A Missing Heart(36)

Oh, holy shit.

“You’re looking for a good time, huh, AJ?”

“Cammy?” I gasp and kind of choke at the same time.

She looks disgusted with me. “I should have figured you’d turn into one of them,” she says.

“You drove all the way up here to see me?” I ask softly. It’s been one year…of course she came to see me. It’s why I wanted to go see her. It’s our daughter’s birthday and we can’t celebrate it with her.

“Whoa, holy shit, is this the Cammy? The one you jack off to every night while you think I’m sleeping?” Brink hoots.

“Oh my God, this was a mistake,” she says.

“No, no, Cam, it wasn’t a mistake. Ignore him. It’s just my roommate.”

“Hey!” Brink shouts, grabbing at his heart. “That hurts, bro.”

“Are you going to Cancun or something?” she asks, while adjusting the strap of her duffel bag over her shoulder.

“Uh,” I stall because…what the hell am I supposed to say? “I was planning on it, yeah, but if you’re here—”

“Seriously, bro? I bought your ticket from Chad.” Shit, I forgot about that. Fuck!

“You didn’t mention Cancun,” Cammy mutters, seeming embarrassed.

“You hadn’t had much time to talk this week, and it just came up yesterday.” I did try to make plans to come and see you, I think to myself, but now I know why she shot me down.

“Brink, I’ll give you the cash I have and the rest when you get back. I’ll get it to you somehow, okay?” I can see I’m making everyone uncomfortable right now, but Cammy just drove seven hours to surprise me, and there’s no way I can leave with her here.

“I don’t want to be the reason you don’t go on spring break with your…” she snarls at Brink a little, “adorable roommate.”

“You think I’m cute, huh?” Brink has an obnoxious smirk displayed across his face, and I think I might just be okay skipping the trip after all.

Cammy turns her back to Brink and places her small, soft hands on my face. The sensation of her touch against my skin is like the warmth of the sun after a thousand cloudy days. God, I’ve missed this girl like crazy. I know we aren’t technically still together, but this is exactly why I’ve kept my hope alive—the hope that this moment would exist again.

“I miss you, AJ,” she says, pressing up on her toes and lightly touching her lips to mine. Friends don’t kiss each other. Maybe she changed her mind. The softness of her lips warms me at the touch, and the taste of her lip gloss zings all of the nerves in my mouth. I wrap my arms around her and hold her against me as tightly as I can, not giving a shit about who’s watching this reunion.

After a minute of mindlessly kissing the lips I still love, she pulls away, smiling at me with an undefined expression. “I want you to go to Cancun. We’ll make plans for the summer,” she says. “The last thing I want to do is hold you back. It’s the reason why I gave everything up in the first place.” She laughs a little at her statement, but it’s not funny at all.

They say your heart grows attached to the first person you sleep with, which I can understand, and if so many people think that general idea is true, what does it say for those who have a child together and then lose the child? It’s like I gave half of my heart to Cammy and the other to our daughter, leaving me with a big empty hole in my chest. I can’t let go of her. Literally. I have her hands locked in mine, and my head is nodding before I can even get the words out. “I’m not leaving you after you came all this way.”

“Yes, you are. You are going to experience Cancun and everything you’re supposed to experience during spring break.”

“Cam,” I laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“This...is the least I can do for you,” she says, definitively.

“Ugh!” Brink groans from five feet away. “You two are killing me!”

“Isn’t my roommate awesome?” I joke with Cam.

Brink sighs again. “Give me your phone,” he says to me. I give him a questioning look and toss him my cell. “Give me a minute, lover boy.”

“What’s he doing?” Cammy asks under her breath.

“With Brink, there is absolutely no way of ever knowing what he is doing. I’ve learned to sort of just roll with the punches when he’s around.”

Brink left the common area with my phone about ten minutes ago. He’s been pacing behind the glass doors in front of the main elevators for the last ten minutes, and now he’s now pushing back through the doors. “Hey, I think your shuttle is here,” I mouth to him. He’s still talking to someone on my phone, though, and he shoos me away. Brink steps up to Cammy and removes her bag from her shoulder and throws it over his own, still continuing his conversation to whoever the hell he’s talking to.

Brink walks outside to the shuttle bus with Cammy’s bag and steps inside of the vehicle. “What the hell?”

“What is he doing?” Cammy asks, as we follow him out the front door.

Both of us step onto the shuttle so I can retrieve our stuff, and at the same time, Brink ends the call before sitting down in one of the blue cushioned seats. With his hands folded over his lap, he looks over at me casually and asks, “What’s up?”