Chapter 12

Alexander

As I waited for Casey to arrive at my house, I reread the text message she sent me when I mentioned the camping plans.

Camping? Not sure if that sounds like a romantic outing or a horror movie. I’m in!

She had the perfect sense of humor. I hadn’t thought about it until after she said it, but I supposed most people wouldn’t want to go on a camping trip with someone they’d known for only a month. But then again, we weren’t most people.

I walked out the front door as Casey’s sedan pulled into my driveway. She rolled down the window. “Is this really where you live?”

“It is, indeed,” I said.

“Damn,” she said. “Nice digs.”

I smiled. I knew Casey was self-conscious about her studio apartment, so I didn’t want it to seem like I was shoving my house in her face. “I’d give you a tour, but I want to get on the road so we don’t hit traffic.”

“That’s fine. I’ll just have to come back another time.”

I helped Casey move her bags from her trunk to mine and I asked if she’d ever been camping before. Apparently, this question warranted a laugh, which I took in stride. Casey told me that the closest she’d ever come to camping was sleeping in a tent in her dorm room with some friends in college. “Don’t worry,” I assured her. “You’re with a camping pro.”

“Is that so?” Casey replied.

“Ten years of Boy Scouts right here.”

Casey chuckled until she realized I wasn’t joking. “Seriously?”

“Yup,” I said with a nod.

“Damn. I bet more people would appreciate Boy Scouts if they put pictures of guys like you on the cover of their brochure.” I blushed as I took my place in the driver’s seat. It wasn’t a secret that Casey found me attractive, but it was nice to be reminded.

I told Casey all about the campground we were going to. I’d been there four or five times with my college buddies, and I thought it might be a nice way for the two of us to get to know each other. “You can text your friends the name of the campground,” I said. “You know, just in case this turns into a horror movie.”

We both laughed. “Got any good music in here?” Casey asked.

“Define good,” I said. “Please tell me you’re not a country music fan!”

Casey shook her head. “I’m not. But here’s a little secret for you. I’m a big fan of ‘80s music.”

I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a small CD binder. “There’s probably something for you in here,” I said.

The hour-and-a-half-long car ride seemed to fly by. I suppose it was the great company. Casey was a horrible singer, but it was a blast hearing her attempt to sing along to Blondie and Bon Jovi. We had similar taste in music, shared equally awful singing voices, and neither of us was afraid to play a little air guitar. It felt as if we’d made this drive a hundred times before.

“Here we are,” I said. With peak season having recently ended, the campgrounds were far more desolate than I’d ever seen them, but that just meant more privacy for me and Casey. I watched Casey’s face as she soaked everything in. The tall, mossy trees enveloped us, and the rough dirt greeted our shoes below us.

“This is…uh…rustic,” Casey replied.

There was something in her voice I couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t exactly frustration, or disdain, or confusion, or excitement. It was a weird blend of the four. “Look, if you don’t like it here, we can head back to Atlanta. I just thought it might be fun.”

“I’m sure it will be,” Casey said. “This is just new territory for me. That’s all.” She shot me a smile that sent my heart beating a bit faster.

“Come on. Let’s get set up,” I said. We unloaded our bags and camping equipment from the back of my Lexus and put them on the ground beside my car. “Well someone packed for a solid week or two.”

Casey blushed. “Sorry. I didn’t know what a camping trip required. We can leave the blue backpack in the car.”

“No worries!”

“Is there a…umm…I have to go to the bathroom.”

I spread my arms open wide for dramatic effect. “You’re looking at it,” I said. “Nature at its finest!”

“Seriously?!” Casey exclaimed.

“Nah,” I said with a chuckle. Pointing to a pathway that started a few feet behind the car, I added, “It’s just down that trail.”

Rolling her eyes, Casey retreated down the trail. I liked that I could joke around with her. I walked over to where Casey had dropped her bags and picked up the blue one, as per her request. As I threw it into the trunk, a plastic bottle fell out of the mesh water bottle compartment on the side. I stretched my arm out and grabbed the bottle, completely unprepared to learn what was inside. Prenatal Vitamin. For use during, before, and after pregnancy.

It wasn’t like Casey’s pregnancy was a secret she’d kept from me. I was well aware that she was pregnant, and even more aware that the baby was mine. It was just that, with all of our dates and fun and sex, any thoughts about the baby had been sent to the back of my mind. It was the elephant in the room, the topic we avoided at the risk of ruining whatever romance was blossoming between us. After all, Casey’s baby bump was nonexistent for now—which meant the issue seemed to be, too.

I shoved the vitamins back into the side compartment and slammed my trunk shut. I had been calm and collected the whole car ride to the campgrounds, and, in a matter of thirty seconds, I’d developed knots in my stomach. What the hell was I doing? Was it even safe to take a pregnant woman camping? How did Casey feel about this whole situation? I decided to see how the camping trip went before worrying any further. There was no use in discussing the baby—or even our future—if this relationship turned out to be a dud.

In an effort to keep my mind from wandering, I picked up the package containing the tent and began to assemble it. As I hammered the third tent peg into the ground, I heard footsteps behind me. “You know, I thought going out with a big shot CEO meant I’d be spending my nights in somewhere other than a tent in the middle of nowhere,” Casey said with a grin.

“Very funny,” I smirked. “This CEO still likes to rough it every now and again.”

One of the most genuine looks of contentment I’d ever seen appeared upon Casey’s face. “Sounds good to me.”

Matching her smile, I gently pulled Casey’s hand as she knelt on the ground beside me. “Care to help?”

“Sure,” she said. In one swift motion, Casey flipped her gorgeous tresses over her head and tied them up into a perfectly messy ponytail. “What can I do?”

Casey, though new to the world of camping, put forth her best effort in helping me set up the tent. Twenty minutes—and countless laughs—later, our tent for two was complete with our bags inside. I couldn’t help but think about how refreshing it was to be with a girl who wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.

In the past, women just assumed that, because I had money, I only wanted to do what they considered to be “rich people things”, like jetting off to Europe for the weekend or getting front row tickets to a theater show. Sure, I considered myself to be well-off, but I was also just an ordinary guy who had grown up in a middle-class Florida family. I liked the simple things, like camping, and jogging, and going to the movies. The last girl I asked to go camping barely let me get the words out of my mouth before shooting me down and laughing. I looked over at Casey, who was checking for the third time to make sure the pegs were in evenly, and I knew she was different.

“So, now what?” Casey asked.

“That’s up to you,” I said. “We can go for a hike, relax by the lake, maybe go for a swim.”

Casey barely let me finish giving the options before she said, “A hike sounds like fun!”. Since hiking was my third-favorite form of exercising—behind jogging and free weights—I had no objections. Taking Casey’s hand in mine, I led her down the trails I’d hiked on previous visits.

“Is a four-mile loop too much for our first hike?” I asked.

“It’s perfect! Let me go change my shoes!”

While Casey was in the tent, I set up a canoe for us to use later on. We spent nearly two hours on the trail, stopping at the halfway point for a lunch I didn’t even know Casey had packed. In between bites of chicken salad sandwiches and kettle-cooked chips, I recounted to Casey my time in the Boy Scouts. She was equal parts amused and interested, as most people were when they learned I had been a scout. Casey, wanting to contribute something back to the conversation, told me about a friend of hers that was a Girl Scout growing up. I nodded as she told me about her friend’s attempt to break the Girl Scout cookie-selling record in Tallahassee.

Everything felt so natural with Casey. When we hit the third mile marker, she jumped on her tiptoes and gave me a big smooch. It felt like we’d been dating for years. As I watched Casey’s voluptuous body make its way around the corner in front of us, I caught a glimpse of our future. We’d only been dating—was that even what this was? – for a little under three months, but I could see us taking little road trips like this for years to come. Maybe we could even bring our child along. The thoughts flooding my mind brought me to the realization I’d been dodging for days.

I was falling in love with Casey Donohue.