Chapter Eleven
I throw my book onto the camp bed. It hits the wall and careens onto the floor, spilling the bookmark onto the linoleum. Not like it matters. It’s not like I’d been processing any of the words I’d been reading as I rehashed the total physical pleasure and stupid emotional pain I’d managed to squeeze into a single afternoon.
Then he has the balls to tell me that he doesn’t want to do it again. That what I can give him isn’t enough? I pick up my book and slip the marker between random pages. My throat clenches when I replay his words. He wants Amy. He wants a chance with the girl he knew. With the woman he thinks I am. But he can’t have her.
Between the first kisses he stole and my sham of an engagement, I lost her. I lost the perky girl who trusted her instincts and believed that happily-ever-after could be hers. With a sigh, I pull my phone from my abandoned purse. The battery is nearly dead, and I wish it was. Thirty new voice mails. In two days. I dial into my voice-mail box and my shoulders climb higher with my former assistant’s singsongy voice. “Hi, Leah. I want to touch base regarding the Miller wedding. Your notes say that—”
I hit delete, but the reprieve is short-lived.
“Leah, how do I—”
Delete.
“I know you’re going out of town, Leah, but if you could just—”
I tap the delete key without conscious thought, and her voice is replaced by my former boss’s. “Hello, Leah. The Miller party is asking that you contact them personally. I have assured them this won’t be a problem—”
A single twitch of my finger sends his voice to oblivion. But he refuses to stay vanquished.
“The Miller bride has informed me that you have yet to reach out to her. I realize you’ve tendered your resignation, Leah, but you have responsibilities—”
His voice cuts off as my phone dies. I toss it into the locker and slam the door shut.
Responsibilities. Duties. Obligations. To the hotel. To the clients and their guests. Contorting myself into whatever they wanted to keep them happy. Losing any semblance of myself as I teetered on the brink of burnout in the perfectly tailored outfits that convinced couples I could handle their dreams.
But no more.
No more giving others their perfect day at the expense of all mine. I lower my shoulders in time with my exhale. Somewhere inside of me is the woman I wanted to be. The woman I thought I could be. Hidden so deep within that most people can’t see she ever existed. But Paul does. He knows. And if there’s anywhere in this world that could bring her back, it’s here.
* * *
My eyes flutter open and my muscles tense, ears straining to hear in the silence. But there are no birds. No mice. No sounds at all until the rumble of my stomach fills the tiny room.
I sit and rub my eyes in the darkness. My stomach growls again and I swing my legs over the side of the bed, leaning down to dig in my pack and pulling out an oversized hoodie. My muscles protest when I stand. A reminder of how unaccustomed they are to killing the hill and to killer orgasms. Not like they’ll have time to get used to it. Even if I could lock Leah away and bring my soft insides to Paul’s bed, it won’t be his for long.
He’ll leave and it will just be me up here. Cradling my exposed, squishy guts. And I’ll expose any part of me he wants to see, anywhere he wants to see it. But not those. Not when I’ve spent so long convincing myself they’ve turned to dust in my iron shell of control. Not even when my body responds to his in a way it’s never responded to any other combination of bone, muscle, and blood.
The beam from my flashlight reflects off a pair of eyes as my stomach leads me to food, and the critter clatters back into the woods. The close encounter doesn’t slow my gait. I’m drawn toward the light on the front stoop and the warm glow shining through the window. It’s welcoming, this little house that’s going to be mine. I push the door open. “Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?” Paul calls.
“Hungry.” I bend to unlace my boots and end up with Chuck’s nose in my face. He retreats to bed after a quick scratch under his chin.
“Hungry who?” Paul braces himself on either side of the kitchen doorway. His shirt lifts just above the waistband of his flannel pajama pants, flashing a sliver of treasure trail.
I blink and force my sore legs to hold me upright. To put something else at eye level. “Hungry Amy.”
His tongue skims over his lip. “Hungry for what?”
My eyebrows tick up. Stomach be damned. “What do you have up for grabs?”
His eyes stay glued to the crest on the front of my old hoodie. There’s no way he can see even the outline of my boobs under this, but still. He must be worse off for getting laid than I thought. I smooth the material down. Pin it to my hips under my palms. Pull my shoulders back.
He shakes his head and takes my hand. “Do you have any idea what time it is, Amy?”
I follow the gentle tug as he leads me into the kitchen. “Food time. Clearly.”
His calloused thumb rubs over the heel of my palm before he releases me in front of the fridge. “I’d offer you leftovers, but I just heated some soup for my own dinner. Help yourself to whatever you want.”
I flex my fingers and rub my tingling nerves against the rough denim of my shorts. Prep a sexy comeback about what I’d like to help myself to. But he’s back at the table, in front of his computer. So I open the pantry. Crush a box of cereal in my grip. Accidently slam the fridge closed. “Bowl?” I ask.
He nods toward a cupboard and I pour cereal into the seventies-patterned ceramic. Slice a banana on top. Lean over the counter and dig in.
“So,” he says. “Should I add bananas to the food order?”
“Hmm?” I look over my shoulder.
He nods toward his open laptop. “The food order. I was working on it when your urge for a midnight snack hit.”
I snap my head to the ticking clock and swallow fast. “Shit. Sorry. I didn’t realize how late it was.”
He smiles. “When it’s food time, it’s food time. And you definitely needed some after, well...”
I raise my eyebrows. “You could have used a good meal, too. But soup?”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugs. “So, want to learn how to do this while you’re here?”
I slide my chair next to his and for the next half hour, lose myself in numbers. Campers and staff. Vegetarians and carnivores. All matched to recipe requirements and calculated at net rates. “You can add whatever you want for yourself,” he says. “You just have to let Fred know so he can take it from your pay.” He hits send and closes the computer.
“Hey! What if I wanted to order something for myself?”
“Next time,” he says. “Technically, I’m still camp director.”
“Not for long,” I say.
“No. Not for long.” He thumbs the seam of his closed laptop and my eyes stay glued to the motion. Back and forth. Circling over the nub at one end. I shift in my seat.
“So, you were a Lightning Hawk?” The pad of his thumb snags on the end of the seam and he presses down. Hard.
I bite my lip. “What?”
“Your hoodie. From college. You were a Lightning Hawk.”
My hands skim my bare thighs. “Oh. Yeah. Go Hawks.”
His thumb moves to the table edge. Traces those lucky notches with his warmth and texture. “I was a Horseman.”
“Always my rival, aren’t you, Harding?”
He pulls the leg of my chair. Spins it so I’m facing him. His eyes drill into mine. “It’s not a rivalry if we could both win.”
I anchor my feet around the chair legs. Swallow hard. Play his staring game. “What did you study?”
“Biology,” he says. “Then education.”
I shift my hips to the edge of the chair without breaking eye contact. My knee bumps against his. “Is that what you’re going to do when you leave? Teach?”
He sets his jaw and takes a long breath. “Maybe. I have a lead on an independent school that might be a good fit.”
Paul’s knee slips from mine and brushes the inside of my leg. Barely far enough up to be called thigh. Definitely far enough to remind me just how good of a fit his body was with mine. My breath rattles through my chest. “A good fit is important.”
“Is that why you left your job? Why you took this one?”
I nod, careful not to rub against his leg. And not to move away from its distracting warmth. “Yeah. It was like I lived at the hotel. Wasn’t worth it anymore.”
He brushes his knee against my tender skin and his lip curls when I slip my hands under my thighs. It seems like the safest place for them.
“You do realize that you’ve chosen to actually live at this job, right?” He moves his knee in distances too little to measure, too big to ignore.
I swallow instead of lunging at him. Instead of spreading my bare thighs over his lap and finding friction everywhere. I lick my lips. “It’s different.”
“How?” He pulls my chair closer to him. It scrapes across the wood floors with a groan that matches the one in my head as his knee slides up the inside of my thigh.
I drop my head forward. Fight to control my breathing. “Because there, I existed where I worked. But I never lived. Not really. This is my chance to work where I’m alive.” I bite my lip and raise my eyes to his.
“I get it.” His knee grazes the apex of my legs. The touch is light. So light.
“You do?” I squirm closer. So close that I can feel his heat mixing with mine. Then he’s there. Hard on soft. I breathe a low moan.
He rises onto his toe. Rubs up on the seam of my shorts. “Yeah, this place is different,” he says. “I won’t lie. I worry about what I’m giving up by leaving.”
He lowers his knee and my breath catches. “Then why are you doing it?”
“Because camp can’t hold a conversation. It can’t laugh with me. And I can’t kiss it goodnight.” He stands. Takes his warmth from me. My shoulders collapse forward.
But he’s back. In front of me. Pulling me to my feet. I go where he leads, my nerves shouting in victory. I angle toward the bedrooms, but he tugs me back. Opens the front door. Spins and walks my dazed and horny self through onto the front stoop and into the open air.
Paul leans down and presses his lips to my cheek. He tucks a knuckle under my chin. Raises my face to his. Locks his eyes on mine and toes my boots out of the house. “Sleep well, Amy.”
My mouth dries as he backs away. Leaves me alone when I want him with me. His body on me. In me. The front door clicks shut and it tugs at me like there’s a string looped under my ribs. Like I’m coming loose. Untangling. And one good slam of the door might just pull me free.