Page 73 of Best Laid Plans
“Good to know,” Cam said as he walked toward his bedroom, which would require a deep cleaning of epic proportions along with a trip to the laundromat before he could even think about sitting on his mattress.
Cam felt the persistent, hollow ache in his chest that had now been settled there for the last day. He missed Rock Harbor. He missed breakfast at Wyatt’s kitchen island and dinners at the Pierces’ home. He missed lazy mornings with Elle and competitive runs with Wyatt. In a month, the life he’d built in his hometown had started to feel more real to him than anything he’d managed to cobble together since he’d moved to Boston.
He dropped his duffel bag and started stripping the bed, refusing to look too closely at the sheets. It was a more-than-appropriate penance, though, so he sucked it up and breathed through his mouth.
He’d fucked up. Badly. And he’d strip a thousand disgusting beds if it meant that it would bring him closer to making things right. If he could find his way back to Elle. Back to when she looked at him like he was the man of her dreams instead of a broken down, scared little kid who’d never grown up and taken control of his own life.
He balled up the bedding and put it in a garbage bag, tying itoff. So his dad was an asshole. His mom, too, for that matter. Lots of kids had shitty childhoods. And unlike them, he’d had the chance to spend time with the Pierces, to see what a real home with love and support could look like.
But he’d always felt like he was on the outside, playing at something that would never really be his. And he realized, like someone had taken a branding iron to his chest, that he was the one who’d always made it that way.
“Fuck,” he said into the empty room. How could he have been such an idiot?
He’d pushed Elle away. Elle, who was perfect. In general, but also for him. A confidence in herself that she could do anything. That she somehow extended to Cam, as if he could do anything, too. Stubborn. Fearless. Gorgeous.
And somehow, in a miracle of all miracles, she’d seen something in Cam. Which meant that he’d found a way to destroy it.
With one more disgusted sigh, he looked around his bedroom. It was devoid of anything personal except for a photo of Wyatt and him, when they’d been teenagers. He’d never realized it, but he was wearing the exact shirt that had come to belong to Elle, with the Rock Harbor Lobsters logo emblazoned across it, streaks of blue already stained on it. The picture had been taken the day they’d painted the dining room walls, during a summer vacation where he’d practically lived at the Pierces’ house.
He thought of Elle. Of Wyatt. Of Mr. and Mrs. Pierce. Theywerehis family. And they’d been showing him that every step of the way–only he’d been too stubborn to accept it. If he always came into any situation believing that at a base level, he was unlovable, it was easier to never be disappointed. Why get close when he knew how it would end anyway?
Only now, he was already close. In deep. In love.
He needed to make things right–he didn’t want this to be his story anymore. Only, as he walked down the flights of stairs towalk the couple of blocks to the laundromat, he didn’t have a single clue on how to go about changing it.
But Elle had believed in him, even when he hadn’t believed in himself. That alone was more than he’d ever expected to have in this life, and he wasn’t about to give up on it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ELLE
Elle sat on her parents’ front porch on Saturday morning, talking to Becca on the phone. Instead of going to Wyatt’s first football game last night, like she’d been planning, she’d packed up her stuff and made the fifteen minute drive to her parents’ house, even if she’d wished she could put about a hundred more miles between her and her brother.
She hadn’t heard from him–or Cam for that matter–since yesterday.
“I didn’t think that everything would be sunshine and roses, but I didn’t expect things to blow upsospectacularly,” Elle lamented.
“You know your brother’s a hothead. I’m sure he’ll come around.”
Elle made a sour face. “I don’t care. He’s dead to me.”
“For walking into his own house?”
“Becca,” Elle whined. She did not need tough love right now. Her romantic life had just imploded in a very public way, and she’d have to live forever knowing that her parents knew what her mounting Cam looked like. As far as she was concerned, she deserved a little sympathy.
“Well, you and Wyatt are going to need to have a real conversation at some point. Or are you just going to run back to Boston like Cam and never talk about it again?”
Elle winced at the direct hit. “Cam and I are not the same. He was afraid of us. Of what we could be. Only one of us was fighting for anything in that room, and it definitely wasn’t him.”
Becca was pensive on the other end of the line before she spoke, her voice full of sympathy. “I know, Elle. It sucks, and I’m sorry you’re going through it. But at least the job with Reynolds Consulting is a bright spot. Right?”
Elle let out a deep breath, wishing she could feel the excitement that she’d expected to have at the prospect of getting not just any job, but a job with one of the best consulting companies in Boston. A month ago, it would have been a dream come true. Ithadbeen her dream–to get back to the city. Back to scraping and climbing and proving something. But why? That was the thought that had been nagging in her peripheral, like a mosquito she just couldn’t shake. “Yeah, I’m lucky that it all worked out.”
“When we were graduating college, you had a color-coded spreadsheet with jobs you’d applied to, even though getting a full-time job where you’d interned was almost a sure thing. You’ve always had a plan, and it looks like in short order, you’ve achieved this one, too. Back on your feet. Heading back to Boston. Why do you sound like you just kicked a puppy?”
For the second time in twenty-four hours, Elle felt tears spring up behind her eyes. She wiped her hand across her face, willing them not to fall. Shehadkicked a puppy. “I called him a coward, Becca. Even though he had every right to be scared. I knew what a big deal this was to him. Lying to Wyatt. Worrying about what my family would think. And still, I pushed and I pushed and I pushed becauseIwanted it. And now, I’ve fucked up an almost twenty-year relationship between my brother and his best friend, and I’ve lost the oneman who drove me absolutely insane but seemed to like me, even at my worst.”
“Elle, it’s going to be okay,” Becca comforted as Elle felt the first tear fall down her cheek.
