Chapter Five
My feet pound against the compacted dirt and my lungs burn in the morning mist, but I keep going. The gym at the five-star hotel where I worked was good, but no incline on the treadmill could match the benefits of running up a mountain road. My glutes are feeling it, and it’s not like my ass looked bad before. I have enough notches in my bedpost and contacts in my phone to know that I was doing something right.
That Paul wasn’t lying to me.
That he wants me. Now.
I push my legs to move faster, taking me farther from camp. As if I can run away from him. And me. And the stupid deal we made.
Pretending we don’t know each other? It’s insane, but it was the best I could come up with when my clit was so swollen that I had to leave before I shoved my hand down my pants right there in the kitchen.
My body had protested the whole way back to the rec hall, demanding to know why I had taken it away from the calloused hands that wanted to touch me and the cock that had grazed my belly when he pulled me close. My body demanded to know why I hadn’t fought his idea of starting fresh in the morning and whipped off my pants right there. But it wasn’t his body I ran from. It wasn’t his insistence that we wait until today.
It was his words. The ones that sounded like he used to. Syllables that made my blood pump in time with the rise and fall of his voice. The voice that split me open out of a dead sleep.
And he had some nerve throwing his supposed heartbreak at me, trivializing my hurt by claiming he’d felt the same way.
Because he hadn’t. I know it. The counselors we were with know it. Hell, half the fucking campers he woke up know it, too.
But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s panty-melting hot. Or that I’ve offered my body to him. And, as much as I probably should, I can’t bring myself to regret it. My job left so little time for anything that sex was something I squeezed in between planning other people’s honeymoons and troubleshooting a hotel’s worth of wedding guests. I’ve spent years pretty much celibate from spring to fall, with the odd hookup to take the edge off. But not this year. I’ve had nothing but my own quick strokes since the break in weddings between New Year’s and Valentine’s Day. And I need more.
I reach a crest in the road and glance at my watch. Seven o’clock. In the morning. Which is a time I rarely saw in the city, and especially not on a weekend. Weekends used to be for getting home near dawn and springing from bed at noon, rushing to make it back to work before the first ceremony of the day. But birds wake up at what used to be my bedtime, and after tossing in bed for an hour, I finally admitted defeat.
My legs move in a jog down the hill. The cool breeze dries my sweat and my breath slows to normal as I slow to a walk under the wooden archway that has welcomed generations of campers to the best weeks of their lives. I head to the fire pit and raise my leg onto one of the massive logs that form a horseshoe around the burn area. I press my chest to my knee and stretch my tightened muscles, but my head stays up, eyes glued to the lake. The boat and swim docks rock gently in the breeze.
I switch legs and catch sight of the canoes, stored on their sides, front-to-back on the dock so no water can collect in them. My mind flips to the summer when I was fourteen. When I discovered that critters could also stay nice and dry under the canoes. And that tomato baths really do work when you get skunked.
The next two summers, I’d made sure I was at the back of the line when it came time to load the first canoe into the water.
“Morning.”
I jump and lose my footing on the log. I pitch forward and end up in a split-like squat over the rustic seating. “Jesus, Paul. What did I tell you about sneaking up on me?”
He smirks. “Nothing. We’ve never met before, remember?”
I roll my eyes. “Fine. I deserve that.” I swing my leg over so I’m facing him. He’s holding three travel mugs and a deep inhale catches the sweet scent of coffee. “Please tell me those hold the nectar of the gods.”
“I’m not sure I know what you’re referring to.” His eyes dance.
My fingers curl and extend toward him. “Give it to me.”
“Oh yeah? I thought you may have changed your mind when you ran away without another word last night,” he teases.
“Coffee. Please give me coffee. Unless,” my eyes widen, “those are all for you?”
He sits next to me. Closer than he has to. So close that our shoulders could touch with just one small shift. “Not all for me. I just didn’t know how you take your coffee. So, one has milk, one has milk and sugar, and this one is black.”
“Cream and sugar, please.” He nods at the mug closest to me and I take it from his hand.
Paul takes a deep sip from the last cup. “I was hoping you’d pick one of the creamy ones. I was not looking forward to choking my way through one of those if you’d picked the black one.”
“You could have made yourself another black coffee,” I say.
“Sure.” He nudges me with his shoulder. “But then I’d have to leave you, and I’d much rather talk about that time a camper who shall remain nameless found out firsthand what skunk smells like.”
I elbow him in the side. “As I recall it, that camper’s friends suffered, too. The smell didn’t come out of the dock for days.”
“It’s true. It was pretty disgusting. Or so I hear.” He catches my eye. “That’s why one of the first things I did when I got this job was customize a net that hooks onto the dock when the boats are stored. No critters can get in now.”
I take a sip of coffee. “I’m sure that camper would be glad to hear it.”
He keeps his eyes focused on the dock. “I sure hope so.”
We watch as a blue heron takes flight from the reeds and glides up and over the trees. A little piece of the magic that makes camp, camp. That makes this place home to so many.
“I killed the hill this morning,” I say, using the camp name for the morning jog uphill.
“No shit?” Paul grins. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. You were always more of a polar bear swimmer. I mean, uh, this one camper I knew didn’t like running.”
I smile. “Well, this former non-runner doesn’t mind it so much now.”
He rubs the back of his neck. “Can I be honest, Amy?”
“Please. Who has time for anything else?”
He nods and looks down at his hands. “I don’t think I can do it. Pretend that I don’t know you.”
My hands tighten around the travel mug. “Oh.”
“Yeah. And if that means we don’t hook up, then we don’t hook up. Which, don’t get me wrong, I really, really want.” He closes his eyes. “But I can’t pretend that I never built a one match fire with you, or kept assholes from snapping your bra.”
“You remember that?”
His thumb traces the texture on his travel mug. “Of course. They made us do it every summer, even when it had been pissing rain and there was no way in hell we’d be able to light anything, let alone with one match. I still say it was a fluke that one time we actually got it going.”
I scald my throat on coffee to make myself look away from his lazily moving thumb. My legs squeeze closed. “I take it you don’t get campers to do one match fires anymore?”
“Oh no.” He grins. “We do. It’s hilarious to watch.”
A single laugh bubbles from me before the sounds of nature fill the silence that falls between us. “You know I wasn’t talking about remembering the fire,” I whisper.
“I know.” He bumps me with his shoulder and I relax against him. We drink our coffee to the soundtrack of the forest until he abruptly drains his mug and stands. Paul raises his cup in a silent cheers. “I’ll be around if you need me.”
He gets a good few meters from me before I find my voice. “What will you be doing?” I call. “I mean, it’s not even eight. What is there to do?”
“Chopping wood. Ordering supplies. Checking emails. There’s always something to do.” He turns. “But honestly? I’ll probably be furiously jacking off to the memory of you bending over in those shorts and hoping to hell I don’t live to regret turning down your deal.”