Secondhand Heart (12 page)

“Just until the end of the night.” I took another look at the door, considering it, but then realized that hiding out was the best thing I could do. “They’re all going to know.”

Cam burst out laughing. “So what? They know, Daisy. You’ve been here every night this week. You leave with me.” He pulled me out of the chair, so our arms were stretched outright, and my body was against his. “I want them to know.”

“I want them to assume. They didn’t need visual proof.” My legs felt like jelly. Cam led me out of the office, and helped me on to a barstool, then went behind the bar. I didn’t dare make eye contact with anyone. He reappeared with a shot and a beer chaser.

“See, the world didn’t end.” He winked at me.

“I guess you’re right.” Another shot appeared on the bar. I eyed it, and then Cam. “You’re going to have to drive me home if you keep this up.”

“Maybe that’s our problem.” Cam played with a lock of my hair. “We wouldn’t have to keep putting on a show if we lived together.”

H
oly shit. Either this tequila was the most potent stuff on earth, or Cam really just asked me to move in with him.

“You can’t give me two of those and then expect me to make big decisions.” I knew I was making those ugly drunk faces. Slutty Gumby, anyone? The shots made me instantly sea sick, a big accomplishment on solid ground. My joints felt rubbery, and my chin was rapidly melting into my neck. “And all we ever do is fuck.”

“Wouldn’t it make our favorite pastime a little easier if we lived together?” The crooked smile. Maybe. Cam’s eyes were floating around his face. “There’s plenty of time to get to know each other.”

I steadied myself on the arms of the bar stool. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

“Whoever you are, I like it.” He leaned in and kissed me, quick and chaste. Thank God, I don’t think I could have handled his tongue in my mouth. “I have to go on stage.”

“Can I have some water?” I asked him before he left me, and had never been so appreciative to receive anything in my life. I almost forgot to take off the little paper topper. That would have made me puke for sure. The cold water melted some of the fur off of my tongue.

The show that people actually came to see had started while Cam and I were performing in the back room. The place had filled in, a sea of anonymous faces enjoying their Saturday night. I’d never been so thankful to be a part of a crowd as I was at that moment. I was too drunk to freak out over it. I blended into the crowd, just another townie trying to live it up deep in the burbs. I had no idea who walked in on us. The packed room either worked in my favor, or the word spread like wildfire.

Cam joined the band on stage. Tonight he wasn’t singing, yet anyway, he was playing rhythm guitar. Cam just couldn’t stay off the stage. He understood that some of the crowd was there to see him, it was after all his place. But what he really wanted to do was build the local musician’s community. South of the city was a vast wasteland of sucky entertainment. People down here were practically starving for things to do. I’d asked him to consider some rock acts too, not just country. And artists that played their own music. There was only so much beer in the world, and I didn’t want to waste it all drowning out butchered renditions of Maroon 5.

I didn’t know the song they played, but the rest of the crowd sang along, rocking back and forth and fist pumping. My eyes were glued to Cam, his glow more than just the spotlight that was trained on him. His hair was still slightly damp from our play time, but otherwise, you’d never know what he’d been up to. It was our badly kept secret, and thinking about what we’d just done made my belly warm. Or maybe it was the tequila. My gaze fell to his fingers, plucking and tweaking the strings and making them cry out and sing, just like he’d done to me.

Once Cam left the stage, the crowd swallowed him and he disappeared from my sight. I attempted standing up on the rungs of my bar stool, but it would have been like trying to walk on water right now. Didn’t need to wind up flat on my ass in the middle of this crowd. Everyone’s head turned to the opposite corner of the room. I couldn’t see what was going on, but it looked like something pretty monumental from the way people were turning to see, then back to their friends with their eyes were wide and they were gesturing rapidly. No one was even paying attention to the band anymore.

People squeezed next to me, more intent on getting a drink than what was happening around them. I couldn’t see shit. One of the dudes getting a beer next to me had a serious case of BO, and I had to turn back to the bar to make sure I didn’t fall off my stool.

Once that smelly guy was gone, I turned back toward the stage, and for the most part, things seemed to have gone back to normal. Some gangly-limbed, middle-aged women were dancing to the music, trying to pull their balding counterparts up with them. It looked like the Peanuts Christmas special out there.

Where the hell did Cam go? I needed to chill out, he owned the place. There was no job description, even if he’d hired five people to do something, he still had to make sure it got done. And I didn’t own him.

I’d gone to high school with Shauna, one of the bartenders, so she usually took care of me when Cam wasn’t around. We hadn’t been super close before, but I felt comfortable enough asking her what was going on when I was totally oblivious.

Tonight, she was slammed, and I had a hard time getting her attention. Because gossiping with me was just as important as her doing her job, of course. Shauna must have felt my eyes following her, and she held her finger up to acknowledge me. I nodded, still watching her. Another bartender whispered something in her ear, making her eyes grow huge. She looked over at me and her mouth dropped.

A couple minutes later, the crowd thinned around the bar and she brought me another shot.

“So you heard, I take it.” I didn’t pick up the shot glass right away, but I twisted in my fingers, objects around it grew larger and smaller. Whoa. That shit needed to stop. I moved away from the shot glass.

“Yeah.” Shauna looked disgusted. “But how did you?”

Why was she talking in riddles? I probably shouldn’t drink this. Shit already wasn’t making sense.

“I was there. I did it.” I leaned forward on my elbows, my drunken equilibrium sent me a little too far forward. Time to be proud of my whoredom.

“What?” she said, scrunching her face up in confusion. “I think we’re not talking about the same thing.”

Oh, thank God. But then what was going on? “What are you talking about?”

“Cam’s wife is here.”

What. The. Fuck?

I downed that shot of tequila like it was holy water. God help me.

O
ozing off the bar stool, I got knocked back and forth like a human pinball trying to make my way through the crowd and back to Cam’s office.

The tiny little voice that represented Sober, Reasonable Me insisted that I needed to calm the fuck down, that there had to be a reasonable explanation for Ashley showing up here. But Drunken Idiot Me had no time for any of that rational shit.

Why would he do this to me? Talk about screwing me in public. What the hell was she doing here?

“Daisy! Daisy.” Shauna chased after me. I’d crossed the kitchen and headed down the hallway that ended at Cam’s office door. I stopped and let her catch up. “Are you sure you want to do this?

“No! I don’t. But what am I going to do, just sit out there and let them rekindle their relationship?” I lowered my voice to a stage whisper, my “s” were all sloshed and lipsy. I wasn’t sure any of the cooks were paying attention to us, we probably just looked like run of the mill girl drama. “We just had sex in that office!”

Shauna raised her eyebrows, then looked down the hallway at the closed door and smiled. “Yeah, I heard.”

What if Cam and his awful wife were doing the very same thing behind the closed door?

“I think I’m going to get sick.” That feverish feeling overwhelmed my body as I clapped my hand over my mouth, and ran out the side door. The hot garbage smell helped everything evacuate my body.

Shauna had disappeared by the time I was done, and I didn’t blame her one bit. There are things no one needs to see. She came back with a glass of water. “Are you going to be all right?” She frowned at me. I must have looked like a hot mess.

I nodded, sipping the water.

“I have to go back to the bar. Lisa will kill me if I leave her alone any longer.” Shauna put her hand on my shoulder. “Go clean yourself up before you go barging in there. Come see me if you need anything else.”

“Thanks.” Shauna was moving up my list of favorite people. Had she not stopped me, I would have ralphed all over Cam and his wife. Way to make an entrance, Daisy.

The women’s bathroom was practically a toxic waste dump at this stage of a Saturday night. Why were women so gross when they didn’t have to clean up after themselves? One of the stalls totally clogged up, the counter was wet, and crowds of drunk bimbos blocked the sinks. My equilibrium was still off, and once the crowd realized this, they parted ways for me.

“Did you see Cam’s wife?” I heard one of the girls asking her friends. “She’s so beautiful.”

I looked at her in the reflection of the mirror and dry heaved.

Shauna had been looking out for me, I was indeed one hot mess. Most of the time, there was only one of me. My mascara had run under my eyes from sweat and sickness tears. Thank God I didn’t get anything on my shirt. My credibility would be immediately discounted if I barged in to the office covered in barf stains. I finger combed my hair, Cam had pulled it out of place earlier, brought it over one shoulder then the other, and deemed myself presentable for the battle royale. Once I left the bathroom, I gulped clean air and headed back to the office. I’d lost some of my bravado, it was probably running down a storm drain in the parking lot now.

Cam wanted people to knock, so I did. “Come in,” he called out right away.

I shut the door behind me firmly, then leaned against it, just like I’d done a couple of hours before. This time, he didn’t order me to undress, because his wife was sitting in the seat I’d been in while giving Cam a blow job, looking at me with her mouth open.

“You’d rather fuck a fat chick than me?” She looked back at Cam, then to me again, not exactly sounding like Cam made her as sick as he claimed. “Oh, this is ridiculous.”

“No. This is childish.” I tried not to slur. Seriously, this broad couldn’t even weigh a hundred pounds. I could snap her upper arms like a dry twig, and I was picturing myself doing it. Not that I was down on skinny people, I was the first person to tell you I was way hotter fifty pounds ago, but I probably had seventy-five on her. Being that skinny just wasn’t cute.

“Daisy, this isn’t any of your business.” Cam sounded too tired to try to reason. He needed to find that energy someplace. I really needed him to put up a fight right now.

“How is it not my business? You just asked me to move in with you!” I shrieked, making sure I got a reaction out of Ashley. “After you fucked me against that desk.”

Ashley gasped, like it was the most offensive thing she’d ever heard.

“And I sat in that seat,” I pointed at her. “And sucked him off. Was it you who walked in on us?”

Just like that, I’d gone from not wanting anyone to know what we’d done to telling the whole world myself.

Ashley’s face didn’t move as freely as it would have had she not had considerable enhancements done. Up close, the exaggerated cheekbones and puffy lips were jarring. She looked like wax puppet. Or maybe my vision was still messed up. “What the hell is the matter with her?” she wouldn’t address me, she asked Cam. “That’s disgusting.”

Cam ignored her question. “Daisy, stop it. Ashley is just here to talk about the divorce agreement.”

“Like hell I am!” She jumped up out of the chair, charging Cam to wave her finger in his face. Her ankles wobbled on top of stilettos, her knees were the largest part of her legs. “I’m here because you called me.”

“About the divorce agreement.” Cam’s tone didn’t waver. Outbursts like this must have been normal for Ashley. “That’s all.”

“Bullshit.” Ashley put her hands on his chest and then pushed herself away from him. “Change your story all you want in front of what’s-her-face. But we both know what you want.”