"Is that right?" "Yes and—" "Quit fucking around and tell me what happened." "Uh-uh. You said you'll tell me first. About your day." He sighed. "It was long, hot, and I missed the hell out of you. Done. Your turn." See, I found a trick with Cameron. If I wanted information from him, I negotiated. "Mine was long too," I said. "Hot, and I also missed the hell out of you. Done. Your turn." He sighed again, longer this time. After a quiet pause, he said, "My dad phoned me this morning." My shoulders tensed. I wanted to look at his face, but I could tell from the tone of his voice that he didn't want to talk about it. The topic of his parents was very sensitive. There were times when he'd just shut down, but there were also precious times like this when he would tell me. "What did he say?" "Nothing. I missed it." I made a face. "Did you call him back?" "No." I kept silent. "I will," he replied at my unspoken question. "For you, I will." "Good." There was a lot of repressed feelings and anger he had for his father. If he wanted to use me as a reason to make it easier for him to start dealing with those feelings, I was more than willing to be it. And maybe eventually his reason would change and he'd say he did it because he wanted to. "What else happened?" "Nothing else." "Fine. Nothing else happened to me either." "Kara." There was a warning in his voice, but that didn't faze me. "Yes?" "You're driving me up the wall." "I'll drive you up the door too. Spill it." He clammed up. And I knew. "Another nightmare?" His throat worked as he swallowed hard. "Yeah." Suddenly I could sense something was different. This wasn't the usual distress he showed whenever I asked him about his nightmares. I looked up at his face. There was a coldness in the gleam of his eyes, in his silence that made me nervous. "Cameron?" "I don't remember it. Anything about it." He was lying. I knew it just as I knew he wasn't going to tell me about it. He remembered at least a detail. But something was stopping me from calling him out this time. Something warned me to tread carefully. Then he stroked my hair, and I felt the warmth of his lips as he kissed the top of my head. "I had a really long day," he began. His voice was low, velvet smooth. "I drove more than five hours here to see you because I can't bear the thought of you getting hurt. And now I want to hear what happened." He lifted my chin so that our gazes locked. "Won't you tell me, Kara?" I turned soft. "Yes." I nodded. "I'll tell you." He was right. He had a long day. Who would do something crazy like work crazy hours then drive a crazy five-hour trip just to see his girlfriend but Cameron? How could he even be awake right now? Even though there were a lot of things he wasn't ready to tell me, he'd told me plenty ever since our fight on Christmas. I could tell by his actions how important I was to him. How he couldn't stand the thought of me getting hurt. He'd always protected me, taken care of me, and if there were things that we needed to work on in our relationship, we were making progress. The good far outweighed the bad. "I'm listening," he prompted. Suddenly all the stress of what happened earlier surged inside me. I laid my head back on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, letting his scent and warmth comfort me. "I'm going back tomorrow," I said. "Stay at my place. I'm not going to be taking projects for a while." "But that's not the plan." "I didn't know there was one." I flattened my palms on his chest, pushed off him. "Stop being stubborn, Cameron. You said you want to do more projects this year." "What do you want from me, Kara? Your place got sacked and you want me to do nothing?" he hissed, frustration coloring his tone. "I'm not going to be chased away from my place. Tala's house means a lot to me. I had very, very good memories there of Tala and Mrs. B and I'm not going to let some motherfucking asswipe scare me off. I'm not," I repeated more vehemently. "All right." He sat up, leaned against the headboard and raked his hands in his dark hair. "But let me install the cameras." "No. No cameras." "We'll see." I growled. "Don't we'll see me. I'm not a kid." "I'm very tempted to spank your ass right now." "That's kinky." He glared at me and I glared back at him. After a moment, a glimmer of a smile curved on his lips. "I haven't even heard the full story from you and already my head's about to explode." "Want me to staple it to keep it intact? Or would you prefer tape?" He sighed, waited. He was doing a lot of sighing tonight. "So much happened, Cam. It wasn't just the break-in." "I'm not going anywhere." Restless, I rose from the bed, walked to the window. The blinds in Dylan's room were covered with thick dust. I guessed he hadn't cleaned everything after all. But I knew there would always be dirt and dust no matter how hard you clean. Some hiding, some in plain sight, and you'd still miss it. All you could do is try your best.