Page 73 of Bad Boy Bachelor Christmas
Burl Ives played through the diner speakers. Beside me, perched on the edge of his red leather and chrome stool, Justin tapped his foot in rhythm to the music while he feverishly replied to client emails on his phone.
Even though the diner was bustling with activity one week before Christmas and every face was joyful and bright, the mood felt solemn and heavy. I leaned over my tiny ceramic coffee cup and gave it a swirl before taking a sip. The coffee here had always been mediocre at best.
“Done.” Justin set his phone down on its face on the diner counter. On the other side, waitresses hustled around with coffee pitchers, teapots, and plates of food, running orders from the kitchen to tables. “Sorry about that. Business just keeps getting more and more hectic. I’ve told all these people it’s the holidays and we’ll catch up in the new year, but they’re relentless.”
“More clients?”
“They just keep falling into my lap. I have people contacting me from out of town. Hell, I have out of country clients looking to buy investment properties or places to use as Air BnB’s. Not sure how I feel about bringing too much of that into town, though.”
“Business is business.”
“But Maple Hill is still a small town, and people like us have to do our part to preserve its integrity. Bringing in a bunch of out of city or out of country money could jeopardize that. I have to decide how I feel about it.” He turned his coffee mug around in slow circles, studiously weighing his options. The Justin I used to know would have jumped at the chance to make more money and wouldn’t have spared Maple Hill a second thought. “It’s just money, right?”
“If you say so.”
He gave my arm a back-handed smack. “Cheer up, dude. You were the one who let her go, not the other way around. Quit brooding around town like you’re the one who got dumped.”
I opened my mouth to give him a smart ass comment, but he was right, so I promptly closed it again to sip my coffee.
Justin shook his head disapprovingly. “Didn’t even get a chance to tell her goodbye because you botched it.”
“I did.” Cami appeared in front of us with our breakfast orders and set my plate down particularly hard in front of me, before gently placing Justin’s in front of him. “And it was the worst, most gut-wrenching goodbye I’ve ever had to give. Thanks tosomeone,” she added scornfully.
Justin pulled his plate close to himself, like he was afraid his perfectly poached eggs would be destroyed on the battlefield between Cami and me.
She glared down the length of her nose at me. Well, sort of down. Seated on the barstool, I was basically the same height as her. Her lips pressed into a firm, merciless smile. “Eat up.”
Blinking down at my food, I wondered if she’d sabotaged it or if she just wanted me to think she had.
Justin shoveled shredded hashbrowns into his mouth and watched me out of the corner of his eye.
“She cried her eyes out the whole drive to the airport in the morning, just so you know,” Cami said.
“I didn’t ask,” I said.
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the counter. “And no matter how many times I told her you were an ass, she kept trying to justify what you’d done. She said she understood even though it hurt, and that you weren’t ready, and she respected that. She just wished you’d done it differently. With a bit more grace and kindness, perhaps.” She shook her head in disdain. “She has more compassion in her pinky finger than you do in your entire, gigantic, freak-sized body.”
Justin chuckled and tried to cover it with a snort when I glared at him. He scooped more food into his mouth and nodded to Cami that it was good. She didn’t even look at him. Her menacing stare remained fixed on me.
“I did what I had to do,” I said. “It’s easier for her to hate me. She can move on faster.”
“That’s not how it works, and I thought you were man enough to realize you don’t get the liberty of making those decisions for other people. You took away all her choices,” Cami said imploringly. “Don’t you see how fucked up that is, North? After everything she did this month, for you and for us and everyone she met, you thanked her by snipping away all her options, telling her how it was going to be, and shipping her off like she’d been nothing more than a blip on your radar. It was so unfair. So cold.”
“I get it.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“Damn it, Cami,” I growled, “of course I do! Do you think it was easy for me?”
My voice carried across the diner, and heads turned.
Justin laughed uneasily and forced an appeasing realtor’s smile onto his face. “Just a heated debate, folks, nothing to see here. Back to your pancakes and bacon now.”
The attention on us faded away.
Cami clicked her tongue. “You’re missing the point. It would have done her some good to know itwasn’teasy on you. To know that you were hurting just as much as she was. To know she meant something to you.”
I looked at Justin for aid.
