Page 14 of Letting it Ride

Cam’s poker face is abysmal right now. Unlike my brother, he rarely uses it outside of games, so I can read every emotion that flits across, and none of them gives the sense that he’s happy to see me.

A pit settles in my stomach while I give him a minute to recover, but he looks like he’s locked into some sort of internal debate.

I clear my throat. One of us has to break the silence.

“Um. Hi, Cam.” I heft my duffel bag higher on my shoulder. Putting it down seems like accepting the inevitability that we have to share a room, but it’s getting heavy. All those little scraps of fabric add up.

Cam blinks as he comes back to reality. “Uh. Hi, uh, Addie. What, uh…”

I can tell he’s trying to find a nice way to ask what the fuck I’m doing there. I force out a laugh, trying to go for theisn’t-this-funny, we’ll-laugh-about-this-latervibe. “So, uh, it looks like Maddox didn’t text you.”

His brows knit together even further. There’s no trace of humor in his expression. “Text me about what?”

Okay, I don’t want to have to be the one to spell it all out here. It makes me look like I had something to do with this, or like I planned it somehow. All I did was offer to help my brother.

A light finally comes on, his eyes growing wide with something that looks suspiciously like horror as realization dawns. “Wait, are you here instead of Maddox?”

Ding ding ding.

I give up on the duffel and let it slide to the ground. “Yeah. He accidentally double-booked this and his honeymoon, so he asked if I could take his place. I can’t believe he didn’t let you know. He saidhe was going to text you when I talked to him last night.”

“Well, he didn’t.” Cam pushes his hand through his hair. The movement leaves patches sticking straight up, like they’re alarmed at the situation, too. Shaking his head, he blows out a breath. “But I also turned off my phone yesterday. I was going to do like a detox, stay off the grid for the next few days. I might have turned it off before he texted.”

So maybe Maddox did text, but it was clearly at the last minute. This is on him, obviously. Restitution will have to be paid.

I start to think through ways to get him back for this. What about that blue dye? The one you stick in someone’s food without them knowing and it makes them piss blue? I’ve used that one on friends before. They freak out, especially guys who absolutely lose their shit if something seems to be threatening their manhood. Seems like a fitting punishment in this case. I bet Holly would help me.

Cam runs a hand over his jaw. At least he’s unclenched it. “Shit, I’m sorry, Addie. I didn’t mean to freak you out. I’m just surprised, is all. I was kind of expecting a boy’s trip and to reset after some shit in my life.”

There’s the Cam I know, the one who wouldrather walk through fire than hurt someone he cares about. He doesn’t hold grudges the way I do. Maybe I won’t tell him about my plans for revenge against my brother. I get the sense Cam would try to talk me out of it.

I pull on the piece of hair that’s wrapped around my finger, then loop the hair around again. “It’s okay. I think I’d react the same way. And I’m kind of surprised too, if it helps. Maddox didn’t mention that we’d have to share a room. I…” What did Cam say? Some shit is going on in his life? Suddenly, I don’t care as much about sharing a tiny room or who’s on this cruise. “Wait, what’s been going on in your life? Is everything okay? Want to talk about it?”

Cam’s eyes widen once again. You’d think he’d be used to my rambling by now. He’s certainly been around me enough to know that once I start, it’s hard to turn off. But when he turns his head to the bunk beds behind him, I realize it’s not that. It’s that he hadn’t processed the sharing a room thing yet.

He looks to the other door, the one he was standing in when I showed up, then back to me. “Yeah. It’s not exactly a ton of space.”

That might be putting it mildly. It’s not lost on me that he’s ignoring my other questions about his life. I suppose that’s fair. We don’t really have that kind ofrelationship, at least not yet. I decide not to push it. If he doesn’t want to talk about it, that’s his business.

“I don’t take up a lot of space.” I shrug a casual shoulder.

Cam just nods. He looks deep in thought. About the room or the cruise or whatever is going on in his life?

“So, can I, um…” I gesture around the room with my hand. “Is there somewhere I can put my stuff?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Cam pushes his hair back again—his favorite move—and pulls open a door I hadn’t seen. It’s a shallow cabinet, already half full. There are two shirts hanging from a bar, and stacks of t-shirts and shorts on the shelves. Cam reaches in. “I also didn’t realize we’d be sharing. Let me just…”

He moves his clothes to one side to open up a little space. I unzip my duffel and put a few pairs of shorts on one shelf, shirts on another. I pause. Do I unpack my bikinis while he’s standing in front of me? What about underwear?

I’m hoping to use the time we have together to convince him that I’m all grown up, that I’m a viable dating prospect and that maybe, just maybe, we belong together.

He’s certainly known me long enough that he should know whether or not he could like me that way.But I’m not sure displaying my purple thong five minutes after he realized he’s stuck with me is going to be the most effective strategy.

I decide to leave the rest in my duffel. Underwear and swim suits don’t need to worry about wrinkles, so it’s fine that they’re shoved in there together. The bag of my toiletries takes up a good amount of space as well, but there should be room in the bathroom for that. I pull it out before I zip up the duffel and kick it to the side of the room.

“Is that the bathroom?” I angle my head toward the one remaining door, my toiletries container in one hand. The hairdryer and flat iron are still in the duffel, but I don’t need them until at least tomorrow. I was able to fit almost everything else into the designated container.

Cam nods. “Yeah. It’s pretty small, though.”

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