His eyes narrow dangerously. “Watch it, Cam.”
“All I’m saying is it seems an awkward time to talk. Besides, why do I have to watch it? You can’t actually expect me to want to have anything to do with her. She’s been gone for seventeen years without so much as a fucking postcard and now she’s back for a visit and—”
“It’s not a visit.”
Something in his tone gets to me, has my stomach clenching and my palms sweating. “What does that mean?”
“It means she and I have been talking for a couple weeks, trying to figure out the best way to proceed. She wants to move in, to get a chance to get to know you and your brothers again.”
I gloss right past the fact that he’s been talking to her—to the enemy—for weeks while I’ve been here cooking and cleaning for him without so much as a clue about any of this. If I dwell on that, there’s no way I’m going to recover from the hurt of it all. I stick with the snark, instead. After all, it’s so much easier to be angry than it is to be in pain.
“Again?” I demand after a long, incredulous pause. This isn’t happening. This just isn’t happening. It can’t be. “When did she ever know us?”
“She’s your mother and she belongs here with you and your brothers.”
“It’s not like we’re five, Dad. If she’s here for us, she kind of missed that train.” Still, I start to panic at the resolve in his eyes. “You didn’t say yes, did you? There’s no way you actually told her she could move back in here.”
“Of course I did. It’s her house—”
“ ʻHer house?’ ” I mimic. “Are you insane? It’s your house. You built it. You paid for it. She’s just back because she ran out of luck or money or whatever the hell she’s been coasting on—”
His face sets in grim lines. “Watch yourself, Cameron Michelle Bradley. I’m willing to give you some latitude here, but—”
“Latitude? You’re moving that woman back in here—”
“Your mother is moving back in here—”
“I already told you. I don’t have a mother.”
A gasp comes from behind him and for the first time I realize she’s followed him into the entryway. I get my first good look at her in nearly eighteen years. And though I despise her, though I want nothing to do with her, even I have to admit that trying to deny our relationship is pretty damn ridiculous. We look way too much alike for that. At least superficially.
Like me, she’s tall and skinny with bright red hair, green eyes, and a dusting of freckles across a nose that is identical to mine. Her skin is the same pale white as mine, minus the pink windburn on my cheeks. Even the way she’s standing is the same—spine straight, shoulders squared, right hip cocked out just a little.
Shit. No wonder my dad looks at me like he’s seen a ghost sometimes. I’m a fucking carbon copy of her. Well, except for the fact that I actually keep my word. And I wouldn’t be caught dead in that soft floral dress she’s wearing. Or all that makeup. Not to mention that I would never just show up somewhere and expect to be accepted back into the fold. The woman has nerve, I’ll give her that. And an ego to match.
“Apologize,” my dad grates out. “Now.”
The look I give him says clearly that that’s not going to happen. I am never going to apologize to this woman for anything.
“She doesn’t have to apologize—” she starts.
“The hell she doesn’t. I don’t care how old she is. No daughter of mine is going to disrespect her mother like that—”
“Are you kidding me?” The words burst from me before I even know I’m going to say them. “Are you fucking kidding me with this mother stuff? It’s like you’ve been brainwashed or something. Or like I’m being Punk’d.” I glance around wildly. “Is there a candid camera around here somewhere?”
If possible, my father stiffens even more and his eyes widen incredulously. Not that I blame him—I’ve never once spoken to him like this before, not even when I was in junior high and teenage mouth seemed to come with the territory. Then again, he’s never gone completely off the deep end before either, so I figure we’re even.
“Cameron—” Before he can get anything else out, she butts in.
Stepping closer—stepping too close if you ask me—she puts a hand on his arm and looks up at him with a gentle smile. My stomach rolls as his face softens with an answering grin. God. She’s one small step away from actually batting her damn fake lashes at the man—and he’s one tiny step away from actually falling for it.
“It’s okay, Jake. Cameron, please,” she says, reaching her other hand toward me. I stare at that hand—better than staring at her face with its wide, duplicitous eyes and fake pleading expression—and idly try to figure out what shade her nails are painted. Lavender? Mauve? Lilac? Whatever it is, it matches perfectly her dress and her ring and her sweater and her high-heeled pumps. For a second, the knowledge boggles my mind. How does she do that? How does any woman do it? Coordinate themselves so perfectly?
Most days, I count it a win if my socks match.
I’m drawn out of my head and back into the conversation when she continues, “Darling, I know this is a shock. I understand that you’re angry with me. You have every right to be. But I’d really like a chance for us to talk, to clear the air.”
Darling? She’s calling me darling now?
“Clear the air?” I sneer. “Unless you’ve got definitive proof that you were abducted by aliens all those years ago, I’m not really interested in clearing anything.”
“Cameron, honey—”
“Cam,” I all but spit at her. “My name is Cam. Not that I’d expect you to know that.”
“That’s enough!” my dad shouts. “You will not treat your mother like this in my house. Not for one more second. If you’re going to live under my roof, you’re going to show your mother some respect.”
“Whatever,” I tell him, scooping up my backpack and my running shoes from where I dropped them when I came in. “I’m out of here.”
“Maybe it’s best for you to take some time and cool off. When you come back tonight—”
“I’m not coming back tonight.”
He sighs, rubs his eyes like dealing with me is a huge trial. “Fine, Cam. If that’s what you want. But you’re going to have to come back here eventually—”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Dad. I’m twenty-one and the only reason I’m still living in this house is because I didn’t want you to be here all alone after the boys moved out. After everything you’ve done for me, I figured I owed you that much. But since I don’t have to worry about you being alone anymore”—I shoot a pointed look at Lily—“I’ll get out of your hair, and you two can go back to what you were doing before I so rudely interrupted.”
Refusing to think about just what that was—I already feel like I need to scrub my brain with bleach even without reliving the nightmare—I grab my shoes and sling my bag over my shoulder before letting myself out the front door. As I limp to my car, I try to ignore the fact that my dad is standing there watching me go.
It doesn’t work, especially when he yells, “You’re acting like a child, Cameron!”
It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to come back with at least I’m not acting like a fool.
At least I didn’t fall for whatever bullshit sob story that woman is handing out after seventeen years.
At least I didn’t let what amounts to a total stranger in the house because I’m thinking with the wrong head.
I toss a half-hearted wave over my shoulder instead—one that is more fuck you than have a nice day—before climbing into the brand new Jeep I got as part of my latest sponsorship deal.
As I put it in reverse and pull out of the driveway, I refuse to look back.
Chapter 4
Luc
A date is the absolute last thing I’m in the mood for tonight. After spending a large part of the day at the lake, trying—and failing—to keep my hands off of Cam, there isn’t a part of
me that isn’t throbbing. Including my pride. Especially my pride. How can it not when Cam and Ash have so little faith in my abilities that they’re conspiring to find ways to skip one of the biggest, most important snowboarding tourneys in the world.
I mean, yeah, I biffed it the last time we were there, put my teeth through my lip on a landing and needed over a hundred stitches. But that’s the nature of the sport. Shit happens. I just turned twenty-two and I’ve already broken something like seventeen bones. Cam’s broken twelve, while Ash and Z have each broken nine. And for the most part, we’re actually ahead of the curve. Some of the guys I know have broken twenty or thirty bones by now, easy. And that’s not even mentioning the concussions.
It’s never stopped any of us from competing somewhere before. So what’s different now? What’s got her so convinced that I can’t compete? That I’m not good enough?
Just the thought pisses me off—almost as much as it hurts me. I feel like a little bitch admitting that, but come on? To have the girl I—
I stop myself in mid-thought, refusing to go there. To have Cam doubt me so much after everything we’ve been through together? Everything we’ve been to each other? It fucking sucks.
And it’s not that I’m sexist. I’m not upset because she can board better than me. Fuck, I think it’s totally broadway the way she owns the half-pipe. The way she’s the best at what she does. Watching her catch that kind of air, pull down tricks usually only the top guys can do, is the best part of my day. And if I didn’t feel like a fucking gaper next to the rest of them, things would be great. But I do feel like that. Or worse, like a hanger-on they only put up with because we’ve been friends pretty much forever.
How else am I supposed to feel after she pulls something like she did today? And after Ash—fucking Ash—goes along with it? I’m just glad Z was so wrapped up in Ophelia that he wasn’t a part of the conversation. If he’d agreed with Cam, too, I’d lose my fucking mind. I already have to deal with the looks the three of them exchange when they stomp a run and I barely make it through. Or the way Cam always has just a little bit of pity in her eyes after I pick myself up from the bottom of the half-pipe for the millionth or so time. Dealing with the rest of this shit…it makes me want to put my fist through the fucking wall. I don’t want anyone’s pity and I sure as hell don’t want hers.
My mood’s getting worse by the second, which just won’t do considering my date should be picking me up in about twenty minutes—at her insistence—and the last thing she’ll want to deal with is me with my head up my own ass because my friends hurt my feelings.
God, I really am turning into a whiny little Betty, aren’t I? I mean, Z’s the one who does the whole dark and brooding thing and can get away with it. I’m the chill one, the fun one, the guy who’s always the life of the fucking party. Since it’s obvious my friends don’t think I can board, I’d better at least deliver on that. Otherwise, what fucking use am I?
I grab a shirt from the closet without even bothering to look at which one it is. I head into the kitchen where I grab a beer from the fridge and down it in a couple of long swigs. Might as well take advantage of the fact that I’m not the one driving tonight. If I drink enough, maybe I’ll be able to forget what I overheard for five minutes.
My phone buzzes with a text—Madison telling me she’s running a little late. It’s just fifteen minutes, but I can’t help feeling like a death row inmate who just got a stay of execution. Not because going out with a super hot snow bunny is a fucking hardship or anything, especially when she’s pretty much a sure thing. But because I need a few minutes—and a few more drinks—before I can be that guy. The one she wants me to be. The one everyone expects me to be.
I grab another beer, down it only a little more slowly than the first one. And wonder when it got to be such a fucking chore to take a gorgeous girl out on the town. This whole dating a new girl every week is my thing, and has been for a couple months now—ever since I promised myself I was going to stop beating my head against a brick wall and move the fuck on. And usually it’s good. Or at least okay. But lately it’s just been one more thing in my life that sucks. One more thing that reminds me that Cam isn’t mine—and that she never will be. Hell, the only reason I even asked Madison out the other night was because I felt like a total tool sitting in that bar, trying to be subtle as I watched Cam trying to be subtle as she watched Z and Ophelia.
We both failed, of fucking course. But that’s nothing new.
Fuck it. I pick up the T-shirt I grabbed earlier, yank it over my head. Self-pity is fucking pathetic and since it seems like I’ve got the market cornered on that already, I figure I should quit while I’m behind.
I’m halfway through brushing my teeth when there’s a knock on the door. A quick glance at my phone tells me Madison’s early. But when I pull open the door, it isn’t Madison who’s standing there. It’s Cam.
For a second, I don’t say anything. Instead, I just stare at her, taking in her crazy red curls, her piercing green eyes, the light dusting of freckles on her nose that show up whenever she spends too long in the sun. I know I’m staring, but I can’t help it. No matter how pissed off I am at her, I can’t ignore the obvious. She’s beautiful. Tough as they come, but so fucking beautiful it makes me hurt.
“Hi,” she says, when I don’t immediately greet her. “You busy?”
“No.” There’s a part of me that wants to slam the door in her face, but I’m not that guy. If I were, maybe she’d like me more. But I’m not, so instead of shutting her out, I pull the door open a little wider, step aside so she can come in if she wants to.
She does. But as she steps over the threshold, I realize she’s limping a little. A quick glance down at her feet—her bare feet—tells me it’s because she’s bleeding.
What the fuck?
“Hey.” I reach out, put a hand on her elbow. It stops her in her tracks, just as I intend. Before this afternoon, it had been months since we’d touched even casually—a conscious decision on her part that I’ve had no choice but to go along with—and the fact that I’m breaking the unspoken rule between us for the second time today gets her attention like nothing else could. “What happened to you?”
She shrugs. “Just some broken glass. No big deal.”
“Broken glass?” I glance outside, but don’t see anything. “On my porch?”
“In my house.”
Now I’m even more mystified. “And you drove all the way over here without cleaning your foot up first?”
She shrugs and for the first time I realize how pale she is. How shaken she seems. I want to demand answers, to find out what—or who—has messed her up this badly, but we’ve been friends long enough for me to know she’ll just shut down if I do that. Cam can’t be pushed—the only way to find out what’s going on with her is to wait for her to tell me.
So I bite my tongue, shove the questions—and my anger—back down. But just because I’m not pushing her, and just because I’m pissed, doesn’t mean I’m going to watch her wince with every step she takes across my hardwood floors.
Without giving her any warning—or any chance to protest—I scoop her into my arms and carry her through my entryway and down the hall to my kitchen. She doesn’t struggle, which is a testament to just how much pain she’s in. Cam isn’t the kind of girl to let a guy sweep her off her feet. God knows, I’ve been trying to do just that since we were freshmen in high school.
After depositing her on the kitchen counter, I reach for the makeshift first-aid kit I keep in the cabinet next to the sink. Every snowboarder has one, a compilation of favorite treatments for bruises, sprains, cuts, and the myriad other injuries that come with the sport. Mine is probably more well-stocked than most, as I’ve suffered pretty much every minor injury a snowboarder can get—and a number of major ones as well. Comes with the territory when you’re trying to keep up with three of the top boarders in the world.
I block that thought out, as it just leads me back to what ha
ppened on the lake this afternoon. With Cam here in my apartment, obviously injured, obviously upset, that’s the last headspace I need to let myself be in. A glance at the clock tells me Madison will be here any minute. Which—no—just isn’t going to happen.
I grab my phone, fire off a quick text telling her something’s come up and I’ve got to cancel. Sure, it’s a shitty thing to do, but Cam’s here and that’s everything. Dick move or not, keeping a date with a stranger when my best friend needs me simply isn’t going to happen. Especially not when the last thing I want to do right now is trade a chance at spending time with Cam for a date with some girl I don’t give a shit about.
Her answer comes back before I can even open the peroxide and it’s as pissed off as I’d expect it to be. With a shrug, I shove the phone back into my pocket and turn to Cam with the peroxide bottle in one hand and a wad of sterile gauze in the other.
“Let me see your foot.”
“I can do it, Luc. It’s no big—”
“Let. Me see. Your foot.”
She glares at me for a minute, but I just glare back. Cam might be stubborn—growing up the only girl with six older brothers pretty much guarantees that she is—but I’m just as stubborn. Especially when it comes to her well-being. Someone needs to be.
She knows it, too, because her protest is half-hearted at best. Almost immediately, she’s sticking her tongue out at me at the same time she’s extending her foot.
I try to get a look at the damage, but she’s a mess. Her foot is coated in blood—the bottom, between the toes, even the top. Some of it has dried by now, but there’s a long, jagged cut over the ball of her foot that is still bleeding sluggishly. With a curse, I grab a clean towel out of the drawer and run it under warm water. Then I start to clean off her foot.
She winces, but she doesn’t say anything. Neither do I. I’m too busy counting the cuts—five on her right foot and what turns out to be three smaller ones on her left. Most of them are shallow, but the cut I noticed first is deep enough that it’s going to hurt her for a while.