Page 43 of Cross Check My Heart
Paige waves a hand, dismissing my question as she digs through her purse to pull out a simple black dress cover up.
“Your place is literally a five-minute drive from ours.” She turns to me, shaking her hips and wiggling her eyebrows. “Plus, he doesn’t want to drink today so we have a DD.”
An hour and a half later, we’re set up, ready to enjoy the day. It was only eleven thirty in the morning, but with how quickly the beach is filling up, I’m glad Garrett came an hour ahead of us. Turns out I didn’t need my umbrella for Paige, because Garrett set up a giant pop-up beach shelter tent. The tent is tall enough for everyone to stand up straight under and has enough space in it to set up a few chairs, as well as keep the coolers in the shade.
As Paige greets a couple more of their co-workers, I turn to connect my phone to the Bluetooth speaker. Hitting shuffle on a Summer Vibes playlist, I set my phone back in the shade as Garrett shouts behind me.
“Dude, I can’t believe you guys actually came!” The voice that responds has me whipping around before I can stop myself.
“Sorry we’re late. Turns out that it’s actually very hard to convince athletes to not sit around playing video games allday.” Dominik grabs Garrett’s outstretched hand and pulls him in for one of those half hugs with a shoulder pat. Coming up behind Dom is his usual gang, which is what he refers to them when telling me about their bonding time, only now, they’re all shirtless. Landon, Dean, Greyson, Carter, and Reid come up behind him with arms full of another cooler, some chairs, and a couple bags.
Garrett smiles toward Dom’s teammates as he reaches to give Landon a hand.
“Listen, Dom knows I will encourage gaming just as much as the next guy, but every now and then, we gotta get out.” He extends his hand and introduces himself.
Landon sports his signature wide grin as they start going through introductions. When Sam notices the team, he immediately leaves Paige mid-conversation to meet them, to which she rolls her eyes before joining me. I resist the urge to stare at a shirtless Dominik and focus on turning to dig through the coolers to grab a drink. Paige’s cough is the only warning I get before Dom’s soothing voice speaks from right behind me.
“Well, this day is turning out better than I thought it would.” I bite back a smile, glancing over my shoulder while still bent over the cooler. I catch him staring at my ass and don’t even bother trying to hide my smile. Paige lets out a quiet laugh as she taps her foot to my calf. She keeps her voice low, so only we can hear.
“Drinks, Lilly. Preferably before the heat melts all the ice. Dominik, do you want one?” I roll my eyes but turn back to get some for the three of us. As I’m about to open my drink, I burst out laughing when the “Thong Song” by Sisqo starts playing and quickly move to change it. Paige is already one step ahead of me, laughing loudly while reaching for my phone to change it. Considering there’s a family setting up a spot close by, we can at least make an attempt to be appropriate while we’re sober.
“Um, Lilly… What the fuck?” Paige holds my phone, staring down at my screen like she’s about to jump through it and strangle someone. Without thinking, I pass Dominik the drink in my hand and step toward Paige to find out what she saw. I’m about to take my phone from her when she turns the screen toward me and scowls. “Why the fuck is Cam texting you?”
My heart stops. I never told her about the last time he had texted me, and that I simply deleted it without thinking twice.
“Better question, who the fuck does he think he is threatening you?” I snatch my phone from her hand and shush her. It’s bad enough Dominik is hearing all this, no doubt he’ll be grilling me about it later, I do not need anyone else overhearing. She might not know the whole story like Dominik does, but she knows the gist of it all. Seeing her now, arms crossed as she waits for me to fill her in, I’m suddenly glad we live in a different state than him. If we were still living back home, Paige would be in her car, going to do something very stupid that would get her in a lot of trouble.
I sigh before finally reading the message to see what she’s talking about.
Cam:
You’ve had enough time to get over this. Come home now or I’ll come and get you myself.
Instead of feeling fear, which is probably the logical emotion when your douche canoe of an ex-boyfriend sends a message like that, all I feel is anger.
I’m glaring at my phone as Dominik steps up beside me, I peek at him from the corner of my eye. He’s watching me with concern on his face and while he could have easily read the message over my shoulder, he’s keeping back just enough so that he’s not reading the text without my permission. Considering he knows more about my relationship than Paige does, I don’t even think twice about it as I angle my phone for him to see.
The way he clenches his jaw as he reads the message is the only emotion he shows. Part of me wants nothing more than to send a scathing and fowl worded message back to Cam in response, but instead, I take a deep breath. And then another.
When I chose to move away, I hadn’t even told him I was leaving. I had told my family to keep getting together and not worry about picking sides, but I never said that to Cam. We hadn’t actually spoken in weeks before I left, so I had assumed that my mom had told him. Based on his first message a few weeks ago, I was right.
Swiping my finger, I delete his message and roll my eyes at Paige.
“He’s an idiot. You know Cam, he’s used to getting his way, so it’s probably pissing him off that I haven’t responded to him.” Paige’s eyebrows shoot up.
“This isn’t the first time he’s messaged you?”
Shit.
I bite my lip, watching the ocean waves crashing behind her as I avoid looking at her or Dominik.
“A few weeks ago, yeah. Said he fucked up and wanted me to come home. But I just deleted it and honestly forgot about it.” I glance sideways at Dominik before turning back to her with a shrug. “I’ve been happy down here, keeping busy and enjoying life. It’s no surprise that it slipped my mind.”
Paige’s posture relaxes a bit when she sees I’m telling the truth, but she still watches me with concern. Dom stays where he is, listening but letting Paige take the lead on this.
“He knows you moved down here though.” She doesn’t phrase it as a question, especially when she knows just how much my family loves Cam. Nodding, I throw my phone back on top of the chair.
“Mom or Ian most likely told him.” I take a big sip of my drink, definitely needing the alcohol to help shake away thelingering anger at Cam for texting me. “He probably just had breakfast with them, and mom complained about me living so far away. He’ll get home and remember the neighbor or whoever is warming his bed and forget all about me again.”
