Reign: A Royal Military Romance

by Roxie Noir

  Jake shrugged. “All right,” he said. “You need a pack, at least, and a sleeping bag and a tent. You got boots?”

  “I brought boots,” said Ariana. “I’ve got a pack at home, but I didn’t think I’d be going on an overnight tour of the forest, so I didn’t bring it.”

  “Not a problem,” he said. “Not a problem at all.”

  Even though the room looked like a mess to Ariana, Jake quickly zeroed in on a couple of packs, all the way on the top shelf. It was hard not to be impressed as he reached all the way up, lifting packs and supplies out of the way like they were no big deal.

  Finally, he held one out to her. “Okay,” he said. “Try this one on.”

  She waited for him to hand it to her, but he stood there, holding it up for her. Finally she turned around and tried it on, his big hands brushing against her shoulders. Ariana was having a hard time concentrating on how well the pack fit — instead she was all too aware of her proximity to Jake, of his eyes on her.

  “This seems okay,” she said.

  “You gotta buckle the bottom,” he said. “I thought you said you knew what you were doing?” he said, teasingly.

  “It’s been a while since I used my pack,” she said. She grabbed both ends of the buckle and tried to fit them together, only to realize that one was twisted.

  “Sure it has,” he said, and then she felt him behind her. He took both ends of the buckle in his own hands, untwisted them, and fit them together neatly, the click loud in the suddenly-quiet little room.

  He kept his arms around her, his hands on her hips, for just a beat longer than necessary. Ariana could feel herself blushing bright red, her pulse quickening.

  That was really nice, she thought, ashamed of herself.

  Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend.

  “I think that one might be a little too big for you,” Jake said. He slipped two fingers under the shoulder strap and lifted, frowning at her. “Yup, it’s a little loose.”

  His hand was warm, even through her t-shirt, and all she could think about was the way his muscles rippled through his forearms.

  Jake turned around and reached for another pack on the shelf. “Try this one,” he said. “It’s a little smaller. I think it’ll fit better.”

  This time, Ariana fumbled with the straps deliberately and just like before, Jake put his arms around her, securing them fast, looking her over with an appraising eye. He pulled at her shoulder straps again, this time releasing them and making them longer.

  “Too short,” he finally said. “This’ll pull on your shoulders and you’ll be a wreck four miles into the hike.”

  “Got another one?” Ariana asked, unbuckling herself and placing the pack gently on the floor. It was a very nice pack, probably upwards of $300 at the store.

  “I told you,” he said easily, putting his hands on his hips and surveying the shelves. “I got packs until Kingdom Come.” He began lifting things off of shelves again, seemingly looking for something specific.

  Ariana nudged a metal box with her foot, found it solid, and sat on it.

  “How long have you been with the forest service?” she asked.

  “About five years now, I think,” Jake said. “Six, maybe. Time flies here, you know.”

  “What made you join?”

  “They took away my other job.”

  Ariana frowned. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I was a lumberjack until this all became national forest,” he said. “Now it’s protected from logging, but they were nice enough to hire me and smart enough to realize they needed people who knew the area.”

  “You were not,” she said.

  “I sure was,” Jake said. He looked over his shoulder, smiling down at her. “Why couldn’t I be?”

  “I didn’t think there were still lumberjacks,” she said. “Didn’t they get replaced by, I don’t know, sawmills or something?”

  Jake laughed, a deep, booming sound. “When’s the last time a sawmill went through a forest and only cut down the trees big enough to go?” He pulled something off of a high shelf and then held it out. “People still gotta do some of the work. Come over here and try this one out.”

  Arian was aware that her blush was heading slowly down her chest as she tried not to imagine Jake, all six-foot-whatever of him, swinging a axe at a tree, watching it crash down. Shirtless, maybe. She slid her arms through the straps of this pack, moving her hair out of the way.

  She felt his fingertips move across the back of her neck, just quickly enough to be accidental, but slowly enough to be deliberate. This time she didn’t have to do anything for him to reach his arms around her and buckle her waist strap for her.

  When he finally let go, she turned in a circle.

  “What do you think?” she asked. “This one fit?”

  She was aware of his eyes looking her up and down, and even more aware that she didn’t mind, not at all.

  “I think that one’s perfect,” he said.

  She stood there, facing him, staring for another moment, feeling almost like she couldn’t breathe.

  “Sleeping bag,” she finally said.

  Jake moved to another part of the room, going through a small mountain of bags until he found one. “Give this a shot,” he said. “Synthetic so it’ll dry faster, women’s tall.”

  “Tent?”

  “Tents are where we aren’t so hot, believe it or not,” he said. “We don’t have any three-person tent, only one and two person tents. I figure the two of you can share. I’ve got my own, anyway.”

  “Extra-tall?” she asked.

  “You got it,” he said, and took something down off of a high shelf. “Here, I’ll show you how to put this one together.”

  The tent wasn’t complicated, and even without the instructions, Ariana and Jake had it up inside five minutes.

  “Then, the rain fly just goes on over top of this if you need it,” he said.

  “We probably will,” Ariana said.

  “We’re supposed to get lucky,” Jake said. “No rain the next couple of days, but we’ll see how that holds out.” He gestured at the tent. “Try it out.”

  Ariana climbed in and laid on her back, more aware than usual of the space she took up. She wasn’t crazy about the idea of sharing the tent with Theresa, but there was no real way around it. Besides, the other girl wouldn’t care.

  “It’s nice,” she said, and looked down.

  Jake was on his hands and knees, getting in the other side of the tent. Ariana’s heart hammered and she looked away, quickly.

  He laid down beside her, the carpeted floor of the office beneath the thin layer of tent nylon. His head and feet stretched the tent in two directions, as he was easily six inches too tall for it.

  “I don’t think you fit,” she said, teasingly.

  “What are you talking about?” Jake asked, stretching, making the tent shake. “This is perfect.”

  Ariana laughed. He was pressed against her right side, his body warm against hers, and it was making her have terrible thoughts.

  “I do love camping out beneath the fluorescent lights,” she said.

  He pointed at the ceiling, totally visible beyond the tent. “The stapler constellation is very visible this time of year,” he said. “And if you look over on the horizon, you can just barely see the lights that make up Copier Major.”

  Ariana laughed out loud. “I hear the lights are totally different in the Southern Office-sphere.”

  “That they are,” said Jake, very seriously. “But you can see the Coffee Way much better.”

  Ariana giggled and turned her head to face him, about to say something else.

  Instead, she found he was facing her, only inches from her. She completely forgot the joke she’d been about to make.

  All she could think was, I want to kiss him. I want to kiss him.

  Jake inched forward, and she could feel his warm breath, the proximity of his lips.

  Ariana swallowed and closed her eyes, thei
r lips just about to meet.

  “I have a boyfriend!” she blurted out.

  Then she flung herself out of the tent as fast as she could, tripped over some sleeping bags, and booked it back to her rental car as fast as she could.

  8

  Ariana

  Ariana berated herself all the way back to the Lodge, cursing herself for coming so close to cheating on poor Graham. Even if she’d wanted to kiss Jake so, so badly. Even if Jake was funny and kind and had actually gone out of his way to help her with something. She knew perfectly well that taking two girls backpacking through thick forest in the middle of the week wasn’t part of his job. He was going because he wanted to.

  She realized she didn’t even know if they were still going.

  “Fuck!” she shouted to the inside of the rental car.

  When she walked into the lobby of the Lodge, Theresa was sitting on one of the overstuffed leather couches, looking at her phone, and glanced up when Ariana walked in.

  “Hey,” the other girl said. “Do you still want to — are you okay?”

  Ariana blinked, realizing that she probably looked like a mess. “Fine,” she said, hoping she sounded light and breezy. “Do you still want to get dinner?”

  “Yeah,” said Theresa. She stood. “Chinese, and you can tell me what’s going on.”

  Halfway through their lo mein, Theresa had finally dragged most of the story out of Ariana. She’d stopped eating and was just resting her head on both hands, staring at the other girl, wide-eyed.

  “He held out packs for you like that?” she sighed. “What a gentleman.”

  Ariana shook her head. She felt like Theresa was really focusing on the wrong thing, here. “I almost cheated on Graham,” she said.

  “You almost cheated on Graham with the guy whose picture you see if you look up ‘sexy beast’ in the dictionary,” Theresa said.

  “I know you don’t like him, but this is a big deal to me,” said Ariana. “Should I tell Graham? I don’t like there to be secrets between us.”

  As if on cue, her phone, sitting on the table, buzzed with a text message. It was a photo, and Ariana couldn’t make it out at first until she opened it on her phone, still sitting on the table.

  “That’s a dick,” said Theresa, authoritatively. “Is that Graham? That’s Graham’s dick. Oh Jesus.” She hid her eyes with both hands.

  Ariana was utterly speechless. Graham had never sent her anything like this before, and she had no idea why he was starting now.

  Her phone buzzed again.

  Cant wait to see u tonite :) it said.

  “What is it?” asked Theresa, still hiding her eyes behind her hands.

  “Weird,” said Ariana. “He thinks I’ll be back tonight, but I told him when I left I didn’t know when we’d be home. I’ll text him and—”

  “He’s cheating on you,” Theresa said. Then she covered her mouth with both hands.

  Ariana stared, open-mouthed.

  “I’m sorry,” said Theresa. “Maybe he’s not? But he suddenly sends you a dick pic and a sexy message when you’re across the country? It kinda seems like...” she trailed off, staring helplessly at Ariana.

  Ariana looked back at her phone. She scrolled quickly through the rest of their messages to each other — his mostly one-word answers, hers long and detailed.

  “How could he be cheating on me?” she asked.

  “You’re gone a lot,” Theresa said.

  “Why?”

  “He’s a shitbag?” said Theresa. “I don’t know why he’d cheat on you, but—” she gestured futilely at the phone.

  “I have to go,” Ariana said. She stood from the table and headed for the door. “I have to call him.” She walked through the door and, moments later, Theresa saw the white rental car swing out of the parking lot.

  “Okay, cool,” said Theresa to Ariana’s now-empty seat. “I’ll just pay and walk.”

  It was almost ten that night when there was a soft knock on Ariana’s door. She was curled up, in her pajamas, in the center of her king-sized bed, her phone still in one hand, and ignored the knock.

  The knock just sounded again, louder. Finally Ariana got up and answered the door. Theresa stood there, holding two mini-bottles of Jack Daniels.

  Ariana sniffled. Her sinuses felt swollen from crying and her eyes were raw. “Where’d you get those?” she asked.

  “Plane,” said Theresa. “The CRF doesn’t care if you buy booze with their money.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  Ariana dragged herself back to the bed and collapsed dramatically. Theresa opened one tiny bottle and handed it to her.

  “It went bad?” she said.

  Ariana tossed the whiskey back, swallowed, and nodded. “God, it just took so long,” she said. She screwed the cap back onto the empty tiny bottle and set it on the side table.

  Theresa produced another from her pocket, handing it to Ariana.

  “First he swore he wasn’t, and then we fought, and then he said he was, but just this once, and I got really mad about that, and it just went on and on.” She paused to unscrew the next little bottle and also tilted it back, then put the cap back on, setting it neatly next to the first empty one on her bedside table. “He’s had two other girlfriends in the past year, not counting me. Girlfriends, he called them his goddamn girlfriends.”

  “That fucking asshole,” said Theresa.

  “And then he tried to blame me!” said Ariana. She was starting to cry again, just a little. “He said if I were around more, he wouldn’t have to look somewhere else for pussy.”

  “It is not your fault,” said Theresa, firmly. She produced a third tiny bottle and handed it to Ariana.

  The other girl looked down at it. “How many of these do you have?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Theresa said. Ariana obeyed, downing the little bottle and then tossing it at the garbage can. She missed.

  “A year, Theresa,” Ariana went on. “He’s been cheating on me for a year and I had no idea! Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “Did they know?”

  “Did you?”

  Theresa shook her head. “I just thought he was a loser,” she said. “Honestly, I’m surprised he got up off his ass enough to find those sluts — oh no, no, I’m sorry, don’t cry!” Ariana erupted into a fresh set of tears.

  “I just feel so stupid!” she said.

  “It’s okay,” said Theresa. “Karma’s gonna tear him a new one someday.” She put her arms around the other girl and they sat like that, in the middle of the bed, for a long time.

  Finally, Ariana spoke up again.

  “I guess it’s not really that big of a deal,” she said. “It’s not like we live together or something.”

  “True,” said Theresa.

  “My life isn’t even going to change that much,” she went on. “Still mostly traveling for work, still got my own apartment.”

  “Still buy your own wine and order your own pizza,” said Theresa. “You just don’t have to share it now.”

  Despite herself, Ariana snort-laughed. “I guess,” she said.

  “We’ll go to bars together when we’re out,” she said. “I heard there have been some more Loch Ness sightings. You interested in some Scottish men?”

  Ariana laughed again, weakly.

  “I don’t even know if we’re going camping tomorrow,” she said.

  “I thought you got a tent and a pack and stuff for us,” said Theresa. “And then got hit on pretty hard by Jake the lumberjack?”

  “I didn’t even finish my story,” said Ariana. “We almost kissed, and then I shouted ‘I have a boyfriend!’ and ran away.”

  “Did you literally run?” asked Theresa.

  Ariana just nodded, miserably.

  Theresa pulled her close again, stroking her hair. “You’re a mess,” she said.

  Ariana just sighed.

  When Ariana woke up, there was one instant where she felt almost nor
mal. Then, she remembered what had happened last night: the tent in the office, the dick pic, the phone call, the crying, the tiny bottles of Jack Daniels. While she wasn’t exactly hung over, her head pounded.

  Her room didn’t have a coffee maker in it, so she slipped into her pajamas and headed downstairs. Normally she didn’t like to be seen by others in a state of undress like this, but today she just didn’t give a shit.

  Look at my busted ass, world! She thought. Hope you’re enjoying the show.

  She walked groggily to the coffee machine, grabbed a styrofoam cup, and put it under the spout.

  Then, just as she pushed the button down, she heard a deep voice behind her.

  “We still going out today?” it asked.

  Ariana froze, just for a moment. It was Jake, of course, the very last person she wanted to see her in her current state of disarray.

  She swallowed, then turned.

  “I, uh, wasn’t sure what time to meet you,” she said. “Or where. Sorry I left so suddenly.”

  Jake shrugged, and she could tell he was trying not to act hurt. “No worries,” he said. “I got all the stuff we need. I grabbed a couple packs I think will fit Theresa, she can pick one and we’ll be on our way.”

  Ariana stepped away from the coffee machine, leading him from the most crowded part of the hotel lobby.

  “Look, I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said. “It was, I just, you know,” she said.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I overstepped my professional boundaries, and I shouldn’t have. Just business, from here on out.”

  She nodded, sipping more of her coffee. “Thanks for understanding,” she said. At last, she let herself look at him. Even in his hiking gear he looked incredible: his t-shirt showed off his bulging arms and wide shoulders. He hadn’t bothered to shave that morning, it looked like, so he had at least a day’s worth of stubble sprouting from his chin.

  Ariana looked away again. You’re in no state to be thinking any dirty thoughts, she told herself sternly.

  “Think they’ll mind if I grab some coffee?” he asked.

  “I doubt it,” she said, and he reached past her for a styrofoam cup of his own.