Chapter Four West
Chapter Four
West
This is what I get for thinking my first run-in with Cammie couldn’t have gone worse—a smack across the face from fate.
Or a full-frontal smack into my former friend, who appears to be fresh from a shower and wears only a small white towel.
The next and hopefully final smack comes in the form of the fuzzy, reddish sea creature that is Cammie’s wet hair when she tries to toss it away from her face, but my shoulder blocks its path.
I step back, recoiling from the contact a little late.
But she’s no quicker to react, freezing when she registers that it’s me.
Her eyes go wide while one hand grips her towel and the other hangs limp at her side, having dropped a bundle of clothes and bottles during our collision.
My own hands are held up beside my head, palms out, like I need to make it beyond clear that these mitts aren’t going anywhere near an unclothed Cammie Lovett.
I see the moment she snaps herself out of our ridiculous freeze-frame, a frown that brings every one of her facial features out to play.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
It’s my turn to look at her with shock-widened eyes. I blink slowly, peering exaggeratedly back into my room, then meet her gaze again. Gesturing over my shoulder with a thumb, I answer, “Leaving my room?”
Cammie squeezes her eyes shut, giving her head a brisk shake as if to recalibrate. When she blinks them back open, they’re a shade less angry, making room for more confusion. “Your r—The room that’s beside…Oh god…we’re neighbors?”
Shit. I didn’t realize, either. When did this happen?
I just came up here to drop my phone off to charge before I head back to the library in the main house, where I planned on reading and doing some coding exercises until dinner.
Still plan on it, I mean. The plan won’t be derailed by the angry, undressed redhead who apparently lives next door to me now.
“Looks like it,” I offer dryly. “I haven’t been here much longer than you, but just a heads-up, I get the sense this isn’t the clothing-optional kind of communal living.”
The hand holding her towel twitches. My lizard brain sends my attention there before we both remember ourselves, and I see her grip tighten just before I turn my face toward the ceiling.
I hear unintelligible grumbling as Cammie steps around me to get to her door, then hear her fumbling to get the iron key in the lock.
Deciding maybe I could earn some points by being helpful, I bend and start to gather the things she abandoned on the floor.
And immediately regret it when my hand connects with a bra.
“Don’t touch that!” Cammie snaps, shoving the door to her room wide open before snatching the item from my hand, flinging it and the rest of the clothes and bottles behind her one handful at a time. “Don’t look at me. Just…don’t.”
With a final huff, she slams the blue door, leaving me speechless and solitary in the hall.
A long sigh gusts out of me, and I wish it came with the unwavering feeling that she’s the one acting out of line here.
That she’s totally unjustified in treating me like I’m the villainous side character she thought she’d long since written out of her life story.
But I was there three years ago, and I hurt her first, even if she turned around and hurt me back.
Time and distance have only made me less sure of who bears more blame for the way it all went down.
I also wish, as I force my feet to continue down the hall, that I could force my mind to move on from the image of Camilla Lovett’s bare, freckled skin.
A few hours later, I find myself, once again, outdoors against my will.
At least this time, the sun isn’t personally attacking me with its direct, relentless UV rays, mostly hidden behind trees and buildings as it sinks lower in the sky.
The heat of the day is slow to leave the terrazzo, where all the summer residents have gathered for dinner.
String lights crisscross through the air over parallel rows of long, rectangular tables, each of them filled with elaborate place settings that some event planner is really proud of, from the lemon-yellow napkins folded into complicated shapes to the—fittingly—bronze flatware.
Servers dressed in all black mill around offering trays of hors d’oeuvres to the guests filtering in, while the kitchen staff prepares a buffet spread behind the French doors leading to the villa’s vast dining room.
And everywhere in between, clusters of well-dressed, happy people stand talking, mingling, laughing, and holding sweating glasses of beer or prosecco.
Meanwhile, I hug the side wall of the villa and try to draw as little notice as possible, taking only small sips of the limonata in my grasp so I don’t have to navigate through the crowd for a refill.
I’m not exactly antisocial, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been to a gathering like this.
I’m out of practice with small talk, working a room full of strangers, forming a bunch of surface-level, temporary connections with people I may or may not encounter again.
I’m not sure if I was ever good at those things, really, but the bar was lower when I was younger.
Now I look just old enough that people expect me to be capable of intelligent, adult conversation, and I can’t coast on endearing teenage awkwardness and mumbled half answers.
I fear that trying to meet this expectation would inevitably lead me to ramble about my experience taking SSRIs, or my parents’ divorce, or another absolute vibe-killer.
It’s best for everyone that I stick to this wall.
I tuck my plastic cup between my elbow and my side so I can free both hands to once again mess with the cuffs of my shirtsleeves.
I thought a 100 percent cotton button-down would be more breathable than this.
But with every drop of sweat I feel coursing down my neck, I roll them up another time.
At this point, I’d probably be better off just removing the sleeves entirely, going full gym rat with massive cut-off armholes that proudly display my pale, less-than-sculpted body.
The idea almost makes me laugh as I take another mini sip of fizzy lemonade.
Then proceed to choke on it when a certain redhead walks through the double doors.
Cammie timed her entrance for this moment, didn’t she?
She doesn’t look smug about it, though, or even notice me having a coughing fit from where she stands.
No, she just looks…dazzled. Her blue eyes are wide and bright as they take in the scene.
The freckles across her face still have their wintry faintness, and I remember delighting in that slow transformation under the summer sun, how they multiplied and intensified.
There’s a slight upturn at the corner of her parted lips, like they’re stuck between a gasp and a grin.
Until they flatten, then turn down. I watch in confusion as Cammie’s gaze flits across the crowd with more focus, whatever she sees causing the light in her to dim. Her arms wrap around her middle and her shoulders hunch, and it’s only then that I register everything happening from her neck down.
Short denim overalls. A faded green tank top underneath.
Hair twisted into two braids, one falling over each shoulder.
It’s like she just walked in from a long day on the farm—all that’s missing are cowgirl boots.
I do a double take at what’s actually on her feet, which are almost certainly the same rubber flip-flops she showered in.
In the sea of classy cocktail attire, she’s an underdressed iceberg.
It’s the highlight of my day.
“Cam,” Dr. Alex says by way of overly bright greeting as she emerges from the fray in a simple blue dress, silky shawl tucked elegantly around both her elbows while she lays a hand on her daughter’s arm. She leans in so her next words are inaudible to me.
I sidle closer almost without thought, narrowing the few yards of distance between us.
“You only said it was ‘outside.’ I’m the one who assumed ‘casual picnic,’ ” Cammie mutters in response to whatever her mom said.
“Let me just go change, okay? Maybe we can pretend the first girl who showed up was my tacky twin sister.”
She begins to pull away when the deliberate clink of metal on glass fills the air, gradually halting conversations and pulling everyone’s attention toward the other side of the terrazzo, where a distinguished gray-haired man stands waiting to make an announcement.
“No time now,” Dr. Alex says quickly, reeling Cammie back in. “You look great! We’ll be seated for dinner anyway.”
At which point it’ll still be clear that Cammie’s wearing overalls, but at least she can hide…My gaze lowers, and she wiggles her toes in her shower shoes.
A half-stifled laugh escapes me, not unlike the sound I made when my drink went down the wrong pipe, but this time it does catch Cammie’s notice. Her head whips my way and I fix my gaze straight ahead as quickly as I can manage. But her quiet grumble says she sees right through me.
She extracts herself from her mom’s hold and inches the tiniest bit closer. I catch a whiff of the fresh apple scent that filled the hallway during our earlier run-in and tell myself I don’t like it.
“I don’t want to hear it from you,” she whispers fiercely. “Not one word.”
I shouldn’t engage, but today has proven that I can only listen to the devil on my shoulder when this girl’s around.
“Does ‘yeehaw’ count?” I ask under my breath. “It’s more sound effect than word.”
She’s practically vibrating with irritation at my side. I’m not proud of this compulsion to keep poking at her, but that doesn’t stop me from doing it.
“No, really, it’s an honor to meet you, Wendy.”
Cammie frowns. “Wendy?”
Her subsequent grimace says the question slipped out before she could think better of it.