The persistent ringing of her phone on the nightstand had Sienna slowly waking. With her eyes still closed, she reached an arm out from the covers and into the cool nippy air in her bedroom to grab it.

“Hello?”

She answered in her sleepy voice before clearing her throat. Tossing in the bed, she threw her free arm over the other side where Cam was supposed to be, but to her surprise it was empty. In fact, it was cold like nobody had been laying there in some time.

“Hey,” a familiar voice came through. “It’s Julian. Did I wake you? Your brother said you like to wake up early, I didn’t know how early he meant.”

“Julian?”

She sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She couldn’t help but laugh at his nervous rambling.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah! Look I know you said no to dinner since you’re with someone but how about  breakfast?”

“I don’t… I don’t know Julian.”

She got of the bed slowly, wandering around room through room and no sign of Cam. He must’ve left for work before she was up. Taking a look at the clock on the oven she scrunched her eyebrows. 7am was too early for him to have left for work.

“Come on,” Julian’s voice came through the phone breaking her thoughts. “It’s just breakfast. My treat.”

With a shy smile, she let out a playful sigh. “You don’t give up do you?”

“Nope, it’s one of my best qualities.”

She laughed, practically seeing that infamous smirk over the phone. “Yeah. Okay. Breakfast it is. Where?”

“There’s this place in the south end I always go to. Mike’s diner.”

“I love Mike’s! I’ll meet you there in an hour?”

“Sure thing babe. See you there.”

Hanging up the phone with Julian, she dialed Cam’s phone but got no answer. What was really going on with Cam? The more time that went on, the less she felt like she knew him. This wasn’t like him at all. Missing her calls, leaving before the sun was even up? And those marks on his neck just didn’t sit right with her. It was a pretty lame excuse but he’d never given her any reason not to trust him before.

Sienna sighed, walking to the bathroom to take a quick shower before getting ready for breakfast. Letting her hair dry in natural waves, she threw in a pair of jeans and a loose v-neck sweater with tan heeled ankle boots and her khaki jacket.

After catching a cab she sent a text to her best friend Olivia, letting her know about Cam’s disappearing act. This was so unlike him but she needed a second opinion on if she was overreacting or not. The whole thing just left a bad taste but before she knew it, the cab pulled over in front of the dinner and right outside was Julian taking a picture with what seemed to be some fans. Stepping out of the car, Sienna couldn’t help but smile at his easy grin and how happy it made the little boy and his father.

His eyes suddenly met hers and his smile grew. He finished with the father – son duo and walked towards her, his hand instinctively placed on the curve of her waist as he leaned in to kiss her cheek. God, he smelled so good.

“Thanks for coming out.” He smiled as they made their way inside.

“How could I pass up a free breakfast?”

She smiled playfully as they walked to a table and had menus placed in front of them. She watched as he took peeks at it but his eyes kept returning to hers with a small glint of excitement. Her cheeks were turning red with blush so she lowered her eyes to read the menu.

“Everything looks so good. If I could order everything I would. ”

His voice spoke up shortly after and Sienna laughed lightly. She shut her menu and looked up at him.

“Why can’t you?”

“It takes a lot to maintain these bad boys. Especially during season.”

He smirked and stuck his arm out, flexing his muscles. She had to admit it was pretty impressive. With a shy laugh, she only nodded in understanding.

“So have you always wanted to play football?”

He leaned in closer into the table and nodded his head. “Always, although I never thought I’d get to where I am now.”

“Why’s that?” She leaned closer, admiring the pride in his well groomed face.

“In college, there was a number of recruiters that said I’d never make it. They said I wasn’t cut out for it. ”

“Wow, harsh. Looks like you proved all of them wrong though. Look at you now.”

He smiled proudly as she shrugged his shoulders. “Hard work pays off. I never asked you what you do for work?”

“Well it’s nothing as interesting as you but I’m a writer for the Globe.”

“No shit, huh? That’s pretty major.”

His enthusiasm made it easy to talk to him, for someone who clearly had access to the finer things, it was nice that he showed interest. She shrugged her shoulders, turning her attention to the oncoming waitress. Her eyes almost flying out of her head when they landed on Julian and Sienna couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle.

“Not nearly as major as you’re job.” She smiled before turning her attention to the waitress. “I’ll have a spinach omelet with a side of home fries.”

The lady wrote down Sienna’s order quickly before returning her attention to Julian. Her hands shivering with excitement. Julian just politely smiled and gave his order then she ran off.

“Do you ever get a minute to yourself?”

Sienna asked and he just looked at her with a pleased smile and shrugged.

“I just always think back to the times when my dad would wait line with me for an autograph or we’d run into someone on the street. I remember how excited I’d be. Full of hope and shit. That’s how I think of these kids and I’d hate to let any one of them down.”

She smiled softly, taking a sip of water. ” That’s so sweet of you, Julian. There’s not to many people like you out there.”

She watched his lips spread wide in a proud smile. It was charming. He didn’t seem like the type of man that just wanted his ego stroked but again, she didn’t really understand why she was here? She was positive he had a ton of groupies hanging but in the few times they’d run into each other, it felt like he didn’t see anyone else but her.

He’d soon excused himself to go to the restroom and Sienna pulled her phone out of her purse to check if she’d gotten a text back. Sure enough, there were 8. All from Oliva, still none from Cam. Scrolling through Olivia’s texts, she’d quickly gotten the gist of them. Cam was a dog – a lying cheating dog. Along with a sympathetic I told you so.

“Trouble in paradise?” Julian’s approaching voice caught her attention.

She placed her phone back in her bag and tried to smile. “No. Just a few texts from my friend.”

“Hey,” His voice softened slightly as he leaned forward. “Trouble in paradise?”

Clearly she wasn’t too good at hiding her emotions but Julian was the last person she wanted to talk to about this. With brighter smile, she sucked up any bad feeling in her gut and decided to make the most of this date… no. Not date, breakfast meeting? Whatever this was.

“I’m fine.” She nodded. “Really.”

The waitress soon approached, saving her from having to explain her sudden shift in mood any further. She placed the plates down, almost carelessly as her gaze remained on Julian but he just smiled politely and looked to continue their conversation.

This was nice enough for now. Julian was actually fun to talk to. In a short amount of time, her mind was already off of Cam and solely focused on getting to know him. There was definitely a sense of comfort there that she hadn’t felt before.

---

“Hey Princess.”

Cameron’s deep voice was heard as Sienna’s office door opened a crack. His smile, charming as ever, beamed from his face as he entered the room, shutting the door behind him. Sienna cocked her eyebrow, not giving in to his appeal.

“Hi.” She replied shortly.

She was still furious with him for the numerous missed calls and unanswered texts throughout the entire day. Now, he just shows up like it was nothing. Her office had closed hours ago but she needed to stay late to finish an article before deadline. The last message she’d sent him was to let him know and here he was.

“That’s all I get after not seeing you all day?”

He said it playfully, but she wasn’t having it today.

“Well if you’d bothered answering me at all today, maybe we wouldn’t be here. Now if you don’t mind, I have a lot left to do. I’ll see you at home.”

“Awh, come on.”

He smirked, making his way to her chair from behind her. He moved her hair to the side before pressing his lips against her neck ever so slightly causing a shiver down her spine. His strong arms wrapped around her while his tongue traced circles down to her shoulders.
“Camron, enough.”

She stopped him, breaking out of his grasp and standing up.
“You need to go.”

His face contorted in anger but he left in a huff, slamming the door behind him. She was just gratefully nobody else was in the office at the time. She felt slightly guilty for throwing him out, but he needed to know that what he was doing wasn’t okay. Sure, he could’ve been busy at work but to leave that early, not return a single call or text, it was shady. She sighed before returning back to her work. Regardless of what was going on in her personal life, this article needed to get done. She’d worked way to hard to let this get her off track.

10pm rolled around and Sienna finally got to her apartment. She unlocked the door and placed her purse and keys down on the accent table before removing her peacoat and placing on top of her bag.

“Cam?”

She yelled softly but didn’t get a reply. She yawned before going to check each of the rooms and sure enough,  he wasn’t there. After the day she’d had, there was no way she was going to try to call him again, but as soon as her next day off came around, they needed to have a serious talk.
The only bright side of her day was Julian. He was so sweet and surprisingly down to earth. It was cute that he’d semi-harassed Gabe for her number and nervously called her to breakfast. Clearly nothing could come of this but it was a good change of pace considering her almost non-existent relationship with Cam.