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“Why the hell would you do that?”
She gave him a double take like he’d fallen off his rocker and into an alternate dimension. It was the only reasonable explanation to how only a few seconds ago he let the wall down he’d put up years ago and was seriously drooling over Cami’s ass like some food-deprived beast.
“Because I wanted to. People say blondes have more fun, but I think redheads do, and I wanted a change, not that I need to explain any of this to you.”
Of course she didn’t, but when a person decides to completely alter their appearance, shouldn’t they send out a memo or something so other people could prepare? If he’d known she was drastically changing her hair color, he would’ve known it was her reaching for the shelf, her back turned to him, and he never would have let his eyes travel as far south as they did.
It wasn’t the only time he’d checked her out, but he’d been resisting his attraction to her for so long, he’d become a pro at it. Now the curtain had dropped and he couldn’t stop thinking about her body, the way her eyebrows pinched together as she stared at him with annoyance. How her lips pressed into a thin perturbed line like she was trying to bite back another snarky comment.
The first time he had noticed her as someone other than his baby sister’s best friend was when she was nineteen, a woman trying to find her place in the world, who would come to the restaurant, order an iced tea and talk to him about her career path and life in general. He’d warned himself away from her then. She was still young, had a lot living to do to discover herself and what it was she wanted out of life. He would have just been a distraction, if she would have even given him a chance.
The next time was when she was twenty-two, and she had finally decided what she wanted to do with her life. Out of all the people she could have spoken to, she came to him for his advice. Watching the passion bloom inside her as she anticipated starting her own business and becoming a fixture in the town that she loved, showed him a new side to her. A side that was as intriguing as it was endearing.
Now she looked at him with those curious brown eyes and he mentally knocked himself good and took a calming breath, clearing any remaining visuals of her ass in those jeans.
“Now that we’ve established you hate my hair,” she said.
“I never said that. It was just unexpected. I’m sorry. It looks…nice.”
“Nice? Wow, you really know how to flatter a girl.”
Nice was a good compliment. What else was he supposed to say? The truth? That her hair made her unrecognizable, and he’d let the carefully constructed wall he’d put up between them drop. How now that the wall had fallen, he was reeling to try and build it back up again.
But why? She was no longer a young woman trying to find her place in the world. She was settled into her life now, the girl who once loved to party had replaced late nights with early morning shifts and beer bongs with coffee beans. He no longer had to look at her as his baby sister’s best friend and he hadn’t in quite some time now.
She was just Cami, overly ambitious, know it all, smartass, beautiful Cami, and he no longer wanted to force himself to ignore the light she sparked inside him whenever she was in his presence.
“You okay? You’re acting weird,” Cami said.
He cleared his throat and ran a hand over his face, in an attempt to act normal and not like he just came to a realization that could possibly change their dynamic forever. “Sorry, didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Then you’re in the right place, my friend.”
The word friend had never bothered him before, but now it stabbed at his heart and twisted.
“What can I get you? Your usual, or are you going to step outside of your comfort zone?” she asked.
For as long as Cami had been in business, she’d been trying to get him to try something new, but he knew what he liked; to him there was no point.
“My usual is fine.”
“Of course. God forbid Enzo Moretti tries anything new.” She grabbed a cup and spun to the house coffee pot. He purposely forced his eyes on the chalkboard above with the list of all the specialty concoctions to keep himself from gawking at her ass. “You know what your problem is?” she asked.
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.” A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, but he let it fall when Cami turned back to him.
“You don’t like change.”
“That’s not true. Ella is currently redoing my entire place.” His sister was getting her interior decorating business off the ground, and he’d volunteered his house for her to redo so she could have a few new pages added to her portfolio. Something he’d been trying not to regret.
“And you’re being a pain in the ass about the whole thing.”
Maybe he wasn’t a fan of all the changes Ella was making, and he gave his sister a hard time pretty much every step of the way, but he was the one who had to live there. Besides, what was so wrong with liking things a certain way? There was structure in the familiar which helped prevent chaos.
Enzo didn’t like chaos because he couldn’t control it. Anything he couldn’t control made his throat constrict.
“I’m helping her.”
Cami practically snorted. “And how is you being a royal pain in the butt helping her?”
