“Coffee?” Garrett asked as I left the tent. He handed me a metal mug and I took the seat closest to the grill that he’d already had charcoal lit inside of.

“Thanks.” I took a sip, and then another. “It’s good.”

He tapped the lid to the blue pitcher beside him. “Best percolator I’ve ever had. Makes a damn good cup of Joe.” He sniffed and rubbed a fist over his eye. “Lotte still asleep?”

I nodded, and was grateful for the warmth of the coffee on such a cool morning. I was glad I’d grabbed a sweater before leaving the tent, because despite the heat of the day before, the mornings here were much cooler.

“I’m going to make some eggs and bacon when everyone else starts getting up. A little early yet, but I’ve got rolls from last night if you need something with the coffee.”

“No, this is perfect right now.” I drained the last bits of the coffee and Garrett poured more without me even asking before he sighed and settled more comfortably in his seat.

“Wasn’t too windy last night,” he said. “The first night we were here, I had to leave the tent in the middle of the night to check the stakes.”

A zipper unzipped behind me and I turned, seeing Teddy exit the tent. He was wearing long pajamas and a beanie on his head. “Good morning,” he said cheerfully, and slipped his feet into his boots before approaching.

“Nice pajamas,” Garrett teased him and began pouring another cup of coffee.

“It’s too early to get dressed.” Teddy sat beside me and thanked Garrett for the coffee.

“It’s only six,” I said, looking at my watch. I was surprised I was up as early as I was, but I hadn’t slept well overnight, having made multiple trips to the restroom when the nausea had been too strong.

“You and Lotte have plans for today?” Teddy asked, grabbing the rolls Garrett had set on the table and splitting it open before placing it on the grill grates.

“We’re going on a hot air balloon ride tomorrow, so we’re going to head up to Salt Lake at some point today. We have to be there at sunrise, so it’s best if we’re already in the area.”

“Joss would love that,” Garrett said. He refilled the percolator and set it back on the grates. “She’s a sucker for that romantic shit.”

“I’m afraid of heights,” I admitted, thinking of my behavior at the park the day before. “So, I’m not too keen on doing this, but considering I’m the one who bought it for Lotte, I should join her.”

Teddy poured half of a water bottle onto a towel and rubbed his face with it. “Too bad you’ll be leaving us today. We’re headed to the Grand Canyon.”

“Next time,” I said, even though we three knew that there would not likely be a next time. I liked the blokes, but with our flight in two days, I found myself looking for every opportunity to be alone with Lotte. I didn’t know what would happen upon our return home, how this would change the dynamic we had, but I knew that I wanted to spend every minute before then soaking it up.

Teddy dropped the towel on the end of the picnic table and grabbed his roll off of the hot grates, bouncing it back and forth between his hands as it cooled off. “Lotte’s a good girl,” he said, and I saw Garrett turn his head to look at Teddy. Was it in warning? Or, like me, curiosity for his reason for having said it?

“She is.” The best, I knew. I wondered if they saw me for what I was, though my symptoms had been somewhat under control with ibuprofen and regular pills.

“She wasn’t so happy until you arrived. She tried to be, she put on a good face, but she just couldn’t get the hang of things.” Teddy looked at me and then away, almost as if he was too intimidated to be completely honest.

“I gathered as much from what she’s said. She had to do this trip, to see if it was what she wanted.”

“Hard to know what you want if you don’t try a few things out,” Garrett added. He moved the percolator on the coals. “Brave of her to try.”

I glanced back at the still tent where she slept and nodded. “She’s a very brave girl,” I said almost to myself.

“So, are you guys together?” Teddy asked.

I looked at him with my eyebrow slightly raised.

“I just mean that she always seemed so reserved, withholding herself. And then you show up and she just … glows. I think that’s the word I’m wanting.” Teddy laughed and smeared butter across his roll. “I’m not going after your girl, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Your girl. I tried it out in my head. Thinking of Lotte as mine was something I didn’t allow myself to indulge in, but, just maybe, we could make this work.

Doing so would require me telling her my secret, however, and I didn’t think I was game for that. At least not now, not before I could successfully kick the habit.

It was hard to admit, even now, that it was a full-blown problem. The nausea was ever present, and the headaches—especially at night—could be brutal. But I was managing those, as best as I could.

“We’re together,” I finally said, wrapping my hands around the mug. Why did merely saying the words make me feel like I’d declared for the world beyond this campsite that Lotte and I weren’t just friends, tied together by my best mate; her brother-in-law?

Her and I hadn’t even clarified what it was that we were doing. We just fell together, naturally. We had things to tell one another. I could see it, whenever she’d look at me long enough in the eyes.

I needed to tell her that I remembered the kiss, that I had called her by my girlfriend’s name to get Lotte to move on from me. It’d still been an arsehole thing, but I hoped that pushing her away had helped her in some way. As pathetic as it sounded, calling her Della had been the easiest way to push her aside at the time.

And, if it had been effective in that way, it’d been exactly the opposite for me. Ever since that first kiss, I’d forced myself to tease her, to say things just to make her blush. I’d done my best to keep from staring at her for too long, from touching her. Until her going-away. It’d been a wakeup call for me, a reminder that Lotte wasn’t always going to wait for me to get my head out of my arse.

I looked back at the tent, and wanted to wake her right up and tell her the truth of all of it. Even though I didn’t know how I really felt about her yet, I didn’t want her to keep thinking that I was a piece of shit who had thrown her away.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out.

I curled my hand into a fist. I hated that she was in my phone, hated that just the words she’d typed had made my mouth tighten. Suddenly, the desire for a pill was so strong that it was if I’d had a Pavlovian effect with her just saying the words.

I wondered if I’d ever be rid of them. Of her. And I did something stupid, I texted her back, Get out of my life, Della. For good.

Her reply came quickly.

“Excuse me,” I said to the guys and went back to the tent. It was like I couldn’t get enough of the pills to satisfy me then. As quietly as possible, I unzipped the tent and stepped in, closing it behind me. Lotte was still asleep, facing the other side of the tent.

I rifled through my bag until the trusty bottle fell into my hand. The pills made a loud sound, reminding me that there were so few left.

We wouldn’t leave for two more days still, which felt like a lifetime.

I shook out one pill, but a second one fell into my hand. Temptation, sharp as a knife, sliced through my resolve and before I could stop myself, I popped them both into my mouth and swallowed them dry.

“Sam?”

I froze. Her scratchy morning voice made my blood run cold. After a steadying breath, I turned around.

She was sitting up on the air mattress, rubbing sleep from her eye. Her hair was a riot of blonde strands, sticking out in a hundred different directions. She looked so sweet, ethereal even. “What was that?”

I tried to gauge her reaction. She appeared to be confused more than anything, and I knew she didn’t have reason to suspect anything wrong of me. “Just some medicine.” I leaned back until I was sitting beside her on the air mattress and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

She turned her head into my palm and closed her eyes. In the early light of the morning, with her skin in my hand, I felt my heart roll a little in my chest. My sleepy little bird, I thought.

“What time is it?” she asked, and pressed her lips into my palm. I rubbed my thumb across her chin, then held her still so I could give her a kiss.

“Just after six,” I said against her mouth.

“That doesn’t make me a sleepy head.” She laughed and kissed me back.

I loved this. Having her beside me as she woke up, getting to be the one she gave affection to. I was a lucky one, I knew.

“I meant that you left me to fend for myself. I’ve been up for an hour.” I scooted closer to her, tucked her hair behind her other ear and tugged on her earlobe.

“As if you couldn’t handle it.” She giggled again and hummed a sweet little noise as she pushed her face into my neck. “How’d you sleep?”

“Like a rock,” I told her, and was instantly grateful she was buried in my neck and couldn’t see my instinctual wince at the fib. “Garrett has coffee on the grill. I figured after breakfast, we’ll head out?”

“Okay.” Her voice was muffled against my neck. “Whatever you want to do.”

I pulled back and lifted her chin with one finger. “Lots, what do you want to do?”

She sighed and rubbed her hand across her sleeping bag. “I want to curl up here, sleep a few more hours.” She popped a kiss on my mouth. “But, not alone.”

Bloody hell. It was a tempting offer, so tempting that it rivaled the temptation I’d had to take the two damn pills I’d just swallowed. I gripped her chin tighter and deepened the kiss, until she was flat on her back on the sleeping bag. I leaned over her until my chest was flat on hers. All her little curves, the dips and valleys of her body, made my body come alive right away.

Her hair splayed about her head on the pillowcase and she gave me that signature sleepy smile, the same one that had me debating kissing her mouth and creating a new path downward from there. I couldn’t even placate myself by saying we had all the time in the world, because all we really had were the next two days. It wasn’t enough. I knew that as well as I knew I needed air to breathe.

Remembering her leg, I rolled over until we were on the ground, with her on top of me. Her hair created a curtain around us, and she pushed up so that her full weight wasn’t on me.

But she was so small, so slight, that I wanted to feel every inch of her against me. I lifted my hands above me until I’d trapped her wrists and pulled them back so she wasn’t supporting herself at all, just pressed against me.

She giggled and kissed me—one, two, three times.

I framed her face in my hands and her eyes shined down on me. “You’re beautiful,” I whispered to her in our dimly lit tent. To illustrate what I said, I dragged my thumb over her perfect little cupid’s bow, up over the curve of her cheekbone to the edge of her beautiful, sleepy eyes. “Botticelli eyes,” I reminded her and slid my hands into her hair, gripping her head and bringing her lips to mine again.

I realized I could easily be just like this with her. Wrapped up in her skin, in her scent, exploring every bit I could see and the places I couldn’t, too.

“You’re beautiful,” she told me, pushing my hair away from face. “You know that, already, but really, Sam. You’re,” her voice lowered, “exquisite.” She rubbed the back of her fingers along my face. “And your heart is good.” Her hand moved to the center of my chest and after a moment, she drummed her fingers to my heart beat. “You make everyone feel at home. You can talk to anyone. You help my family.” She pressed the softest kiss against my mouth and I knew my heart stuttered. “You help me. I…”

That ‘I’ hung between us for several seconds, blood roaring in my ears, her eyes searching mine.

This was what addicted me. The way we could go from easy playfulness to something serious, something that shifted the very earth we laid upon. It was the full package.

“When we get home, I don’t want to go back to how things were,” I told her, bracing myself for her reaction. It wasn’t any large declaration, but it was what moved through me as strong as anything I’d ever felt.

She tilted her head to the side and blinked. “You mean…”

“I mean I want this.” Why did this feel so big? “It means I don’t want to lose this. I want to wake up beside you. I want to fall asleep curled against you. I don’t know what that looks like, back in London, but most of all I don’t want to pretend that you and I don’t have something. I’m not great at pretending.” My heart felt too big for my chest, like every time I swallowed my nerves, I had to shove it to the side, to make room for it.

“I’m not great at pretending, either,” she whispered. She ran her fingers across my lips and her eyes shone. “I want this too.”

“Thank Christ,” I said, and crushed my mouth to hers.