Baby, Be My Last: The Fairfields | Book Three Page 3

  “I keep telling her a little positivity would work wonders on her health, but she’s set in her ways.” Mom gives a sigh like she’s sitting down and relaxing for the first time all week, which, knowing her, is exactly the case. “Missed you at dinner last night. I brought the leftovers to your apartment, though. Knox was real happy.”

  “I’ll bet.” Knox would survive on nothing but stale cereal and American cheese if it weren’t for me and the grocery budget. He earns a lot, but he’s also frugal, hates food shopping—and isn’t nearly picky enough.

  The line grows quiet. “You know when you’ll be back yet?”

  “That’s up to Tim.”

  “Well, you know the lawyer can just handle all that stuff. You don’t have to wait around, taking time off from work and spending money on a hotel until you get an answer. You can wait just the same back home for news of a court date or settlement, what have you.”

  “Mom. Don’t do this again.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “It’s not about the money. That isn’t why I’m doing this. If it were, I’d pick a way stronger case than abandonment. Or I’d be getting you to sue for back child support.” I sit up and stare at the dust motes in the shaft of light around the curtain. “I just want to talk to him.”

  “If you ask me, he’s made it abundantly clear he doesn’t want to talk to you. Why bother?”

  I set the phone to speaker, drop it on the bed, and get up to change my shirt. It’s still damp from all the nervous sweating I did inside the Acre. “Remember when I wanted to do this a few years ago? Right after my eighteenth birthday. I packed up the car and everything.”

  Mom’s quiet again. I’m not letting her off the hook that easily.

  “Mom? You remember?”

  “Yes,” she sighs, “I remember.”

  “And what did you tell me?”

  She clears her throat. “I told you to sit on the idea for a while.”

  “And?”

  “And...that, if you still wanted to when the idea came up again, I wouldn’t stop you.”

  “Or,” I add sharply, “get involved in any way. You promised you’d keep your opinions to yourself.” I pause, feeling my resolve weaken just a bit. “I know you’re trying to help. And maybe you’re right. Maybe I would be better off with his money, but not him. But I’d rather have neither.”

  “Then what’s the point? Why are you spending all the money on a lawyer and hotel if you’re just planning on walking away when he still doesn’t talk to you?”

  I button my shirt and turn to the mirror on the back of the door. That picture of Bourne Fairfield slips into my head again.

  “Because this way, he has to listen,” I tell her.

  Her television starts in the background. “Fine, fine. I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  “No, you won’t,” I laugh, and she does, too. “But thanks for pretending.”

  We hang up. I lie back on the duvet and shut my eyes. I don’t want to think about anything for the rest of the night; my brain actually feels fuzzy, all the ridges packed with details and what-ifs like lint.

  The Acre Hotel flashes in front of my eyes. Thankfully, instead of Tim’s haggard face, dripping guilt into me faster than I can bail it back out, I see Camille’s. Imagining her licking foam off her lips from coffee we haven’t gotten yet is the first pleasant thought I’ve had in this motel since I arrived.

  My phone pings. I roll over and dive for it, somehow sure the thought of Camille set off some ripple effect in the universe to make her text me.

  Nope: an email from the lawyer. He wants to meet me, first thing tomorrow. “Need to discuss new developments. My office, 9?”

  I type out a quick “sure” and send it. He could easily tell me right now—but then he wouldn’t be able to charge me for sitting in his office and sipping lukewarm Dr. Pepper, would he?

  Great: my mind is right back on the lawsuit, the Acre, my dad’s sunken face, and everything I didn’t want to think about tonight. I roll off the side of the bed and dig my spare cash out of my bag. If I’m going to sit around wallowing, might as well do it at a bar.

  The guy at the check-in desk points me to a place two streets over, “through the alleys,” which should be a red flag to stay away. Tonight, I can’t care. I need distractions, and a strong drink should just about do it.

  The back door to the bar reads Outpost: Staff Only. I nod to a guy smoking a cigarette as I pass and turn the corner, searching for the entrance.

  The place doesn’t look like much, blacked-out windows and filmy brick. There’s a decent crowd inside, though, so I decide to stay. Getting lost in a sea of strangers is better than getting lost in thought.

  “What can I get you?” the waitress asks when I sit. My booth is a sad little two-person thing, cracking vinyl on the seats, salt from the last occupants scattered on the table. She notices, sheepishly wiping it down while I ask what craft beers they have.

  “Craft?” she chuckles. “We’re not really that kind of place. Closest thing would be the hard cider, from—”

  “Filigree Farms,” I finish, and can’t help but laugh. Doesn’t matter how long I’m out or how far I get from my hometown, it’ll follow me. “Guess I’ll take one of those, then.”

  She smiles, leaves me a menu, and winds through the bodies back to the bar.

  Knox texts me: “You rich yet?” I send him a nice photo of my middle finger. He sends back one of him eating the leftovers my mom brought, straight from the Tupperware.

  I finish the cider faster than I mean to, quickly leaving myself with nothing but an empty bottle, the cramp of apples at the back of my cheek, and my thoughts. I’m about to order another when my phone pings again.

  Maybe the universe did send out some signal, because it’s a text from Camille.

  “Too soon to take you up on that coffee?”

  I’m still grinning when the waitress comes back. “Another cider?”

  “Just the check,” I tell her, but the crowd in the place is growing, and I don’t want to wait one more second to get back to the Acre, strange as that thought feels.

  “Actually, here.” I palm her a folded-up ten from my pocket and edge through the crowd. “Keep the change.”

  4

  Deciding to go out with Silas happened in phases.

  First, there was the hour or so I spent after he left, when it took me three times as long to clean a room. Roz blew past me with her all-purpose spray at the ready like a cocked gun, then finished the suite before I could even blink.

  “What’s up with you today?” She spritzed me with the cleaner. “Pick up the pace. I want to get out of here.”

  My apology was sincere, but I kept falling behind. Every time I got things moving, my mind wandered back to the sight of Silas in that elevator. The rich roll of his voice, bending his slight twang into something charming.

  Coffee wouldn’t be the worst thing, I thought. Seeing those arms braced against the table in front of me. Hearing his breathy laugh cut through the chatter and hum of the café, aimed right for me.

  No time—remember? the other half of my brain countered, simply because this was always enough to talk me out of anything. Sure, I’d get done at eight tonight—early by my usual standards—but I had an opening shift the next day, bright and early.

  That was the start of the second phase: when Roz informed me there’d been a scheduling mistake. I had tomorrow off.

  No excuses. It would be good for me, anyway. When was the last time I’d gone on a date, or anything close to it?

  Still, my head crafted reason after reason to not go. Dad would be exhausted from his double-shift, and Mom was probably sleeping off her double-shift right that minute. Someone had to clean the house, walk and feed Arrow, and make sure Jeff was still alive down in the basement.

  Then my mother called to let me know Arrow was fed, so I wouldn’t overfeed him whenever I got home. “But take your time—hang out with coworkers or something. You’re wo
rking too much.”

  “Oh.” I stuffed my uniform into my backpack in the employee bathroom and finished pulling my hair into a ponytail, phone wedged under my chin. “Well...I mean, the kitchen’s still dirty from last night—”

  “Already taken care of,” she sang. “Today was a good day, lots of energy. I cleaned the place top-to-bottom when I couldn’t sleep. Even made Jeff do some yard work. Practically killed him to leave his video games or whatever he does down there, but the grass is cut, I’m happy.”

  “Oh,” I said again. This was happy news. Now I didn’t have to clean our house, after an entire day wiping up strangers’ messes and laundering God knows what out of their bedding. And Mom was elated, clearly, at accomplishing something she hadn’t had the time or energy to do in months. No way could I take that away from her.

  “Cami—go. Have fun with some friends. Go shopping, get dinner.” Her voice grew serious. “Life isn’t meant to be all work.”

  “I know,” I sighed, a little annoyed. She didn’t have to remind me of this.

  Then again, maybe she did.

  Roz was still fixing her makeup when I stepped out of the stall, bag and purse pulling on my arm. She looked at me in the mirror. “Big plans tonight?” she asked, like she always did.

  I felt my brow furrow as I stared into a translucent paper towel, stuck against the side of the sink. “Apparently.”

  “Anything to do with that boy you ran off with earlier?” She bumped me with her hip, laughing, and I knew all was forgiven.

  “Coffee, maybe,” I offered quietly, then shrugged as I pulled up our thread and asked him if it was too soon to take him up on the offer.

  Within seconds, he typed back, “Never too soon. Meet you in the courtyard in ten.”

  “Been a while since I was still on the market,” Roz said, adjusting her bra through her shirt. “Does ‘coffee’ still mean now what it meant back then?”

  I rolled my eyes at her, both of us laughing. “Goodnight,” I enunciated, and she winked at me in the mirror.

  Silas took a little longer than ten minutes. I was surprised when he arrived on foot, emerging from the shadows of a side street along the courtyard. My stomach got that bubbly, lifted feeling when he smiled at me and said hello.

  “ColdBru Coffee Company,” he says now, reading off his cup. We’re in a coffee shop a few blocks from the Acre. His leg keeps brushing mine, our leather armchairs pulled close. “Clever name, I guess.”

  “What would you call it? ‘Beans and Ice?’”

  He laughs, and I think I lose every piece of that girl making excuse after excuse to not do this. I can’t imagine being stuck cleaning the house tonight, or going to bed early. I never want to sleep again. I never want to go home.

  “‘Beauty and the Bean,’” I add softly, just to hear him laugh one more time.

  5

  “No, I can top that.”

  I shake my head as Camille and I come to the end of the sidewalk. The street is empty, so we step onto the asphalt and keep going, the road seemingly endless in front of us. We’ve been walking and sharing stories for over an hour, after at least forty-five minutes of lighter chitchat in the café. “Sorry, I don’t think only-child behavior gets any weirder than imaginary friends.”

  “Everyone has imaginary friends when they’re little. That isn’t weird.”

  “Pretending the entire Cowboys roster are your friends? I seriously doubt you can beat it, but go ahead.”

  She draws a breath. I have a feeling the conversation is going a new direction, so I take this chance to narrow the gap between us. Every now and then, our shoulders touch.

  “My mom had cancer off and on when I was growing up,” she says, after a minute, “so my dad was at the hospital with her a lot, and I had to stay with our neighbor across the street. There was this big, gorgeous apple tree in her backyard, and I’d sit up there and name every single one I could find for, like, hours, going through the entire alphabet.”

  I laugh, but we both know it’s just the prelude to a question. As a courtesy, I wait until we’ve walked a little farther to ask it.

  “Your mom had cancer?”

  Camille draws her lips between her teeth and nods. “Bone cancer. She kept bouncing in and out of remission.”

  “Is she...? I mean, did she ever...?”

  “She’s alive. Cancer-free for four years now, in fact.”

  I relax. “That’s good.”

  She nods again, looking like she might add something, but she stays quiet.

  “Well, you win: naming apples is weirder than adopting an imaginary football team.” We pass a bluebeard bush along the road when the buildings end. Its flowers are wilting, but I still twist one off between my fingers and hand it to her. Blushing, she thanks me.

  The road ends at some looming iron gates. Out of curiosity, I nudge one. It groans open.

  “That’s the soldiers’ cemetery.” Camille peers through the gates with me. “It’s actually really gorgeous in the daytime. People picnic there.”

  “You’re kidding. In a cemetery?”

  “Yeah. Why not? It’s basically a park with really pretty statues. Most of the graves don’t even have bodies, they’re just memorials.”

  My fingers grope for the gate and pull it shut again. “Nope. Never.”

  “Scaredy-cat.” She jabs me in the side, quick, and laughs when I jump.

  “I got stuck in a grave, once,” I tell her, as we start walking again, going back the way we came. “My friend Knox and I snuck into the little cemetery behind our church, and I guess it was dug out for a funeral later that day, but nobody was around. Knox dared me to jump in, I did, and then I couldn’t get out.”

  “He didn’t help you?”

  “Hell no, he hauled ass as soon as someone came out of the church to yell at him. I didn’t want to get in trouble, though, so I ducked down and just sat there for a good hour. Until the pastor showed up and ratted me out, of course.”

  Camille laughs. It echoes down the empty street ahead.

  “Bet your folks got you good for that. When I got caught sneaking into a movie, my dad arranged for me to pick up every piece of popcorn in the theater. By hand.”

  “Good God. Your dad must be a scary guy.”

  “Nah, he’s a sweetheart, deep down. He just can’t stand thieves.”

  “Sneaking into a movie isn’t exactly thievery, if you ask me.”

  “He’s an ex-cop,” she sighs, twirling the flower near her chin, “so he wouldn’t agree. Learned my lesson, that’s for sure.” Camille’s arm brushes mine as she sidesteps a puddle. “Were your parents strict?”

  I feel my smile catch on itself. Now would be the perfect time to tell her the truth about who I am—correct her usage of the word “parents,” segue into why my dad wasn’t around, and drop the Fairfield bomb. Quick and painless.

  But I don’t correct her. For the first time in my life, I’m nothing but a McIntyre. Just me. And it feels incredible.

  “I was a latchkey kid,” I answer, settling with a partial truth, for now. “By the way, I hope you know where we’re going, because I have no idea.”

  “I was thinking of heading to the river—you can walk across the whole thing on this giant footbridge. The water’s really pretty, when the sky is clear.”

  “Good night for it, then.” The sky doesn’t have a single cloud in it: nothing but black-blue and stars.

  I catch her hand in mine and hold it as we walk, loving the fact I can still see her blush in the streetlights.

  We spend our walk sharing more stories: she tells me about her dog, Arrow, and the tenant in her parents’ basement they can’t seem to get rid of, because he miraculously comes up with rent money just before they kick him out, interest included, source unknown. I tell her about leaving Filigree when I was eighteen, dragging my best friend right along with me, and how even Hillford feels too small to me, now.

  “Hillford’s so cute, though. It’s like some 1950’s town. I
love it.”

  “You wouldn’t if you lived there. It’s cute and fun and all that when you’re playing tourist, but being in it all the time wears on you. Everyone knows your business. Nobody wants anything to change or grow. You know there isn’t a single Wi-Fi hotspot in town? Not even in the cafés. My data usage is insane if I’m not at my apartment.”

  Camille offers a skeptical smile. “If Hillford has apartments, how behind-the-times can it really be?”

  “Let me rephrase: by ‘apartment’ I meant the converted storage rooms over an ice cream parlor.”

  Her smile transforms into an actual, open-mouthed grin. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. I live right over Everyoung Ice Cream. It’s the one and only chain in town, besides the gas station. The company’s really good at that wholesome, old-fashioned vibe, so I think that’s why locals let us stay.”

  “‘Us?’ You work there?”

  “Not in the shop itself—I telecommute, since the offices are in DC. I’m in Research & Development. My official title is Product Refinement Associate, which is a fancy way of saying I help develop new flavors, name them, rebrand others, all that.”

  “I would kill for a job like that,” she sighs, shutting her eyes as she tips back her head. “Eating ice cream all day and getting paid for it? Sign me up.”

  “Ice cream’s a lot like Hillford. Have it every day, and you’ll get sick of it.” I take the flower from her and tuck it behind her ear. My hand lingers near her cheek.

  Kissing Camille has been on my mind all night—but, like telling her I’m a Fairfield, I know timing is everything. I pull my hand back and take hers again.

  “So you can work anywhere, any time?”

  “To an extent, sure.”

  “Then why do you stay in Hillford? It sounds like you want to get out.”

  “Trust me, I’m trying.” I laugh, but not very convincingly. “They keep me in Hillford so I can see how smaller towns react, what they like or don’t like, so they can launch strong in other places like it. When a location is really mom-and-pop-centric, it’s hard for chains to stick around.”