A Missing Heart Read online

  I’d love to agree with Charlotte, but I’m not sure she even totally agrees with what she’s saying; not with the sickened look on her face. At the end of this, wherever that may be, I don’t think I’ll ever truly be able to digest what is happening.

  “Charlotte, can you give us a minute,” Hunter tells her.

  “Of course,” Charlotte says as she stands up from the couch, and leaves the room. “I already know what you’re going to say, Hunter,” she says, her voice carrying through the center of the house.

  Probably looking as confused as I feel, I raise my brows with question, waiting for him to spit it out. “Dude,” he says. “Maybe I’m going to hell for saying this today of all days, but I have to say it: Tori has made her decisions, and you have to focus on Gavin and what’s going to happen with Cameron and Ever. It’s a lot to take in all at once,” he says with a sigh. “God, I knew things were going to be rough the other day when your hot ex-girlfriend—Cameron showed up. When she asked about you, her face lit up like fireworks. She said she missed you and looked more than a little disappointed when I told her you were married with a kid.” Hunter runs his hands down the sides of his face, likely only feeling an ounce of the frustration that I feel. “I hate to even ask, but does she know what’s going on with Tori right now?”

  “Yeah she knows,” I say, feeling guilty for that too. “Anyway, I’m glad we’ve had this talk.”

  “AJ,” he says sternly. “You’ve been miserable for almost two years now. I give you an incredible amount of credit for sticking by your wife’s side while she transitioned into a person you didn’t know, and into someone who didn’t care enough about her own life, never mind yours. You’ve taken care of Gavin almost single-handedly, and you’ve had bags under your eyes for a year and a half. You haven’t made one joke, which is so unlike you, and you’ve hardly cracked a smile in months. I miss my brother, and while what’s going on with Tori is awful, and it’s even worse for Gavin, there’s a small part of me that feels grateful for the fact that you might get a little bit of yourself back. You deserve to be happy too.”

  “He’s not going to have a mother,” I grunt with anger.

  “He has one hell of a father, and we both know, this isn’t the end of your life—I think you can take that from me.”

  “I don’t know,” I argue, though I’m not sure there’s much of an argument to be had here.

  “Do you want to fight to get her back?” Hunter asks. “Do you want to try to make something work that may never have worked in the first place? I mean, do you think it would work if you did fight for her?”

  I find myself staring through Hunter, searching for the answer to his question.

  “She’s my wife,” I tell him, copping out and away from his question.

  “What about you?” Hunter asks.

  “I guess I need to figure that part out,” I tell him, standing up from the couch.

  “Will you be at work tomorrow?” he asks.

  “Yeah, with Gavin in tow.”

  “I can take care of him tomorrow afternoon, if that helps,” Charlotte yells in.

  “Didn’t she leave so she wouldn’t have to listen to me?” Hunter laughs.

  “Women always make a point of acting like they don't want to hear shit, but they’re always eavesdropping. Always.”

  “That’s for damn sure,” Hunter agrees.

  “Very funny!” Charlotte says.

  “Yeah, leave Gavin here tomorrow. We’ll figure things out, AJ. Don’t worry, okay?”

  I nod and continue out into the living room where I collect Gavin’s things. He’s jumping all over Olive, blowing raspberries on her face, and she’s eating it up. “We’re going to get going, Ollie-Lolly and Lana-Banana.”

  The girls stand up and give me a bear hug. “I’m sorry,” Olive says. I’m not going to ask what she’s sorry about because I know eavesdropping runs in this house like a viral disease.

  I look down at her with a raised brow. “It’s a good thing I love you, kiddo.”

  “Do I get to meet her?” Olive asks quietly. “Ever. She’s my cousin, right?”

  I nod my head, trying to avoid the grin growing across my mouth. “Soon, I’m sure.”

  A quiet, “Yes!” escapes her lips and she dances around in a small circle. This girl would like it if our family were a hundred people deep…just like Ellie.

  “You are your mother’s daughter. That’s for sure,” I say, messing up the curls on top of her head.

  “Uncle!” she shrieks. “Don’t mess up my hair.”

  With Gavin in my arms, I take less than two steps out of the house when my phone starts to ring. When it rings now, my stomach turns into a hard rock, fearful of who is on the other end, and with what kind of news. Did Tori get her way? Is it Cammy? Does she want to see me? Did she change her mind?

  Relief does set in, however, when I see it is Cammy on the other end.

  “Hey,” I answer.

  “Hey,” she responds. “Where are you?”

  “Breaking all sorts of news to Hunter,” I say through weak laughter. “Just leaving his house with Gavin now.”

  “Can you come back to the hotel? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  Once again, the lump in my throat returns, and my lungs turn into a brick of cement for the millionth time today.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I SHOW UP at the hotel to find Cammy and Ever sitting side by side on the couch, appearing to be lost in a conversation. The mood in the room temporarily shifts when they set their eyes on Gavin.

  Gavin, of course, eats up the attention, leaving me out of their trio of fun. I place him down in front of me and he crawls right toward them. “Oh my gosh, you are the cutest little thing,” Cammy tells Gavin as she flings off the couch to greet him on the floor.

  “Oh, you are!” Ever follows, sitting down with Gavin and pulling him onto her lap. She gives him a hug and places the side of her cheek down on his head.

  The sight of the two of them together makes my heart hurt in a good way—a way I’ve never felt before, even if it is overshadowed by whatever Cammy has to say.

  “What did you want to talk about?” I ask Cammy with hesitation.

  Cammy stands up, leaving Ever and Gavin playing. “How’s Tori?” she starts with, although we both know that’s not what she invited me over to talk about.

  I laugh with only my breath, because after everything that has happened during the last couple of days, this almost seems like a joke at this point. “Great,” I say sarcastically. “She’s locked in confinement with extra security. Oh, and she never wants to see Gavin or me again, or at least for the foreseeable future I guess.”

  “Oh my,” she says, folding her hand over her chest. “Oh no. That’s horrible, AJ.” Her focus shifts from Gavin to me, and back to Gavin. “I can’t believe this is happening.” Cammy doesn’t know much about Tori. She might believe it if she knew her.

  “I need to put all that out of my head right now. I can’t bear to think about it anymore at the moment, so what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

  She takes my hand and pulls me over to the couch, which quickly tells me this isn’t good.

  “You’re not taking Ever away from me, are you?” It’s the biggest concern I have at the moment. Gavin is mine, that much I’m sure of, but Ever doesn’t belong to either one of us right now.

  “I spoke to the adoption agency in Pennsylvania that is in charge of Ever’s case at the moment. While I was given permission to take care of her temporarily, they aren’t thrilled that I picked up and left my place of residence and came out here with her. They have informed me that Ever needs to return to Pennsylvania immediately until they can get a hearing together—one to determine custody of her.”

  Cammy’s cheeks fill with redness even though I know she’s doing her best to hide her emotions, which are a mirror of what I am currently feeling. Since the moment I saw Eve
r, I didn’t think the universe could be cruel enough to take her from me twice, but I’ve been dealt a shitty hand of cards so many fucking times, I never should have assumed something like that.

  “Ever, can you babysit Gavin for a few minutes while I talk to Cameron in private?” I wink at her so she isn’t suspicious of what we’re talking about, because the thought of telling her this after what she’s been through is making this far worse than it should be.

  “Yeah, I think I can handle him for a few minutes,” she says with a smile as she tickles underneath Gavin’s chin.

  I take Cammy into the bedroom and close the door. I have to be strong for her, for Ever…for all of us right now. “We knew this could happen, Cam.”

  “I can’t lose her again,” she cries softly.

  I wrap my arms around her and tug her toward the bed, sitting on the edge of the bed and resting her down next to me. “Look at me,” I tell her, gently twisting her chin to face me. “We will not lose her again.”

  Her lips are pressed together and her soft cries are becoming heavier. “These have been the best days of my life, AJ. Now, I have to go stay in Pennsylvania while they figure this out,” she says.

  “I’ll go too,” I tell her.

  She shakes her head, “You have a job and Gavin. You can’t just stop working and uproot him right now. I’ll take care of it. I never meant to come out here and completely interrupt your life the way I have. And this stuff with your wife—it’s my fault, isn’t it?”

  I grip my hands around her shoulders, gazing into her eyes with intent. “Do not think that for even a second. My situation with Tori has been complicated for a very long time. And I wouldn’t be uprooting Gavin. Hunter can hold down the fort for a couple of weeks at work, too.”

  Cammy sniffles a couple of times. “It’s not going to be a couple of weeks. They said the hearing could take up to six months.”

  My daughter has been back in my life for less than seventy-two hours, and I’m being told I already have to say goodbye. I can’t do it.

  “I don’t want you to go through this alone,” I tell Cammy. “I want to be there for Ever. For you.” Her forehead scrunches, showing age lines I didn’t know she had, yet somehow making her look even more beautiful. How else do I make it clear that I’m in this a hundred percent, whether she wants to think so or not? Dammit.

  I slide my hands from her shoulders up to her warm cheeks, gripping her tightly as I focus solely on her glossy eyes. “I am here. Here, meaning wherever our daughter is. Our daughter, Cam. She’s ours, and we’re going to fight to the death for her. Thirteen years is more time than any parent should have to go without seeing their child. We won’t go through it again.” She doesn’t say a word this time, doesn’t argue, doesn’t flinch. Something inside of me disentangles and comes undone as I lean in without thinking anything through, pressing my forehead to hers, inhaling all of her sweet scents—the ones that haven’t changed in all of these years. My memory has not let me down with any detail concerning Cammy, which is why I can’t stop this from happening right now. My hand slides across her cheek as my fingers curl around her ears, making my heart race a mile a minute. My chest aches with the love I still have for this woman.

  “AJ,” she whispers, questioningly. “What are we doing?”

  I want to tell her I’m doing what I’ve wanted to do for the last thirteen years, but I know that’s not what she’s really asking.

  “You are in a bad place, and so am I. We don’t want it to be like this,” she continues.

  “Why do we have to be mature?” I beg. I want to forget about today, the last year, everything except Gavin. I want to forget the past like I have spent so much of my life trying to do.

  “We’re not seventeen anymore,” she answers simply.

  “The moment you’re not around me, Cam, every real thing in my life is going to hit me like a sack of bricks and I’m going to crumble. Is it so wrong to want to push it off with the good in life?”

  “The good?” she questions.

  “You and Ever came back into my life. It’s the first good thing that’s happened to me since Gavin was born.”

  Cammy takes my hand within hers, looking at me with sternness. “Good is around the corner, but let’s skip the shortcuts this time.”

  “Do we run away?” I ask, knowing what her response will be.

  “That didn’t work out in the first place. Running away is never the answer. Letting time run its course is, though.”

  “Is it so wrong to want to kiss you?” I ask, lightly touching my lips to her cheek.

  “As wrong as it is that I want to kiss you, too,” she says as her cheeks become warm to the touch. I can still make her blush. “We’ll always feel like that, I think.”

  I circle my thumb around her cheek again and she closes her eyes in response. “Only until we kiss again.”

  “We need to face our realities first,” she says.

  “I’m scared to,” I tell her honestly.

  “Why?”

  “I know it’s over with Tori, Cam. I know there was not much there to start. I put all of my effort into something that wasn’t the right thing for me. Some things were never meant to be, and no one ever told me that, so I just kept trying.”

  “You will always know how much you tried. You will always know the failure in front of you was not because you gave up. It will give you closure and peace in the long run,” she says.

  “Why does it keep happening to me, though?”

  She places her hand over my heart, and just the touch makes my pulse quicken. “Mistakes make us more perfect, and you are going for perfection, I guess.” She smiles at her own wise remark, and it makes it a little easier to accept this closeness being where it ends tonight.

  A groaning chuckle escapes my throat. “That’s funny, seeing as I’m far from perfect. I don’t know if I’ll ever get even close,” I tell her.

  “Well, maybe you’ve forgotten about your reputation in high school?” She says while toying with a button on my henley shirt.

  “Where are you going with this? I had a reputation?” This is news to me, I think.

  “Oh, AJ,” she sighs. “The rumor of how incredibly talented and perfect you were in bed was something I heard one too many times.” Really? This explains some things, but then again, not at all. Thirteen years later, it’s kind of funny to hear, though.

  “Do you know how much bull that rumor was?” I ask her.

  “Oh, please, you proved yourself pretty quickly during junior year,” she says.

  “I must have been born with the gift of good sex-giving then because you were my first, Cam.”

  Her laugh goes silent. “Oh, come on, AJ. You can’t actually expect me to believe that.”

  “Yeah, you were. And you know the worst part?”

  She doesn’t answer but her brows pull in together with question.

  “I thought you were always going to be my last, too.”

  She pinches my chin between her fingers and smiles her genuine Cammy smile that I always looked forward to seeing every day. “That might be the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me, and it’s not a surprise that it came from your mouth.”

  I stroke my fingers through her hair, feeling like no time has passed since we said goodbye thirteen years ago. “We’re in this together,” I tell her. “All of this.”

  “Yeah, and I’m going to Pennsylvania and you’re staying here to keep your job and get help from your family right now while you go through this situation with Tori.” She exhales loudly with a frustrated sigh. “That’s how we’re tackling this. I’m an attorney, and I’m going to fight for our girl. I’m going to get her, and then I’m going to bring her back here. Maybe the time in between will be a good adjustment for all of us.”

  I want to fight her so badly. I can’t just give in and tell her to go do this on her own. However, I know I’ll fight until I lose, but I need her to know I’m n
ot giving up that easily.

  “Cammy,” I begin.

  “Don’t argue,” she says, her lips perking up in one corner. That little smirk says it all. “Do you trust me?”

  “I don’t know. You did leave me hanging for thirteen years,” I remind her with a quick wink.

  She punches me gently in the chest. “I spent half of that time trying to find a way back into your life, and it just so happens I finally got my wish. We just have to fight for that wish to come true.”

  “I want to come with you,” I tell her again.

  “You need your job. We need to prove to the court that we’re both stable and have living situations suitable for a thirteen-year-old. I need you to maintain this lifestyle so we can win.” Whether what she’s saying is the truth or not, I don’t know, but it sounds sensible, and I’m not going to argue with a lawyer—on a subject I know nothing about.

  “I’m not going to say this is fine and I’m not even going to agree to it. I’ll take it like a man, Cammy, but I might shatter into a million pieces when you two leave me.”

  “And I might shatter too,” she says. “But we’ll be back. Even if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “We have to tell Ever the truth. I don’t want to keep any of this from her. It’s going to be hard enough as is,” I say.

  “Agreed.”

  With the painful decision made, I stand up from the bed, but Cammy’s cool hands grab me from behind, tugging me backward. “Hey!” I shout through a whisper, shocked from the chill of her hands seeping through my thin shirt.

  “Wait,” she says. Her hands wrap around my bicep and I give in to the tug-of-war, letting her pull me back down onto the bed. “Don’t confuse my restraint for what I want, because I feel like we missed out on so much.” Her restraint has always been our joint strength, but I could never confuse that for want. “But, I’m going to have to leave with her in the morning. The adoption agency was very demanding on the phone, which is not surprising since Ever fled the foster home last week.”