The Edge of Always

She doesn’t respond, but she doesn’t need to. I know she wants me to go on. A tear escapes one eye, and I reach up and wipe it away with the pad of my thumb.

“We won’t because we’re both conscious of it,” I begin. “Because it was fate that we met on that bus in Kansas, and because we both know what we want out of life. We may not have the details mapped out—and we don’t need to—but we both know which direction we don’t want to go.”

I stop and then say, “We can still travel the world. We just have to put it off for a while longer. And in the meantime, we live our lives the way we want to. None of that daily monotonous bullshit.”

I get a tiny smile out of her.

“Well, how do we avoid that exactly?” she asks, crossing her arms and smirking down at me.

Now there’s the playful smartass Camryn I know and love.

I rub my hands up and down her thighs briskly and then say, “If you want to work, you can work. I don’t care if you want to flip burgers or shovel shit at the zoo, do whatever you want. But the second you get tired of it or feel like it’s becoming your life, walk the fuck away. And if you’d rather sit back and do nothing, you can do that too, like I’ve told you before. You know I’ll take care of you no matter what.”

I know what’s coming next, so I brace for it. And sure enough Camryn snarls at me and argues, “No way in hell will I sit back on my ass and let you take care of me.”

She’s so hot when she’s bein’ all independent.

“Well that’s fine. Whatever,” I say, raising my hands up in surrender. “But I want you to understand that I don’t care what you do as long as you’re happy doing it.”

“And what about you, Andrew? You can’t just tell me not to worry about ‘the monotony of life’ while you take it on headfirst just because we have a baby to support. That’s not fair.”

“That’s sort of what you said that first night I buried my head between your thighs. Did I have a problem with it then?”

She blushes hard. Even after all this time and all that we’ve been through together, I still manage to make her blush.

I lean up and cup her face within my hands and pull her into a kiss.

“As long as I have you, Lily, and my music, I don’t need anything else.”

Another tear streams down her soft cheek, but this time she’s smiling underneath it. “You promise?” she asks.

“Yes, I promise,” I say with determination, squeezing her hands within mine. I let the seriousness fade from my face and smile at her again.

“I’m sorry,” she says, letting out a defeated breath. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. One day I’m all smiles and perfectly fine and then it’s like, out of nowhere, I’m doom-and-gloom pathetic.”

I laugh a little under my breath. “Bitch-slapped by mood swings. Get used to it.”

Her mouth falls open slightly, and she laughs too. “Well, I guess that’s one way of putting it.”

She stops abruptly. “Do you hear that?” Her eyes narrow as she pushes her ear toward the source of the sound. I hear but pretend not to.

“Oh great,” I say. “Don’t tell me that pregnancy causes schizophrenia, too.”

She smacks me gently on the chest and climbs off my lap. “No, it’s your cell phone,” she says, walking around to the back of the couch. “I thought the battery was dead.”

No… I just turned the ringer off and hid it to make you think that. At least I thought I turned it off.

“I think you’re sitting on your phone,” she says.

I stand up and play stupid, rummaging around underneath the cushion. Finally, I pull it out to see Natalie’s picture (technically, it’s a picture of a hyena that I thought represented her best) looking back at us from the screen. Dammit. This is going to be awkward.

Camryn reaches out for it when she notices Natalie’s name.

“Since when did Natalie start calling you?” she asks, snatching it from my hand.

Yes, definitely awkward because she doesn’t look the slightest bit jealous. She’s grinning!

I reach up and nervously scratch the back of my head, avoiding eye contact, but then I try to take it back from her.

“Oh, no way in hell,” she laughs, stepping away from the couch.

“Come on, give me the phone.”

She taunts me with it as I leap over the back of the couch to go after her.

She thrusts her empty hand out at me. “Be careful! I’m pregnant and you might hurt me!” She smirks.

Oh now she plays the I’m-too-fragile card. So evil.

She runs her finger over the Answer bar and puts the phone to her ear, grinning the whole time.

I just give up. I suck at this stuff.

“Well, hello Natalie,” Camryn says, her playful gaze never moving from me. “Have you been seeing my man behind my back?”

She shakes her head at whatever Natalie’s answer is. It’s obvious Camryn knows what’s going on, or at least has a pretty good idea, because she knows I’d never cheat on her, especially not with her best friend. The girl is pretty but, yeah, she’s like a reality TV train wreck.

Camryn puts her on speakerphone. “Out with it, both of you,” she demands.

“Ummm… uhhh…,” Natalie manages on the other end.

“For the first time ever, Natalie has nothing to say. I’m shocked!” Camryn looks to me for the answers.

“Sorry, Andrew!” Natalie shouts.

“Not your fault,” I say. “I left the ringer on.”

Camryn clears her throat impatiently.

“It was going to be a surprise,” I say, frowning.

“Yeah! I swear he’s not doing me!”

I outwardly cringe at Natalie’s comment and Camryn tries her damnedest to hold back her laughter. But being Camryn, she won’t pass up any opportunity to torture those she loves, though with the most innocent of intentions.

“I don’t believe you, Nat,” she says gravelly.

“Huh?” Natalie sounds completely stunned.

“How long has it been going on?” Camryn continues, putting on a convincing show. She walks around and sets the phone down on the coffee table and then crosses her arms.

“Cam… I swear to God it’s nothing like that. Oh my God, I would never, ever, ever do something like that to you. I mean Andrew is smokin’ hot, yeah, I totally admit that, and I would probably be on him like sexy on Joseph Morgan if you two weren’t together, but—”

“I get it, Nat.” Camryn stops her—thankfully—before she goes off on what Camryn calls a Natalie Tangent.

“You do?” Natalie asks carefully, still confused, which doesn’t surprise me.

Camryn picks the phone up again and holds the screen up to me and mouths the words: Seriously? Apparently about the picture of the hyena.

I shrug.

“So, what’s really going on?” Camryn says to both of us, setting the jokes aside.

“Camryn,” I say, walking toward her, “I know you’re missing home. I’ve known for a while, so a couple weeks ago I got Natalie’s number from your phone and decided to give her a call.”

Camryn narrows her eyes. I guide her to sit back down on the couch with me.

“Yeah, he called me up and told me your ultrasound date and thought I might want to…” Natalie’s voices trails, waiting on me to be the one to spill the surprise.

“I figured she would want to organize a baby shower for you when we found out if it was a boy or a girl—I tried calling your mom first, but she must’ve still been in Cozumel.”

Camryn nods. “Yeah, she likely was around that time.”

“But your mom is totally onboard now,” Natalie’s voice streams through the tiny speaker. “She and I were kind of planning it together behind your back. I couldn’t wait any longer for your boy toy to call me with the news today, so I called him and now you know everything and the surprise is ruined!”