Page 15 of Best Laid Plans
Elle
You sent me at least six photos of the new fucking shoes. THIS was big news. And you let me walk in there blind! Judas!
Wyatt
I’m sorry sis. I’ll make it upto you when I’m home.
But did you see his shoes in person? Pretty sharp.
Elle
Fuck off. And since when are you running an orphanage?
Wyatt
You mean Cam? He stops by sometimes. Let him cook for you. It’ll blow your mind.
Elle
We haven’t gotten to the ‘sharing meals’ together stage.
Wyatt
He’s a good dude. Don’t be mean to him.
Elle
I’m not being mean to him but I’m going to be mean to you. I hope you locked up your valuables.
Elle put down her phone and paced back and forth across the rug in Wyatt’s apartment. It was an amalgamation of blue hues, different colors in slightly wavy lines that she followed from one end to the other. She’d just completed her thirtieth line, turning quickly to start all over again.
If only those wavy lines meant to sooth could give her the kind of comfort that she needed right now.
She shook her head for about the hundredth time, trying to make sense of everything. Today had beensucha mindfuck.
Even though she and Cam had stayed and helped out for theremainder of the day–her mom hadn’t been lying that it would pick up later–she’d been a tangle of nerves. She wondered if anyone had gotten a completely correct order if she’d been the one to pack it.
Now, without the distraction of customers, she was left with time to think. Cam, silent and stoic, sat on the sofa, his hands clasped together. He looked up intermittently to catch her eye, but hadn’t spoken since they’d walked back upstairs fifteen minutes ago.
To be fair, neither had Elle. She’d just been aggressively pacing the living room, trying to wear a path in the rug that, if she succeeded, she hoped annoyed Wyatt when he got home.
After the unceremonious admissions that a new restaurant had moved into town and that Pierce’s Lobster Co. wasn’t participating in the chowder fest, Elle thought that she had the bulk of the bad news that her family had been keeping from her.
She’d been wrong. So, so wrong.
“He’s having heart surgery.” Elle reached the end of the rug and turned at another quick clip. “Heart surgery,” she repeated, emphasizing the words separately like that would make them more real.
Cam’s deep voice, slow and even, came from the sofa. “At least it’s minimally invasive, right? And it was pre-scheduled which means that they don’t think he’s at serious risk for anything going wrong immediately. Like your dad said, even though there is an issue, this is as much preventative as anything else.”
“I know, Cam. I was listening, too,” she snapped, immediately regretting her words. She’d been the one to ask him to stay downstairs, so it was doubly shitty to fault him for being an active listener. “I’m just not handling this news very well, and I’m sorry that you’re forced to be present for it.”
It’s not like she could send him to his room or something.And even if she went into hers, it wasn’t big enough to do the kind of pacing that news of this magnitude required.
For better or worse, they were stuck in this situation together. The least Elle could do was not take her fears out on the one other innocent bystander in the whole situation.
But she just… couldn’t believe it. And hearing Cam say those words out loud again brought all of her fears roaring back to the surface.
Her dad was her rock. He’d worked at the restaurant every day it was open for the last three decades. It was the same with her Mom.
