TEN
Duke
“Cody, you need to help me with this.”
“I can’t. I told you, I’ve got nothing left after buying the damn thing.”
I rest my head in my free hand, hunched over on the side of the highway using my bag as a seat. “Exactly. Which is why I can’t trust you to pay me back, either.”
He sighs down the line, clicking his fingers in the background—a nervous habit he has when he’s thinking hard about something. “I could ask Mum?”
“Like fuck you will. She gave up bailing you out of the shit when you got a job, bro.”
The phone call’s turning out as to be expected, given the day I’m having. First, I pissed Cammie off, and then, the only place in town that sold the right charger for my phone was fresh out of stock. The one good thing to happen so far was finding out Archie used the same phone, and that he was gracious enough to let me use the charger so I could run the repairs past Cody. A week to get the part couriered in, and then two days to get the job done—and all at the relevant expense for such a big job. Which is a lot.
“What other option do we have?” my brother says with a smug tone. “You gotta get the car fixed so you can get home.”
I knew I shouldn’t have offered to do this for him. Knew I should have told him to sort his own issues out, and stuck to what’s more important—finding a job.
“If I pay for the whole thing, I haven’t got enough left to cover the motel, man.”
“They have a backpacker’s, or something?”
“They’ve barely got a main street. It’s not that big of a town.”
He huffs down the line, leaving the conversation hanging while he thinks it over. There’s no use; he can’t come up with anything I haven’t already thought of.
I shift the phone against my ear and straighten up, casing my surroundings as I wait for him to hopefully fold and offer me at least a few hundy to help with the stay. A dark green truck rattles up the road, heading out of town.
“Come on, C,” I plead as I shift my bag and myself farther off the road to avoid the truck’s backdraft. “Surely you can spare a hundred? Spot me the rest after payday next week?”
He sighs as I drop my stuff down again and look toward the truck as it passes. “I could maybe do fifty.” The car tucked behind the trailer unit comes into view.
Shit.
“Duke? Would fifty do?”
Cammie pulls off onto the grass verge.
“Whatever you can spare, bro.” I hang up on him mid-sentence, completely over any lame-arse excuse the lazy fucker is giving me, and head toward the little chatterbox emerging from her car.
“Trouble?” she calls, battling with her hair as it refuses to blow anywhere but in her face.
“Not really. I was about to head back into town.”
“Town is where I left you,” she helpfully points out. “So why are you on the outskirts?”
“Just where I ended up after I enquired at the motel up the road there.” More like, needed the chance of bumping into another “friendly” local to be zero to none.
What should have been a simple spot of shopping to get myself a change of clothes, and toiletries, ended up being a grilling.
“What’s a nice man like you doing around here?”
“A week’s a long stay. You got plans?”
“If you’d like suggestions on what to do while you’re here, come back and see me okay?”
God—they’re all so damn chipper around these parts. Probably not a big deal to anyone else, but shit, I just want some space to work things through.
“What did Archie say?” Cammie pops her hip as she stands before me, her car idling behind her. If she’s left the Beamer running, she doesn’t plan to stop for a long chat then. Good.
“That it’s fucked, which I knew he’d say, and that it’ll take a week to get the parts in, which I hoped he wouldn’t say.”
“Damn. You checked in until it’s fixed then?”
I sigh, running a hand through my hair. Still not used to having that shit flapping about on my head in a strong breeze …
“Look, I appreciate the concern, Cam, but I’m okay. You can carry on.”
Her foot shifts backward as though she’s going to take my advice, but then she freezes, the cogs working behind her eyes. “They’ve got the A&P show this week.”
Shit. Fuck local knowledge.
“Where are you staying?” She narrows her darkened eyes on me.
“I’ve got the option of two nights at the Atlas later in the week, but I haven’t found anything until then.”
“So your plan would be?” Her hand shifts to her hip.
“Not sure yet.”
Her chest rises and falls on a heavy exhale. Of course I look.
“We got off on the wrong foot, I think.” Here it comes. “If you need somewhere to stay, my place is on the table.”
My fist flexes on the strap of my bag. “Never knew it was to begin with.”
Cammie swallows, her gaze drifting over my shoulder to the car I hear approaching. “All I ask is that you respect my space and don’t ask questions I can’t answer.”
Her gaze flicks back to me as I nod and offer my hand. “Deal. As long as you can do the same.”
She places her palm in mine as her eyes hold mine, and fuck it all if that isn’t the game-changer right there. Pressure like I’ve never known explodes inside my head, ricocheting into my chest before seizing my heart in the devil’s chokehold.
I swallow hard as we shake hands, her grip lax before I’ve even finished the movement. Cammie tucks her hand away as though I’ve literally burned her with my touch, tucking it beneath the opposite arm.
“Well, I’m glad that’s sorted,” she says on a chuckle. “Because I’ve got ice-cream in the back of the car that’s probably started to melt, not to mention the milk getting warm and the deli meats … I mean this weather, huh? It’s so unusually warm for this time of year …”
I follow her back to the BMW with a smile on my face. She’s back to the same chatty girl that got under my skin earlier. Only this time, the irritation doesn’t seem so bad.
Perhaps it’s the kind of pain that I need to jar me back to being the man I used to be.