“Are you gonna do what he wants? Finally get your head out of your ass and go see Cameron?” he asks.
Just like always, the sound of her name wakes up everything dead inside of me. I was too much of a coward to go to her when I got back stateside, too full of guilt that I’d been two weeks too late for Aiden’s funeral, and too fucked up for the next few months after that even to think about going anywhere near her. I never deserved having her in my life before I screwed everything up between us, and there was no way in hell I’d go to her when I was at my lowest. I’ve spent the last six months turning myself around and trying to become a man who deserves her friendship. One who could be strong enough to be there for her, for whatever she needs. I was never a very good friend to her when we were younger, always worrying about my own problems and letting her take care of me, and then letting my fucking one-sided feelings for her ruin things even further. Even if all she needs is a shoulder to cry on as she mourns our best friend, the man she fell in love with when I walked away, I’ll give it to her. I finally feel strong enough to suck it up and deal with the pain of knowing that I lost my shot a long time ago, and I was never good enough for someone like her. I’ve moved on, I’ve grown up, and the only thing I want right now is to be her friend, and to be there for her, like she always was for me.
“Yeah, I’m gonna go see her,” I tell him, sliding the letter back into my pocket, patting it a few times to make sure it’s secure as I push away from the counter.
“Can I come with you? I really want to be there to see her punch you in the face,” Jason laughs, and I shoot him the middle finger when I walk by him and head down the hall to jump in the shower.
It’s been over four-and-a-half years since I’ve seen Cameron James, but not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about her. Haven’t wished on a thousand stars that I would have done things differently the last night I saw her. Aiden was right in his letter. I need to stop wishing and start making things happen, by repairing my friendship with her. She’s never needed me, always being the strong one in our friendship, always being there for me. I don’t know if she’ll need me now, or even want me anywhere near her after so much time has gone by and after all the ways I’ve let her down. But I know I can’t spend one more day without her in my life.
The Three Musketeers will never be whole again, but maybe the two of us can figure out a way to repair the damage, as long as she lets me try.
Chapter 6
Everett
Wishing in the past…
Seventeen years old
My hand stills in midair with a horseshoe pick in it when I hear a girl’s voice in the stables, cutting through all the sounds of men talking, cursing, and laughing as they work. The mare’s hoof I was holding on to with the other hand slips from my grip as I slowly bring my body upright from its hunched-over position. My eyes are glued to Cameron as she walks into the stable, waving hello to a few of the workers and exchanging greetings with them. She’s wearing a short, tattered jean skirt with cowboy boots and a tight tank top that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, making me want to grab the nearest horse blanket and throw it around her shoulders, covering up every inch of exposed skin that spills out of her low-cut top, an image that I’m sure more than a few of the men in this barn will be jerking off to later. Myself included.
I am a disgusting human being and I should be put in jail. That’s all there is to it. She’s fourteen years old and I’m seventeen. Way too old to be getting a damn hard-on for my best friend and wanting to beat the shit out of every other man in this place who has the same problem in his pants.
I have no fucking clue when Cameron suddenly went from gangly teenager with bruises and scrapes on her knees and always covered in dirt to the stunning, “looks older than she really is” girl strutting toward me right now, or when I stopped thinking of her as just one of the guys and started having entirely too many inappropriate thoughts about her. It feels like it happened overnight. One day she was just a tomboy, and the next, she was a damn teenage boy’s wet dream. Now that she’s in high school with me and Aiden, I feel like all I do is shoot dirty looks to any guy that glances in her general direction and threaten to chop off my friends’ dicks when they ask me if she’s dating anyone.
I wrack my brain, trying to come up with the exact moment I started thinking my best friend was hot, and the memory of her twelfth birthday suddenly pops into my head. The first time I saw her dressed up and wearing makeup. I couldn’t stop staring. I couldn’t stop thinking about how pretty she looked. I realize now, I pushed that moment in time out of my head because I didn’t like how it made me feel. I didn’t like having those thoughts about my best friend. And she was twelve! I’ve spent the last two years pretending that moment never happened, and now I can’t ignore it.
Forcing my gaze away from her long, gorgeous legs and the sway of her hips, my eyes finally meet hers when she gets a few feet away. She smiles when she sees me and doesn’t stop moving until she’s standing so close that I can smell the light, flowery perfume she always wears that smells like magnolia blossoms, that somewhere in the last few months started making my mouth water whenever she was near.
“Aren’t you supposed to be helping your mom with her dance class?”
My words come out clipped and filled with annoyance, and I immediately want to take them back when the smile falls from her face. It’s not her fault I’m pissed at myself for all the inappropriate thoughts running through my head. Like how I want to wrap my arms around her waist and pull her up against me and how I want to kiss that bottom lip of hers that she’s currently running her teeth over.
“My mom and I decided it was best if I avoid her dance classes from now on and help out with a different camp activity. I think she finally realized I will never follow in her footsteps,” Cameron replies with an easy shrug.
Cameron’s mom was an amazing dancer when she was young, and could have gone on to being one of the best dancers in the world until a car accident ended her career. Thankfully, her love of dance never ended, and she holds hip-hop and other fun classes at camp, and it’s one of the most popular activities here. Sadly, Cameron did not inherit her mother’s graceful talent, but she refused to give up.
“Who did you send to the nurse this time?” I ask, chuckling when she crosses her arms in front of her with a huff and rolls her eyes.
“Braiden Barber. But it’s not my fault. That little snot got in my way on purpose,” she complains.
“Braiden is six. I’m pretty sure he didn’t do anything on purpose.”
“Whatever,” she replies with a wave of her hand. “He was showing off and gloating because he picked up a move I couldn’t do, and he deserved that kick to the shin for not watching where he was going.”
She glares at me when the smile on my face starts to make my cheeks hurt and I hold in my laughter so I don’t piss her off even more. No matter how I’m feeling, I can always count on Cameron to make things better. I’ve been in a shit mood for the last two days, and just listening to her talk makes me forget about my problems for a few minutes.
“I’m going to forgive you for being happy about my morning of misery because I know you’ve had a rough couple of days, but don’t expect this generosity to last,” she warns, taking a step toward me and resting her hand on my upper arm, giving it a squeeze.
“I’m fine.”
She cocks her head to the side and stares up at me with a knowing look in her gorgeous green eyes that makes me want to unload all of my problems on her and let her take them all away.
“You’re lying,” she states, knowing me better than anyone, even Aiden.
I don’t know why Cameron is always the one I run to with all of my problems. Why she’s so much easier to talk to and why I feel more comfortable telling all my shit to her. Sometimes I feel guilty that the two of us have secrets we’ve never shared with our other best friend, but most of the time, like right now, when she’s standing so close and lo
oking up at me like this, prepared to fix everything for me no matter what it is, I don’t care that Aiden isn’t here and I don’t feel guilty that I’ve kept him in the dark about certain parts of my life.
“I’m not lying. Not exactly. Yesterday was bad, but today is getting better,” I reassure her, keeping it to myself that the reason it’s getting better is all because of her. Just having her here, regardless of how fucked up my feelings are where she’s concerned, always makes me feel better.
“My mom said your mother left already. I’m sorry, Ev.”
I shrug, refusing to spend another minute being hurt and pissed off that my mother let me and Jason down again.
“It’s okay, I’m fine,” I tell her again. “I don’t know why I expected this time to be different from any other time she’s come out to visit.”
“What can I do? Want me to fly to New Jersey and kick her ass?” Cameron asks in complete seriousness, making me smile even though nothing is funny about this situation. “Because you know I’ll do it. No one hurts my best friend and gets away with it.”
I shake my head at her and take a step back before I do something stupid like bend down and kiss her. She’d probably kick MY ass if I did something like that.
Moving even farther away from her to avoid temptation, I bend over and lift up the mare’s leg that I’d abandoned when Cameron first walked into the barn, and busy myself with cleaning out her hoof.
“I’m fine, Cam. I already took my frustrations out on Alan Haynes. Why do you think your dad put me on the shittiest job in the stables, next to shoving actual shit?”
I try to make light of the situation by looking back up at her and smiling, cursing under my breath when I see the ticked-off look on her face and know I need to do something before she races out of here and tells her father off. It’s not her dad’s fault I keep fucking up, giving him yet another reason to hate me.
“Okay, now I’m going to kick my dad’s ass,” she grumbles angrily.
“Seriously, Cam, it’s fine. Alan pissed me off, I gave him a bloody nose, and your dad had every right to punish me for getting into a fight with another worker.”
I don’t tell her Alan made some smart-ass comment about wanting to “tap that ass” when he saw Cameron out by the lake this morning, something I also didn’t tell her father when he walked around the corner of the barn and saw me straddling that little bitch, pummeling his smug face. I also didn’t say anything when Eli pulled me off of Alan or when Alan starting whining about how I started punching him for no reason. What’s the point in defending myself when no one will believe me anyway?
“No ass kicking will be necessary, but thanks for the offer,” I add.
I hear her sigh and I dig the pick faster and harder, concentrating on what I’m doing instead of the breathy sound she just made.
“Fine, I’ll take ass kicking off of my to-do list, but we’re still doing something fun tonight when camp is over. Whatever you want to do, we’re doing it. Aiden has a date with some college skank he won’t shut up about, so it will be just you and me.”
I look back at her over my shoulder and wonder if there will ever come a time when the tables will be turned and I’ll be the one doing whatever I can to make Cameron happy and be the better friend in this relationship.
Chapter 7
Cameron
You sound stressed. Maybe we should come home. Eli, I think we need to go home,” my mom says, her voice over the phone growing muffled when she starts talking to my dad instead of me.
I run my hand through my hair, pulling a piece of hay out of the long, tangled strawberry blond strands that I should have pulled up into a ponytail this morning before I started getting knee-deep in problems.
“Mom, everything’s fine,” I tell her, closing my eyes and wincing at how easily the lie flies right out of my mouth. “You are not coming home from Outer Banks when you just got there. You’ll be back for the charity dinner in a month, we made a deal. It’s just a few warped boards around the foundation of the dance studio. Nothing I can’t handle.”
When I convinced my parents to take a vacation and spend some time at their rarely used vacation home on the beach in Outer Banks, I made light of the money problems with the camp and reassured them that everything would be fixed by the time they came home. I even made them promise they wouldn’t set foot back on this land until the dinner. My mom balked at the idea of spending over a month away from here, but my dad reminded her that they’d been letting me take on the running of the camp for almost a year by that point, and if they ever wanted to fully retire, they needed to trust me. It just makes all the lies I’ve been telling them recently worse, knowing they both do trust me to keep this place going. They don’t need to know I can count on one hand how many hours of sleep I’ve gotten since they left, staying up until the crack of dawn almost every night, trying to come up with a solution. They also don’t need to know that Amelia has had to yell at me more than once before I realize the entire day has gone by and I haven’t eaten anything. Thank God they can’t see the dark circles under my eyes or the weight I’ve lost. They have no clue I’m lying through my teeth when I tell them everything is fine.
Hopefully, by the time they come home, I’ll have secured a new donor and they’ll forgive me for not being fully honest with them.
“You mean, nothing Jason can’t handle,” my mom laughs over the line and I smile to myself.
“Exactly. Jason will be here any minute now and all will be right with the camp.”
I’ve taken advantage of my friendship with Everett’s younger brother, calling on him regularly whenever there’s a construction project that I need help with. He’s always ready and willing to do whatever he can for me and the camp, but I was a little shocked by how quickly he jumped on my request when I called him earlier today. I know he has a full-time job and usually he stops by at the end of the workday or on the weekend, but he told me he was dropping everything, calling off of work, and heading right out. I tried to tell him it could wait, but he’d already hung up on me. At first, seeing Jason after Everett left was a struggle. He reminded me too much of his older brother, who had written me off and turned his back on me, and it made his disappearance from my life that much more painful. After a while, after Jason learned that mentioning his brother’s name did nothing but piss me off and make me sad, it became an unspoken agreement that we’d never discuss him. As much as I wanted to ask Jason a thousand different questions over the years, I didn’t want to put him in the middle when he was such a good man and didn’t deserve the third degree from me.
“Jason’s here.”
I turn my head when Seth, a high school student volunteer, walks up next to me and points to the driveway that leads from the main plantation house over here to the dance studio that’s attached to the stables. We both watch the swirl of dust kick up around the tires of Jason’s truck as it slowly makes its way toward us.
Seth moves around me and down the driveway to meet Jason’s truck, and I turn away from his approaching vehicle to stare down at the warped boards that he’s coming out here to fix.
“Mom, I gotta go. Jason just got here and I have a hundred other things I need to check on before lunch,” I tell her. “I love you. Tell Dad I love him, too, but if either one of you come back here before the charity dinner, I will kick you out. I’ve got everything under control.”
Mom sighs through the line, returns my proclamation of love, and disconnects the call, promising me she’ll call back tomorrow to check on things.
I hear the crunch of boots on the gravel driveway and shove the phone into the back pocket of my jeans, turning around with a smile on my face to greet Jason.
“You didn’t have to break speed limit laws to get out here. I told you it was—”
My words cut off and my smile drops, along with my stomach. Tears fill my eyes before I can stop them and all the breath in my body leaves me in a whoosh of air past my lips. I have to force myself to remember ho
w to breathe and lock my knees before my legs give out and I drop to the ground.
“Hey, Cam.”
The voice I haven’t heard in almost five years sounds like it’s coming from down a long, dark tunnel, and I realize it’s because my heart is pounding so hard it’s thundering in my ears. It’s the same raspy, deep voice I’ve heard in my head in the middle of the night, no matter how much I didn’t want it there. It’s the same soothing sound I spent over twenty years of my life wanting to listen to forever, coming from the same man I wished would be my forever. The sound is like music to my ears and I want to beg him to say something else, just so I can hear him again and know that he’s really here, and really within touching distance. Even though Jason and I had an unspoken agreement never to mention Everett, he’d still manage to throw in something from time to time, letting me know his brother was at least still among the living, especially when Everett was the first to volunteer to go to the most dangerous places. But it was hard to believe the truth in those words until right this moment, when he’s standing in front of me, so real and so perfect and so full of life, his chest rising and falling with every breath he takes, his blue eyes staring right into mine.
I can’t stop looking at Everett, standing here a few feet away from me in a pair of tight jeans, black work boots, and a long-sleeved gray Henley, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows and his hands in his front pockets. He’s still wearing his dark brown hair shaved short on the sides and a little longer on top, the thick, messy strands falling all over the place on top of his head, making me want to reach up and run my fingers through them to straighten them out and smooth them down. His hair is the only similarity to the Everett I used to know. He’d always been hot, but years abroad, working and volunteering in third world countries, has clearly done wonders for him judging by the muscles I see straining from his forearms, and everywhere else on his upper body for that matter, with how tightly the cotton material of his shirt clings to him.