A wash of relief passes through his eyes and isn’t missed by me. “Thanks, brother.”
“Shut the fuck up and just don’t ask me to help you move your shit.” Circling the bag, I concentrate on my footwork and not the thoughts of Camilla that are wiggling their way in my mind.
“Bond’s here, so I’m out,” Nate growls. “Call me when you’re done and we can work out the details.”
“Okay.” Over his shoulder, my gaze lands on Hannah’s. She’s talking to Bond, but watching me. Flipping my sight back to my brother, I laugh. “I think this will be a quick one.”
“What? The workout or her?” he asks with a little nod to Hannah.
“I’m not touching that with a ten-foot pole.”
“I never could count well,” he says, heading for the door.
“And you say you’re smart one,” I call after him.
“We all have our moments.”
As Bond’s voice trails through the air and makes its way to me, my eyes involuntarily roll to the back of my head.
Bond Grayson is a fantastic boxer, my height and weight, and aggressive. He’s the perfect training partner—or he would be, if he could keep his mouth shut.
Outside the ring, he’s the epitome of what I can’t stand. Loud, arrogant, and impulsive—he’s a dick. I can only barely tolerate him the time or two a week we meet up to train, and I wouldn’t tolerate him then if I didn’t need that prize money a couple of times a year.
My shoulders sag as the truth swirls around me.
I don’t really need that money this year. God knows my ribs don’t need the punishment either. But Nate and Ryder do.
With the curled smirk of Bond coming straight at me, I push aside what I really want to do—saying fuck it and going to find Cam—and prepare to bang it out with Bond.
Camilla
“HEY,” I SAY INTO THE phone as my keys hit the little glass tray I keep by the door. “How was the gym?”
“You home yet?”
My brows furrow at his quick question. “I just walked in. Why?”
“No reason.”
“I was going to call you in a second,” I tell him. “I literally just walked in the door. Is everything okay?”
He blows out a breath. “I just, you know, it’s getting late and I wanted to make sure you made it home.”
A warmth unleashes in my chest and pulls the corners of my lips into an achingly wide grin. “Yeah, I’m home.” I wait for him to say something else, but he doesn’t. “So, how did it go with Bond?”
“He left holding his rib tonight, so pretty damn good, if you ask me.”
“Isn’t training supposed to mean helping each other get better?” I ask, flipping on the light in the kitchen. “It sounds to me when you ‘work out’ with him, it’s a little more serious than that.”
“Any time two men are fighting, whether it’s sparring or actually going at it, there’s ego on the line. Factor in that it’s him I’m in there with and there’s a whole new dimension to consider.”
As he rants about how much he dislikes Bond, I find a carton of chocolate frozen yogurt in the freezer and sit down at the table with a spoon. “I still think you should just stop fighting altogether.”
“Not your choice.”
Stabbing my spoon in the dessert with a little more gusto than necessary, I sigh. “I know it’s not my choice. You’ve made it perfectly clear you don’t want my opinion on the matter.”
“If you know that’s true, you’d think you’d stop throwing it out there left and right.”
There’s a moment of silence, one that worries me every time it happens. I find myself holding my breath, my chest burning, as I stare off into space and brace myself for him to give me a bullshit answer and end the call. One of these days, it’s going to happen.
I’m surprised it hasn’t yet. When I pulled my door open last summer, looking like a sweaty mess, I didn’t expect to see him on the other side. I didn’t expect to have my knees get all wobbly or my stomach turn to mush at the smile he sent my way.
There was no way to predict I would’ve been handing my phone number over to the air conditioner repair guy a few hours later or that I’d be enjoying a hamburger and French fry dinner with him the next evening. Least of all, there was absolutely no way in the world I would’ve believed I would see him again almost every day for the next ten months. But I have.
His presence in my life feels, in lots of ways, like I’m stuck in limbo. Moving on in any real way with Dom is unrealistic. I shouldn’t even want it. But I do and I don’t know where that puts me. Or him. Or us.
“Nate is moving in with me.”
“Why?” I ask, caught off guard.
“He’s behind on a bunch of payments and managed to get a loan, but it’ll be a couple of months before it’s processed or something. He and Ryder are going to shack up here until he gets things sorted.”
“That’s nice of you,” I offer.
“Yeah, well, what am I supposed to do? It’s family, right?”
“Of course. My family would do the same.”
“Your family would just buy the other person a house,” he laughs. “I bet two of you haven’t lived together since you were kids.”
“Not true,” I say, taking a bite of my froyo. “Sienna and I lived together until she moved to LA.”
He laughs again. “And she managed to stay away from you for how long?”
“She was there for four years, actually. She still kind of lives there. I think,” I consider, spooning in another glob of yogurt.
“She’s been in Savannah the whole time I’ve known you. She doesn’t live in LA, sweetheart.”
“She still has an apartment there,” I counter.
“Sienna lives in LA as much as I do, and I’ve never even been there.”
Giggling at his analogy, I lick the spoon. “Yeah, that’s probably true. She’s thinking of moving to Illinois now anyway.”
“Must be nice.”
Jamming my spoon back in the carton, I sit back in my chair. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No, say it.”
“Say what?”
I can hear the smirk in his voice, the level of amusement I’m providing thick in his tone. It annoys me that he doesn’t take me seriously. That he thinks my life is some kind of charmed existence that doesn’t have a lot of substance.
He’s never said that, not to my face, anyway. I see it hidden in the depths of his sapphire-colored eyes sometimes.
He doesn’t have a problem with the volunteer work I do. He just thinks I should be doing something else, something that matters specifically to me. That pushes me. That drives me. And I don’t know how I feel about that.
“Don’t laugh at me, Dominic Hughes,” I warn.
“Or what, Camilla Landry? What will you do?”
I pause. “I don’t know.”
He just laughs harder. “I’m not laughing at you, babe. I’m laughing at how your sweet little voice tries so hard to break into a roar soon as you’re mad, but it can’t quite get there.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Then what are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“No, you do know,” he goads. “I hit a nerve. Say it, Cam. Tell me how you really feel.”
“You didn’t hit a nerve—”
“One of these days, you’re going to blow the fuck up, and I’m going to laugh my ass off.”