Page 20 of Best Laid Plans (Rock Harbor #1)

It wasn’t fair to be assaulted by Elle so early in the morning. In her scent, that same damn perfume she always wore. In how kissable her lips looked, almost wet from the gloss, like she’d just licked them. His warring body and brain made his words easy. “Good. Then don’t.”

Elle looked over, trying to catch his stare. “Wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”

He avoided eye contact and focused on the man who’d helped them, now walking back toward where Cam and Elle still stood.

He handed Cam a piece of paper. “Let’s settle up the invoice and then my guys can start loading your truck.”

Elle plucked it from his hands so fast he’d barely read the first line. “I don’t see Pierce’s bulk discount here. Can we get that added? I can have my dad call you later today to confirm if you need,” she said, already handing the invoice back to the man.

“No shit,” he said, his stoic demeanor shifting into something far more congenial as he accepted the invoice. “You’re one of Jim’s kids?”

“Guilty.” Elle flashed him a smile that bordered on flirty. Cam could see the man being wrapped around Elle’s finger. Worse, he knew the feeling.

“I’m Will.” He extended his hand, which Elle took when offered. “Jim talks about you all the time, but I’m glad to put a face to the name. Elle, right? What are you doing back in town? Move home?” he hedged, clearly angling for something.

Elle smiled back, and Cam tried to see what she saw.

The guy was burly, with a broad chest that looked like it could stop a semi-truck, and his close-cropped dark beard hid his slightly weathered face, his skin a deep tan.

Maybe Elle was into that sort of thing, not that it mattered to him one way or another.

But then Elle laughed. Cam had missed whatever conversation was transpiring between them as he’d been sizing the guy up.

The jealousy hit him squarely in his chest, pushing against his ribcage.

He gritted his teeth and took a deep breath.

There was no way in hell that he was going to cause a scene about it, and more importantly, there was no reason for him to be jealous.

He and Elle were nothing more to one another than two people sharing the same apartment for a few weeks.

Still, he didn’t need to stay and watch this play out. “I need to get the seafood back to the restaurant if I’m going to have time to prep.”

Two sets of eyes shifted to him then, and Elle, to her credit, looked apologetic. “You’re right.”

Will turned his attention back to Elle, smiling broadly.

“I’ll get that invoice fixed for you.” He walked a few feet and called out to a lump that Cam hadn’t noticed before.

A person, half-laying on one of the benches next to what it looked like the market used as an office.

“Shrimp. Load this order. And grab Gabe to help you.”

Elle was saying something to him, but he couldn’t make out the words with the buzz in his ears. It felt like the world was molasses, the frenetic energy of the market slowing down until it seemed like everyone was standing still.

Of all the gin joints. Though, besides a bar, this was probably the least surprising place to run into his father.

“Can you get the van loaded and bring it to the restaurant?” He was already handing her the keys. “I’m going to pay the invoice and walk back. God knows how long this will take.”

He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t deal with the possibility that his father would recognize him after over a decade.

Or worse, that he wouldn’t.

The surprise on Elle’s face was evident, mixed with something that looked a lot like sympathy. He hated it. “Sure. Are you okay?” She tried to touch his forearm, but he twisted his body to the side, her hand only finding air.

He took a step back. “I’m fine. We just don’t have time to fuck around while this half-assed excuse for a market loads our shit.” Cam started walking away in the direction that Will had disappeared, his dad barely in an upright position as Cam turned around the corner.

About thirty minutes after Cam made it back to Pierce’s Lobster Co., Elle walked through the back door with boxes of seafood on a dolly.

“Can you help me unload the van?” She pointed toward the door she’d just come through. “There’s another dolly in the corner.”

Cam abandoned the parsley he’d been chopping and wiped his hands on his apron. He grabbed the second dolly and walked outside. Elle joined him about a minute later, just as he’d completed stacking half-a-dozen boxes.

“I can load this next one up if you want to take the dolly inside. You can leave it there and I’ll unload it.” He was trying, in his own way, to make penance for his behavior at the docks. And so that Elle wouldn’t ask him any questions.

“Sure.” She eyed him with that same mix of curiosity and sympathy she’d had before. He needed her to lose that look as soon as possible.

“Great,” he said at the same time he hopped into the back of the van and began bringing the last boxes out toward the opened doors. He busied himself until he heard the dolly wheels, squeaky from being so overloaded, disappear into the building.

Cam wasted time that he didn’t have, moving slowly. There was no way he could escape going back inside, and he didn’t know why he was resisting it so much. Maybe because this morning, his old life had come calling, stopping him in his tracks.

He hadn’t expected to be so affected, seeing his dad. Or, whatever was left of him. But he’d become who he was in spite of his dad, not because of him, and he wasn’t going to let that worthless human being stop him from helping the Pierces.

And deciding that, something inside of him slotted into place. He heaved the last box onto the dolly, wondering how Elle had managed loading her first trip.

Seconds later, he was back in the restaurant. Elle was already wearing an apron, standing across from where he’d been working at the prep table with her station set up.

“You don’t need to–”

Elle didn’t look up from the garnishes she was cutting for the mini lobster rolls. “Cam, it took you days to prep for the weekend, and we sold out of everything yesterday. It’s going to take both of us to get even close to having what we need for today and tomorrow.”

He sighed. Even if he wanted to argue–which he did–she was right. He filled lobster pots with water along with another large pot for the shrimp and set them atop the burners, the click of the gas igniting like a gunshot in the otherwise silent room.

While he waited for the water to boil, he took his spot across from Elle and quickly finished the parsley he’d been chopping before she’d arrived. Once he was done, he started opening the seafood boxes to figure out what could be put in the walk-in fridge and which ones he’d need to work with.

There was so much to do, and it meant that he didn’t have to stand across from Elle for the next hour, as the seafood was put away and the pots came to a boil and he started to get into the zone as he prepped.

When he moved back to the table to start working again, he wasn’t thinking about anything except what was right in front of him, and what would need to happen after that.

“So that guy was your dad?” Elle asked as she shucked a vibrantly red lobster, her dexterous fingers moving with purpose.

His knife, which he was about to chop downward, stilled.

Elle looked toward him, and Cam felt like his eyes were pulled by an invisible string to meet her stare. “People think women like to gossip, but men are just as bad,” she said matter-of-factly.

Cam looked down and started chopping again. Of course those assholes, with nothing to do but drink and talk shit, would mention something to Elle. “I wouldn’t exactly call lineage gossip.”

“So, I guess small talk isn’t allowed at this table, either?” Elle pressed, as she resumed her work again, too.

“What else isn’t–” He stopped mid-sentence when Elle schooled him with a look , and his whole body roared to life, remembering what exactly they’d been about to do at this table.

“It’s fine that you don’t want to sleep together,” Elle said quickly, a faint blush on her cheeks, “but you’re treating me like I’m a stranger. And that, as far as I’m concerned, is the shittiest thing you’ve done yet.”

Cam kept moving his knife up and down in a practiced rhythm, trying to find balance in the choppy waves of his mind. “Would you want to admit that guy’s your dad?” he finally asked. “You don’t know anything about what it’s like to grow up with someone like that man for a father.”

There was that look again, like Elle really did want to understand him. And for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why.

Elle considered the question thoughtfully, not immediately rushing to fill the silence.

She put her knife down and took a deep breath, like she was steeling her resolve.

“No. I don’t know what that would be like.

But I do know what it’s like to have parents who sacrificed to give me the world, and that I was too embarrassed to admit to them that I’m both jobless and homeless.

And now, I especially don’t want to tell them, given my dad’s health and the issues with the restaurant,” Elle finished, picking up her knife again.

“So, I know that it’s not the same, like at all, but I can sympathize with a part of your life that feels out of your control. ”

Whatever Cam had been expecting, it hadn’t been that.

Her words hit him in the chest, and he rooted his feet in place so that he didn’t move closer to her.

She was trying–putting her own shit on display first to put them on a level playing field.

And the most surprising thing was that he appreciated it. A lot.

He and Wyatt talked about stuff in their lives, but they both had the ‘do not touch’ areas that the other stuck clear of in unspoken agreement.

For Wyatt, it was his injury and the end of his football career.

And for Cam, it was his family–or lack thereof–and all the complicated feelings that went with it .

But Elle was offering him an olive branch, and it’s not like he’d been doing a great job handling things on his own. He’d barely been able to look at his father, and if they’d spoken, there was a good chance that Cam would have punched him.

“My mom hasn’t been around since I was twelve. And my dad was only around if there was alcohol in the house.” Or if he felt like hitting something, but Cam didn’t mention that part. “I moved to Boston when I was eighteen and haven’t talked to him since.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Elle was looking at him so intensely that he almost said no, unsure if where it would lead.

“Can’t promise I’ll answer it,” was what he managed. He’d have nothing to say on his feelings, considering he didn’t know what those were most days. He kept them tucked safely in a box that was duct-taped, ziptied, and then had concrete poured over it.

“Why do they call him Shrimp? He’s a tall guy. Is it because he’s skinny?”

Cam laughed hoarsely. It was not the question he’d been expecting. “Shrimp are the cockroaches of the sea. In spite of everything he puts his body and anyone close to him through, somehow, he’s survived.”

“Oh.” Elle pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, mulling over what he’d just said.

He didn’t know why, but he kept talking. “Yeah. So, I had nothing to say to him when we lived in the same house, and I sure as hell have nothing to say to him now.”

Elle nodded. “That makes sense. Seems like a shitty situation, and I’m sorry if I hit a nerve.”

Suddenly aware of the moment that was passing between them, as Elle looked at him with dark eyes that made it feel like she could see inside of him, Cam cleared his throat.

“All good. He surprised me, which isn’t easy for a six-foot-tall drunk.

They aren’t exactly known for their stealthiness,” he said, trying to make a joke.

It landed, sort of, as Elle’s lips cracked a hint of a smile.

They both got back to work. There were only a few hours left before they were going to be trapped together again in far closer–and hotter–confines than the ones they found themselves in now.

It was minutes later when Elle spoke again, her voice soft. “When you’re not being an ass, you aren’t half-bad to be around. I’m sorry for your dad that he missed that.”