Redeeming You (Before You #2)(25)
“Cam,” Bre said smiling and then her eyes dropped to Cam and Taylor’s interlaced hands before she met his eyes. Cam recognized that look—stunned disbelief.
Fuck. Cam dropped Taylor’s hand and he quickened his pace, hoping Taylor would follow his lead. He didn’t want to deal with Jax or Bre’s questions, mostly because he couldn’t answer them. No, that wasn’t true. He wasn’t ready to answer any questions about Taylor.
He tried to stay away from Taylor for the past five days thinking that if he backed off a bit, he wouldn’t want her. But, unfortunately, by day four he was coming out of his skin. Every second he couldn’t touch her made him increasingly on edge to the point where he had little enthusiasm for the show last night. Normally, being on stage was his only escape from his f*cked up life where he could focus on playing music and all his regrets melted away, but that didn’t happen last night. All he could think about was making it to Las Vegas so he could have some time alone with Taylor again.
“Hey,” he nodded at Jax and Bre, pausing in front of them. “What are you two doing tonight?” he asked, not even remotely interested in the answer. Too bad he couldn’t just keep walking and pretend as if he hadn’t seen them.
“We have dinner reservations,” Jax answered smiling at Bre. “What about you?”
Cam looked over his shoulder. Taylor stood about ten feet away, purposely not joining the discussion. “Not sure. I might meet up with Marcus and Alec and go to a few clubs or gamble.”
“Taylor,” Jax said looking over Cam’s shoulder. “Are you okay with that?”
“I’m fine with whatever,” she answered shrugging her shoulders.
“Have you eaten?” Bre asked.
“No,” Cam said rocking back on his heels.
Bre looked at Jax. “You can join us.”
“No, thanks. We’re good.” He didn’t want to get sucked into dinner with Bre and Jax. He had spent the last thirty minutes scrambling to make plans and they didn’t include spending the night with Jax and Bre.
“Why don’t you ask Taylor what she wants?” Bre said chuckling, but Cam could tell the laugh was a poorly executed attempt at covering her rebuke. “You’re not acting very considerate.”
“Don’t worry about me. Cam’s been really considerate this past week. I don’t have any complaints,” Taylor said lifting her hands in front of her briefly before dropping them to her sides. “He’s been really easy to work with.”
“Are you sure?” Bre said with her eyebrows arched. Damn Bre, why couldn’t she leave it alone? The look on her face told him she smelled blood and was going in for the kill.
“Bre,” Jax said, pressing his hands on the top of her shoulders, rubbing her consolingly. “Let it be.”
From the facial expressions bouncing between them, Bre and Jax appeared to be having some sort of silent debate, but he didn’t want to stand around and wait for the conclusion. Reaching behind him, he grabbed Taylor’s hand, pulling her forward. Screw Bre and Jax. He didn’t want to waste any portion of his night with Taylor. They could think what they wanted. At that moment, he didn’t care. He’d deal with the consequences later.
“See you, later,” he called out over his shoulder after he pressed the elevator button.
When they stepped on to the elevator, Taylor slipped her hand from his hold and folded her arms across her chest.
“Are you mad?” Cam asked. She agreed to keep their relationship secret for the time being, so he didn’t think she should be mad, but clearly something altered her mood and not in a good way.
Worrying her bottom lip, she turned to look at Cam. “No. Not really. I just…I don’t know.” Her words trailed off as she looked at the floor.
Not the answer he wanted. Cam sighed touching his finger to her lip to stop her from biting it. “Explain.”
“I thought when you mentioned doing something with me, you planned to spend some time with just the two of us tonight—not Marcus or my brother.” Sucking her lower lip back into her mouth again, she dropped her head toward the floor, the patterned carpet absorbing her attention. “It’s fine. Whatever you want.”
“I do want to spend time alone, but I didn’t think I needed to share that with Bre and Jax.” His eyes searched hers for any clues hinting what she was thinking, but her face didn’t give anything away.
“You don’t want Bre to know about us,” she said, her voice utterly flat and emotionless.
“No.”
“Oh,” she said suddenly more interested in the elevator buttons than any human could be.
He wrapped his arm around her waist pulling her close to his side. She tensed. “It’s not like that.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re just having fun. That’s what we agreed,” she said, her eyes looking everywhere but at him and he hated it.
“Tay,” he said, squeezing her waist. When she still wouldn’t look at him, he tipped her chin up with his other hand. “I don’t care if Bre sees me with someone else, but I don’t want the guys to know about us yet, especially Jax. He’d probably want to hire someone else to finish the month and I don’t want that.”
“You don’t?” she asked.