3. Cameron
Ava Decker was still the prettiest girl I’d ever laid eyes on. The fact she wasn’t a girl anymore, but a woman, hadn’t escaped my notice over the years either. She was no longer that pretty girl, but she was all woman. With breasts that had grown since that night and legs that had turned even more shapely while still being toned. Her hair was longer, brighter even. She was still that woman who’d bake cupcakes with her mom, ride a horse, and work a farm, and then during the week she’d kick ass at her job doing social media stuff. It might not have been the most incredible job, but every time her name came up around her family they made it clear how proud they were of her.
Yeah, she’d grown a lot since she was sixteen and I broke her heart. Caused a pain so deep inside of her that I knew I’d done my job.
I’d been an ass about it, but I’d done it, but what I didn’t know then was that it’d mark her that deep. So deep that all these years later, she still couldn’t be in my presence for longer than thirty seconds without screaming at me.
Maybe that was my fault for acting like I never knew what we’d done. What she’d given me. But enough time had gone by, and I wasn’t sure the right thing to do was to tell her either. So she branded me the asshole who didn’t care about her, and I played my role to perfection.
None of that explained why I walked into my house after taking the red-eye back from Miami after fleeing a storm headed straight to where I was golfing in Barbados, only to find her passed out on my couch, wearing nothing more than a tank and shorts and a blanket she’d had to find from some closet with an empty bottle of wine in front of her and a half-filled glass.
But there she was, eyes flickering open, a soft smile on her face. And in three… two… one…
“What the hell are you doing here, Cameron?”
She jumped off the couch and grabbed the blanket like I hadn’t already had a peek at what she had beneath it. I’d do it again, too. I’d long since taken to perfecting my asshole role around her, and that was definitely something an asshole would do.
The only thing I regretted about it was the fact I’d had to go to the bathroom, take a shower, and take care of me before I calmed down enough to come back and wake her up.
The pain I was so used to seeing on her face evaporated as she fought it back.
I smirked and rocked on my heels. “It’s my house, Sunshine.”
She leaned in, a storm brewing in those bright blue eyes, and hissed, “Don’t call me that. I’m not that. Not to you.”
God, I hated that I hurt her. Hurt her so bad that all these years later this was the only way she looked at me, but damn, she was sexy all fired up, too. So damn sexy sometimes it took massive efforts not to throw her over my shoulder, smack her plump and perfect ass, and haul her off to any flat surface—either vertical or horizontal.
Massive efforts like it was taking right now because, despite the fact I’d just gotten off to thoughts of her, I was already fighting going hard again. She drove me insane. All that panted breath, her heaving chest.
“You weren’t supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be in the Caribbean.”
“Storm coming. Took the last plane out. Now tell me why you’re here.”
“Isaiah said—” Her mouth clamped shut, and her lips pressed together. She turned her head, stared out my back windows, working her jaw before she cursed. “Isaiah never asked you if I could stay here, did he?”
Hell no. And also, “Why do you need a place to stay?”
She was living with Kip Jones. The most boring man on the planet. The kind of guy who didn’t know the difference between a flathead and a Phillips screwdriver. They’d also been together for three years and had lived together for over one.
“Did he hurt you?” I asked. “I’ll kill him.”
Her eyes narrowed on me all over again. “You don’t get to do anything to him. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find another place to stay because my brother’s a complete moron.”
She skirted around the couch, but she was so lost in her head, lost in watching what she was doing, she didn’t see me moving.
Before she reached the bottom of the stairs, I was there with my arms crossed over my chest and blocking her way to them.
“Move.” The one word lacked all the anger I was used to hearing from her.
“Why are you staying here, Sunshine?”
Her nostrils flared, but that was all I got. None of the hissing or shouting I was used to. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll go. If you’ll move…”
I wasn’t backing down. “Why’d you call Isaiah and ask to stay here?”
Her pouty pink lips rolled together. Lips I’d touched. Kissed. Lips I’d taught how to wrap around my?—
“Please move.” It was a whisper this time. Broken. Shattered.
There was only one other time I’d heard her sound like that, and that was the day she started hating me.
As her chin began wobbling, I stepped aside.
There was no point in hurting her again. No point in setting the fire I enjoyed playing with around her.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, because I knew, even pissed or upset or sad or feeling whatever it was she was feeling, she’d had manners and politeness too ingrained in her to be anything but polite.
I stayed at the bottom of the stairs as her figure slumped, the blanket now trailing behind her, giving me a fantastic shot of her ass, headed down the hall to my guest rooms.
And then I grabbed my phone and called my best friend.
He was going to tell me what in the hell was going on.
Because the first woman, and the only woman I’d ever loved, was currently in my home looking for a reason to leave.
And even if it was the second dumbest thing I’d ever done in my life, I needed to convince her to stay.
It took six calls before Isaiah picked up. Six calls where my blood boiled and almost erupted as his groggy, scratchy, and tired voice muttered, “What the hell?” into the phone besides a hello.
“What the fuck?” I snapped at him. Totally snapped. “I told you to keep an eye on my house for me if you could.”
“What? Yeah, I know.”
He swore, and I knew my best friend my entire life outside my brothers well enough to know he wasn’t alone when he did it quietly.
It was a few seconds later when he grumbled, “What’s your problem? Something happen to the house?”
Yeah. My house was now invaded with the scent of sunshine, and that wouldn’t do. Wouldn’t do at all.
“I’m wondering why I’m standing in my living room and your sister Ava woke up to me glaring at her from where she passed out on my couch.”
“You’re home? Why?”
“Keep up, would you? What the hell’s going on?”
“Why are you home?”
Good hell. Fucking Deckers. They kept asking the same damn question and getting the same damn answer. “Because it’s my house!”
“But you’re supposed to be?—”
“In the Caribbean. I know. Storm was rolling in.I flew out. Whatever. Explain to me why Ava said you were supposed to call me.”
“Shit. Hell, man. I’m sorry. I didn’t think. You were gone anyway, so I didn’t think you’d care.”
I took a breath. A second one. I did all the deep breathing techniques I’d learned to stay calm during a high-stress game, and not a single damn one of them worked.
“Isaiah, why is your sister in my house?”
“Oh. Kip proposed, she said no, and now she’s moving out.”
He said it like I just asked him about the weather. “What? You’re serious?”
“Yeah. I mean, she didn’t say no. She said she just stood there, staring at him, and Kip figured that was a no. So yeah?—”
“He kicked her out? Like on her ass?”
I was almost impressed the guy had the balls to do that. I probably would be impressed, if it wasn’t Ava he’d kicked out.
“She can’t move into her new place for a couple weeks. You were supposed to be gone. She can’t afford a hotel, and there’s no way she can commute from home. You were supposed to be gone. I didn’t think it’d matter.”
Only Isaiah would think Ava being in my home wouldn’t matter. Probably because it shouldn’t. He was friends with my family. I was friends with theirs. My little sister Meredith and Ava grew up friends. Not close, but friendly at minimum. Hell, we were all practically family at one point.
But there wasn’t anything familial I felt about Ava, which made this a damn problem.
I stared at my wood floor and rubbed the back of my neck. “Why didn’t you ask me?”
“I dunno. She was in a bind. I figured you’d help anyway, and besides, you were supposed to be gone.”
“You can’t just invite people into my home without talking to me.”
“Why not? It’s Ava.”
Precisely the problem.
A loud thump, followed by another one, echoed, and I hurried around the kitchen, toward the entryway, to find Ava at the base of the stairs, a knocked-over suitcase at her feet.
“Gotta go.”
“Is it ok?—”
Too late to ask now.
I hung up on Isaiah and slipped my phone into my pocket. “I hear you need a place to stay for a couple weeks.”
She huffed. She wasn’t amused. More sad. Possibly irritated.
“You talked to Isaiah.”
“Yeah.”
She stared out my front door. The French doors were a rich, dark wood and had glass panels that showed the driveway and the rolling, large front yard beyond. I’d gotten lucky as hell when I found this home and scooped it up before I stepped foot inside of it. I’d needed a place to move after my brother Caleb was reunited with a woman he spent a night with, a woman who gave him a son. My nephew Landon was a cool as hell little shit, but after spending one night listening to Caleb and Emily reunite, I’d needed out. I tried moving in with a teammate but quickly learned that wouldn’t work.
I was too clean. Too obsessive about it. Jamison Potter was fresh out of college, living the high life of a rookie in the NFL, and for the first time, he didn’t have to clean up after himself, so he didn’t. I’d moved out of Caleb’s house in September, and by Thanksgiving, I was in this house. Making it more of a lucky move, the house had been empty when I bought it, so we worked out a quick-close situation.
It was glorious. It sat up high on a hill, overlooking the neighborhood below out the front and the mountains in the back.
Right then, Ava was staring at the frosted glass windows in the front doors like she was debating if she could make a run for it.
As if. I wasn’t only one of the youngest starting quarterbacks in professional football, I was one of the fastest. Had more running yards than any other quarterback and more rushing touchdowns, too.
“So he told you.”
“Sorry about you and Kip.”
God, it was hard to say his name without sneering, but seriously. Any parent who named their son Kip was asking for the kind of weak city boy he turned into.
“Are you?”
She still wasn’t looking at me. I’d known Ava her entire life, and never once had I seen her face expressionless. Was this being around me? Or Kip?
“Sucks when good things go bad. I understand that.”
Those eyes came to me then. Piercing. Oh, she was angry.
And my dick was getting excited about it.
I gritted my teeth.
“Yeah. It does.”
She bent and reached for her suitcase.
“You think of touching that thing unless it’s to take it straight back upstairs, and we’ll have problems, Ava.”
She froze. Which was good, because it meant she heard me.
It was bad because she’d thrown on some loose top with a deep V-neck, and all bent over like that, I could see the swells of her large breasts and the pink lace of her bra.
“Like I care,” she muttered and grabbed the handle.
Oh hell no.
I stepped toward her at the same time she yanked on the suitcase handle and stood. The suitcase was a buffer between us.
“Where you going to go? Isaiah said you can’t afford to stay at a hotel.”
“I’ve got friends.”
“Friends that don’t live in Plum County?”
Far as I knew, she still went home most weekends. How she even thought she’d marry a guy like Kip was beyond me. They were far too different. He wasn’t nearly good enough for her, either.
“What is your problem? I thought you were going to be gone. You don’t want me here. I’m going.”
“Who says I don’t want you here?”
I didn’t. It would be pure torture. But hell if she was leaving.
“Oh, I don’t know. Your warm and gracious welcome, maybe?” She flipped her hand in the air, gesturing to absolutely nothing.
“I tend to be a little grumpy when I see a friend’s sister passed out on my couch with an empty bottle of wine in front of her, and I’ll remind you, all I did was ask why you were here. You were the one who flipped out on me.”
“Flipped out?” Her eyes grew wide, and her cheeks puffed out as she blew out a breath. “I flipped out?!”
Yeah. Kind of like what she was doing now.
She hated me. She thought I’d forgotten about her. And she’d just broken up with a guy she lived with. I wasn’t helping anything.
I stepped back, conceding. “Stay, Ava. Stay as long as you need.”
“I’m not staying here with you.”
“Why not?”
“Because we hate each other.”
Ouch. Okay. So that hurt.
“I don’t hate you.”
She huffed again, crinkled her nose. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to stay here with you when all we do is fight.”
“I’ll keep my distance.”
She glanced at the door again, but her grip loosened on the suitcase. I’d been an ass, and I’d been a jerk, both of which she didn’t deserve. It was the boundary I needed, though, to ensure I never took advantage of her again.
“Stay,” I repeated and took another step back toward the kitchen. “It’s my off-season. I’ll stay out of your way when you’re here at night. You’re gone all day. And it’s just a couple of weeks, right?”
“I move in August first.”
“It’ll make Isaiah feel better to know you’re here.”
“You’re a jerk,” she muttered.
“I’ll try to be less of one.”
She glanced at me again, and now there was only defeat in her eyes. I’d been right, though. She didn’t have friends here, at least none she could stay with. Like Obi-Wan, I was her only hope.
“Why start now?”
With that parting shot, she grabbed her suitcase and hauled it back upstairs.
I let her go, even let her carry her own bag, even though my mother would slap the back of my head for that.
I didn’t need to know what bedroom she’d chosen. I didn’t need to see any of her other things out. And I didn’t need to inhale the sweet, summery scent she’d already filled the room with.