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Authors: Rita Stradling

The Fourteen Day Soul Detox (18 page)

BOOK: The Fourteen Day Soul Detox
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“Is this…”

“The Ultimate Sunshine Tour,”
he said, with a grin.

There were three pictures, one with
both of us screaming, the other was just of me, looking over my
shoulder at him, almost lost in the immense crowd. In the third
picture, I was kissing his cheek, Cameron’s eyes squeezed
closed, and a smile stretched wide across his face.

“I thought you lost that
disposable camera?” I said excitedly. I pointed to the fourth
frame. “Wow, Cameron! And those are the tickets. You kept the
tickets.”

“Of course I did,” he said.

“How old were we here?
Seventeen?”

“Sixteen,” he said.

“We look so young…”
I laughed. “Remember how everyone was so mad at us for ditching
that end of summer bonfire thing.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“That was… to this day,
probably the best concert I ever went to. We had so much fun. I don’t
know if you remember this, but you kissed me while we were dancing.”

“I remember,” he said.

I smiled at him. “Me too. I had
such a crush on you that summer. But, you know, you were brand new to
town, and I knew you kissed a lot of girls, so I didn’t think
too much of it.”

“Who told you that I kissed a lot
of girls?” he asked.

“I don’t know…
probably Logan,” I said, laughing. “He was so jealous
after we went to that show, so angry and brooding. He wouldn’t
even talk to me for days and then, bam, he asked me out. We were
always in this ‘maybe’ place, and then suddenly he asked
me out after all those years. I always wondered if the idea that I
had a crush on you was what prompted him to ask me out.”

“Probably. Logan knew that I was
really into you, I’m sure that helped encourage him to act
too,” he said.

“You were?” I asked,
surprised. I looked up from the picture to smile at him. “I
always thought you just thought of me as a friend back then. Aside
from, you know, how much chemistry we had—but you were so
popular with the ladies, you seemed to have chemistry with everyone.”

His hand came up to run through my
hair. “I was crazy about you.”

“How funny,” I breathed out
a laugh. “Imagine how things would have been different if you’d
just asked me out first,” I mused, meeting his gaze.

He didn’t say, ‘I have
imagined that,’ but the serious expression he regarded me with
said it loud and clear. Finally, he said, “I’m glad
things happened the way they did, even though some of it was rough,
because we have Sarah in our life.”

I swallowed heavily. “She’s
the center of my life.”

“I know,” he said, he
looked deeply into my eyes as if he was saying something silently
that I could almost hear.

“Well, I love the present,”
I said, leaning over to place it on my nightstand. “Thank you
so much.”

Cameron’s hands came up to my
hips as I moved, then pulled me back to him. His hand grazed up the
side of my body, as I looked down at him.

“Hey beautiful,” he
whispered.

Leaning down, I kissed him.

His hands immediately threaded through
my hair, pulling me closer into him. He kissed me deeply, our breaths
soon coming heavily between us. I felt him lifting at the hem of my
shirt and I broke away to let him lift my shirt off me. With a quick
flick of his fingers, my bra followed. With one arm around my back
and the other cupping my head, Cameron rolled us over so that he was
now on top of me.

Letting out a little gasp, I smiled up
at him.

He gave me a mischievous grin before
his lips started making their way down my chest as his fingers
unbuttoned my jeans, and slowly let down the zipper. His hand
caressed over my lacy underwear, then slipped under.

Minutes later, we were both naked and
my body was liquid with waves of pleasure washing over me. Cameron
poised to enter me.

His eyes locked on mine, and I stared
up at him, completely captivated. Again, it was as if he was speaking
to me only with his gaze. His lips came down hard on mine as he
entered me gently.

A long time later, Cameron collapsed
over me, his breath heavy. “Hmm, this is my happy place,”
he whispered, chuckling before pulling out of me.

My hand slipped over his back, feeling
over the ridges of muscle. “I like this feeling. You’re
so heavy, but it feels really nice.” I closed my eyes, but
blinked them open. “We need to shower, and I think I might need
to change my bed sheets too. We’re so sweaty.”

Cameron slipped down my body, so that
his head rested on my stomach. “If you just stay here for one
more minute, I’ll do the bed sheets and let you take a shower
alone.”

“Okay, but you have to wake me if
I fall asleep,” I said, closing my eyes.

“I will,” he said, kissing
my stomach. Then a second later, “Baby?”

“Huh?” I said, blinking
furiously. My heavy eyelids glued themselves together.

“You fell asleep,” Cameron
whispered. When I fought my eyes open, I whispered, “Whoa, you
moved.”

“You fell asleep,” he
repeated, kissing me lightly on my lips. “Do you want my help
in the shower?”

“Um…” I sat up with
some effort, but immediately sagged forward while I scanned the room.
“No, I have it,” I said. Scooting forward off the bed, I
trudged to the bathroom across the hall.

Turning on the faucet to the right
temperature, I stepped into the spray. The tears came then, hot and
immediate, as if the faucet had turned them on too. Stuffing my hand
in my mouth, I muffled the sounds of my sobs. I turned from the spray
and moved my hand away to take a couple deep breaths.

“I can’t keep doing this,”
I whispered, pressing my head into the cool tile of the shower wall.

Turning off the faucet, I wrapped a
towel around me. I took a deep breath before walking into my bedroom.

Cameron looked up from where he was
laying a new top sheet over my bed. He smiled over at me.

“You don’t need to do that,
Cameron,” I said.

“That was our deal, remember?”
he said. “Now come lie down and I’ll tuck you in.”

“I can’t just yet, I have
to put on some pajamas,” I said, not quite able to meet his
eyes.

“Alright, I’ll wait,”
he said.

“Cameron, I…” I
looked up into his gaze, into his beautiful, smiling face. “Are
you okay with things just staying as they are between us?”

“Yeah,” he said,
automatically.

“Forever? Or, until someone else
comes along for you?” I said.

His eyelids narrowed and brow furrowed.
“Jamie, it might take a while, but one day you’re going
to be ready to move on completely. I can wait for that day.”

I sat down on the bed, tears running
down my face. “I don’t want you to be waiting for me to
move on, Cameron. It’s not fair to you,” I said.

He kneeled down in front of me. “I
don’t want to be anywhere else.”

“No, it’s not fair to you…
because we’re never going to end up together. Not in any real
way.”

He rocked back. “Why would you
say that?”

“Because, we’re each
other’s history, we’re never going to be able to move on
if we cling to the past through each other.”

“That’s what you’re
doing? You’re clinging to the past through me?” His
shoulders came up, as if he was pulling into himself.

“What Logan and Vanessa did to
us, and then we started sleeping together only a few months later…
how are we supposed to ever make something real out of that?”

“What are you saying, exactly?
What has this relationship between us been to you? Some elaborate
revenge against Vanessa?” He glared at me as he spoke, his
nostrils flaring.

“Of course not!”

“Shit, Jamie. I thought—”
His head fell back, his hands covering his face. His hands fell away
and his eyes came back to glare into mine. “I thought you loved
me. But I’m just some long, elaborate grudge-fuck for you?”

Tears came faster now. “No. You
know that I love you, Cameron. But that’s not—”

“Not, what?”

“You knew!” I shouted at
him. “You knew for weeks and you never told me. You even
covered for them,” I said. “I’ve tried so hard to
move past it, because I’m in love with you. But I can’t
move past it, I can’t. Every time we have sex, the words beat
into my fucking head. He knew. He knew. He knew!”

Tears coursed down his face now, too.
“I’m not fucking perfect, Jamie.”

“I know, and I know I’m far
from perfect. I’m a big fucking mess. But, I really want to
move forward in my life, and you and I are just carrying around our
past everywhere.”

“You just had sex with me, right
here, just a few minutes ago, and now you lay all this on me?”
he said, before shaking his head.

“I’m so sorry. You just
keep saying and doing these amazingly sweet things, and I’m so
filled with guilt. You deserve better,” I said.

“Yeah, I do.” His hand came
up to my cheek and his thumb brushed my tears away. “I do
deserve better from you. Like a little fucking understanding about
what I was going through at that time. I’m going to the living
room to sleep. We can talk about all this stuff later. I’m not
in the right mindset right now.”

“Okay,” I said, tears still
coursing down my face.

He stood, but didn’t walk away
for a second. His eyes squeezed together. “I really wish that
this wasn’t the way you told me that you loved me for the first
time.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He opened his eyes, and stared directly
into mine. “Yeah, me too. Goodnight, Jamie.”

This volume
is complete, but the story continues in
Volume
Two
, release date June 27, 2016.

If you enjoyed this book, please
consider reviewing on
Amazon
.

A
Couple ‘Thank You’s

I want to give a special thanks to my
sisters Abra and Anna, for their amazing support and ideas. I’m
sending a whole truckload of thank yous to my mother for always
helping me. I’d like to say a big thank you to Elizabeth from
the
Chick
Lit Chikadees Blog
for beta reading and for her awesome
suggestions. Also, I’m sending a huge thanks to my editor
Monique
Fischer
, who never ceases to amaze me.

99

BOOK: The Fourteen Day Soul Detox
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