The Paid Bridesmaid(29)

He came back over to me, put my arm around his neck, and supported my waist with his free arm.

“I like men who leave big tips. It says a lot about your character. Your mom must have raised you right.”

“I don’t have a mom. Come on.”

Didn’t have a mom? Everyone had a mom. If he wanted one, he could have mine.

But before I could ask him to explain, he was moving us forward and I had to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. The floor seemed to be moving, shimmering in front of me so that it was always a surprise when my foot made contact. I couldn’t look up at the walls because they were definitely spinning.

“Okay,” I told him. “If I injure myself at some point, please tell the EMTs that I’m O positive.”

“Does that happen a lot when you’re drunk?”

“I’m not drunk,” I insisted.

“I can see that.” It sounded like he was agreeing with me, but it was obvious that he wasn’t.

I kept knocking into him, my hip slamming into the water he was still carrying. After the third time it happened I asked, “Is that a bottle of water in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” He looked like he wanted to laugh.

I stumbled hard and he had to hold up my weight so that I wouldn’t fall.

“You know what,” I said. “I think I am drunk.”

“You don’t say,” he responded in that teasing tone of his and I was glad he was more like himself again.

“Why were you mad earlier?”

“At the events we’ve gone to so far, I noticed that you didn’t drink. At the brunch you even spit out your mimosa.”

“You saw that?” Wow. He really had been trying to catch me from day one. “It’s probably that control thing. Getting drunk makes me feel out of control and I don’t like it. I mean, it’s fine now. But normally it upsets me.”

“I’m guessing it won’t be fine tomorrow and you will be mad,” he said. “We’re almost there.”

“Does that mean you don’t like getting drunk, either?”

“Nope. I don’t like having misunderstandings with the floor.”

Ha. That wasn’t why. He didn’t want to be out of control, either. I knew the real reason even if he didn’t want to say it.

A taxi was waiting for us, and the driver did not seem happy when he saw me. Which I thought was kind of rude. Camden had to promise to pay extra if I got sick, but I wasn’t that drunk. It seemed like overkill.

As the taxi drove away from the club, I studied Camden’s profile. He looked like he needed a haircut—the way his hair curled just behind his ear was really cute. I reached up to touch it, and he flinched like I’d hit him with an ax.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“You’re not really yourself right now and should probably just get to bed.”

“I can’t help myself. Do you know that you smell really good? I think it’s because you smell clean, like soap. As if you shower routinely. Like, that’s how low the bar is for women. That a man having good hygiene is what does it for us.”

He smiled again, but shook his head. “You might want to stop before you say something you regret.”

I probably should have listened to him.





CHAPTER TEN


Because the next thing out of my mouth was, “I’m just telling you the truth. Why would I regret that? Isn’t it a good thing to tell the truth?”

“It is.” He seemed surprised by what I’d said. “I think we should all tell the truth.”

“Right.” I nodded, encouraged. “Like how you said you almost ruined your whole life because of a lie. That’s bad. What happened?”

“Do you think you’ll remember any of this tomorrow?” he asked, and I didn’t know if he wanted reassurance that he could speak to me without fear of me recalling it or if he wanted to make sure that I would.

“Possibly. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“When I was twenty years old, I was training for the Olympics, like I mentioned. I had a coach who had been involved in a scandal a few years before and was in danger of being banned from the sport. He put all his hopes on me. We trained and trained, more than what was even necessary. At a half marathon, I twisted my knee and we went to a doctor. The doctor advised that I stop running for at least six months to allow my knee to heal, but the Boston Marathon was only a month away. And that’s a qualifier for long-distance runners for the US team.” He let out a big sigh. “My coach lied to me. Told me it was fine and that I’d get better if I just kept running and pushing myself. It made everything worse and I permanently injured my knee and ended my running career. If he’d just told me the truth, let me decide what I wanted to do . . .” His voice trailed off. “He took that choice from me and ruined my prospects. I don’t like being lied to.”

“That sucks. I’m sorry.” That was a little hard to hear, being a big massive lying liar myself who lied to everyone all the time about everything in my fake life. How sincere could my apology be when I was currently lying to him? To be fair to me, I wasn’t going to wreck his life or anything, but dang, Camden was going to hate me when he found out.