The smile melted off my mouth.

What?

“Uh, yeah, totally,” I said, feeling more stupid by the second. I grabbed my purse and hopped out of the jeep, looking back at him with a stunned expression.

He raised his hand in a wave. “Goodnight, Ellie.”

I copied him. “Good night, Camden,” I whispered.

He gunned the jeep and it took off around the cul-de-sac and down the road. I didn’t walk into the house, I just stood there at the foot of the driveway, watching as the jeep’s red lights got smaller and smaller and then eventually disappeared as he turned onto the other road. Then the roar of his engine was gone and I was engulfed by the sound of crickets and the blanket of stars above my head.

What the hell? What happened to asking me out on another date? Or trying to get laid? Or at least a kiss? I thought the whole evening had been going well and suddenly it was, “see ya.” Not even a “we should do this again sometime” and other polite promises. Nothing!

I slowly turned on my heel and slinked back to the house, feeling like a balloon with its air let out. I had really counted on Camden liking me. I had counted on a lot of things. Now I couldn’t be sure of anything.

And for all the effort, for all my plans of scamming the guy, the thing that hurt the most was the rejection. I thought we really had something. Somehow, all these years later, Camden McQueen had managed to put me in his shoes.

To put it mildly, I didn’t like it.

***

You know when you’re upset over something and you look forward to the light of morning because you’ll have some sort of clarity over the situation, as if you’ll work out your problem while you sleep?

Yeah, that didn’t happen here. I woke up angry and annoyed. Part of it was that my old bed in the spare bedroom had scratchy, dusty sheets that probably hadn’t been changed since I was a teenager, but mainly it was because of Camden. He must have been in my dreams or something because my first thought as I opened my eyes to the sharp sunlight streaming in my window was “damn him.”

Apparently I don’t take rejection very well. I also don’t like it when my plans get messed up. When I have to recalculate. You think I’d be used to the latter and at least some of the former, but when I’d been rejected in the past I never took it personally. I never had time or the nerve to get involved with people, and when I did—such as with Jack back in Cincinnati—I was never really invested. My heart was a shallow instrument.

And yet here I was, lying in my bed, sheets tangled all over me, staring up at the ceiling where I used to tape pictures of my favorite bands, and feeling a little sorry for myself. Where had I gone wrong? I started analyzing every detail from the night before, from the way he smiled at me to the feel of his arm around me. He obviously wanted his bandmates to know we were an item, or that I belonged to him in some way. Perhaps that’s all it was. Maybe they made fun of him for not bagging chicks or something. I had a hard time believing that considering most women were falling all over themselves to talk to the 6’0” tat-covered hottie. He could have anyone he wanted, if he wanted them. But Camden wasn’t your usual guy. At least he hadn’t been.

I mulled it over and over and the only thing I could come up with was that he just didn’t like me “like that.” Which sucked, both for my secretly fragile self-esteem and for my ticket out of this place. In order for my scam to work, I needed to get into his place and take a look around. I needed to have a better look at his security system—if he had any—and find out where his safe was. Otherwise I’d be setting myself up for major trouble, something I had to avoid in this town for the sake of Uncle Jim.

Speaking of the devil, I could hear him puttering around in the kitchen and could smell the bacon frying in its own fat. My stomach growled and I rolled over into the fetal position. I’d spent $120 last night in the name of the game which left me only $80 to start a new life somewhere. My options looked bleak.

Soon my hunger won out over my pity party and I threw on some clothes and shuffled into the kitchen. Uncle Jim was scooping a batch of baked beans onto a plate and pursed his lips as soon as he saw me.

“Thought this would get you up,” he said, handing me the plate and a fork. “You came home late last night.”

I had to smile at his parent-like interrogation and slid onto the bar stool. “Oh, it wasn’t that late. I hope you weren’t waiting up for me.”

From the way he shrugged I could tell he was. He slid into the seat next to me and started pouring an obscene amount of hot sauce on his eggs. I chose Worcester sauce instead and drizzled it all over my plate.

“So how was it?”

I sighed. “It was really nice, actually. But I don’t think it went too well on his end.”

“No?”

“I don’t know. He just dropped me off. No kiss goodnight, no plans for the next days.”

He chuckled as he delicately sliced his eggs with a knife. “You mean you wait for the men to kiss you, Ellie? Boy, I thought your mother raised you differently.”

“Well, we know she barely raised me at all.”

He looked at me sharply then said softly, “She did the best she could. You were her number one priority.”

“Until…”

“Until…she made a mistake.”

“Sounds like you’re the one who’s coming around, Uncle Jim. Whatever happened to forever punishing us?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

I speared a few beans with my fork and ate them before my appetite totally disappeared. “Not for long.”

We sat in silence for a while, drinking our coffees and staring out the kitchen window at the sunny palm groves outside. When I lived up north for a bit, I often thought back to California and wondered how people could ever be sad in such constant sunshine. But the truth is, sadness and anger aren’t vampiric. If you let them, they’ll follow you around the world, sunshine and stakes be damned.

“I’m sorry your date didn’t go well,” he finally said after clearing his throat. “It’s probably for the best. There’s been some rumors about that boy anyway and you don’t want to get roped up in that.”

Now that caught my attention. “Rumors? Still?”

He let out a deep breath and shrugged, putting his elbows on the table. “I don’t know. I remember that boy being all queer and funny when you were young but now it’s something else. He hangs out with…bad people.”

I twisted in my seat and looked him square in the face. “I’m bad people.”

“Not like you, Ellie. I mean bad people. City people. I like to pretend that you have morals somewhere in your skinny little chest. These people don’t.”

I narrowed my eyes in thought. “How do you know all of this?”

“I hear things. It’s a small town still, people talk. Got nothing better to do. And it’s probably nothing, maybe he just knows some of the people his daddy arrests. But if you want to give something a reason, maybe it’s best that he broke things off like that. You don’t need to get dragged into anything.”

“I don’t think Camden is like that,” I mused. Then again, I didn’t really know Camden anymore.

“Maybe not,” he said, collecting our plates and taking them to the sink. “I’m just trying to make you feel better. Guess it didn’t work.”

I shot him a smile of gratitude and offered to do the dishes. When he refused, I then excused myself. I went up to my room, shut the door, and started Googling the crap out of Camden McQueen on my phone.

I found nothing. Well, nothing “bad.” Just things that reiterated what he’d already told me. He was a talented tattoo artist, he really was on Kat Von D’s reality TV show, and his shop in LA did quite well. Other than that, there was nothing. Only a few pictures that made me feel all quivery inside.

Ugh.

I sat on the bed and hugged my knees and tried to think. I didn’t have many options. Since I was already in Palm Valley, I could go back into town and do some serious job hunting. Maybe get a gig at a bar or something like that since the barista thing wasn’t going to happen.

I perked up a bit. Maybe I could get a legitimately great job. And maybe if I did, Uncle Jim would let me stay a bit longer, seeing that I was serious. But then I’d be stuck in Palm Valley, in the same town as Camden, and things could get pretty awkward. I mean, it’s not like things ended on bad terms but…well, I usually left when places and people got weird.

And that was still an option. Maybe I could barter for a place to stay in another town and get some employment there. Work on a farm for room and board? I’d done stranger things before.

I wondered if there was anyone I knew that could help me out. I wasn’t one for charity but there were plenty of people out there who I’d done a favor for and who owed me big time. Jeez, I was getting desperate.

I opened up my email account on my phone.

My heart thumped up into my throat. There was an email from Camden with the subject line Guano Padano albums.

How the hell did he get my email?

With a shaking finger I pressed the touchscreen to open it.

Hey Ellie, thanks for coming to the show last night. Hope you had fun. I’ve attached some zip files of the two Guano Padano albums, in case you wanted to listen to them. I realized last night that I never got your phone number (derp), so if you see this email in time, perhaps you’d like to come with me to the driving range, hit a few balls, and drink a few beers? It’s what all the cool kids are doing.

PS if this isn’t the fantastic Ellie Watt of Palm Valley fame, please disregard this email. But you can keep the music.

He had his tattoo shop logo and information in his signature, along with his cell phone number.

I felt a sick sense of relief. I say sick because now that I knew he did like me after all, now that I knew I was back in the game, I was getting a little wary of the actual game. It didn’t help what my uncle said about the company he kept.

Still, I couldn’t imagine Camden hanging out with bad people. What was with the older generations thinking everyone that had tattoos and piercings had to be gang members or criminals? Okay, so I had tattoos and piercings (a nipple ring, if you must know), but someone had to start the stereotype, right?

I decided my uncle was too quick to judge and if Camden was going to be associated with anyone unsavory, it might as well be me. With fingers that were still shaking, I dialed his number.

CHAPTER SIX

“Can you hold my balls for a sec?”

I almost did a quite unsexy snort-laugh and took the bucket of balls out of Camden’s hands while he bent over and tied up his Converse. Not exactly golf club attire, but Palm Valley’s Public Golf Course seemed to attract all the golfers who didn’t have the deeply-lined pockets to play at the private clubs. And that meant a few golfers wearing clothes that just squeaked under the regulations.

Luckily for me, this meant I could keep my jeans on. I didn’t have any other type of pants and Lord knows I wouldn’t wear shorts with the scars I had. Camden looked devilishly handsome with grey Chucks, knee-length black shorts, and a black and white checkered polo shirt. Though his glasses were missing from his face, his hair was spiked up a bit in the front. If anyone could own the trend “golf punk” it would be him.