Chapter Seventeen
Being a chubby kid at camp didn’t have a whole lot of noticeable upsides, but I’d give my left breast for the padding my knees used to have. My kneecaps grind against the bottom of the aluminum canoe as I readjust my butt on the edge of the seat. “Any chance canoeing strategy has changed in the last decade and we’re actually allowed to sit on the seats now?”
Paul pushes his canoe from the dock with the handle of his paddle. “No chance, unless you want to move straight to practicing canoe-over-canoe rescues.”
“Right.” I push myself from the dock and dip my paddle into the lake. I pull hard against the water. Too hard. Water splashes into the canoe and runs forward, soaking my knees and toes.
“I’m thinking that maybe we should hold off on the canoe-over-canoe rescues.” Paul glides past me and makes a tight rotation, stopping so we’re face-to-face. “At least until you remember the finer points of the sport. Like, how canoeing is the water sport where you don’t get wet.”
My paddle cuts through the lake in a shaky J-stroke and I pull up next to Paul. “What if I want to get wet?”
He locks eyes with me. I don’t look away. The corner of his mouth turns up. “Pretty sure you’re already all kinds of damp.”
“That’s a safe bet,” I mutter as I switch my paddle to the opposite side of the canoe. I dig into the water. Take out my frustration on the stroke. My adrenaline and nerves from looking at him, not through him. And turn smack into Paul’s canoe.
He pushes our boats apart. “How long has it been?”
“I don’t even know.” My shoulders fight the motion of my cautious stroke, but I move forward. “Ten years, maybe?”
“So this Dan.” He pulls up next to me. “Not much of a nature-lover?”
He’s looking across the lake. His face is shadowed by the trees in the late-afternoon sun. But his jaw twitches.
I dig into the water and swallow a cheer when I keep going straight. “Dan’s version of nature was making a weekend event of driving upstate and buying fresh fruit. He didn’t even lie about picking it himself. Nobody would have believed him.”
Paul glances at me, then back across the lake.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
Muscle memory awakens and I get ahead of Paul. I angle my canoe in front of his. “You’re not acting like nothing.”
He rests his paddle across the canoe. “You said he used two vetoes. What was the other one?”
I readjust my grip on the paddle, but it doesn’t stop the restlessness in my muscles. I use the energy to back my canoe away from Paul’s. “I don’t really want to talk about it. I was an idiot.” I pull hard against the lake and surge forward. “And I don’t particularly want to relive more of my bad decisions today.”
He glides up next to me. “You make it sound like you’ve made a lot of them.”
I pull against the lake. “Feels that way most days.”
“So, what bad decision did you make with veto number one?”
I shoot him a glare. “You’re not going to drop this, are you?”
“Unlikely.”
“Fine.” I pull my shoulders down. Focus on my stroke. “He vetoed my dress. For the wedding.”
“Well, that’s a dick move.”
My hands reset their grip on the paddle. “I see that now.”
Paul keeps pace with me. “But not at the time?”
I chop into the water. “Clearly not.”
We glide across the lake, rust chipping off my form with every stroke. The chirp of birds breaks the silence. They chase each other from trees and duck back into the branches. It’s peaceful. Serene. I relax even as my muscles tense with effort. Until Paul opens his mouth and I’m plummeted back to four years ago.
“How did he even know what it looked like? I mean, I thought that was the kind of thing women kept secret on the same level as nipple hair and hemorrhoids.”
I tilt my head. “Yet you still know about those things, so we clearly aren’t doing a very good job with the secrecy.”
The corner of his mouth turns up. “I have my ways.”
There’s no humor in my laugh. “So did he. He went through my phone when I was in the shower.”
“Seriously?”
My paddle cuts through the lake smoothly. “Indeed. He called veto before my hair even stopped dripping.”
“What was it like?”
My skin tickles with the memory of the beaded lace buttoned over my lower back. The weight of the crystals that skimmed my hips and the way it made me believe I was as beautiful as Dan always told me I was. “It was ivory,” I say. “Lace.”
“Did you like it?”
“I loved it.” I roll my shoulders to refocus. Rid myself of my naivety. My weakness. My mom’s tearful face. I execute a crappy J-stroke with shaking hands. “But it’s not important. What is important is the fact that I’m in a canoe for the first time in years, and I’m totally sucking at it, but I don’t even care.”
Paul catches my eye. He pauses, jaw tense, then nods.
“Well,” he says. “I care. Because that means I could completely kick your ass in a race.”
“Of course you could! There’s no way in hell I’d race you right now.”
“Not even if I started to pull away a little?” He paddles faster.
“No.” My canoe keeps moving forward even as I forget to analyze every angle of entry and turn of my blade.
“How about if I do this?” He takes off his life jacket and peels off his shirt. Water safety be damned.
“Not going to work.” But my strokes come faster and we’re side by side by the time his paddle dips back into the lake.
“What if I promised to hook your knees over the sides of that canoe and get you off with whatever part of me makes you scream the loudest?”
“That.” My center clenches at the thought. “That might work. But are you really willing to break your deal?”
He creeps ahead of me. The muscles in his back flex and there’s a tug low in my core. Those arms. Holding my legs up. Open.
He hitches onto one knee. Leans forward. And puts his full strength into a stroke. “I wouldn’t be breaking it,” he calls over his shoulder. “If you can catch me using that rusty stroke, pretty sure I’ll believe it’s me you want.”
For an instant, I consider not following. I consider laying my paddle down and getting myself off to this fucking amazing scene of half-naked man cutting across calm water. But his strokes are sure. Relentless. And I want them on every part of me.
I chase him. I lean into every dip and pull of my paddle. He gets farther away and I plant one foot on the bottom of the canoe out of instinct. The leverage gives me an extra boost and I’m flying. Not fast enough to catch him. Not fast enough to win the orgasm my body is clamoring for. But fast enough to remind me that I can do this. Canoe. That the skill is still in me. Hidden and underused, but still part of who I am.
I’m sweating when I slide up next to him. My hair is wind-whipped and tangled. My hands are raw where callouses will form. And he’s looking at me in a way I’ve never been looked at before. Like he wants to kneel down before every knot of hair and bead of sweat.
“You lost,” he says. “Too bad.”
My heart beats fast. And it’s only partly from the effort it took me to get here. “Next time, Harding.” I lick my lips. Lift my hair from my neck. “I think I missed this.”
His chest glistens in the sun. “Canoeing?”
“Canoeing. The calm.” Feeling whole. I swallow hard. “Everything.”
“The city had to have some perks.”
“Compared to this? None.”
His eyes scan the peaks surrounding the lake and he works his hand through his damp hair. His chest expands and deflates in a sigh that ends with shoulders hunched.
I rack my brain for a way to make it better. Something to bring back his easy smile. To remind him that camp doesn’t have the monopoly on perks that my quick tongue claimed. “I mean, there are some good things. You know, restaurants. Music. Not having to wait until an old friend shows up after twelve years to get laid. Things like that.”
He flicks water at me. “You make it sound so appealing.”
“Hey,” I laugh, wiping droplets from my cheek. “I tried! The getting-laid thing is a pretty big perk.”
His fingers curl around the side of my canoe and he works his way up the edge until we’re face-to-face. “Hey, Amy?”
I trace my thumb over his knuckles. Draw lazy swirls on his palm when he opens for me. “Yeah?”
“Would you like to have dinner with me? Tonight.”
“Paul Harding,” I tease. “Are you asking me on a date?”
His eyes burn into mine. “Yeah. I am.”
My stomach quivers under his gaze. I pull my shoulders back. Press my chest out. But my boobs are prisoners in this life vest and his view doesn’t waver. My words force their way out over the lump in my throat. “I have to have dinner with you. Your house has the only food up here.”
His fingers tighten on mine. “But I’m asking you to have dinner with me because you want to, not because you have to.”
“I know.” I swallow hard and lick my dry lips. “And the answer’s still yes.”
* * *
I throw my hoodie onto the pile of clothes on the bed and press my fists onto my hips. Nothing I packed is exactly screaming “date with the guy I spent my entire childhood crushing on,” never mind “man whose kisses turn me on so much I threaten to hump a chair.”
I tug a strapless maxi-dress from the bottom of the pile and slip it on. I could kill for a pencil skirt right now. Something that would hug my ass and distract from my nerves with the certainty that I looked damn good.
The built-in bra squishes my breasts and the empire waist hides my body in draping jersey, but it’s a break from the leggings and jean shorts I’ve been living in. A change from Amy the camp director to Amy the woman. Going on a date. With the man who’s already made me scream.
The man who’s been suffering without a woman’s touch, but won’t let me pleasure him until he’s sure it’s what I want. What all of me wants. Until I’m sure I want him. Until it’s Paul and Amy, not tab A and slot B.
I pull on a sweater and close the rec hall door behind me. The scent of campfire wafts up on the breeze and beckons me forward. I wrap my arms around myself and stroll toward the lake. Paul is on his knees next to the fire pit, blowing gently on the small flame. Coaxing it to life.
Heat spreads through my body as I get closer. I can’t identify which parts of me are warmed by the flames, and which are warmed by the man who knew exactly how to goad me into racing him. Who knew that I needed to stop thinking and start doing. That the only thing keeping rust on my strokes was my own doubt.
Paul adds a larger log to the stack of kindling and I join him. I pick a piece of wood, small enough to catch on the current flame, but large enough to burn for a while. With my fingertips on the end of the log, I balance it against his. “Dinner el fresco?” I ask.
He stands and rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah. I wanted to do something different. I mean, I had this vision of taking you to a great restaurant, sitting on a rooftop patio, but—”
“Paul?” He shoves his hands in his pockets and flicks his eyes to mine. I wrap my fingers around his upper arm. “This is perfect.”
He hands me a roasting stick and a package of hot dogs. “Then I’ll let you do the honors.”
I tear the plastic open with my teeth and slide the sausage onto the thin length of metal. Paul settles onto the log closest to the fire and leans his elbows on his knees. “Man that’s sexy.”
My cleavage is flattened and my hips are hidden in the flowing maxi-dress. I’m holding questionable meat products in one hand and a roasting stick in the other. “What’s sexy?”
He holds his hand out toward me and waves it up and down. “A woman who thinks roasting a hot dog over an open fire is a perfect date. You.” He drags his hand down his face. “I mean, Jesus, Amy.”
I turn to the fire and plunge the sausage into the flame. A smile tugs on the corner of my lips. “Come on, Paul. I just ripped into a package of hot dogs with my teeth. That’s not sexy.”
“One of these days, you’re going to believe the things I say to you.” His voice is soft under the crackles of burning wood.
I swallow hard and rotate my roasting stick. The hot dog turns black in the flame and I clasp a bun around the charred meat product. I pull it from the stick and add a disgusting amount of mustard, licking a splash from my hand without thinking. My face pulls tight as the vinegar hits my tongue.
“Here.” I hand the offensive concoction to Paul. “Just how you like it. Or, well, how you used to like it.” My cheeks warm with newfound doubt. “You don’t have to have this one. I just wanted to—”
Our fingers tangle and words become foreign. All I know is his fingers against mine. Our eyes lock and my mouth waters despite the remains of mustard on my tongue.
“I can’t believe you remembered how I like my hot dogs,” he says.
I swallow and run a finger under the corners of my mouth. “It’s hard to forget something so disgusting.”
He takes a bite of his dinner. “Mustard is the only condiment that matters.”
“Whoever taught you that had a sick sense of humor.”
“Nah,” he mumbles over his chewing. “Just German.”
I slip another hot dog onto the stick and keep it to the outskirts of the flames. “German?”
He pops the last of the bun into his mouth. “Yeah. My mom’s dad. He took care of me when my parents were working. Died when I was nine.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. He was old. Hell, my parents were old.”
My stomach clenches. “Were?”
“Yeah. They’re both gone. It’s just me now. Not like it wasn’t before, really.” He turns his back and takes a bun from the package. “How about your mom? Still breaking into Niagara-like tears when you go out of town?”
“Oh god. The first few minutes of that bus ride were always so embarrassing.” I watch the fire dancing in the darkening night. “But yeah. Not many tears over me anymore. She moved closer to my brother a few years ago. I see them on holidays.”
Paul uncaps the ketchup and adds the tiniest amount to the bun. “Did something happen?”
I swallow over the loss. Over the guilt. “Life happened.” My wrist rotates to adjust the heat on the roasting stick. “You never talked about your parents.”
He rummages in the cooler. “We weren’t close. Well, they were. To each other. I was the vacation souvenir they never intended to bring home.”
My head snaps to him. “They told you that?”
“Oh, yeah.” He spreads a thin layer of mayo on the bun. “It was never a secret. They did a pretty good job at making sure I didn’t cramp their style.”
I pull my sausage from the fire and Paul catches it in the bun. “Is that why you spent so much of your summer here?” I ask. “Because they...”
“Wanted to pretend they still had the child-free life they’d banked on?” He hands the hot dog to me. “Absolutely. But I was okay with it. People actually liked me up here.”
I back onto the nearest log and hold the perfectly dressed hot dog on my lap. The ratio of ketchup to mayo is exact. “I wish I’d known that.” I look up at Paul. The fire backlights his khakis and shines through his white dress shirt. I take a shaky breath. “If I’d known that, maybe I would have made sure you knew how much I liked you.”
Paul settles onto the log next to me. Our legs press together from hip to knee and a swarm of butterflies squirms inside me.
“I wouldn’t have wanted your pity like,” he says.
I hold up my dinner. “You remember how I like my hot dogs. When I learned how to paddle. Protected me from assholes. Trust me.” My fingers snake around his. “It wasn’t pity like.”
He wraps his arm around my back. His hand grips my hip and pulls me close. “And now? What is this now?”
My breath hitches and my thumb squishes through the bun. “What do you want it to be?”
Paul rubs his thumb over my hip. The jersey of my dress scratches against my skin. I take a deep breath and Paul pulls me closer, tucking me against his chest. “I want it to be everything.”
I stir against him. “What do you mean, everything?”
He brushes my hair back and rests his chin on my head. Our electricity crackles along with the fire. “Will you dance with me?”
I tilt my head up. Our noses nearly touch. Our breath becomes shared. “Here?”
Paul takes the untouched hot dog. He gently balances it on the log next to him. “I never did understand the mayo.”
My lips tilt upward. Because he packed this picnic with stuff he doesn’t even like. And he did it for me.
He reaches for my hands. Pulls me to my feet and wraps his hands around my hips. His fingertips brush over the top of my ass and I cup my shaking hands around his neck. Paul dips a hip and guides me with him.
My insides flutter with each slow turn our bodies take. A warmth starts in my chest and radiates through my limbs as my body sways in time with his. Our eyes meet and I close the space between us. He wraps his arms around me and I relax against his work-hardened frame.
Paul leans forward and hums. My stomach quivers with each note. With each puff of air carrying the song I’d dreamt of four years ago. But it’s never sounded as perfect as right now, wordless on Paul’s breath. My hips graze against his and a slow burning ignites in my core. “Why this song?”
“I don’t know.” He leans his forehead on mine. Our bodies move as one. “I guess it reminds me of, well...” He clears his throat.
I trace my fingertips up and down the back of his neck and inch closer with each sway of my hips. “Everything that could be?”
Our eyes lock in the moonlight. My chest tightens under his gaze. It coils into a spring that pushes me forward. That fits my lips between his in an unhurried kiss that heats between us, melting past into present. Melding the girl I was with the woman I’ve become.
My head falls onto his shoulder. My hands glide down his back. I could reach for his cock. Knead my palms over his ass. But I don’t want to. I want this. The gentle kiss and slow swaying that connects us. Draws me closer even while my body stays in place. And as his chest rises and falls beneath mine, it becomes harder to deny. Harder to pretend that this is about tabs and slots when neither of us reaches for anything more, but my stomach flutters anyway. Harder to stay in control when my core clenches at the beat of his pulse.
It’s a different kind of exhilaration. A kind that leaves me exposed. Sensitive. That makes his every touch thrilling. His very sound invigorating. My every cell bare and wanting him. Just him.
He relaxes his hands on my waist and takes a tiny step back, but it pulls against the grip I have on him. I press back into his reaction to me. To us. He sighs into my hair and my nerve endings wake under the soft caress of his breath. My chest flutters and pounds against his as he holds me close. “Paul?” I breathe into his neck.
“Mmm?” He nuzzles against my cheek as our hips dip and sway. We turn in small circles, dancing to the beat of our own hearts.
“You.” I press my head to his shoulder. “I want you.”