“I’d like to finish the weekend, so I hope you both decide to stay,” I say, and ignore the way it makes me feel that Cameron looks relieved at my answer.
We all work together to tidy up the kitchen and place the dirty dishes next to the sink. Leah excuses herself first to go to her room to call her husband, then Ollie challenges Val to a round of darts in the game room.
She perks up at his offer, but I imagine it has more to do with the activity itself rather than spending time alone with him. “Drew, Cameron, you want to join us?”
“I am going to get these dishes in the dishwasher and then call it a night,” Cameron says with a smile. “You guys have fun, and feel free to utilize anything else in the house while you’re here.”
Val nods, then turns to me. While I would like to see her in action, I decide to hang back so that I can ask Cameron a few more questions about Delaney’s theory. “You two go ahead, I’m going to help get these dishes taken care of, and then I’ll be right there.”
Val’s face sours a bit at the idea of being alone with Ollie until I finish, but Ollie looks thrilled. I give her a nod to confirm that I will be there in a few minutes to save her, if necessary. Although I have full confidence that she can handle herself just fine in any situation.
The two of them disappear down the hall, and my heartbeat ticks up involuntarily at the fact that Cameron and I are once again alone together.
“Do you have any Tupperware so that I can save the rest of this for tomorrow?” I ask, in an attempt to give Val and Ollie a few more seconds to get out of earshot before I dive into my questions about Delaney.
He opens one of the many cupboards in the enormous kitchen and pulls out a stack of glass containers with lids, then hands me a clean serving spoon so that I can transfer everything from the platters into them.
Once I am certain that Val and Ollie are far enough away, I ask the question that I have been dying to hear the answer to eversince he brought it up. “Please tell me more about this so-calledmaster planthat Delaney thinks you and I have.”
“Yeah, about that . . .” He busies himself with lining up the huge stack of plates in the bottom rack of the dishwasher.
“Oh, come on. You can’t drop that bomb and then expect me not to ask for details.” I snap the lid on top of a full container of smoked salmon puff pastries and reach for the plate of desserts to pack up next.
He ignores my question and moves on to start loading the top rack of the dishwasher with bowls and glassware.
“Cameron,” I prompt, growing impatient, and set aside two of the berry fruit tarts on a napkin for when we are finished cleaning up.
He continues to pretend that he doesn’t hear me and instead grabs a detergent tablet from under the sink and then clicks a few buttons on the dishwasher display until it locks and begins the cycle. I snap the lid on the last container and head for the fridge, planning to stash them inside and go straight over to stand right next to him so he can’t avoid my question any longer.
“Let me get that for you,” he says, and hustles over to open the massive refrigerator door as if he wasn’t just pretending I didn’t exist.
I deposit them next to the Saran wrap-covered charcuterie from earlier and relax at the fact that we at least have plenty of food to make it through the next two days if we all decide to stay.
He returns to the sink the second the refrigerator doors close, and frowns down at the remaining pile of dishes. “I think I am going to have to hand-wash the rest of these.”
I march over to stand right next to him, standing so close that when I cross my arms, they brush against his forearm. “Cameron. Stop trying to ignore me and answer my question right this second.”
He looks down at where our arms touch, and then up to my face, and I am momentarily distracted from my mission as I plunge into the depths of his deep brown eyes, which I only now notice have flecks of russet that encircle his pupils.
I turn away so that my lungs can function correctly again, and he reaches forward to plug the sink and turn on the faucet, adding a swirl of dish soap on top of the hot water. I try to think about the sweet smell of the lavender bubbles instead of the way our shoulders have settled next to each other, and how neither of us seems to be willing to move to separate them.
We get into a rhythm: He washes the dishes in his side of the sink, and I rinse and dry them on mine. All the while, our arms continue to brush the other at every move, and I forget all about what I wanted to ask him when he clears his throat to speak.
“When I told the group earlier that Delaney thinks you and I have some sort of prior working relationship, that wasn’t entirely true.”
I sneak a sideways glance up at him, but he keeps his focus on the plate in his hand. “What kind of relationship did she think we have, then?” I ask.
He scrubs at an already sparkling-clean spot on the plate for a few more seconds before he answers. “A romantic one.”
I look down to my side of the sink to hide my blush. If Delaney were here right now, I could understand how she would think that, but all my interactions with Cameron, including this one, have been in private.
“How did she come to that conclusion?” I ask because there has to be something more to this story that he has been holding back so far.
He finally hands me the plate that he has been scrubbing for the past minute but does not reach for the next one. Instead, he places his hands on the edge of the sink and looks at a spot in the distance out the rain-soaked window.
“I’ve actually been needing to tell you something for a while now, but I have been struggling to find the courage to do it.”
Chapter twenty-five
