Cam

CAM

"YEAH, AND THEN he just whipped it out. Like, I didn't even ask or say that I wanted to, he pretty much just pulled it out and pointed to it like he was telling me to get to work." Hana's voice made her repulsion with the behavior of the guy she'd gone on a date with the night before very apparent.

"Gross. Alphas can be so disgusting."

Balancing my phone on my shoulder with the side of my face, I dug down into the bottom of the last box I needed to unpack. We'd been at Karter's for nearly a week now, and I'd been unpacking here and there when I had time. Luckily, he hadn't complained or rushed me about cluttering up his apartment.

Some of our stuff was staying in boxes in storage, like dishes and the few pieces of furniture we had, but the rest was out and fully functional. Karter had bought another dresser for his room for me to put my clothes in, something I hadn't been able to do in forever. It was funny the gestures that made me swoon these days.

"Ugh, I know. I have the worst luck with dating. Every guy I go out with turns out to be such a massive tool," she complained. "And then there's you ," she said, her voice changing to mock accusation. "I cannot believe you moved into Karter freaking Morrison's apartment!"

"Yeah, I know," I said, glad she couldn't see my blush over the phone as I threw away the garbage that had somehow made its way into the box.

"You literally told me you guys were just barely getting to know each other and then bam, you hit me over the head with that!"

"Well, I didn't want to jinx anything by talking about it," I said honestly, walking across the apartment to place a stack of Ty's books on the shelf in his room. But the truth was all out now. She knew Ty and I lived here now, and that things had gotten kind of serious between Karter and I. "And it all happened kind of fast."

"When are you going to bring him out?" She whined. "I totally want to have dinner or something with you guys."

"Well, it's kind of hard since you're the only other person I know that could watch Ty while we do that."

She sighed exasperatedly. "Fine."

"We'll figure something out," I promised. "I'm sure Karter wouldn't mind if you came over and had dinner here some night."

"Seriously?" She practically squealed in my ear. I kept forgetting she was his fan or whatever.

"I'll ask him and let you know," I said.

"Do you think he'd watch Ty so you and I could go out shopping or something? I feel like we haven't gotten to hang out other than at work in forever."

"Um, I'm pretty sure he would, yeah. They get along great."

"So cute! He is totally your new baby daddy."

"Hana, come on. Don't say that."

"What? It sounds like he's pretty ready for the whole stepdad thing."

"I don't want to force anything like that on him."

"Force him?" She laughed. "He's pretty much begging you for it."

"Yeah, but…" I trailed off as I pulled the last item from the box, a folded piece of paper. When I unfolded it, I realized it was the eviction notice I'd gotten and kept, just in case. "We haven't really talked about it yet."

"Well, I'm calling it now," she said. "You guys are totally getting married and he is definitely going to be Ty's stepdad."

I blushed again, glancing over at Karter's closed bedroom door, where he was doing some office work from home. I was pretty sure he couldn't hear me.

"Well… I'll let you know," I said. Something strange had just occurred to me as I'd skimmed the notice for what felt like the 500th time. "I have to go, we're getting ready to get lunch. I'll let you know about shopping, okay?"

"Okay! Talk to you later."

I hung up the phone, lowering it to the carpet beside me as I frowned. I'd never thought about it before, I'd been too stressed out, but I'd never heard of the company that had issued it. And what were they even demolishing it for? To put a business right there in the middle of a residential neighborhood? A new apartment building that no one would be able to afford, and anyone that could wouldn't want to be smack dab in the middle of the low income part of the district?

I picked my phone back up, typing in the name of the business so I could at least try to understand what they did. It took a bit of scrolling and clicking around on random links, but eventually I figured out it was a small subsidiary owned by a larger business called Cromwell Corp. I knew that name, Cromwell. But I couldn't remember where. Before I could try and find out, Karter emerged from the bedroom, stretching a bit as he walked out. When he raised his arms over his head, his shirt slipped up to show a strip of his abs. So much for concentrating on anything.

"You got a lot done while I was in there," he pointed out, sounding impressed.

"I just finished," I said, popping up from the floor like a spring to show him the empty cardboard box. He took it from me, breaking it down to shove in a garbage can.

"You did a great job."

"Thanks." I wanted to tell him to be careful about complimenting me too much or I might get used to it. But I knew if I did that, he'd just double down on telling me everything he liked about me. Not that I would have minded. "Are you all done with work?"

I had a feeling he'd done his work here instead of going into the office because I had a day off.

"All done for now, yes," he confirmed. "Have you eaten?"

"Not yet."

"Do you want to go out and get some lunch?" He asked. When I hesitated, he reached out to help me up off the ground. "It might be good for you to get out of the house for something other than work, you know."

"Well… Okay."

"Don't sound so excited to go out with me," he joked. "I'm not sure my ego can take that much stroking."

"I didn't mean it like that!" I giggled. "You know I love spending time with you no matter what."

"I can tell, when I have to convince you to leave the cave to eat."

"I'm more of a homebody," I said. "I'd pretty much always rather order food in than go out."

"We can do that, if you'd rather," he immediately offered. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"No, I'm not," I promised. I wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my head on his chest. "You were right, I probably need some fresh air."

He did let me pick the restaurant, so we ended up somewhere I could get a decent cheeseburger and didn't have to pick from anything weird like raw tuna or snails. He ordered some kind of protein bowl with rice and grilled chicken and lots of veggies in it. I was glad he wasn't a food snob at least. He'd seemed to appreciate the stuff I'd cooked for him, even though none of it had been anything close to fancy or decadent.

"I meant to tell you earlier, but you look really good today," he commented, tilting his head a little as he stared at me, like he was admiring a painting in a museum or something.

"Thanks," I said, taking a sip of my drink so he wouldn't see what a goofy smile he'd given me. I knew he wasn't just trying to flatter me. Even just living with him for a week, I could already tell the dark circles under my eyes were fading. "I've been getting some pretty good sleep lately."

"Is that so?" He asked, giving me kind of a smug look. "It's a pretty good bed."

"I don't necessarily think it's the bed," I answered, giving him a flirty little look before popping a French fry into my mouth.

"What exactly are you attributing all this restful sleep to, then?"

"Um…" I pretended like I was thinking hard, before shrugging my shoulders. "If I figure it out, I'll let you know."

He shook his head, but he was smiling. "I'll be in suspense until then."

As we ate, we chatted about day to day stuff. Ty's upcoming play at school, which we'd both been practicing lines with him for, funny stories about customers at my job, and the new ad campaign Karter's department was planning. As he talked about the special outfits that were being designed for the models to wear to complement the new makeup being launched, a sudden awareness dawned on me.

"Oh!" I said as I finally remembered. "Cromwell, that's the model you were in that picture with!" I remembered they'd said his name in the article, Lucas Cromwell. But could he possibly have something to do with the company that owned the one that was demolishing my apartment? Why would a model care about some old building? Or maybe his family was involved in construction or something?

Karter froze at my words, like I'd cast a hex on him.

"So? What about him?"

I hesitated. I didn't want to bring it up and sound like a paranoid moron, in case I was wrong. And besides, I wasn't even entirely sure they were related. How common was the name Cromwell, anyway? And I didn't want Karter to think I was jealously obsessing over some guy he'd gone to a bar with once.

"Nothing, really," I said. "I couldn't remember his name earlier and I just did. That's all."

He gave me an odd look. "Why were you even thinking about him?"

"Um, I don't know. I guess I was just thinking about that article from before."

"Forget about that, and forget about him." Karter's voice was unusually firm. It seemed like he was kind of mad about the whole situation, but I wasn't exactly sure why. I mean, it made sense for the photographers to interpret them being there as a date, even if it hadn't been true. Unless there was something about it I didn't understand?

"Um, well, I'm not upset about it or anything," I started. "But is he someone you're friends with or what? I mean, how well do you know him?"

"We are not friends," he said flatly. "But I've known him since I was in school."

"Oh, wow, really?" I was surprised to hear that. "You've known him that long?"

"Our parents became good friends when we moved into their neighborhood. There was no way for us to avoid each other as kids, and then we ended up working in the same industry. That's all."

"You don't like him?" I realized. The tone of his voice made that pretty obvious.

"We've never gotten along," he said. I wasn't exactly an expert in detecting human emotion, but I could tell the conversation was making him uncomfortable. But that was only making me more curious.

"Why not?"

"His personality is difficult to deal with."

He was answering me with the shortest, vaguest answers possible. I wasn't sure whether to be worried about that or not. It was weird, but I didn't think he would do anything behind my back, so maybe he just hated this guy so much he couldn't stand talking about him. But if that was the case…

"If you dislike him so much, why did you get drinks with him?" I wondered.

He heaved a sigh, glancing up at the ceiling before answering me. "I was under the impression that doing so would be a gesture of good will. A truce, if you want to think of it that way."

"And he didn't?"

"He saw it as an opportunity to force a situation where we would be photographed together. He deliberately used me for that purpose."

"Oh!" I realized. "So you think he did that on purpose? I mean, made it look like you guys were out on a date? Just so he could get his picture in some tabloid article?"

Karter stared at me for a long time before answering. "That must have been his intention, yes."

"No wonder you were so mad about it," I said, taking another sip of my drink. "That is pretty lame. Uh, just so you know, I don't want to be in any tabloids or famous or anything like that."

His face softened and it looked like he was relieved to be done with that subject. "I'll keep that in mind, Cameron."

I still wasn't entirely sure what to think. It sounded like they weren't exactly besties but that didn't mean that guy would do something as crazy as buying out my apartment to demolish. I mean, he wouldn't have had anything against me, right? If he and Karter weren't friends, he probably didn't even know I existed. I decided to forget it for now, until I could maybe look more into the company later.