Cam Malone (subsumed) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-02-19 17:35:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | #october 2017, cameron, cameron x jules, jules |
Who: Cam and Jules
When: After school, Wednesday, October 4
Where: School parking lot, then Overlook Estates
Status: complete
Jules had been having a hell of a day, which was a stark contrast to the pretty chill day she’d had the day before and it annoyed her that she couldn’t make it a week now without something feeling wrong. It hadn’t been anything major, just… weird feelings around her reflection again. Nothing super strange had happened, but Jules couldn’t entirely deny how it made her feel. Like… once again, her reflection wasn’t her, even though by all accounts it was. Her bad mood had turned foul by the end of the school day and she had been unable to make it through cheer practice without scowling and snapping at nearly everyone. Coach Gaines had kept her behind for a while after practice ended, but Jules couldn’t really tell her what was wrong. She so didn’t feel like being referred to a therapist, or worse, having her mom know what was going on. Jules couldn’t really explain it anyway. It was just bad feelings, that was all. Dark… thoughts. Emotions. Things that scared her and yet… didn’t.
By the time she showered and got dressed - without checking out the mirrors at all - the rest of the cheerleading squad had gone home. She walked out to her car alone and tossed her bag into the back seat before climbing in behind the wheel and exhaled slowly. It was damn near irresistible to look in her rearview, just to see… but Jules was afraid of the eyes that would be looking back at her, so she shoved the key into the ignition to start it up. Only…. Nothing happened. She tried turning the engine over again, and again, growing more frustrated with each unsuccessful attempt. Had her battery died? Was it that… oh crap, what did her stepdad call it? The alternator? What the fuck.
Jules slapped her hands against the wheel and shrieked loudly, the entire day’s irritation and fear and frustrations finally reaching a boiling point. She could call a friend, or Jason, or whatever, but that also meant leaving her car at school and god, what a shitty ass day this was.
After football practice, Cam had slipped back into the school to try and discover where the key he’d found this morning fit. It had apparently been dropped in the office, which was what made him think it was a key to one of the school’s locked areas, and he’d done the old step on, kneel down to tie his shoe and pick up routine. Cam was never one to spurn a potential opportunity for trouble. He’d wandered around for a while, carefully avoiding the sound of the janitor’s cart, but he hadn’t found a keyhole his key fit. Not a problem. He’d hang onto it until the next time he had the chance to poke around.
Whistling to himself, he headed out to the parking lot, trying to decide what he wanted to do next. His plans were changed when he caught sight of Jules Cooper having some kind of fit in her car. Cam was all about anything involving hot blondes, even hot blonde ex-girlfriends who would be unlikely to ever give him any again, and he made his way over, knocking on the driver’s side window with a wry expression, one eyebrow quirked.
The light knock at her window startled her and Jules sucked in a breath as she looked over to see Cam standing there looking in at her. Shit. Jules pulled her keys from the ignition and moved to open the door since she couldn't exactly roll down her window with no power. "It won't start," Jules said as she got out of the car. She honestly didn't care if he had seen her scream. They had dated so Cam had seen her scream before, usually at him. She huffed out a breath and brushed her hair from her face. "Think you could give me a ride home?" Jules could tell her stepdad about the car and let him take care of it.
Jules could be such drama, but Cam had been all about it when they’d dated. It was fun to get attention-- fun and somehow necessary-- and the two of them together had been great at that. Screaming fights sometimes had been par for the course. “Yeah, I can do that,” he said. His vintage red Mustang was a few spaces over, and he pulled the keys from his pocket. “Been a while since you were in my car.”
Jules grabbed her bag from the back of the car and locked it up before following Cam to his. She honestly couldn't remember the last time she had been in Cam's car... had it been when they were going out? He might have given her a ride home from a party once when she'd had too much to drink, but that particular memory was something of a blur. "It'd been a while since I've needed a ride," she pointed out with a small smile. He was helping her out, so she needed to try and quell the attitude a bit. Jules wasn't in the best mood, but at least she wasn't stranded at school. "What are you doing at the school so late?" Jules had seen most of the football players leave already.
“Oh, I see how it is,” Cam said as he started the engine once they were both inside. In certain moods, her implying that the only reason she’d be in his car was for a ride might make him irritated, but he was feeling mellow today. He fastened his seatbelt and adjusted the stereo. “Forgot something, had to go back for it,” he said breezily about why he’d still been at school. There were occasionally good times to be had there after hours; it just depended on one’s company. He backed up and took off, glancing over at Jules. “Goin’ to the dance?” he asked.
Jules hung out with Cam when they were with friends, but they didn’t do a lot of hanging out alone together since breaking up. She set her bag on the floorboard between her feet and buckled her seat belt. She had forgotten how nice his car was and Jules stretched her legs out, wishing it was summer so she could roll down her windows and enjoy the breeze. “Yeah, I’m going with Sebastian,” she said, looking over at Cam. “What about you? Who are you going with?”
Sebastian. Not a bad choice, Cam thought. Dude was popular, a fellow athlete. Jules could have done worse. “I’m going solo,” he said, grinning at her before turning his attention back to the road. “That way I can dance with anyone I want, see how much trouble I can get into.” More likely, scoop up a chick who didn’t have a date and was feeling desperate or insinuate himself into any number of situations that might come up. Cam was nothing if not an opportunist.
“Well, I’m just going with Sebastian as friends, so I’m not worried about being limited to who I can dance with,” Jules said. Her gaze ticked to the side mirror and she quickly looked away, rubbing her forearms a bit restlessly. She really felt weird, and she hated it. She had been hoping this stuff would stop already. That little bag in her purse was supposed to make it stop, right? “I’m sure you’ll get into plenty of trouble,” Jules murmured with a small smile. “You’re really good at it. Are you going to come by my place after? It’s sort of an open party.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think you had a sudden hot passion for him,” Cam said, smirking. They’d dated once, and it seemed like if there’d been a lot of that they might still be together. Who knew? It was high school, after all. It wasn’t as if Cam himself wanted to date one person for all of it. Nope, he had more interesting goals in mind. At the mention of her party, he nodded, one hand on the wheel and the other adjusting the rearview mirror briefly. “I’ll definitely be there.” There was usually booze at Jules’s parties and tons of people: a great recipe for fun of one kind or another.
Jules laughed a little at the mere thought of anything passionate happening between she and Sebastian. Things had been so… chaste when they were dating. It had been beyond frustrating. “Not a lot of passion there, no,” Jules said with a soft smirk. “Not for my lack of trying, but you know… can’t force things, I guess.” She was pleased to hear he was coming to her party. She liked it when people showed up, even ex-boyfriends. Jules looked at Cam and raised a brow. “How have you been, though? We don’t have a lot of classes together, so I don’t get to talk to you much at school.”
Cam had assumed that Jules and Sebastian had gotten it on at some point during their relationship, but what she’d said made it sound like maybe they hadn’t. He was always curious about any bit of information he could potentially use in the future, so he filed it away in his brain. Making the turn that would take them to Overlook Estates, his smirk faded to more of a pleased smile. “I’ve been excellent,” he said expansively. Classes were bullshit, but they were a necessary evil, all a part of being in high school. There hadn’t been any major adversity to deal with just lately, and he was banging a teacher, so what was to complain about? “How about you, pretty girl? I see you shaking your pom poms at practice sometimes.” That might or might not have been a salacious remark; Cam’s expression and tone didn’t make it obvious if it was.
She didn’t doubt Cam had been excellent. He’d never seemed the type to let things get to him. Jules had always chalked it up to confidence, and a lot of it. She envied it sometimes. Jules snickered softly and folded her arms against her chest as she studied his profile. Even if his tone wasn’t full of innuendo, the wording was. “Well, that’s what we cheerleaders do sometimes… shake our pom poms,” Jules said. “People seem to like it.” She wasn’t really talking about pom poms but she doubted he was either. “But yeah, things are good. I mean, you know, same as usual, but the usual is pretty good. What have you been up to? Anything exciting?”
“I always liked when you shook your pom poms,” Cam said nostalgically. He was in an amazing mood and he wasn’t even sure why, but he was willing to go with it. Innuendo was always a thing with him, and it seemed like Jules was picking up his vibe. That was cool. In a way it was a shame they’d broken up, but it was what it was. “I guess my usual’s pretty damn good too,” he said to her question. “Football, looking for the next hot girl to spend time with.” But not all that diligently since he had a thing going with Sadie. Excuse him, Ms. Gaines. Heh. “I’ve been thinking I need to add more excitement to my life though.” Maybe the kind of excitement he’d gotten up to in Kill Devil Hills, even.
Jules couldn’t help but laugh then and she shook her head. Stupid that innuendo from an ex-boyfriend would make her feel better about her day. Stupid mirrors. She wanted to believe the creep out factor was all in her head now, but she just didn’t know. Jules stretched her legs out a bit and studied Cam’s profile, amused. “You’re going to eventually run out of hot girls, Cam. What are you going to do then? Start all over?” Cam certainly got around. Not that it was a surprise. He was hot and popular. Jules had crushed on him for years before they actually started going out. “What kind of excitement are you looking for? This place doesn’t really give you a lot of options.”
Cam shot her a glance, eyebrows lifted, before turning his gaze back to the road. “I might,” he said of starting over. “I bet I’d have a shot with at least two thirds.” One thing Cam Malone never lacked was confidence; the vast majority of the time he meant it and wasn’t merely blowing smoke out his ass. He wasn’t crazy about her last question mostly because he couldn’t answer it truthfully. For him, he’d behaved well ever since he’d been sent back to live here, and maybe it was beginning to chafe. He began to swerve the car on the road, which was completely empty, shifting from one side to the other. “Wanna be a racecar driver,” he said, a singsong tone to his voice. “Rob a bank, maybe kill someone.” That last thing he’d done, but nobody would believe he wasn’t completely kidding. That was the beauty of saying it.
She chuckled softly because he wasn’t wrong. Cam was hot, and he was popular and sometimes that’s all someone needed. Even if she wasn’t spending time with Jasper, she would have probably ended up being a part of the two thirds he spoke of. Jules never minded his confidence. She was confident. Sometimes their personalities clashed, but she was glad they were still friends. Blinking in surprise when he swerved the car, Jules reached instinctively for the door handle, huffing out breath, half amused, half exasperated. “Christ, Cam… you’ve got precious cargo right now. Try out for Daytona when I can watch from the sidewalk.” No cars were on the road with them, but still. Loosening her grip on the handle to rest her hand back in her lap, Jules shot him a rather incredulous look before her lips twitched into a grin. “So you’re going to opt for a life of crime, huh. Money and murder. You don’t really seem like the type, Cam.”
Cam wasn’t the type to stop something just because another person told him to, and he continued to swerve somewhat erratically until he caught a glimpse of headlights headed in his direction. Then he righted himself and stayed in his lane. “I’d be a great Nascar driver,” he said. Balls of steel, great reflexes, why not? “I’ll get you VIP tickets.” The future seemed hazy for some reason; he was talking out his ass when he threw out ideas most of the time. Maybe it was the waking dream of high school, of being a fit, popular athlete. The world was a stage, and it didn’t matter so much what happened tomorrow. “I might be in the mafia when I grow up, despite not being Italian,” he joked. “If I’m gonna do a life of crime, it’s gonna be high dollar.” He slowed down as he reached the gates of Overlook Estates, tipping a little wave to the guy in the guard house before continuing on.
Jules had to take a deep breath to keep from snapping at him. She didn't care if he wanted to drive like an idiot by himself, but she didn't feel like being another Point Pleasant dead body statistic. But Cam righted the car before she felt the need to hit him in the side of the head and Jules exhaled softly, her muscles finally relaxing. Sometimes she forgot what it had been like to date Cam Malone, then he went ahead and reminded her. At least the sex had been really good. "Nascar or the mafia... reach for the stars, Cam," she said with a smirk. "Please don't become, like, a serial killer or anything though, okay? Otherwise I won't be able to tell people we dated. They'll think something was wrong with me."
“You take all the fun out of everything,” Cam said sarcastically as he made his car climb the hill toward Jules’s house. He gazed contemplatively at the road, wondering what she’d think if she knew about his multitude of crimes. Arson, rape, murder. The words didn’t impact him at all, didn’t give him any particular negative vibes. They were just words. They washed over him much as the actual deeds had done. No remorse, no shame, no fear. If she knew she’d be terrified of him, like his mother was, he thought. After another couple of turns he was pulling to a stop in front of the palatial house where Jules, her mom, her stepdad and her weird stepbrother lived. “Here we are,” he said. “Same day service.” There was a breezy smirk on his face as he glanced over at her.
“You didn’t used to think so,” Jules retorted, unable to help the snarky response herself despite the fact that Cam was doing her a favor. Sort of. It wasn’t like he was going out of his way or anything, since they both lived in Overlook. It was just the stupid mirrors around her, and her mood shifting so dramatically all day. Jules was so over it. When they pulled up to her house, she sighed, thinking about having to ask her stepdad to call Triple A or whatever. “Thanks,” she told Cam with a small smile. Then she reached for her bag and the door handle. “I owe you one.”
“Yeah well,” Cam said with a shrug. He didn’t really feel like getting into it with Jules right now. He had done her a favor, and she should be grateful. In his experience, people were never as grateful as they should be. He revved the engine in preparation for taking off again and grinned at her when she said she owed him one. “I’ll be sure to collect.” He winked and waited for her to clear out of the car, his mind already ticking to what he might want to do next.