Protect Me Not

Chapter 13

An hour nearly passed when Mary couldn't contain her curiosity anymore so she did what any other over anxious person waiting on someone would do. Mary took her phone out and sent Camden a text message. Just as she hit the send button, she heard a familiar voice.

"Patience is not your virtue I take it," Camden uttered.

Standing to greet him eye to eye, Mary explained that her need to know what gifts were awaiting her definitely overrode her better judgement on time etiquette. They hugged one another with a friendly reception. Mary couldn't help but catch a whiff of his delicate but seductive cologne. She wasn't sure why she felt an attraction to him at that very moment but decided to brush it off and offer him a seat at her table. Mary guessed the two glasses of wine she'd consumed was already having an effect as she pulled a chair out for Camden.

"Please, join me," she concluded.

"Thank you Mary I will," he accepted. "It's nice to see you out and looking so beautiful after an afternoon of...well who are we kidding right? This afternoon didn't end so great did it?" Camden inquired.

"No, no it didn't," Mary interrupted. "I thought we conceded that we were not going to make a big deal about it?"

"Relax My Angry Grasshopper," Camden jokingly said. "Wow, you really do need to slow it down a tad."

"I'm not sure why I'm getting so defensive?" Mary tries to explain. "It's been a long day and really I just had something to eat, a few drinks to help me relax and now some pretty great company. What more can a woman ask for?"

"Well...I could think of a few things," Camden snickered with a slight tilt of his head.

"Are you making a pass at me?" she blatantly asked while offering a tender smile and a childish laugh.

Mary could feel her heart starting to race. Why was she enjoying this innocent flirting? His scent and mannerism seemed to draw her into his slightly open arms. She could feel herself drawing closer to him as her arm extended out and touched his.

"At the risk of sounding precocious I believe it is you who is flirting with me," Camden pointed out making his inner thoughts now public.

"No! I don't...I didn't," Mary stumbled for words now feeling uncomfortable and awkward.

Camden knew all too well that he had already started crushing on Mary from the very moment he placed eyes on her. He almost felt like he should apologize for his honest simulation of her actions toward him but he didn't want to bolster any more uncomfortable table talk. He didn't even want to recognize his budding feelings for her. He had a job to do, a mission of sorts and he would be damned if he strayed from his original task.

"Are you married?" she asked trying desperately to change the subject to a more sophisticated conversation between two friends.

"Yes, I was," his voice ascended as he tried hard to keep the thoughts from trailing back into his past memory.

"You're divorced now?" Mary pursued.

"No, I'm widowed," Camden said with a tremendous amount of pain emanating from his voice.

Mary instantly felt his sorrow and pushed her chair next to his. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder in a desperate attempt to console him. Her action deemed futile when he continued to tell her about his wife's tragic car accident. It was a story he painfully knew all too well. He replayed the vision of the accident over and over in his head as if it was on automatic repeat. Still to this day it haunted his thoughts on a regular basis. Self medicating numbed the pain for a short while but eventually the sorrow and heart break seeped through stronger than ever. Camden graduated to stronger narcotics aiding his dangerous slope into depression.