Page 6 of Best Laid Plans
“Well, this one’s definitely not my fault, and for the record, neither was the first one.” Which wasn’t a story that he’d be regaling Elle with tonight–or anytime soon. He had no regrets about what he’d done, but there would be consequences. Definitely his job. Maybe his career, too.
Elle gave him a completely disbelieving look and threw one of her arms out to the side. She gestured between them and then down at the bat. “This is absolutely your fault. I’ve been staying with Wyatt for days. I’m sure if he’d known you were coming, he’d have told me. You’re the one who barged in here and would have completely deserved it if something had happened to you.”
Cam was equal parts wired yet exhausted as the adrenaline from the last few hours seeped out of him. He felt wrung out. Elle was wrong, but he didn’t have the energy to fight her about it. That was another lesson he’d learned in life. People never changed, even if he still held onto a sliver of hope that his own rule didn’t apply to himself.
Instead, he closed his hands into fists, pain radiating from his split knuckles. He squared his shoulders and waited to see what Elle would do next.
She didn’t speak, but he could practically see her brain working, remembering all of the fights he’d gotten into in high school. When he’d show up at the Pierces’ restaurant downstairs with a busted lip or a black eye. Mrs. Pierce would clean his wound with a kind of tenderness that didn’t exist in his home, and then Mr. Pierce would put him to work in the kitchen to help blow off steam.
He’d grown out of his fighting phase, generally, but his love for cooking had stuck. Tonight, using his fists had been the only way to get his message across. He wouldn’t apologize for that.
The day, and the punches he’d taken, hit him like a crashing wave. Suddenly, the idea of standing in this room for another second seemed impossible. They could work out whatever the hell was going on tomorrow, but tonight, he needed to fall onto a horizontal surface as soon as possible.
He swung the door open fully so that he could pick up the duffel bag he’d brought with him.
“Oh good, you’re leaving,” Elle said, following him.
He turned quickly, so quickly, in fact, that Elle ran right into his broad chest, bouncing backward. Instead of continuing through the doorway, like Cam could feel her mentally willing him to do, he reached down and picked up his bag. “I have an open invitation here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m already set up in the guest room,” Elle argued, her eyes flicking across his face, trying to figure out if he was serious.
No one would ever accuse him of being a light-hearted, fun-filled kind of guy. He had every right to be here, and he wasn’t ceding an inch. He’d had enough of assholes tonight who thought they could take whatever they wanted without repercussions.
He cocked his head toward the larger bedroom in the front of the house, which Wyatt used. “Well, isn’t it great there’s a whole other bedroom that’s going to be unused for the next two weeks.”
“You’re staying here for two weeks?” Elle screeched, her big, doe eyes going wide in a way that he was too tired–and annoyed–to appreciate.
“Not really sure.” He stepped back into the apartment and brushed past her. “I’m going to bed. I’ll stay out of your way and you stay out of mine.”
He walked into Wyatt’s room, knowing that his best friend had freshly washed the sheets, planning to come home to a clean bed after two weeks of roughing it at a training camp with his team. Wyatt was nothing if not predictable, and Cam appreciated the hell out of it right about now.
Except, apparently, when it came to mentioning that his little sister had decided that his apartment was also going to behersanctuary to get away from it all.
He dropped his duffel bag on the floor with a loud thud. God. This fucking night.
That woman out there was not the Elle Pierce of his childhood–who’d had gangly limbs and braces. Who’d thought that there was no better way to spend the day than trailing after Cam and Wyatt.
No. This Elle was a woman in control, as she’d stood in front of Cam with a baseball bat, more than willing to prove it. Dressing him down with lips that looked way too inviting even while they were hissing judgment at him.
But it didn’t matter. He lived with three roommates in the city, who he barely ever saw. And they were far weirder and more annoying–and definitely less enticing–than anything Elle Pierce could throw his way. He could cohabitate with an uptight, know-it-all for as long as it took.
Rubbing at his bruised face, he only gave himself a passing glance in the mirror next to the door. He didn’t want to see what Elle saw. He didn’t want to prove her point.
Cam knew her type. She’d moved to Boston, an hour awayfrom Rock Harbor, and had never looked back. Elle, as far as he could tell, breezed in and out with the holiday calendar.
She’d get bored in Rock Harbor in a few more days. He could guarantee it.
The best thing that he could do was pretend that she didn’t exist. Wait her out. Except that he couldn’t even seem to manage that as he skulked across the bedroom, biting back a growl of frustration. The way she’d acted tonight still rankled him, and anger flared through his chest at her implication that he didn’t belong here.
He knew bits and pieces of her life from Wyatt’s updates. She was some high-paid consultant at a big firm in the city. The exact kind of asshole that kept the restaurant where he worked as the executive chef in business, which he hated admitting. A person who was used to getting exactly what they wanted. When they wanted it. How they wanted it.
Or at least, the restaurant where heusedto work. He wasn’t exactly certain about his employment status right now.
What he needed to do was to stop thinking about Elle, even if his lips tipped into an unexpected smile at the idea of her on the other side of the apartment, fuming so hard that smoke was coming out of her ears. If he was spending so much ill-advised energy on her, he hoped that at least she was in the same boat. Mutually assured destruction.
Hit with another wave of exhaustion that almost knocked him off his feet, he managed to strip down to just his boxer briefs and fall into bed. When tomorrow came, he’d have to take inventory of the various injuries that he’d sustained today.
And even still, cataloging how royally he’d fucked up his life and his body seemed like a far preferable activity to whatever Elle Pierce was going to have in store for him.
