Path of Destruction (13 page)

“This summer…this summer meant
everything
to me. You meant everything to me. But it also caused me to act like an out-of-control crazy person, and the result was losing my brother. I don’t… I’m not blaming you or me anymore, because I’ll never be able to figure out exactly what I could have done differently to keep from losing him. But I do know that you’re not as into me as you think you are.”

His eyes held disbelief and a blatant challenge so she answered his unasked question.

“You might have been in love with that girl, the one I was this summer. But look at me. I’m not her anymore. And I never will be again.”

Unable to hide the way her hands trembled while holding onto him, she released his shirt.

“So please, please,” she begged, casting her eyes downward to the gray concrete floor, “stop bringing her up. She’s gone. Stop looking for her.”

Hayden remained quiet as the announcement was made that the drill was over and they could return to their classrooms now.

They walked back to class like a herd headed to the slaughterhouse, shuffling along slowly. As she reached the point where she’d have to turn the opposite way from Hayden, he leaned in and whispered in her ear.

“Never.”

T
he absolute last thing Cami felt like doing was laundry, but that was the price she had to pay when she convinced her parents that they didn’t need a full time replacement for Sophie. Sophie had worked for the Nickelsons since Cami was six. Eleven years, she had served as the maid, the nanny, Cami’s confidant, and a myriad of other titles. She was the closest thing to a mother that Cami had ever had, and now she was gone because she had her real child to take care of. Sophie’s son had been injured in the storm and was now a paraplegic. The storm hadn’t only ruined Cami’s life, it had greedily destroyed the lives of many.

Some stranger coming into her house and trying to fill Sophie’s shoes was out of the question. Sophie had called to check in on Cami a handful of times, but it wasn’t the same as having her there in person. She bit back the urge to beg her to come back, but the reality was that Sophie’s family needed her. Cami wouldn’t be the selfish teenager that she was before. She would grow up and let Sophie go.

She had taken care of herself for most of the school year now, and she’d be off to OSU just as soon as they opened the dorm room doors for summer semester. She was her own maid. Sort of. She took care of her own laundry and shopping. Her mother had insisted they still have a cleaning service come in once a week. But there were only a few more months until she could fly the coop, so to speak. College was waiting for her. Kyle might not be there, but at least she had getting away from her mother’s constant disparagement to look forward to.

Cami’s mom had never been much of a homemaker or a nurturer. The transition from pageant queen to trophy wife had been pretty seamless for her. There was a brief stop at unwed mother, but Derek had rectified that situation as soon as Theresa had told him she was expecting their daughter. He had a political career to look forward to after all.

Cameron Louise Nickelson was the “honeymoon” baby of pageant queen and future whatever-political-position-he-decided-to-run-for. That was the story they sold the press and they ate it up. There was a reason that the Nickelsons were so popular in the Bluffs. They’d worked hard for the spotlight. Derek with his politics, Theresa with her involvement in the pageant world and charitable giving, and Cami... Well, she used to follow in her mother’s footsteps, but lately, she’d felt like the last place she wanted to be was in the spotlight. She quite preferred dark closets.

Dark closets with a boy she barely knew, to be more precise. With lips and hands that could clear even the most cluttered of minds, which is exactly what Cami’s mind was. A completely, cluttered, grief-ridden mess of heartbreak and regret.

The second that Brantley Cooper had kissed her in that dark closet it was almost as if she was having an out of body experience. Her body could damn sure feel it, but her mind was just blank. No thoughts of thunderstorms, or Kyle, or his nosy little sister. She didn’t think about the way her parents hadn’t even noticed that she spent every night crying herself to sleep or the countless containers of eye cream she’d burned through trying to fight the dark circles that had started to appear.

A sense of wrong hit her after, when she was sneaking out of the closet and back to her life in the west wing of SBHS. It was wrong for her to be kissing a boy she didn’t know when one that she did had just died. Her heart hadn’t healed, so she swore that whatever had happened with Brantley was a one time thing. At least that’s what she told herself...at first. Being with him wasn’t about falling in love; it was about feeling something that wasn’t related to pain.

She was still contemplating this Monday morning at school. It was just before lunch hour when the object of her desire came sauntering toward her. Brantley Cooper gave her the slightest of nods directing her attention to the stairwell that led down to their den of ill repute. They’d somehow settled into a routine of meeting up in the utility closet despite the fact that they rarely spoke outside of it.

She wondered briefly if she’d become some beck and call girl that he was now subject to her own lust and lack of sensibility, but it quickly passed when he winked one of his warm, brown eyes at her. She glanced around quickly to see if anyone was paying attention to their exchange before letting her libido lead her to follow him.

“Afternoon, gorgeous,” he whispered in her ear as he pulled her in to the closet.

Their lips were on one another’s before the door even had a chance to click shut. His tongue slipped between her lips, jolting her from the past that she was constantly reliving to the present where nothing else mattered by greedily taking what he was offering.

His hands smoothed down her back and started to slip underneath the hem of her shirt. His rough fingertips blazed a trail across the smooth skin of her back. She bit down on his bottom lip, causing him to tug her body closer to his. A growl-like moan rumbled from the back of his throat, and she could feel the effects of her kiss pressing into her stomach.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Prom Queen,” he warned with a grin. “You’re making me want to do all kinds of things we don’t really have the time for.” His reminder that their rendezvous were limited by the minutes between bells and during drills pulled her from the lust-filled haze she found herself in with him. Most of their encounters would be considered casual make out sessions, but their hands had started to get minds of their own as of late. “Maybe we should continue this outside of the closet?”

“Like a date?” she scoffed.

The second she saw the wounded look on his face, she wished she could take it back, but he had to know that this closet was the only place they were ever going to be together. It wasn’t that Cami hadn’t thought about having sex with him. It was hard not to when his body was pressed up tight against hers. It was the fact the last time she’d been with anyone it was Kyle. She wasn’t near ready to go down that road with anyone else.

“Guess not,” he said, dropping his hands from her body.

“It’s not...” She crossed her arms over chest and took a step back. She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t ready to date other people. She wasn’t ready to forget the last relationship she was in because that would have meant saying goodbye to Kyle. Her heart wasn’t ready to be vulnerable again. She couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that. “It’s not part of our arrangement,” she pointed out. “And neither is meeting up on days other than drill days.” She inhaled deeply through her nose, straightening her back to feign a look of certainty. “You can’t just nod and expect me to follow you to the basement whenever you get the notion to put your hands on someone.”

“I don’t recall forcing you to come down here,” he tossed back.

“You know what I mean. This can’t be more than it is. I’m not—”

“Yeah, I get it. It is what it is and nothing more.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Wouldn’t want the whole world to see you with the guy from the wrong side of the county line, now would we?”

“Please don’t do that,” she protested. “You’re asking me for something I’m not ready for. It has nothing to do with you or where you’re from.”

“You’re not in here making out with yourself,” he said, his jaw clenching tightly as if he’d tried not to let the words slip out. “I’m involved whether you like it or not. So yeah, it does have
something
to do with me.”

“It doesn’t have to.” She narrowed her eyes in on his and felt her muscles go tight. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but he was setting out to ruin the one thing in her life that she actually looked forward to. If he couldn’t handle the no-strings-attached deal they had, then maybe it was best they parted ways. “I’m sure I can find someone else that will—”

“You ready to replace me? Just like that, huh?” His lips formed a thin line as he shook his head at her and took a step forward. Her body went stiff as he reached up and brushed her hair over her shoulders so he could really see her face.

“I could,” she said, hearing the quiver in her voice and knowing that she was lying to him and to herself. She used to be much better at it. Truth be told, there was no one else she wanted to let into her life. She’d barely let Brantley Cooper in, but if he wanted to be a jerk about it, he was free to go.

“Well that’d be a shame. Because I doubt the next guy would be able to do this.” His lips found her neck and she held her breath as he wrapped his arms around her once again. When he licked a soft trail behind her ear, she trembled in his arms. “Tell me, how long would it take you to find someone who could make you feel like this? A day? A week? Two weeks?”

“W-whenever I wanted to,” she murmured, gripping his arms firmly to keep herself upright.

“Keep telling yourself that,” he whispered in her ear. His hand moved up her back to the base of her neck. His fingers tangled in her hair as he turned her face to his. “If this is all you want, then I’ll give it to you, but don’t for a second think that I’m replaceable.”

He crushed his mouth to hers and her body and her resolve to keep it casual loosened with each stroke of his tongue against hers.

T
he last day of school before holiday break was always a joke. Movie in first period. Bullshit reading list for break no one would fool with in second. And so on. But this year, a school-wide assembly had been called. Hayden followed his US government class to the auditorium, silently scanning the crowd for any sign of Ella Jane. As he’d expected, the girls here were not her biggest fans—even if they did all imitate her style. She didn’t even seem to notice the influx of flannel and denim and floral dresses and cowgirl boots that now surrounded them, but he did. It drove him crazy because he mistook someone else for her about three times a day.

Once they were settled into their seats, he continued his scanning. Finally, he saw her three rows back, sitting next to a group of girls that were steadfastly ignoring her. The seats around her were full, but the row behind her was empty.