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iinkheart · 2 years

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❝ You’re here because you want what you’ve been fantasizing about ever since you left the other night. ❞ ( gisnate and/or billiam)

“You’re here because you want what you’ve been fantasising about ever since you left the other night.”

Camille Park is no stranger to walking up to doors to close a chapter. Leaving – people, places, promises – is her greatest talent. Yet approaching this one feels more like admitting defeat than reaching a conclusion.

It takes Xander long enough to open that she’s already ready to stab him. Just a little. A light poison pinprick as payback for the pounding music leaking from under the door.

“Forget something, sweetheart?”

“Sophie’s homework,” slips out automatically, ignoring the lean he’s adopted against the doorframe. It’s not the sharp rejoinder she was aiming for, but it’s the best she can do at present. There are miles of skin on display, and Camille finally understands Ada’s whole approach to attraction. One glimpse of her infernal ex-husband looming over her in nothing but a pair of low-slung grey sweatpants, and her brain promptly melts out of her ear. Smug motherfucker. Clearly, the jibes she’s been making about the dad bod are precisely that, because he looks good. Sinfully so. Maybe enough to make up for the insolently pleased smirk that spreads across his face the longer she stays quiet.

He finally gives up on her elaborating. “Sophie doesn’t forget her homework. Also, it is August. No school.”

“Right. Ada’s babysitting her.”

He doesn’t ask anything else, just raises an eyebrow. Babysitting. Christ, even she heard how that one came out sounding. Why would a 12-year old need to be watched for the half hour it would take her to grab something from his apartment? Certainly not one as independent as their daughter.

No, she’s here for an agenda and he knows it.

Xander crosses his arms across his chest, momentarily dragging her glance to the curl of ink around his shoulder. “And you just wanted to come say hi or something?”

“Or something,” she agrees, shifting impatiently.

He doesn’t take the hint. “Say it.”

She cannot speak to him of desire, of the heat pooling in her core just to see him challenging her again. “Sophie’s homework? I already said.”

“Cam.”

“No.”

His smile spreads wider. “Cami.”

Her breath stutters to a halt. That’s not fair, is it? He has no right to go around using nicknames and sounding endeared when this is already nothing. He’s already gone.

“Stop.”

And see, the thing is that Camille promised. She promised Liam that this time she really would try, and she promised Ada her efforts weren’t going to waste. Not if they were going to stage goddamned interventions. What they don’t have to know won’t hurt them, though. She does plan on talking to him, but later. Before she loses her nerve, but after she has gotten rid of the goddamn itch under her skin that will probably lead to making all sorts of awful decisions. Decisions as awful as advancing on him with one pointed nail poking into the centre of his chest. “She could forget something. Pyjamas. The book she’s reading.”

“She’s in the middle of Lord of the Rings, she would never,” he informs her, letting her back him up as if they are discussing the weather. “Her mother, though. You forget a lot of things, don’t you? How much you want to be here, how good this feels.” He tips her head up with a gentle nudge, thumb stroking her chin.

Oh, she’s going to kill him. She should be used to this by now. After all, isn’t this the back and forth they’ve been trapped in for years now? This doorway is one she has darkened too many times to find foreign, a situation she’s been in too many times to blame anyone else. Once again, it is her own fault. Her, and her lonely goddamn heart that has no idea how to say goodbye.

Liam has just inconveniently pointed it out too, not that she’d ever admit as much to him.

Camille slams the door shut behind her and whirls to face him again. Her free hand joins the other on his chest. Mostly because, otherwise, she will simply strangle him.

At least that’s the story she’s telling herself after she has just systematically dropped her bag on the table by the door and kicked her shoes off.

Xander welcomes her back like she’s a game he doesn’t know if he wants to play but is confident he will win. “You have to say it if you want it.” His warning is not smug, per se, but it is still somehow infuriating. He knows what she wants.

He also has to know she won’t say it. That’s the whole, awful truth of it, isn’t it?

They know each other all the way through, down to where it hurts.

A deep breath and then she meets his glance head on. “You say it. You’re the one making assumptions.”

He actually laughs at that, which naturally makes her want to throttle him. “It’s not an assumption if it’s true, sweetheart. You’re here because you want what you’ve been fantasising about ever since you left the other night.”

Ah, yes, the other night. As in: the night of the tinder disaster.

Flashback. Camille on yet another uninspiring fuck appointment masquarading as a group outing at a club. A woman who had seemed fun over text but was now grating on her nerves with her high-pitched rambling. Drinks that had stopped being fun and a social situation that had drifted into pathetic instead. A silhouette catching her attention from the corner of her eye. Locking eyes with him on the edge of the dance floor, necking a stranger like it was still 2006. His hand disappearing between him and the other body. The urge to claim what was hers burning through her like wildfire.

Camille snaps. “It’s not about that.”

“Isn’t it?” Xander lifts his other hand to ghost knuckles feather-light against her cheek. The tenderness of it cracks something vile and vicious inside her.

“No. You can fuck as many people as you like, and you’ll still be mine. We both know that. You’re mine.”

Blazing ferocity. That’s how she declares it. That is how impossible it seems for anyone to claim a single string in the web between them.

It startles her when he doesn’t fight back as she expects.

No, the way he tilts his head and gazes at her feels something akin to pity, and that Camille just can’t abide by. Not with a lock of hair slipping out of its dishevelled coiffure to droop over his forehead rakishly (trust him to be pretty when she feels unhinged), like he gets to be silver-screen handsome while she is slowly spiralling right in front of him.

“Am I? After all this time?” There’s laughter in his tone, but why? Is he laughing with her or at her? It is almost enough to sow the seeds of doubt in her mind, had he not taken hold of both wrists just then.

Long fingers wrap firmly around her wrist, punctuated by a breathless gasp. It’s so, so stupid. She came here to fuck him. Old hat. Why, then, does this feel shiny and new? Pressed between his fingers and chest, her fingers are warmed by the pounding thrum of his heart under her grip as he begins to slowly lead her to the living room sofa.

Fuck, what a liar.

Of course he knows what she wants. When has he not seen her? “It’s just you and me, wanting each other. Who else is there?”

“Why does there need to be someone else? Maybe I’m enough for myself.” He sprawls back across the sofa as he says so — putting necessary space between them, she’s sure. Like that will work. She follows him down, straddling his lap as easily as she has been for most of her life.

“After all this time?” Camille echoes. “You could be, but that doesn’t work for people like you and I, doesn’t it? All these years of belonging nowhere, with nobody, everyone else better off without us. Where else can we go to feel wanted?”

Xander laughs again, this time terrible. “You said no, remember? You said we don’t belong together, so I should take our daughter and leave.”

Oh, so they’re going there now. Finally, after all these years of avoidance and all these months of bickering, it is time to lay the truth bare: “Well, maybe I needed you to stay anyway. I lied.”

“Yeah, that’s not how it works, princess. Besides, you were pretty damn sure back then. Are you sure this isn’t just Liam talking? I hear you’ve been taking advice from him.”

“Yes, because at least one Delgado sibling has the ability to listen more than he likes the sound of his own voice. Not sure why you’re blaming him though. He just wanted me to tell you how I bloody feel. It’s like he doesn’t know you at all.”

“Oh, he knows me, but he knows you too. All of them know by now too. You think I belong to you.”

“Okay,” she agrees, smoothing back his hair. “Tell me you don’t.”

For a moment, his eyes slip shut. His brow furrows and Camille is struck by the urge to kiss him there, to smooth out the lines of worry creasing his forehead. It is pathetic how deep the desire for closeness runs, really.

She’s right there when opens his eyes again, bare inches from his steely gaze. “And you? Who do you belong to?”

“Is that even a question?”

“Don’t be a coward, Camille. Tell me what you want.”

The declaration falls between them bathed in nothing but frustration. “What have I ever wanted? You.”

“To prove it to yourself, right? That I’m still yours – there at your beck and call?” As quiet as he is – and he is muted as a graveyard, deadly serious about holding her accountable for once in their lives – she knows that this is the tipping point. This answer will define them for years to come. Still, she spits it impulsively, because how else could she say the truth?

“No. You haven’t been. That’s the entire damn problem.”

“You don’t think it’s a problem, though. Not strong, independent Camille. Doesn’t need anything or anybody, except to be alone and not held accountable.”

And oh, that one hurts. More than anything, being shown the mirror about what a despicable caricature she’s become stings more than anything. “No, I don’t need anyone. But want? I want you. And Soph. You already know that, you don’t have to be bitchy.”

“Yeah, you sure do want Sophie around. At least when it’s convenient.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t over already. That she still loves me.”

“Sure, but should she?”

Abruptly, that is where it ends. To that, Camille has no idea what to say because she’s known the answer to that one question for years: no, she shouldn’t. For all of her denials and plans, Camille is an exact replica of the awful Adele Rousseau. Even as something she’s been thinking about for years, it’s a hard pill to swallow.

For maybe the first time since they met, she’s struck dumb in horror. Xander shifts her aside until they aren’t touching anymore, and she lets him manoeuvre them like a marionette cut loose. Him highlighting her faults like she would herself is a new one. Abruptly, she understands why Liam and Ada felt the need to sit down with them. This is what they do now, isn’t it? All they do is cross lines they never have before and find new ways to get the upper hand.

Camille doesn’t know how long she waits for him to say something more. She just stares at her hands, unfocussed, like the paint-stained phalanges are withholding some ancient wisdom from her.

From the corner of her eye, she watches Xander get up and walk away. Huh. Another metaphor for her life? It seems like it and, as she sits there for silent seconds summoning the strength to walk away from him again, she watches him return.

“Okay, that was uncalled for. No invoking the kid in our arguments, and anyway, it’s not true. She does love you and she knows you’re making an effort now. It counts.”

She can’t even summon the strength to look him in the eye anymore. “Does it? Because you’re right – it shouldn’t.”

He has her hands before she can finish that train of thought, both of hers engulfed in his large, solid grip. “Camille. Of course it does. Of course it fucking should. That was a stupid thing to say. She loves you.”

Camille scoffs, clear precisely how much she believes him. “And I love you. Doesn’t stop us from hurting, does it?”

“No, but hey—” Xander chides gently, cupping her face and turning it towards him again. “—it’s worth it, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know if it is anymore.”

“Of course it is. ‘Cause you’re right, I am. I’m yours. And you’re mine.”

“But, Xander, it’s not enough.”

The admission is whispered between them as she bows her head towards him, leaning her forehead against his. “We’re alone. We keep pushing each other away and it’s miserable, but we don’t cut loose either, so we’re just fucking alone whenever it matters. And anyway, what’s the alternative? After this, how can anything else be enough? How can anyone else be enough? Nobody will ever know us like this. Not that you still resent your mother a little for how quickly she replaced you with Liam. That you love your siblings and they make you feel alive but they can also make you feel so, so small. And not that I’ll never forgive Grandmere for making me exist either. That some nights I can’t sleep for how suffocating it is to be alone and untouched and unwanted but then one of your arms goes around me and all the screaming in my head goes quiet. That’s not something that we just talk about and tell people. We just know. So what’s the alternative, mediocre sex with Jon from Tinder because he has a decent stroke game? That’s pathetic. That’s puny compared to what we could have.”

“Yes. It is.” She barely has a moment to look up at him before Xander curls an arm around her back and pulls her tight against his chest. A fractured breath shudders out of them both. Like this, with her face tucked against the warm, solid expanse of his chest, caged in by firm arms and his head leaning atop hers, she feels anchored. Like a ship come home and tethered where it’s safe. Only the trembling grip around his back, fingers pressing against his skin, betray her.

“If you know all of this,” he finally continues, like they’re not clinging on for dear life, “then why do you insist on pushing me away? You can’t be this committed to being a pain in my ass.”

“Fuck off, I’m the most committed to your ass.”

“Yes, darling, I’m aware.” Xander’s tone drips sarcasm so thoroughly, she almost laughs. “But shut up — you can’t go back into hiding already.”

“It’s terrifying,” she finally admits quietly, and he sighs.

“I know, but being alone isn’t?”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” She pulls away far enough to look at him again.

At last, he smirks again. “Come on, you know the answer to that.”

The terribly mischievous glint lingering in his eyes bonks her over the head like a particularly helpful club as he tilts her chin up again and carefully brushes his mouth against hers. God, how has she ended up here all over again? They’re somehow wound together on the sofa Xander has had since he moved to Vancouver, but every inch of her being feels like a victor returning home after a war to rest at last. A few thousand may lie dead in their wake and there is destruction to be dealt with, but for now, there is safety and rest.

Camille sighs, whisper-soft, and chases him as he tries to draw back, fingers already lacing in the back of his hair. A laugh breathed against her mouth, and then he gets back to work thoroughly kissing her mouth, her neck, her clavicle.

It should be so embarrassingly juvenile, the wild escapades of their teenage wet dreams, but who cares enough to ponder that? Xander is far more interested in sliding both hands up the back of her sweater and wrestling. She allows herself about two and a half seconds of contemplation before she throws a leg across his to straddle his lap again and gets her delightfully willing, easily pliant lovely ex-husband right between the apex of her thighs until they’re pressed together in the best way possible and she can tilt her head back for the better angle.

See, this? They’ve never had trouble speaking the same language in this respect before. When Camille presses her mouth to Xander’s again, tongue swiping teasingly against him, she is received with his broad hands cupping her whole entire face – holy shit? – and meeting her open-mouthed. It quickly turns dirty, all tongue and slick mouths and wandering hands. It’s desperate and sloppy, and she loves it, loves how Xander groans into her mouth and bites down on her lower lip with a bitten off curse.

It’s a herculean effort to lean back, to concentrate on saying a single word, especially since he has taken to cupping her breast instead, but. She has to. “Wait, are you trying to fuck me into agreeing with you?”

As expected, all three of Xander’s functioning brain cells are more focussed on pulling her sweater off. “Don’t need to.” He shrugs, giving up on buttons and pulling the offensive garment over her head instead. “I don’t know if you noticed, but you did admit you love me still. I should probably seal the deal, make sure you don’t change your mind. Besides, wasn’t this what you came over to do in the first place?”

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