relationship with a nice man who is actually an adult—someone who knows his own psyche and doesn’t project his demons onto me.”
Paul squinted. “Didn’t Sean Devlin beg your phone number tonight, or am I imagining that? Is this going to be another salvo in the Great Crusade for All Men to Have Therapy?”
“Forget it!” She spun away again.
Cameron, he knew, didn’t actually believe all men should have therapy. But she seemed to want some kind of fantasy relationship where she and the man in her life talked about everything, had no secrets from each other, constantly shared every emotion. Sometimes he wanted to point out to her that, in a strictly intellectual sense, she didn’t want a boyfriend, she wanted a girlfriend.
But now Paul suddenly saw, suddenly understood. She wasn’t crying about her friendship with Mary Anne, and she wasn’t crying about the general lack of the uninteresting kind of love relationship she thought she wanted; she was crying because she wanted Graham Corbett. The radio guy who looked like an extra on Sex and the City. Talk about someone totally wrong for tomboy Cameron. And Cameron could have virtually any guy she wanted.
Paul knew it would be a mistake to say anything. Especially anything on the subject. But he had to try. “Graham Corbett’s just not…” he said inarticulately, unable to say exactly what Corbett wasn’t.
He thought Cameron might turn around and shout at him.
Instead, she turned to face him again, dragging her sleeve across her eyes. She said, “It doesn’t matter. I’m getting over him. Bridget gave me something so I wouldn’t like him.”
All the hair on Paul’s body stood up. Bridget, his sister, was not someone you should accept funny drinks from. She and his mother had uncanny powers which Paul, who had grown up with these females, could not pretend away. He had seen too much to be complacent on the subject. “You drank something Bridget gave you?”
“A s-s-specific—” Cameron sniffed. “For emotional healing.”
Paul supposed it could be true. But he also knew that his sister was mad at him. She hadn’t been watching her son beside the duck pond at the zoo. It was dangerous, and he’d told her so. Not tactfully, maybe, but come on! Nick could have fallen in and drowned while Bridget was talking meditation techniques with another mom.
Cameron moved away from the counter and picked up her purse, which she’d slung onto the table. From within she retrieved a small vial that she skidded across the table to Paul.
Paul didn’t want to touch the thing. Bridget could be really treacherous.
Cameron noticed that he didn’t pick up the vial. It was empty but for any last drops that might remain. Abruptly, she laughed.
“What?” said Paul.
“You. You’re so afraid. Everybody in the world laughs at love potions and thinks they don’t work.” Though Cameron also believed in the efficacy of the potions, she didn’t find them to be a big deal.
“Everybody in the world didn’t grow up with two witches,” said Paul emphatically.
“It’s not even a love potion,” Cameron needled him, unable to resist. “Maybe you should see if there are a few drops in there for your emotional equilibrium.”
“I’m not the one bursting into tears over a—” He stopped.
Cameron’s eyebrows drew together. “A what?”
“He’s so—preening. He belongs on cable. With his girl curls, that Jim Morrison do. It’s hilarious.”
Cameron pursed her lips briefly at this unfair description of Graham. She was beginning to enjoy herself. “You sound jealous.”
“Of Graham Corbett?” To Paul’s dismay, his voice cracked.
Cameron picked up the vial and carried it over to the stove. “What if I just put the last drop in your tea?”
“I won’t drink it,” he said, shaking his head.
Cameron rolled her eyes and set the vial near the sink to rinse and reuse for an herbal tincture. A pity that such an attractive man—and Paul was downright handsome—should be hopeless as a mate for anyone. Not because of anything to do with his faith in love potions. Just because he was so determinedly unattached. Which was childish.
A little catch in her heart warned her, cautioned her. But she had nothing to fear from Paul. Not emotionally. Not in any way.
She vividly remembered four or so things about their Halloween encounter back in college. One—her own costume. Two—surprising tenderness, or maybe a tender surprise. Three—the glitter in his bed in the morning. Four—his announcing upon awakening that the sex would wreck their friendship. She knew that excuse was covered extensively in the useful book He’s Just Not That Into You. Because it was a lie. It meant, I don’t want to have sex with you again. Period.
Paul had rejected her. This permanently eliminated him from her pool of men with whom she might have an intimate relationship in the future.
As she was thinking this, he said, “You know what the Chinese remedy for lovesickness is?”
“What?” said Cameron without interest. There was no remedy.
“To make love with someone other than the object of your attraction.”
Cameron eyed him suspiciously. “You’re not propositioning me, are you?”
Paul hadn’t been. He had been trying to goad her as she was goading him about the love potion. As far as he knew, Cameron hadn’t been on a real date in years, and he’d been planning to suggest Sean Devlin as a possible choice. But now they’d entered murky waters. Possibly deep waters.
He didn’t know Cameron’s entire sexual history, but knew she’d done more than her share of fending off unwelcome advances on dates. He thought of her, in a brief unspoken second, more like a breath, of someone innocent and vulnerable, the girl he used to surf with, kick Hacky Sack with, toss a Frisbee with. One night she’d been in his bed, full-breasted, so sexual, so different. Now, suddenly, she was both those things. And he felt protective toward her.
He tried to answer and couldn’t. Sleeping with Cameron… He liked the idea and also thought it was a mistake, not part of his plans. But he felt a curiosity, curiosity about who she was now, what they might be together. And his mouth said, “It’s an idea.”
Cameron almost gasped with the shock of it.
It was unthinkable.
She and Paul were friends, just friends. In any case, she liked sex, but she wasn’t much into the sport of it, and what he was suggesting sounded like sport. Suppose she did it, would this Chinese cure work? She wasn’t in any danger of falling in love with Paul.
A shudder swept over her with her next thought, a thought she tried to suppress.
Cameron was terrified of pregnancy. There were good reasons for this, several. And she knew her fear was irrational. But it was a fear that had many times made her decide not to go home with someone she might otherwise have accepted. Which was crazy. Birth control did work. And she and
