Slashed (Extreme Risk 3)

“All I was doing was trying to pack my bags. She’s the one who came into my room uninvited, and she’s the one who tripped over her own feet.” I shove him, hard, and since he’s not expecting it, I actually manage to knock him back a few steps. As soon as his hand slips off my arm, I head for the door.

Except Zach puts himself in my way. Zach who, next to Luc, Ash, and Z, has always been my best friend. Zach who, according to his text this morning, thinks I’m being a spoiled brat.

“Get out of my way,” I tell him.

“Will you just stop being so fucking stubborn and listen for a minute?”

“I’m not the one who isn’t listening. Get. Out. Of. My. Way.”

“Or what?” he asks, lifting a sardonic brow.

“Or I’ll move you.” I reach out to shove him the same way I did Ty, but before I can connect, my father’s voice booms across the entryway. “Cameron Michelle Bradley, stop acting like a rabid dog or I’m going to muzzle you. Put those bags down right now and go wash up in the kitchen. You’re staying for breakfast.”

I freeze in my tracks, because when my Dad uses that tone, you fall into line. It doesn’t matter how old or how angry or how hurt you are, you do as your told. And while an objective part of my brain tells me that I can ignore him—that I can sti

ll walk out—my twenty-one years worth of family knowledge say something entirely different. I drop my bags on the foyer floor before heading into the kitchen for what I can only assume will be the most miserably long and uncomfortable breakfast in Bradley family history.

Chapter 12

Luc

“So what happened between Josh and Cam last night?” Z asks as soon as I return to our table after a quick trip to the restroom.

“I don’t know,” I answer even as I try to block out how happy she looked laughing up at him at the bar. Or how good they looked—how well they fit—when they were dancing together. “I don’t think anything happened. Why?”

Z slides his phone across the table so Ash and I can see the latest string of text messages he’d gotten from Josh.

hey dude, great seeing you last night. cam’s super cool. what kind of food does she like? I’m going to take her out this week.

And a few minutes later:

does she like going out on the water?

I stare at the texts, trying to figure out how to respond without giving too much away. But it feels like the Hulk has just smashed the hell out of my chest cavity—or should I say, the heart out of it—and it probably looks like it, too. Especially since it takes me a couple of seconds too long to come up with an answer.

The quiet around us goes from waiting to awkward in a moment. I know it. I can feel it in the throbbing sound of silence that fills up all the air and just hangs there, slowly crushing me for long, painful seconds.

And still, I can’t speak—can’t get my brain to form words. I’m too busy re-reading the fucking texts. I’m going over and over them in my head, trying to figure out how the boogeyman that kept me awake most of the night has suddenly become real.

He doesn’t say that he’s going to ask Cam out. He says that he’s taking her out. Does that mean that he’s already asked? And that she’s said yes?

How the fuck is that possible? And if it is possible—if it is true—shouldn’t she have mentioned something to me about it at some point?

Not that I’ve exactly given her a chance to talk to me, I fucked her into exhaustion last night, and then left before she woke up this morning. But still, I let her move into my condo. I bought her bagels. I’m her best friend. Surely, if she was going to go out on a date with a guy while she’s fucking me, she should have found a way to bring it up. Maybe before climbing naked into the pool and winding herself all over me.

“Maybe he just asked her,” Ash says, like he’s reading my fucking mind or something. “I mean, we’ve been gone all day. He could have texted her this morning and asked.”

“Yeah, probably,” Z agrees, pulling his phone out of my hands and shoving it back in his pocket where I kind of wish it had stayed all along. “Or, you know Josh. He probably just figures she’ll agree when he finally gets around to asking.”

“That actually sounds a lot like him,” Ash says. “He’s an arrogant fuck.”

“Yeah, but that’s the way Cam likes her guys, isn’t it?” The words are out before I even know I’m going to say them. And if I thought things were awkward before, I just took it to a whole new level.

“Dude, that was a long time ago,” Z says after the most uncomfortable pause ever.

“It was nine months ago. And it lasted for years.”

“Yeah, but she was never really serious about—”