Chapter 95
Chapter 88: The Secret About Logan Is Out
Sedona’s POV
Claim
Dante came the next morning after Rachel’s ridiculous comment that refused to leave my mind all through the night and I would not admit it, even on my death bed, but I was looking forward to seeing him and had put a lot of effort to look a lot less than death kissed, and he came back the morning after that, and I noticed things I hadn’t been letting myself notice before-or rather, things I’d been noticing and filing away with the efficiency of someone who’d decided noticing them wasn’t useful. But now I was reconsidering my stance on those things because paying a fool for long time was not sustainable.
I made myself focus on the way he handed me food with the same natural authority he brought to everything, not offering it tentatively or waiting to be thanked, just giving it because it was there
and I needed it.
I also thought about the way he remembered things I mentioned in passing that were meant to be something fleeting and definitely not something for him to mentally take a note of and never forget it-I’d said offhand that ginger settled my stomach better than anything, and every dish after that had ginger in it, present but not overwhelming, and it seemed to be integrsted into the food in such a way that made it known he had done this intentionally and not just added as an
afterthought.
The way he talked to my family when they overlapped, which happened more frequently as the week went on, because he came everyday and so did my parents, so meeting was inevitable. I had watched the interactions with my parents with more intensity that required, probably because I did not have this when I was dating logan, and now it seemed like I was trying to make sure that my parents approved of dante in their own way and not just tolerating him.
He was easy with my mother, who had decided she liked him on approximately the second day with the speed she reserved for people who fed her daughter food and did not try to make it more than what it was. He was respectful with my father, who engaged him on tennis history in a way that surprised both of them, my father having followed the sport closely during my competing years and retained the knowledge even after I’d left.
With Cameron, it was more careful. Cameron was cordial and precise and gave nothing away, to Dante or anyone else, he never let his true feelings show which was Cameron managing something he hadn’t yet decided how to feel about and was not yet talking about it. Dante navigated it without making it a problem for himself or Cameron- He did not push for familiarity or for warmth Cameron wasn’t ready to give, didn’t perform indifference to the assessment Cameron
SAY
10
1/3
was clearly running. Just existed in the room honestly and let that be sufficient. Claim Qn the sixth day, Cameron arrived while Dante was there and the two of them ended up in a conversation about the exhibition match the previous evening, which Cameron had apparently attended with his personal assistant that I had no idea about because I had never seen him, but he came upon frequently this conversation as Cameron let it slip that his PA was a huge fan and they had gone to see the match in person, which I hadn’t known, and which also was the thing that produced the interesting scene of my brother telling Dante in precise detail what he’d done wrong in the second set while Dante listened with genuine attention rather than defensiveness. I watched this from my bed with the specific pleasure of observing two people who were deciding to respect each other in real time. After Dante left that evening, Cameron sat in the chair and was quiet for a moment. “He’s all right,” Cameron said finally. Coming from Cameron, in the particular context of the past week, this was significant. “He brought pear thing again today,” I said. “The grandmother recipe p> “I know. I had some.” A pause. “It’s good p> “Very good p> Cameron looked at his hands, then at me, with the expression that had been sitting behind his eyes for days-the preoccupied thing, the thing he’d said could wait. I’d been watching it, waiting for the moment when he decided it could wait no longer. “Sedona,” he said. And I knew, from the way he said my name, that whatever he’d been holding was about to stop being held. “Tell me,” I said. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked at me directly, and I felt the shift in the room that came before something that mattered. “Logan called me,” he said. The name landed in the room the way it always did, but four the first time in a long while, I did not feel the grief or sting of losing something precious to me. “When?” I asked. “The night before your good news from Frank,” he said. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell SAT 10 2/3 O The Secret About Logan Is Out Claim you. Whether to tell you before or after the results. Whether it would help or-” He stopped. “He knows you’re here. He knows about the cancer, about St. Anthony’s. He knows your real name p> ooked at the window. The Seattle evening, the particular light of it. “He found me,” I said. “He’s been looking.” Cameron’s voice was careful, carrying something I couldn’t entirely read. “He asked if there was any version where you’d agree to see him p> The room was very quiet. “What did you tell him?” I asked. “I told him I’d talk to you,” Cameron said. “That’s all I promised. I told him I’d ask what you wanted and that if you wanted nothing, he needed to respect that.” He looked at me steadily. “So I’m asking. What do you want p> I looked at the ceiling. The familiar texture of it. The place I went when I needed somewhere to put my eyes while I found out what I actually thought. Logan had found me. Of course he had. I’d known, somewhere underneath everything, that it was possible. I thought about what Cameron hadn’t yet told me-whatever else Logan had said, whatever his reasons were for looking, whether the guilt I’d seen on his face at the hospital had grown or resolved or transformed into something else in the weeks since. “What did he say?” I asked. “When he called you. What did he say p> Cameron was quiet for a moment. Then he told me. 1 Comments LUCK DRAW > Vote 165 O Admins2