Just Between Us (Nashville is Calling, #2)

by Madison Wright

but I don’t want to kiss her as Dave and Daisy. I want to kiss her as Camden and Ellie. I want it to be real, and I want her to want it like that.

“I’m not Sam, the guy you met downtown, or Dave, the guy you kissed on a dare. I’m Cam, your resident. I’m Cam, the one who makes you tea before bed and watches scary movies with you on your couch. I’m Cam, and I’ll still be Cam tomorrow and all the days after. I don’t want to kiss you until you know you want me, with everything that entails.”

“Haze, I need to talk to you about something.” Her brow wrinkles. “What’s up?” “I’m going…I’ve decided to stay. In Nashville,” I say, and it feels right. When I drove into Nashville this afternoon, when I steered my car into the parking lot, when I heard the crunch of the leaves beneath my feet and felt the chill of the air on my skin, it felt like home. I knew then that I couldn’t go back.

“You know, Haze, the only thing to make Nashville better…” She laughs. “Yeah, okay.” “You really could move here, you know.”

book 3

“Cam?” Hazel asks, and I pause. “I’m really happy for you.” “Thanks, Haze. I’m really happy too.”

“You’re always dressed in these colorful outfits that make your hair pop and your skin look like sweet cream. Even when you’re serious, your lips are curved up, like you could break into a smile at any time.” He pauses, turning back to face me. “And when you do smile, you get these crinkles right here.” His fingers reach up to trace the corner of my eye before sliding down the bridge of my nose. “You smile with your whole face, not just your mouth. It’s…mesmerizing.”

“You, Ellie Bates, are the thing I love photographing most.”

Cam is stargazing and too-sweet tea. He is gentle touches and homemade soup. He is all the best things, and I don’t know how I got him. I might not be ready for more yet, but I know I don’t want to lose what we have right now.

“Cam,” I say, making sure to enunciate his name, to let him know I mean him and no one else—not Sam or Dave—just Cam. “You make me happy, and they’ll see that. That’s all that’s going to matter to them.” He lifts his eyes to mine, as if checking for sincerity. “Yeah?” I nod. “Yeah, of course.”

“I don’t want Cam to leave,” I murmur. Ethel’s frail hands swipe down my hair and over my back. “Maybe you should tell him that.” “I can’t ask him to stay.” “Don’t ask him to stay. Just make sure he knows there’s something here for him if he decides to.”

Cam has seen me and wanted me just as I am. It scares me more than I’d like to admit.

I wrap an arm around her shoulders and steer her toward the entrance. “Every time we’re together, I always wish I had it, but I usually don’t.”

“There’s always a moment I wish I could stop time and take a photo of you.”

“I’m really glad you sat at my table one night in October, Camden Lane.”

It’s not a declaration of love, but my heart hammers as if it is. So often, I feel like Ellie is falling for me, despite herself. Like if she could force herself not to, she would. But this right here, this little moment in time, tells me she doesn’t regret it, that she wouldn’t change it.

“I am too, Ellie Bates,” I say, breathing in that scent of her, the one t...

You are an explosion of color in a dreary landscape. You’re a striped sweater in a crowd of black dresses. You, Ellie Bates, are the statement piece the whole house is designed around.”

“I’ve been thinking.” She hesitates, chewing her bottom lip. “About us.”

“I was thinking maybe we could keep trying this.” She reaches between us, fingering one of the buttons at my collar. Her throat bobs in a swallow. “I think I still need some time before I tell my parents, but…I want there to be an us to tell them about.”

“That is, if you do. I know I’ve messed things up a lot in the past, so I understand if you—” “I’m not going back to LA.” She steps back half an inch, her hands splayed out across my chest. “What?”

“You know this spot has always driven me crazy?” I say, and my whisper disappears into her skin. Ellie shudders against me, her nails scratching against my scalp. “Is that so?” “You smell like daisies and apples,” I say, kissing back up the line of her neck. “It’s my perfume,” she tells me, her voice a breathy murmur. “I want some. I’ll spray it on my pillow and never sleep again.”

When I hurry out of my room and into the bathroom, Cam is there, holding my perfume. “Perfect,” I say, snatching it from his hand. I spritz it on both sides of my neck, and when I turn back, Cam looks like he’s been hit by a truck. His eyes are fastened on the crook of my shoulder. “Daisy’d and Confused,” he says so quietly I almost think he’s talking to himself.

called it

“In college, a couple of my girlfriends and I rented a little AirBnB in this mountain town in North Carolina. One of my friends found it on a Pinterest article about day trips from Nashville or something.”

“Anyway, we went to this farm, and they had a little shop. I found this perfume, and I swear, it smelled exactly like the fields. I loved it, so I bought basically the entire line. It’s made in-house. Now, whenever I run out, I order it online from there.”

“Fontana Ridge,” Cam breathes. I stare up at him. “That’s it. How did you know that?” “That’s my hometown,” he tells me, and my brows climb up my forehead in disbelief. “That’s my aunt and uncle’s farm. And my mom makes all the stuff in the shop.”

“I kept thinking you smelled like home, and now I know why.”

that’s so fucking cute

“I’ve got to go, but feel free to take that back to your place and spray it on your pillow,” I say with a wink.

“But Daisy, I can’t…I can’t keep doing this. The back and forth is killing me.”

“I think maybe you need to figure out what you want,” I tell her. “I know what I want. I want this. I want you, Ellie, but not like this.” I suck in a breath. “I can’t have you like this—no more secrets, no more lies.”

“But…what about Cam? Are you okay ending things with him?”

“I asked him if we could keep it just between us a little longer, and he said no.”

“What—you agree with him?” I ask. She shrugs one shoulder. “Ellie, I don’t know if I agree with him, but I see where he’s coming from. What are you supposed to do—lie forever? What if things get serious between you? Are you always going to keep it a secret how long you’ve been together? As bad as things can get between you and your parents, you guys are still a close-knit family.”

I just wanted you to keep me around, I guess. I can hear his words like an echo in my apartment, like a whisper against my skin.

a thousand tiny moments flash through my mind—Camden making me soup when I was sick, smiling at me in the dark on top of the world, FaceTiming me and telling me to look at the stars, adding a little more honey to my tea every night until I was addicted to it. No, nothing with Cam was inappropriate. It was magic.

“Thanks for everything, Daisy,” he says, low enough that only I can hear. One corner of his mouth tips up in the barest of smiles. “It was all worth it to me.”

Somehow, even with everything dying off for the winter, it still smells like Ellie—like daisies and peonies and sun-kissed apples.

Dad owns a trail guide company that caters to tourists and locals alike. While he doesn’t actually guide many hikes or camping trips himself anymore after hiring my cousin Stevie, he still has a lot of work to do in the office and attached general store most days.

I let out a deep breath, gathering the courage to say the words aloud. It’s scary, but it feels right. “I’m going to quit.”

This—the scary leap into the unknown—feels like the right path. I’m not sure how they’re going to take it, but I think this is the first step on the road to recovering our relationship.

“I’m going to North Carolina.”

“I’m going to see Cam.” I stop, letting my breath out in a whoosh. “I can’t sit around and wait for him to call, Sadie. I’ll go crazy.” She stares at me for a long moment. “It’s like that quote from When Harry Met Sally. ‘When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start—’” “As soon as possible,” I finish for her.

A slow, small smile blooms on her face, and it threatens to take my breath away. “So, I’m in North Carolina.”

“Want to show me around?” I blink at the change in subject. “You’ve been here before.” “But not with you.” The words are so simple, but they burrow beneath my skin. I don’t know why she’s here, and I don’t know if she will ever be back, but I want to show her my home, the place that now reminds me of her as much as it does of my childhood.

“Okay, Daisy, let me show you around.”

“What do you want, Daisy?”

“You, Camden Lane. I want you.”

yes u do!! me too!!

“I have to pick up someone from the airport.” “Who do you have to pick up from the airport?”

Hazel!!!

I hear the front door open. “Ellie, you here?” Just like it always does, my heart picks up its rhythm at the sound of Cam’s voice. A year and a half later, and he still gives me butterflies.

A slow smile tilts his lips as he takes in my outfit—striped sweater, black skirt, yellow tights, and white boots—the same thing I wore the night we met. You’re a striped sweater in a sea of black dresses, he told me once. It’s something I repeat to myself often when I’m feeling lost or unsteady. I may not always know exactly who I am or who I want to be, but Cam does.

“A year and a half ago,” he whispers, his breath fanning my skin, “I never could have imagined this moment—being here with you like this again.” His lips brush against the spot just below my ear. “I love you.” It’s been over a year since he said it the first time, and it still makes a warm feeling spread through my chest. “I love you too,” I breathe.