Just Between Us (Nashville is Calling, #2)

by Madison Wright

I stand outside her door, warring with myself. I can’t keep doing this, putting myself out there, only to have her turn me away. This is the last time. With that thought ringing in my head, I knock.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper, noticing the bags in his hands. “I brought you some stuff.”

“I said I didn’t need anything.” I expect him to flinch at the words, for them to work the way I intended and make him turn around and leave. Standing here on my doorstep, he is too tempting for me to ignore.

“I know what you said.”

He lets out a heavy sigh, his shoulders sagging. “Because, Ellie, sometimes what you want and what you need are two very different things.” His gaze pierces mine. “What do you want?” I want this. I want him. I want him more than I need my parents’ approval, more than I crave their validation. I don’t need his. He’s already given it to me in so many little ways, and I want to accept it.

He is a shooting star on a cloudless night, sunrise over a crashing surf, the first flower in spring. He is everything simple and lovely in life, and I can’t believe he came back here.

“Where did you get the soup?” He shrugs, not meeting my eyes. “I made it.” “You made this?”

“Thank you for making it for me.” I wait until his eyes lock on mine and say, “I’m sorry about this morning.”

“Cam, I’m scared of losing you.”

I don’t know why he still wants me, if he still wants me, but I want him. I’m going to make it my mission to prove that to him.

I search his eyes, my lungs suddenly feeling tight. “I don’t—I can’t tell them, at least not right away.”

“I get that,” he finally says, and I let out a shaky breath. His gaze searches mine. “But Ellie, I can’t do this back and forth. I need to know…” He hesitates. “I need to know this is going somewhere, even if that’s all you can give me right now.”

“This is going somewhere,” I whisper. He stares at me hard, considering my words, and then his face softens.

“I think we should go on a date tomorrow.” My worries dissipate under the warmth in my chest, and I can’t help the smile that kicks up my mouth. “Oh yeah?” Her lips curve, and I’m distracted by them. I remember exactly how they tasted, how they felt, how they responded under mine. I want to close the distance between us and try it again, to see if kissing her a third time would live up to the memory of the first two.

“I’ve loved this,” she says, gesturing to the couch, to the cloud of pillows and blankets we’re snuggled into. “But I want more. I want to go do something fun with you.” I don’t know how she read my mind; I’m just thankful that I’m not the only one craving more with her.

I lean forward, nudging my nose against her cheek, and her breath hitches. “I’d like that.”

I want to show her what we can have if she’ll give us a chance.

“Cam, what’s left for you in LA?” “My job,” I answer automatically. “My sister. My entire adult life.” “I offered you a job,” he responds, ticking off on his fingers. “Hazel is a grown adult; she doesn’t need her brother there to take care of her. And as for your life—you can have a life here if you want it.”

“I wasted a lot of time with Lo,” Wes says as he flips on the espresso machine. “Things worked out for us, but there’s so much time I can’t get back with her.”

“I don’t want that for you. If you think there might be something special between you and Ellie, if you think you could be happy here, don’t make the same mistakes I did. Don’t go back to LA.”

“The best relationships are the ones you have to fight for.”

“You look beautiful,” he whispers,

I’ve never had someone look at me like that, with such reverence and fascination, like he can’t believe he gets to be here with me.

“Thank you,” I manage. “You too.” His lips quirk in a smile, and his hand reaches for mine in the dark, threading our fingers together. He lets out a sigh, as if he’s been waiting for this all day.

I decide right then and there that I want to make that smile light up his face as much as possible. Cam is attractive. I noticed it that very first night—all lean lines and sharp angles, dark hair, and midnight eyes—but when he smiles, he’s devastating.

Cam’s gaze traces my face in the darkness, pausing on the slope of my nose and the curve of my lips before finally settling on my eyes. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

A cold breeze kicks up my hair, sending it flying around me. I reach up, intending to tuck it behind my ears, but stop when Cam says, “No, leave it. You’re perfect.” His words settle inside me, warm and heavy. Not it’s perfect, but you’re perfect.

“You’re stunning,” he murmurs, warm and low in my ear. I turn to face him, and he’s so close, his lips a breath away from mine.

I gesture around us, at the vast space at the top of the hill. “I thought we’d have a picnic under the stars. It seems like they’ve become our place.”

“I’ve been thinking that too.”

“I thought since we can’t exactly go out to a nice restaurant, we could maybe have a candlelight dinner with the best view in town.”

“I can’t think of anything better.” A relieved smile tips the corners of my mouth. “Good.”

“I just wanted tonight to be perfect.” His eyes soften. “It is perfect, Daisy.”

“You kind of smell like daisies, you know,” Cam says, trailing his fingers across my shin.

I let myself in Ellie’s door later. She gave me her spare key when she was sick, skipping fifteen relationship steps, so she didn’t have to get up off the couch and walk down the stairs to let me in. I like it, though, our unorthodox take at dating. We’re less a guidebook and more a vintage game of Candy Land—missing some cards and having to make up the steps as we go, but still full of color and sweetness, nonetheless.

She saw the brightly colored apron covered in daisies and told me she just had to buy it now that she was a real cook.

My aunt and uncle own an apple orchard and flower farm on the outskirts of town. Since it’s on the far side of our property, nestled just past the deep valley that separates my parents’ land from theirs, I’ve spent almost as much time wandering the fields as I have here in my childhood home.

“The first time I made tea for you, you kept talking about how good it was and how you were going to have to keep me around to make it for you every night.” I pause, not meaning to end up where my sentence took me. “I just wanted you to keep me around, I guess.”

“I kept adding a little more each day until I was sure you were going to know something was up. I—” “Cam,” Ellie breathes, cutting me off. “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.” “Yeah?” I ask, gnawing at my bottom lip. “Not too much?” “No, it’s perfect. You’re perfect,” she says, echoing my words from our first date.

“I’m so proud of you.” Somehow, when he says it, it feels like a bandage being pressed over an open wound. It’s not healed, not even close, but it will be. That’s all I can hope for.

“Hey,” Cam says, jumping up. He walks to the edge of the porch and down the stairs, his phone jostling as he goes. “Go outside.”

“Look up,” he says, his voice soft as cashmere. When I do, I’m staring at the stars, a black canvas pin pricked with light. They wink at me, making my heart settle the anxious rhythm it’s beat all day.

“Me and you under the stars, Daisy.”

My favorite spot to go, though, was right in our backyard. I’d walk through the fields to my aunt and uncle’s farm, dew seeping through my shoes and damp fog making my hair curl up on the ends. I took photos of every square inch of that farm, in every light imaginable. It’s where I fell in love with photography, where I figured out how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. It’s where I went today when I was feeling confused, where I’ve been dying to go since everything started feeling so muddled.

“I’ve been thinking about staying there—not going back to LA.”

“I don’t know.” I let out a deep breath. “I’ve just been kind of restless there,” I say, and my mind snags on Mom’s words from the other day—how she said she could tell I’d been missing something for years. I didn’t realize I’d been missing anything, but I can kind of see it now. It’s all I’ve been able to think about, really.

“I think I’m going to stay—find a new apartment and accept the job Wes offered me.” See what happens with Ellie. Nashville has a lot to offer, and I want it all.

Mom makes her own line of soaps, perfumes, oils, and candles from ingredients grown on the farm to sell in the shop. They’re a huge hit with the locals and tourists, and she’s almost run out of stock.

I’m spinning one of the perfume bottles around when the name catches my eye—Daisy’d and Confused. Underneath it reads, subtle notes of daisy, peony, and fresh apples. I pop off the lid and spritz the air. Ellie. That hauntingly familiar scent that reminds me of home, it smells like Ellie. Like daisies and peonies in a field, like sunrise peeking through the apple trees.

“Dave?” I whisper. His breath fans against my neck. “Yeah, Daisy?” “Why haven’t you kissed me?”