When we’ve both come, we take a shower together and then climb back into bed. I love the moments after sex when it’s just the two of us. We talk and laugh and just be. Camden is so great about simply being in the moment with me. Life can be crazy and chaotic, but when we’re together, it’s as if all the chaos is under control, even for just a moment.
“I’m going to miss you while you’re on tour,” I tell him. They take off in a couple of weeks and will be gone for two months. He made sure they’ll be back long before my due date, not wanting to chance me having the baby and them having to cancel any shows.
“You and Felix should just come with us,” he says for the millionth time, even though he knows it’s not happening. I’m planning to visit him—with and without Felix—but being on tour full time with a rock band is not a place for a child or a pregnant woman.
“We’ll visit…”
“I don’t want to go more than a week without seeing you,” he says, pulling me into his arms, his face resting on the top of my head that’s laying on his chest.
“We’ll video chat, and I’ll visit. It’s only a couple of months. It will fly by.”
“I already miss you, and I haven’t even left yet.”
I smile at his sweet words. “We’ll make it work. We were apart for five years, and we found our way back together.”
Camden takes my chin and lifts it slightly, so I look at him. “I’ll always find my way back to you.” He presses his lips to mine, and I sigh into the kiss, getting lost in him.
When the kiss ends, I lean forward and press my lips to his tattoo, located right over his heart. He always said he wouldn’t get one until he had something worth putting permanently on his body. So I was shocked when he told me he wanted to get a tattoo one day. I went with him to Forbidden Ink, the tattoo place where the guys always go when they’re in New York to get their work done.
He wouldn’t tell me what he was getting, but I was in tears once it was done and he showed me. It’s the same tattoo I got: a camera. Only his isn’t shattered like mine is. Instead, it’s perfectly intact, and where I had written “Shattered,” the title of his song he sang about me all those months back, he has “Pieced Back Together,” the title of the new song he once again wrote about me—only this time, it’s about our love putting all the shattered pieces back together. It might not be perfect, but it’s ours, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Camden and I are cuddling in bed, between asleep and awake, when my phone buzzes with Kaylee’s name on the screen.
“Hey, Kaylee. How are you?” There’s sniffling over the phone, and my hackles rise. “Kaylee…”
“I need you, Layla.”
“Where are you?”
“At home… in New York.”
“I’ll be right there.” I’m already jumping out of bed and getting my clothes on. “Kaylee needs me.”
“I’ll drive you,” Camden says.
“Thank you.”
When I get to Kaylee’s apartment, the one she shares with her mom and stepdad, Camden kisses me and tells me to text him once I’m inside and to let him know when I’m ready to come home.
I haven’t even knocked when the door swings open and Kaylee’s standing there, her face splotchy from crying. “What happened?” I ask as she throws her arms around me and buries her face into my neck, sobbing heavily.
“I was fired from Evolution.” Evolution is the PR company that hired her.
“What? Why?”
“Sam fucking York accused me of trying to sexually assault him. It’s so ridiculous, but they, of course, took his word over mine and fired me on the spot. Four years of college all down the drain,” she cries.
“You don’t know that,” I tell her.
“Yes, I do. Once it gets out what he’s accused me of, no PR company will hire me. I’ll be blacklisted everywhere.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I tell her as I hug her tightly, trying to rack my brain with ways to help her. “There has to be something we can do.”