Look at You

Chapter 51

51

I'm waking up next to Simon again, after a day full of home improvement projects, 8 slices of pizza, and a visit from Callie. And then I'm squeezing him, loving him, making him pasta with fresh basil from the plant on my windowsill, and waking up to him all over again.

I never want it to stop, but I leave him to get ready for work and the week alone. I kiss him—still lying in bed surrounded by his 4 blankets—and head for home.

After a shower and a shave at my own place, I drive straight to Archer's. We've been approved by the TechNet C-Suite to start production, so now I'm in charge of employee logistics. We can't move everyone out of the office space and disrupt their workflows, so it's my job to plan the least possible amount of disruption while we get to work. I start by placing Archer's headquarters very conveniently at the empty desk across from Simon's engineering group.

I'm already missing the dimples, so I reach into my back pocket to text him. Dinner at my house tomorrow? I have steak.

I can only focus again when I get his response. I will bring the (my) wine.

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It's later that night after a hello-goodnight phone call with Si that I'm about to pass out. Right as I put my phone on the charger though, it dings. I figure it's a message from Simon, so I eye it.

Callie Davis: You still up? Call me?

I sit up in bed and call her right away.

"Hey!"

She sounds tired, but still upbeat. My mind dismisses the carousel of worst-case scenarios that have been on mental display since she texted.

"Hey Cal," I still ask: "Everything okay?"

"Oh, yes, sorry hun, I didn't mean to scare you. Just thought I'd call to catch up."

I swallow down the strange lump that appears in my throat. "Oh, okay."

"I heard things are going great." She says great, but her voice implies great, with conditions.

"Yeah," I clear my throat. "So great." It's true, but it sounds artificial.

"So great, like you've told him about everything?"

And then I realize she's right. Great, with conditions. Because despite getting absolutely lost in the 2-day honeymoon we took at Simon's loft, I'm still hiding things I shouldn't be hiding. Especially from someone I love like this.

My silence is an answer.

"Cameron. This isn't good."

"I know," I'm whispering. "I know, trust me I know. I've tried—"

"Have you? What happened?"

I sigh. "Last week, or two weeks ago when I was about to tell him, we got interrupted, and then he starts going on about how terrible his relationship with his sister is because she's a drunk and I panicked and couldn't admit—"

"Cameron, come on, hun. That's his sister, not you. Family stuff is always so damn complicated. Simon loves you with every possible cell in his body, Cam, and the only thing that could even possibly change that is if he somehow finds this out from someone else who blows it totally out of proportion. You know him. You know how much honesty means to him. You need to tell him."

I'm defensive. It isn't pretty. "Is that a threat, Callie?" Because if honesty meant so much to him, wouldn't he have told me how he felt sooner?

"Cameron."