Before I could get too deep in the fantasy, I forced myself to stand up and unwrap my hair. I needed to get it as dry as possible before I put it up for the night or it would be a crazy mess in the morning. If I didn't do it now, I wouldn't do it at all.
There was a knock on my door and I couldn't control the irritation in my voice when I said, "Come in."
Cam stuck her head in the room. "Hey, you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm okay." I sighed and lowered the towel from my hair.
"What happened?" she asked.
I couldn't suppress the growl. I was frustrated with him again, but no longer about the trash bag incident. She didn't need to know that though. "Ben Murphy happened."
"How did Ben cause you to end up covered in ice cream?" she asked, sounding confused.
"He tried to help me carry out the trash," I grumbled as I went back to scrubbing my hair dry. And he left me with a horrible case of blue bean that I couldn't take care of as long as Cam was around.
"I didn't catch that," she said.
With a groan, I gave up drying my hair and threw the towel on the end of the bed. If I kept this up, I'd be bald before I went to sleep. "I said that Ben tried to help me throw the trash into the dumpster behind the shop. For some reason, my being short and female equates with complete helplessness in his eyes. We were arguing and playing tug-of-war with two very full trash bags when they busted open. Somehow, I'm the only one who ended up covered in a million gallons of melted ice cream."
"I'm sure he was just trying to help," Cam said.
I just lifted my eyes and stared at her.
Apparently, it wasn't a nice look because she recoiled and asked, "What?"
"He's a good guy. I didn't recognize it at first because he looks like a bad boy, but he is. He's nice." There, I admitted it.
"Um, I'm confused. Is nice a bad character trait in a man?" Cam asked.
"You know what happens to the nice ones when I get involved." I frowned as I thought about Brian and how things had ended with him in the not-so-distant past.
That couldn't happen again though because Ben knew where I stood. Right?
"I don't think I do. Why don't you explain it to me?"
I couldn't look at her while I said this, so I grabbed my nightclothes and underwear from the dresser and carried them into the bathroom. "I don't do well with good guys, Cam." I called out to her. "I chew them up and spit them out. I need someone who can stand up to me."
"That sounds like it came out of someone else's mouth," she argued, lifting her voice so I could hear her.
I bent over and wrapped the towel that had been around my body back around my hair. It was still too wet and I didn't want my t-shirt to get damp before I went to sleep.
When I came out of the bathroom, Cam was still standing in the doorway, so I flopped facedown on the bed and said, "Yeah, well, more than one of my ex's have mentioned it before, so I'm pretty sure it's true."
"Hey."
I refused to look up and just grunted at her, hoping she would let this drop.
"Sierra, look at me."
I should have known that wouldn't work. Inhaling, I lifted my face to look at her.
When she saw she had my attention, she said, "You are one of the strongest, smartest women I know. There are some men that can't handle that. And that's okay. That means he isn't the right man for you. But please don't discount someone who tries to treat you well. You deserve a man who wants to take care of you, even if you're more than capable of taking care of yourself."
I wanted to believe her, I did. But Cam always tried to see the best in me, and in this case, I wasn't sure my best was what I'd given. So, I groaned, laid my head back down, and said, "Okay."
Her voice was sharp when she stated, "Don't ignore what I'm saying."
"I'm not. I agree with everything you're saying, but it doesn't make the past go away. Let's just say that Ben caught me on a bad day." I said all of this with my face pressed into the bed, the comforter muffling my voice.
