours and it belongs with you. It doesn't feel right, holed up in my little apartment."

Imogen smiled and finished the sentence. "Stuck between a book of German philosophy and Stephen King's
It
." She giggled and Cameron chuckled in response.