Page 17 of Best Laid Plans
He put his hands in his pocket and suddenly looked much more like the Cam she remembered from their youth, his eyes downcast and not meeting her stare.
She didn’t know what made her do it, but she grabbed his free hand, much bigger than her own, and squeezed it, forcing him to look at her. “Thank you. Really. And I promise, for as long as we’re both staying here, I will try to be on my best behavior.”
“Try?” He repeated, the edges of his lips tipping upward into a smile, and Elle noticed for the first time flecks of gold in his impossibly green eyes.
Startled by the realization, she dropped his hand, missing the warmth immediately. Which she promptly ignored and shrugged her shoulders. “I’m a work in progress.”
They stood across from one another, neither moving, and Elle wondered if Cam felt the same electricity crackling between them.
The long days of summer had just barely turned to darkness, but Elle was exhausted. And on top of that, she needed at least an hour–maybe two–of laying in her bed, staring at the ceiling and decompressing after everything that had happened today.
She tilted her head toward her bedroom door. “I’m going to head to my room. Are you good with everything? I know that today must have sucked for you, too.” She could chastise herself for her selfishness later. Privately.
It was common knowledge how much Cam loved her parents. He’d practically grown up in the Pierce Lobster Co.kitchen, and finding out about her dad couldn’t have been easy for him, either.
But he’d taken it on the chin, and more than that, he’d shown up–for Elle. It was so at odds with the box she’d placed adult Cam in that she was still trying to merge the two versions of him.
Cam nodded and shot her a disarming smile that made Elle’s stomach flutter, but she pushed the feeling down. “It’s going to be okay. And I feel like my roomie and I have officially reached a delicate detente, which I am not taking for granted.”
“Due to both sides agreeing that they could have handled things better,” Elle added, moving toward her door as Cam moved to his. “With one side bravely taking the first step toward the other as a sign of good faith.”
The laugh that Cam let out was something magical, and it pinged through Elle like a pinball, hitting against all the hard edges that she’d become and chipping away at them. She hadn’t felt soft in so long–maybe years. Definitely years if it was a man who she was putting her trust in.
Her recent breakdown(s) aside, Elle wasn’t an especially emotional person. And she was usually far more in control of her emotions. She’d played college tennis on a full scholarship. She was a woman in a cut-throat industry where her time was managed down to the minute. She’d graduated from Harvard with an MBA in the top five-percent of her class. She didn’t dobreakdowns, except, apparently, when it was Cam Devers who was there to pick up the pieces.
She reached her door, the guest room situated at the back of the apartment, and leaned against the frame. She didn’t want the moment to end, she realized, warring with her body to find some excuse to keep talking to him. In his arms, a few moments ago, was the best she’d felt in a long time. “I’m going to let you have that one so that we’re even.”
His eyes glinted with mischief, and the knowing churnedthrough her of just how much fun–and trouble–Cam Devers could be if he wanted. But instead of taking the bait, like she’d desperately wanted him to, he ran a hand over the sides of his shorn head, which she’d noticed that he loved to do. His smile shifted into a much softer one that made her insides go a little mushy. “You’re Wyatt’s little sister. And I love your parents. I’m not going to hang you out to dry here, Elle.”
And just like that, the kindling that she’d thought was starting to catch was doused with a bucket of ice water, the reality of his words settling over her. Cam saw her as his best friend’s little sister. Hell, he may not even like her very much as a person, but he was too nice to just stand around while she had a breakdown in the living room.
If he’d meant to reassure her, he had. She was very clear, in this moment, as to how he saw their relationship.
“Night, Cam,” she said at the same time as she walked through the doorway, shutting the door quickly behind her.
CHAPTER SIX
CAM
On Monday morning, Cam was out of the apartment quickly. It felt good to have a purpose again. And, more importantly, if he spent another minute in the apartment with Elle, he might do something that he’d regret.
Elle Pierce was surprising him, which put him in a precarious position. When she’d broken down against his chest, he’d wanted to sink his hands into her soft skin and anchor her to safety. He hadn’t expected to see that side of her. She’d been so fucking vulnerable, her love for her family on full display in a way that had made his chest hurt.
And she’d done all she could to keep it inside when they’d been downstairs.
So when she’d finally let herself go, he’d wanted to protect her. To be the rock for her that she wanted to be for her family. To wrap her in his arms and take away that pain. Pain that he shared with the idea of something happening to Jim, but that he wouldn’t let himself consider.
Which meant that as the weekend had worn on, he’d done his best to avoid her. Cam wasn’t known as the guy that womenturned to for comfort. He’d done a great job of making it that way. But when Elle had stood in front of him, so upset that she’d been on the verge of having a panic attack, he hadn’t thought. All he’d done was react, and in that moment, there was nowhere else he’d wanted to be except holding Elle in his arms.
And that was a thought that he couldn’t consider in any meaningful way.
So instead, he decided to focus his energy on something that wouldn’t throw his life into chaos. Which was how he found himself heading out of the apartment early Monday morning. It was a gorgeous day already, big, puffy clouds dotting the horizon. He took only a few minutes with his long strides to reach Main St., the town already starting to come alive.
He turned right, heading the opposite direction from his childhood home. He’d grown up in a small apartment not far from the Pierces’ restaurant, close to where the commercial fisherman moored their boats.
His dad was a fisherman, and Cam had spent countless hours of his youth heading down to the docks to try and find him after a bender. To make sure that he was still alive after not showing up at home for days on end, even when he and his mom knew that the boat had returned to shore.
Somehow, he always was, in spite of what felt like his dad’s best attempts to drown himself at the bottom of a bottle. The sea could have done a much faster job, as far as Cam was concerned. By twelve, after his mom had left, Cam had brokered an agreement with the owner of the boat his dad worked on to do odd jobs. Mostly so that he’d have enough money to buy food. By the time he was a teenager, he’d sworn that he’d never eat a frozen meal again.
