Look at You

Chapter 31

31

I don't bother unpacking the boxes labeled Cameron dotting the edges of my bedroom. They stay there, untouched, ready to be loaded into my truck at a moment's notice. Archer knows I'm only here on temporary orders. I told him as much, that first week.

"Doug, I can't take advantage of your generosity like this," I'm sitting across from him. His desk is a massive drafter's desk, hugged by a green velvet wingback chair much grander than anything I've seen in The Crown. The seat I've pulled up to sit on is a clear plastic trendy piece of shit that no one built comfort into. Hell, no one even whispered the word comfort near this thing.

"Says you." He fusses with stacks of paper on his desk. "You can and you will."

"I'm not sure how long I'll be in Baker. You know how I feel about this place."

He raises his bushy ashen eyebrows at me. "Do I? Does anyone?" I swallow. "Talk to me, Cameron."

I want to say that's what AA is for, but I don't. I sigh, grandiosely. "I can't escape who I am in this town now. I'm one thing and one thing only."

"And how do they see you?" Doug's introspective. He's prying. He's an envelope-pusher. He doesn't care much for what anyone thinks of him, so his candor has gotten him in some tough spots over the years. This question isn't rhetorical, it's real.

"They see me as the guy who almost killed someone. They see a deadbeat alcoholic just out of rehab."

Doug narrows his eyes. "Are you certain of that?"

I bite the inside of my cheek, because yes I'm fucking certain of that. Eyes follow me down supermarket aisles, at the ATM, hell, even in this office. They linger and burn on me so fiercely I'm surprised my t-shirts aren't full of cigarette-burn style holes.

"Yes," I tell him through gritted teeth. I want to curse, but half of my rehabilitation was anger management. I count the breaths leaving my nose instead.

"You'll see only what you want to see."

I stand up. I try to be graceful and quiet when I push the chair back into the far corner of his office, but I doubt it comes off that way. "All I'm saying is I don't know how long I'll be here, Doug. And I don't want to let you down like last time."

Doug takes a deep breath in. His eyes are on the liver spots on his hands for the seconds before he looks into mine. "You never let me down, Cameron." My bottom lip parts. "Now get going. I don't like you here past six."

__

Monday sees the biggest snowstorm in recent months. I spend a good ten minutes warming up in the truck before I set off for TechNet. Paul has texted me that we're going straight there today, and likely will for the rest of the week.

I'm here by 8:50, and no one in this damn office has bothered to kick the snow off their boots before climbing up the marble staircase. As soon as I step in through the vestibule, I literally have to do a heroic one-armed grab of the blonde receptionist as her stilettos start skating on the soaked lobby floors.

"Oh my god," she cries as I grab the teetering coffee out of her hands and help her stand upright. "Thank you so much." I nod, walking her back to the desk, one hand hovering behind her the entire time. Her tirade of thanks does not stop until I literally change her course.

"It was nothing. Seriously. I'm Cam. I don't think we've met." The other receptionist who had shown me around was a brunette and not much of a talker.

She holds a freckled hand out to me. It's covered in gold rings and chipped black nail varnish. "Libby Metzger."