Love, Scars, & Shooting Stars

Chapter Seventeen

Cameron snatched the cargo shorts and t-shirt from the floor beside his bed and slipped them on, too keyed up to sleep. He shuffled barefoot to the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge, taking a long pull of the cold liquid as he stood in the shaft of moonlight slanting in through the patio doors. Staring through the glass and out over his backyard, he tried unsuccessfully to banish all thoughts of Julie Callahan from his mind.

Inviting her and Finn over that evening had been a spontaneous decision, and Cam had enjoyed their visit much more than he would have expected. With her guard down, Julie Callahan was smart and sassy, enchanting even, and she had a great laugh—Cameron had found himself cracking one lame joke after another, just to hear the music of her laugh. And Finn... well, there was a lot more that kid than the façade of the sullen, angst-ridden teen that he worked so hard to maintain. It had been a perfect evening, and the three of them had been having a great time until Cameron went looking for that stupid socket. Julie had practically jumped out of her skin when he'd come into the kitchen, and one look at her face had told him that something was wrong. When he saw her fingers wrapped around the handle of that particular drawer, he knew instantly what had happened—she'd seen the snapshot of Jessica. Cam had attempted to hide his disappointment, and he'd tried to pretend as if nothing had happened. But something had happened, because things had been awkward between them after that, and it wasn't long before Julie came up with some half-hearted excuse to leave. Not that she had to answer to him or anything, but... Cameron couldn't help but feel that something had been spoiled that night, although he couldn't quite put a finger on what it was.

Cam took another pull from his beer, silently cursing himself. Why hadn't he just thrown that damn picture away when he'd first come across it a few weeks back? The woman in that photo—the woman he'd once loved—was gone, if she'd ever even existed in the first place. Either way, it had been almost three years, and Jessica wasn't coming back—she had made that abundantly clear several times over. So what was the point in hanging on to her picture, or any other memento of their time together? Cameron pulled the drawer open, rifling through the jumble inside until he found that blasted photograph. Standing in the moonlight, he gazed once more into the cerulean depths of Jessica's eyes. His eyes pored over her image, and he couldn't help but recall the feel of her silky, flaxen hair beneath his fingers and the salty-sweet taste of her kiss on his lips. She was a beautiful woman, he had to give her that, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't still miss her sometimes. They'd been good together—or he'd thought so, anyway—and they could have made a decent life for themselves. Cam sighed, knowing that none of that mattered anymore. He glanced down at the picture once more and traced a fingertip lightly over the glossy surface of the photo, down the length of her cheek and along her jawline. And then, before he could think twice about it, he crumpled the picture into a tight little ball and tossed it in the trash.

Enough of that, Cameron told himself, downing the rest of his beer in one long swallow. Leaving the empty bottle in the sink, Cameron grabbed a fresh one from the fridge and headed out to the patio to get some air.

Bracing his forearms against the railing, he let out a long gust of air and stared off into the darkness that bordered the back line of his property. Why was he still thinking about Jessica after all this time? It wasn't as if the relationship didn't have its problems, and if he had been honest with himself, he'd have probably seen it coming months before she left. Maybe that was the problem, knowing that she had left him, instead of the other way around.

"What does it matter anyhow?" he murmured, twisting the top off his beer.

As he started to raise the bottle to his lips, a shadow of movement flashed across his peripheral vision, and he turned to see Julie Callahan kneeling on the lawn behind the garage, a blanket spread over the grass beneath her.