Page 46 of Best Laid Plans (Rock Harbor #1)

“It’s fine, Mom.” Elle held her hand up toward her brother, pointing her finger at him menacingly. “And Cam did not take advantage of me, Wyatt. I’m twenty-seven years old. Old enough to make my own decisions.”

“Would be better if they were good ones.”

Frustration bubbled up in Elle, too much energy with nowhere to go. She loved her brother, but he was being a monumental ass right now. “Get a life, Wyatt. I’m sorry that we didn’t tell you, but you have no right to be this angry.”

Wyatt threw his hands up, not ceding an inch of his anger. “You know, you’re right. I have a game to coach later today, and I was just stopping by to grab my key before taking Mom and Dad on a tour of the new stadium.”

She physically put herself in between Wyatt and Cam as her brother took a heavy step closer. “Don’t you dare.”

“I just wanted to look him in the eye and tell him to be out of my house by the time I get back,” Wyatt said before shifting his stare over to Cam. “Got it?”

Cam nodded, still not speaking.

Just then, like the fates were conspiring against her, Elle’s phone rang. Which she would have absolutely ignored, except that she saw the screen flash with ‘Reynolds Consulting’ on the caller ID. “I need to take this.”

Wyatt, still glaring, stalked over to the counter to grab his key.

God, what a monumental clusterfuck.

She walked to her bedroom quickly, shutting the door behind her. There was time for one deep breath as she infused her most positive tone into her voice when she hit answer and said, “Elle Pierce speaking.”

When Elle returned less than five minutes later, Cam was walking out of his room with his duffel bag.

They’d both gotten dressed in the last few minutes–Elle throwing on a pair of shorts and Cam changing into jeans and a black t-shirt, which contrasted starkly against his still washed-out skin tone.

“Where are you going?” She was frustrated, rightfully so. Cam hadn’t said a single word and now he was just going to leave without trying to work this out? With her or with Wyatt.

“I’m leaving. Your brother told me to, and it’s the least I can do,” Cam said, resignation written across his features.

Like he’d already made a decision.

Elle ran a hand through her hair, fingertips digging into her skull in frustration.

“What, you’re not going to fight this? You’re just going to turn tail and run?

We didn’t do anything wrong.” Why couldn’t Cam see that?

Them falling for one another wasn’t some cardinal sin.

And yeah, keeping it from Wyatt wasn’t their smartest idea, but they’d deserved to figure out things between them without the Wyatt Pierce light of judgment shone down upon it.

Cam placed his duffel bag on the arm of the sofa. He picked at one of the leather straps, staring down at his fingers intently. “The only thing that fighting’s ever gotten me is more bruises.”

Elle started pacing. It helped her think.

And right now, she really needed to think her way out of this.

How had everything gone sideways so quickly?

She and Cam had just been talking about them, about what they were and how they were going to tell Wyatt.

And now? She was looking at a man she barely recognized, disappointment she couldn’t hide written across her features.

“So you’re not going to talk to either one of us about this? You’re just going to leave?”

“It was always going to end this way, Elle,” Cam said in a way that sent jagged little barbs straight to her heart. His certainty was the scariest part. “I lied to your brother. I started something with you that I had no business doing. The last ten minutes only proved that to me.”

“Cam, regardless of us, you and Wyatt will be fine. He’s pissed off, but that’s a natural state for him when something doesn’t go his way. You two will get through this. And he’ll get used to the idea of us. ”

“I don’t know that he will, Elle. And I don’t know that I want him to.”

Elle’s stomach dropped, sick with the weight of his words. “What a stupid thing to say, Cam. I see how you look at me. I feel how you hold me. I know exactly who you are, and I only like you more because of it.”

“It’s not enough, Elle. You and Wyatt will be fine.

You’re his sister. You’re a Pierce. And for as much as I’ve enjoyed the way your family’s accepted me all these years, I knew that I was living on borrowed time.

” Cam quieted then, his voice raw when he said, “Only, I couldn’t stay away from you.

Even if it led to this, I don’t regret it.

And even if you hate me, I hope you believe me when I say that. ”

Tears started to prickle behind her eyes. “Then why aren’t you fighting for it? Why are you just giving up and rolling over, like we don’t even matter? Because we do, and you know it. You’re just too afraid of the possibility. Of wanting something.”

Cam shook his head. “What happens in three months? Six months? A year? Relationships end. People don’t stay happy.

Life changes around us until eventually we’re changed, too.

What then? We break up because commuting back-and-forth is too much or you learn that I’m not actually the guy that you wish I was?

And we end up in the same place, with me needing to walk away from your family because it’s the only fair thing to do for you. ”

“So self-sacrificing,” Elle bit out, hating the catch in her throat. “You’re hiding behind some farce of noble intention instead of admitting that you’re actually just afraid.”

Instead of responding immediately, Cam picked up his duffel bag, which was an answer all itself. “Maybe I am, Elle. But it doesn’t mean that I’m not also right.”

“Coward,” Elle spit out, trying to pull him back into a conversation that he had no intention of continuing. But it couldn’t end like this. It just couldn’t .

Cam shrugged, accepting her words like a punch that he took stoically.

He started walking toward the door, his hand almost on the knob when Elle called out, “I got the job by the way.”

“Congrats, Elle. I knew you would.” And then, Cam walked out the door, and Elle wasn’t sure if she wished he’d come back or not.

She wasn’t going to drag Cam through a relationship.

She couldn’t make him believe that the risk of them was important enough to take.

And if he wanted to hurt himself, she couldn’t stop him.

Only now, she was collateral damage, both of them cut deeply by his fear, by his unwillingness to accept that he deserved to be happy, too.

They weren’t even together. So why, then, did Elle feel like she’d just lost something she’d never find again?