4. Ava
This was a disaster. An absolute disaster. Now I was stuck in a bedroom, gorgeous as it was with stunningly rich gray walls, white-painted wood furniture and headboard, and sage green bedcoverings along with matching curtains that gave me a view of downtown Denver and the snow-capped mountains in the distance.
For only being in this house since the winter, from what I’d heard, he’d decorated spectacularly, and I’d barely allowed myself to tour much of the home last night before I plopped down on his couch. But even his living room was well decorated. Artwork on the walls. Rugs covering the wood floors. There were faux plants that added pops of color to the rich, neutral colors of tans and creams.
He had to have hired a decorator, and the very thought of another woman, even a professional one, putting touches on his house made me a little feral.
This was why staying here was a disaster. When it came to Cameron Kelley, my common sense jumped off the highest peak and scattered. And that was when he wasn’t around.
Around him, I was more likely to stab him with a kitchen knife than have a rational conversation.
“Ugh!” I slapped my hands on my thighs and paced back and forth. “Stupid, freaking Isaiah.”
Speaking of… I dove for my purse I’d thrown on the bed when I stomped back up the stairs an hour ago and grabbed my phone. I spent an hour pacing this bedroom with the gorgeous views and the pretty décor and a space large enough for a sitting area. I’d have to buy some chairs for the area. It was only two weeks, but there was no way I was hanging out with Cameron at night, even if he said he’d make himself scarce. He’d been right earlier. Like Isaiah had been, too. I had nowhere else to go. I was friends with coworkers, but in a “let’s grab happy hour” kind of way. Not a “let me crash on your couch for two weeks” kind of way.
I couldn’t do it.
Wouldn’t.
“Hello?” My brother’s voice echoed through the phone, the rumbling of tires on the road in the background told me he was talking through his phone’s Bluetooth setting.
“Are you alone?” Sometimes he had a partner with him, and this conversation needed to be private.
“Yeah. Headed to work. Listen?—”
I had no patience to listen to his apologies.
“You told me you talked to him!”
“I did. He was going to be out of town, gave me the codes to his house so I could hang out if I wanted to head to the city on my days off and make sure things were cool there.”
“But you didn’t ask him if I could stay!”
I was shrieking again.
I hated shrieking.
Despised more that it was always Cameron who made me lose my cool. Hell, in the three years Kip and I were together, we never had a heated argument. It was Cameron who turned me into a shrieking lunatic.
“He wasn’t going to be there, Ava. I didn’t see what it mattered.”
God. My freaking adorable and sweet and bone-headed brother. I swear there were marbles in his skull instead of brains, and even then, he was missing a few.
He sighed, and I was still seething. Glaring out the windows at the stupid, gorgeous view I loved so much. My new apartment didn’t have a view. The only way I could get an apartment in the River North Art District, where I was close to work and downtown, was to get an apartment view facing train tracks.
“Listen,” Isaiah said. “I’m sorry. But to be honest, I’m also not. He’s like my brother. And you are my sister. I don’t know what happened to make you hate him so much, but I think this is good. You two will be able to figure your shit out.”
I gagged and quickly covered it. There was nothing brotherly about Cameron. Never had been in my eyes, at least not since I turned twelve and started seeing boys as cute instead of smelly and gross.
“I don’t hate Cameron.”
“That why you called him an asshole on Easter, of all days? Swear to you, Mom dropped to the ground right there and did three Hail Marys for your soul.”
He was chuckling.
I was fighting throwing my phone.
“Well, he is an asshole. Mom shouldn’t be praying for my soul for stating facts.”
“He’s not an asshole, Ava, and you know it.”
It wasn’t that my brother was taking Cameron’s side over mine. It was the fact that there wasn’t a single asshole bone in the Kelley’s genetic line. He hadn’t even been an asshole to me, necessarily.
He’d forgotten the most important and best night of my life.
That didn’t make him a dick, it made me a fool for going into his room that night. It made me a fool for thinking we’d spend a night together and he’d want to keep having them, even if I was young and dumb and told him different.
“You going to stay?” Isaiah asked. He’d gone into big brother mode. If I said no, he’d figure out a solution for me. He’d haul himself to the city, pack up my stuff, and he’d take care of me like he always did.
Except I was now twenty-four years old, and I could take care of myself.
Even if it meant staying in this gorgeous hell.
Fourteen days.
I could do this. I’d have to make sure I only used sharp knives when Cameron wasn’t home, but I could do this.
What could go wrong in only fourteen days?
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I’m staying.”
“Good. And fix whatever issue you have with Cam. It’s gone on far too long.”
He ended the call, and I was met with silence through the phone before I could argue with him.
There was no fixing what had happened between Cam and me, but maybe it was finally time to take responsibility for my own mistakes and move. The. Hell. On.
I lingered in my room for another hour. Lingering was a much nicer way to say procrastinating, so I was doing that as well, although not admitting it while I unpacked the suitcases I’d carried upstairs last night after my first glass of wine before collapsing on the couch in misery.
But after my suitcases were unpacked and my small amount of bathroom supplies and makeup and hair care products were settled into the en suite bathroom, it was time to face the rest of the house.
It was time to face Cameron and see if my recent grown-up revelations could be put into action.
I’d done this. I went to his room. Hell, I begged Cameron to take me that night. All of this, all of it over the last several years, was the result of my actions and the emotions of a young fool.
With my hand on the doorknob, I stared at the wood door in front of me and rolled back my shoulders. “It’s time to grow up.”
I stepped out of the door, peeking into the hallway first like Cameron was going to jump out from behind a closed door.
Like he had nothing better to do than scare me.
Please.
Fortunately, I made my way downstairs and found the house quiet. The hum of air conditioning and the quiet tick of a clock somewhere nearby were the only sounds outside the soft pattering of my feet.
I was tiptoeing.
Like an idiot.
Changing course from my intention of finding food in the kitchen, I headed outside. It wasn’t yet noon, and already the sun was beating down. Not a cloud in the sky, and as I took a seat in one of the lounge chairs in the shade, I grabbed my phone.
I’d had nothing planned this weekend outside of relaxing, but there was no chance of that happening now that Cameron was around. I’d need to stay busy. I scrolled on my phone for events occurring in Denver that weekend. There was a hiking group I joined occasionally, but those were more enjoyable in the spring or fall, not the height of summer. There was a wine tasting, but like Cameron so nicely pointed out, I didn’t exactly have a slamming social life, and while I admired people who could go to a social event alone, that wasn’t me.
Finally, I found exactly what I needed. A few clicks later, and I’d ordered supplies and new patterns on Amazon. It wouldn’t get me out of the house, but I could do it quietly in the privacy of my own room.
My stomach rumbled, and I pushed out of the chair.
The box of food I brought in last night held wine and snack foods, not full groceries, so my current options were limited to Goldfish crackers, Triscuits, and some fruit. Which at least gave me something else to do for the day. A trip to the grocery store.
Not the most exciting errand, but it’d at least get me out of the house.
I grabbed an apple, rifled through Cameron’s kitchen drawers to find a knife, and was slicing it when a door opened.
I turned, knife held in the air, only to find Cameron, still dressed in the athletic shorts and torturously tight gray T-shirt, heading out of his office with a plate in his hand, holding a half-eaten sandwich.
“I ordered some groceries. I need to go pick them up soon, but if there’s anything you need, let me know. I’ll grab them while I’m out.”
“I can buy my own groceries.”
It came out ruder than I intended, but it couldn’t be helped.
I spent years being a simpering schoolgirl with a crush the size of Mount Everest on this man, and then years training myself to find fault with everything he said.
Reconditioning myself again to be, at minimum, kind, would take more than a change of decision.
I cut off a chunk of apple and sighed. It was probably time to start the reconditioning process. “Thank you, but I was planning on going there anyway. I can pick up your groceries for you while I’m there.”
Look at me, being all mature and helpful.
He settled his hands on his hips. It was a crime to look that good in nothing more than gym clothes. I’d always thought that about Cameron. He could be draped in an old-fashioned potato sack, and it wouldn’t hide his strength or his muscles and chiseled beauty.
“Or we can go together.” His lips curved, and something sparked in his eyes.
“Or we could not,” I muttered and went back to slicing my apple. The knife hit the cutting board with force.
Next to me, he chuckled. “What? Scared?”
Oh, the jerk. He was daring me. He knew me well enough to know I hated dares. My pride refused to allow me to back down from them. It wasn’t my only weakness, but one of my biggest. The other biggest weakness was moving closer to me, smelling so damn good with whatever body wash or soap or whatever he used.
I spun on my feet and glared at him. “I thought you said you were going to make yourself scarce.”
His eyes widened—so damn blue, they were obscenely gorgeous. He reached out, and I paused until his hand brushed against my wrist, and he moved my arm. “Perhaps be careful where you’re aiming that.”
I glanced down. I’d spun and had the knife pointed directly at his gut. Right. He had a point.
I allowed him to uncurl my fingers from the knife’s hilt and set it on the counter. It was then I realized he was touching me. Softly.
Tenderly.
I swallowed and stepped back, putting space between us.
“So, grocery store?” he asked, and I swore he wore a hopeful little smirk I pretended not to see out of the corner of my eye.
“Fine,” I muttered and tossed an apple slice into my mouth.
Whatever. It was the grocery store.
It was an hour or two of our time.
How hard could it be?