Chapter 23 Cam
CAM
Ieased her door shut behind me, then walked across the hall to my room, not bothering to flip on the light. I dropped onto my bed with a sigh, let my head fall back against the pillow, and just stared up at the ceiling.
My body was exhausted. Every muscle loose, my heart is still working overtime. But my mind… my mind went back. I replayed the moment when I stopped thinking of Harper as someone I was obligated to be around because she was my little sister’s best friend.
She was twenty then and in nursing school. Still figuring out the kind of woman she wanted to be and what she wanted to do with her life.
And I remember it like a photograph burned into the back of my brain—back then she wore her hair in the prettiest braids. She always looked so beautiful. I remember Harper standing in my kitchen in a pair of fuzzy socks, wearing a hoodie that was way too big for her, and baggy pajama pants.
Wren had gone to grab takeout and left us alone for maybe ten minutes.
Ten minutes where Harper made fun of the music I had playing, tried to dance to it on the tile floor, but ended up slipping and falling. She lay there, laughing, until she cried.
And I just stood there watching her and smiling to myself.
I realized then that we weren’t kids anymore. And I wasn’t just Cameron, the best friend’s brother. Or Cam, the mechanic. Or Cam, the one who kept his head down and did the right thing.
I was Cam, the idiot who was falling in love with a girl who hated him.
She was sunshine, sarcasm, sass, and softness tucked behind walls so high it made you ache to climb them. She was already everything to me, and she didn’t even know it yet. That night changed me more than I cared to admit.
I’d spent the last few years trying to pretend I didn’t feel it every time she smiled. Every time she sat next to me. Every time she laughed. Every shitty comment I threw at her to deflect my feelings tore me up. The witty, mean sarcasm became us. It was our dynamic.
Now she was asleep across the hall after I tucked her in and lay with her until her breathing was calm and even. I closed my eyes, letting the quiet wrap around me like a blanket.
Between my feelings for her and my new feelings for Tucker, I was elated.
A smile tugged at my lips, slow and uncontrollable. Because I was completely, totally, and irrevocably head over heels for that girl. I knew sooner rather than later I would feel the same way about Tucker.