Path of Destruction (Broken Heartland, #2)(54)

Cami was a lot of things to him—confidant, one-time girlfriend, best friend, ego checker, and now nurse. He shouldn’t have been angry with her. The girl already walked around like she was carrying a two-hundred-pound boulder on her shoulders, he shouldn’t be adding to it.

“Thank you.”

Cami finished up and placed her hand on his face to turn it up toward the light. “That’s as good as I can do.” She gave him a soft smile as she moved his face back to hers. A sudden rush of nostalgia hit him as she looked at him.

“Thanks, Cami-girl,” he said, placing his hand on top of hers. “Not just for this but for always being there. I appreciate it more than you know.” With a quiet nod, she stared at him. He wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was.

It would be so easy for us to just be together.

To be like they once were. Before the bubble that was Summit Bluffs burst and the outside world came crashing into their perfect existence. She had to have been because when he placed his hand on her hip and pulled her to stand between his legs she didn’t protest.

With his hand on the skin the cut-out back of her dress revealed, he lowered his lips tentatively toward hers.

Her pouty, red lips welcomed his in a familiar caress as she moved her arms around his neck. Slowly they explored one another’s mouths as Hayden waited for some kind of grand sign from the universe that this was the girl he was supposed to be kissing. That the pink, cherry Chap-Stick covered lips of Ella Jane Mason were not his end all be all. He tried to kiss Ella Jane’s memory right out of his mind, and Cami was more than accommodating.

She moaned softly against his lips and he slid off the counter, pressing his body against hers as his feet hit the floor. The attraction between them was still there. She could still make his heart race and blood rush.

The comforting smell of her high-end perfume reminded him of the good times they’d had. God, it just felt so good to be on the same page as someone. Cami reached for the hem of his shirt, tugging it up over his head, careful not to reopen his wound.

He returned his mouth to hers—this time with more purpose than before. Both of them seeming to be fueled by an eagerness. To return to what once was. To move on. To erase the past and forget.

Cami’s hands traveled down Hayden’s chest, her touch reminding him just how easy things with her were. How simple they’d been. Uncomplicated. Predictable and convenient. But as he started to reach for the zipper of her dress, he felt her resolve weaken as her lips stilled. The sudden change in her demeanor allowed his brain to catch up to his body. There was a blue-eyed blonde wearing a wounded expression permanently etched behind his eyes.

You can’t just forget her.

As they came up for air, he knew that as nice and familiar as it all felt, it wasn’t the same.

“We can’t go back, can we?” Cami asked in a broken whisper. Her brown eyes sought out his.

Hayden shook his head apologetically. “Guess not. But, God. I wish we could.” He kissed her forehead before she removed herself from in front of him.

Positioning herself next to him against the kitchen island, Cami wrapped her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder. “When did everything get so complicated?”

“You want an exact date or just a ballpark?” He chuckled.

He knew the exact date for him. It was June eleventh—the day that Ella Jane Mason came bouncing down the steps of her front porch and gave him a not so warm welcome to his new job. She’d been rude, demanding, and breathtakingly beautiful.

“Can I ask you a question?” Cami left her head resting on his shoulder.

Hayden cleared his throat, wishing he could clear his memory as easily. “Sure.”

“Why are you still chasing after her?”

There was no need to ask who she was talking about. Hayden’s feelings for Ella Jane were transparent.

After trying to come up with a decent answer, he simply shrugged. “I don’t know how to quit. I wish I did. It’s not like I haven’t tried to turn it off and just get on with my life, but she’s all I f*cking think about. You know?”

She sighed loudly, heavily, as if carrying a weight similar to his own heartache. “I do. More than you know.”

“You still hung up on the guy from this summer?” Hayden asked, remembering the night of the bonfire. The night of the storm. There was another exact date that changed the course of his life irrevocably.

She finally stood up straight and looked at him. “It’s more complicated than I can even being to explain.” She sighed. “I waited too long. Screwed up things I can’t change.”

“I get it.” He understood where she was coming from. If he hadn’t had the party, if he hadn’t left his grandparents alone that night, if he wouldn’t have told Ella Jane to wait for him on the ridge. There were a lot of things that he wished he could change, but people were dead, lives were destroyed, hearts were broken, and he didn’t possess the power to change any of those things.

“Maybe that’s why I can’t stop chasing her. I don’t want to look back and regret not telling her how I feel.” He watched Cami nod at what he was saying.

“I know exactly what you mean. And trust me, it will be the things you didn’t say that you’ll regret the most.”

He wasn’t sure what was going on in that head of hers and he wasn’t going to force it out of her. If he knew anything about her, it was that sometimes just sitting there and being her shoulder to cry on was the best thing he could do.