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NINE

Later that night, while Adam and Victoria put Emilia to bed, I stayed to help with the dishes.

Even though they had a dishwasher, I enjoyed washing them by hand.

Something about the rhythmic task soothed me, letting me work through all the chaos in my mind.

Cam was somewhere in the house, but he’d left the room right after Victoria and Adam.

For all I knew, he went to bed without saying a word to me.

Not like I expected him to. As I ran the sponge over a bowl, I tried to push him out of my mind, still unsure about what happened earlier.

I’d apologized—to Cam.

And I meant every word.

Lots of things irked me about Cam. He used to be so arrogant and rigid, it made my head hurt.

But that was back in college, and even I had to admit, he had changed a lot over the years.

Emilia had brought out a lot of his better qualities, and he was the best dad I ever met.

He doted on his little girl and was a great co-parent with Victoria.

It was also getting harder to hold on to my resentment about Victoria leaving school now that she was doing so well.

Maybe this was always her path. Why did I question it?

Beyond that, so many of my issues with Cam were out of his control, resentment over our situations instead of his actions.

Thinking about when that professor had refused to change my grade, it brought up all the feelings I tried to bury—feelings of inadequacy and shame.

It was like being thrust back into my childhood.

Everyone had judged me because of my circumstances, rather than trying to get to know me better.

God, every time I thought I’d moved on past these problems, they loved to rear their ugly heads.

But no matter the reason, I’d still pushed off those feelings onto Cam. Easier to target someone else than try to deal with the root cause. And now, I’d done the same thing to Cam other people had done to me: I’d judged him unfairly.

“Fuck,” I whispered as I placed the dish on the rack. Did I really feel guilty about how I’d treated Cam over the years? When Victoria told me to cut Cam some slack, I thought it meant we’d get through a conversation without taking swipes at each other—not me apologizing to him.

As if he knew he was occupying all my thoughts, Cam strode into the kitchen and opened the fridge. He grabbed a bottle of water, and I was sure he’d head back to his room without acknowledging me. Instead, he walked over to my side, placed the bottle down, then held out the towel.

“Let me dry.”

I shook my head. “I’ve got it.”

“Let me help, menace.” He reached out and took the dish from my hand.

We moved in silence for a few moments, working together to clear the rest of the sink. It was weird. Cam’s presence always created tension, like I was waiting for him to say something annoying. But that same hum wasn’t in the air tonight, like we’d both laid down our armor inside these walls.

Despite all the dishes being clean and on the rack, I didn’t move, instead toying with the towel in my hands. I should have just left, gotten away from Cam as soon as possible—but I didn’t.

From the way he stood there, tapping his fingers on the counter, Cam didn’t seem in any hurry to leave either.

“How’s the team shaping up?” I asked.

“It’s, uh, different.” Cam smirked, and my insides turned to jelly.

When he smiled like that, there was that small dimple on the left side of his face.

It made him look almost charming. He shifted so his hip leaned on the counter.

“We’re trying to feel each other out, but it’s going to take time.

Hopefully, we can get it together so we can get into the playoffs. ”

“And when’s that?”

Cam chuckled. “You really know nothing about baseball, do you, menace?”

“You swing the bat and then run around in a giant circle? That’s about the extent of my knowledge,” I said as I turned toward him, shocked to find Cam smiling back at me. It was probably the longest we’d been cordial in, well, ever.

“That’s the basics,” he said. “But that’s when we’re up at bat. Otherwise, we’re on the field, and we need to depend on each other. You’ve gotta be able to trust your teammate to complete the play correctly. And when you haven’t played together that long…”

“That trust is hard to come by,” I finished for him.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “But we’ve got to get there fast. Got a big series at the end of the week.”

“Damn, you don’t get any downtime, do you?”

“Not really,” he said. “The season is hectic and exhausting, but it’s also the best kind of high. We don’t really get a solid break until the season is over.”

I nodded, still toying with the towel in my hand.

Cam took a step closer to me, and my breath hitched in my throat, suddenly overwhelmed by his presence.

Cam wasn’t the most imposing guy, practically a human-sized teddy bear, but he still eclipsed me in size and height.

He was easily a foot taller than me, especially when I was barefoot.

As I looked up into his clear eyes, I tried to keep my breathing steady.

He dated your best friend. The sharp reminder made me edge backward, stopping when my hip jammed into the edge of the countertop.

Cam’s face twisted into a grin, making that damn dimple pop again. “Why did you apologize to me, Hadley?”

“Because I was wrong.” I inhaled sharply. “And…I know what it's like to be judged because of your position in life. Even unintentionally, I did that to you. And I am sorry.”

“I know you are,” he said. “That’s the thing about you, Hadley. You tell the truth, even when it hurts. It’s admirable.”

“It is?”

“Yeah.” He smirked. “You’re an open book, and that’s a good thing. Always honest to a fault, even if you’re busting my balls.”

“I thought you hated when I did that.“ My voice turned meek, barely above a whisper, as if raising it would break this moment between us. As much as I tried to tell myself this was Cam—someone I’d spent the better part of seven years hating—I didn’t want this to end.

I liked this little bubble when we weren’t a menace and a drill sergeant—just Cam and Hadley, two people who might have been friends if things had worked out differently.

He smiled, but it differed from his usual cocky grin.

This one was slight, almost vulnerable. “Not as much as I should,” he whispered.

The hushed confession clung to the air between us, and I stared up at Cam, studying the serene expression on his face.

His admiration, his respect, it was all there.

I’d just never taken the time to look before.

“I don’t hate you as much as I should either.” The words rushed out of my mouth before I could think better of it.

Cam’s eyes crinkled in delight as he reached out and carefully took the towel from my hands.

He placed it on the counter and then traced my palm with his thumb.

Lightning lingered on my skin where he touched, and my mouth went dry.

My body erupted in butterflies, tumbling out from the places he traced.

It was jarring, the sudden shift from disdain to desire, but the need for him to keep touching me was overwhelming.

“Hadley—”

Just as my name left his lips, Adam burst into the kitchen, breaking the quiet stalemate between us. “Which stuffy is Peanut Butter?” he huffed as he searched the dining room. “Emilia doesn’t want to go to sleep without it.”

“Yeah,” Cam said, jumping away from me to join Adam on the hunt. “She’s that purple elephant Calla and Theo got for her last month. I saw her in the living room earlier.”

With that, both men left the kitchen. But when he reached the doorway, Cam stopped, giving me one last, secret smile. “You good, menace?”

I rolled my eyes. “Better than you, sarge.”