Not Over You: Accidental Roommates Romance

by R. S. Lively

  "Come on," he says. "This is where we're going."

  "This may be where you're going, but I'm waiting for something with a bed and walls."

  "If you hurry up and get out, we'll get the tents set up and then you'll have both."

  His grin gives me a momentary glimpse into the first summers we spent together as he makes his way toward the back of the truck. I sit in place, staring through the windshield at the weaving dirt path leading into the woods ahead of me for a few more seconds before I come to terms with the fact that Cade isn't kidding. This was actually his plan. He seriously formulated the concept of camping in his mind and thought it was a fantastic idea.

  Damn it all to s'mores.

  Unlocking my seatbelt with the biggest sigh I can manage, I climb out of the truck and walk toward him.

  "I thought we talked about the 'woe is me' thing," he says.

  "No, we talked about the complaining about being at Grammie's house thing. You didn't include a camping clause in that."

  Cade releases a lock on the side of the hardback cover over the bed and removes it. A selection of camping equipment nearly fills the space.

  "Fine, but that was your last sigh. You're going to pass the fuck out if you keep doing that. Where's the Fiona I used to know? You used to love camping and the outdoors."

  He reaches into the bed and pulls out a package I recognize as a tent.

  "I was a teenager, and I had nothing to do with putting the camp together. You and Gramps did all that. I sat by the fire with Grammie and drank hot chocolate and ate marshmallows."

  "I'm sure you can handle it," he says. "As soon as we get camp set up, you'll remember how much fun we used to have."

  I grab one of the sleeping bags and yank it up over the side of the bed.

  "When did you have the time to pack all this in the truck, anyway?"

  Cade drops the tent and pulls out another.

  "When you were debating how much of your makeup you should bring with you."

  "Well, all that has gone right to hell, hasn't it? I somehow doubt there's going to be a lighted mirror mounted on a tree out here anywhere."

  "You never know," Cade says. "There might be a very particular bear who wants to look his best before fishing in the stream."

  I flash him a mocking glare and yank another bag out of the bed. Finally, we've gotten everything, and Cade starts down the path. He's carrying three-quarters of what we brought, and I'm feeling much less productive with only my duffel bag thrown over my shoulder and a navy blue sleeping bag in my arms. The mud on the path is slick beneath my feet, and I'm thankful for having on a pair of thick-soled tennis shoes rather than the sandals I had been tempted to wear when I thought this venture was going to end at a hotel.

  "You know," I call to Cade as his long strides bring him far in front of me, "when you said you thought we both needed a break, I really didn't think that was going to mean primitive camping out in the middle of nowhere."

  "I thought you said Grammie's house was out in the middle of nowhere."

  "It is."

  "Then this can't possibly be."

  "You are just so funny.” I slip on leaves and struggle to right myself instead of ending up on my ass in the mud. "I thought neither of us wanted to deal with the no electricity thing," I point out. "How exactly is coming out here avoiding that?"

  "I said I didn't want to deal with being in the house without power. This is something else altogether."

  "Exactly. Now we’re without a house and power."

  "It's going to be fun. Just try to relax, will you? Not everything has to be so dramatic."

  I know he doesn't mean anything by it, but the comment cuts me. I don't want to think about the pain or the drama that has actually happened between us. But, every time those eyes meet mine, and I see his full, soft lips smile, my heart goes right back to the time when I thought he would be mine forever, and then the night I knew he wouldn't.

  Trying to push the unpleasant memories from my mind, I continue to follow him down the winding path and deeper into the woods. As we move further into the trees, the canopy of leaves overhead becomes thicker. The cover had kept much of the rain from hitting the path, and there is less slick mud under my feet compared to before. I'm able to cover some of the space between Cade and me, and I'm only a few steps away from him when he stops and lets out a resolute breath.

  "Here," he says. "It's perfect."

  I step up beside him and survey the area in front of us.

  "Really?" I ask.

  I see little more than a clearing, but he's looking at it like he just discovered the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

  "Yeah," he says. "There's plenty of space for the tents, and I'll be able to make a fire without worrying about the trees. I did promise we were going to grill out tonight."

  "Yes," I say. "Grill. You said we were going to grill our supper tonight. You know what that requires?"

  "What?"

  "A grill."

  "I have a camping grill in one of the bags," he says.

  "Of course, you do."

  Cade looks over at me with an inscrutable expression on his face.

  "Do you want to go ahead and get started putting up the tents, and I'll start building a fire?"

  "Putting up the tents?" I ask.

  "Yeah," he says. "Unless you want to build the fire."

  I shake my head. I have never in my life started a fire. At least, not intentionally. I don't think putting my curling iron down on what was supposed to be a motivating sticky note on the bathroom counter imbued me with the skills necessary to create a campfire.

  "No," I say. "I'll do the tents."

  "Good," he says. "The creek shouldn't be too far from here. I'm just going to go down and look for rocks to make a fire ring. I'm going to need as much space as possible around the fire, so try to keep the tents away from the center of the clearing."

  "No problem," I say, trying to sound as confident as possible.

  I wait until Cade disappears further down the path before I drag one of the tents a few feet further into the clearing and start to pull the pieces out. A few seconds later, Cade walks back up and finds me standing over the tarp spread over the ground, and the variety of poles arranged across it.

  "I thought you were gathering rocks," I say.

  "I figured I should bring something to put them in, so I don't have to make so many trips. What are you doing?"

  "Contemplating the poles," I say.

  "What about them?" he asks as he pulls what looks like a folded canvas bag out of one of the equipment bags.

  "Why there are so many." I reach down and gather a few of the poles. I shove the ends into plastic-reinforced holes around the perimeter of the tarp and try to pull them toward each other. They almost immediately snap apart. "Son of a bitch! Why are there so many?"

  "How many do you think there should be?" he asks, obviously amused by my plight.

  "I don't know, three? It just doesn't seem like there needs to be this many of them just to make a triangle."

  "I think you're thinking of a tipi."

  My eyes slide over to him. Finally, I shake my head and reach down for the poles again.

  "Go away," I say.

  I hear him chuckle as he takes his bag and heads back down the path toward the creek, but I'm too focused on battling the poles into position to care.

  I'm holding two poles in one hand, a third in the other, and am reaching for a fourth when I start to see the flaw in my approach. Rearranging my position, I shuffle how I'm holding the poles, and reach down for another. This causes one to slip out of each hand.

  "Damn," I mutter as I try to re-evaluate.

  I'm almost making progress when I realize the next step will require at least two more hands. In my attempt to rearrange, my hand slips just enough for the poles to pop away from each other, and I throw myself to the ground, covering my head in hopes of not being impaled. When the sound of the poles clattering to the ground dies down, I ca
utiously sit back up and survey the current state of what, in theory, should be a tent.

  "This is the worst game of Twister I’ve ever seen."

  Damn it.

  Cade

  Fiona was carrying on a fairly obnoxious argument with the tent the last time I walked through the clearing to drop off rocks, but she suddenly falls silent. I'm not sure if this is a good sign, or if I should be worried, and I pick up the pace. Once finished refilling the bag with the smooth, polished rocks from the water, I make my way back to the camp, unsure of what I'm going to find.

  I'm not prepared.

  "What are you doing?" I ask, staring down at what looks like a blue nylon tube with Fiona's head sticking out of one end.

  Her eyes are closed, and it looks like she's practicing meditation.

  "I'm nailing camping, obviously," she says. “That's what I'm doing."

  "That is not what a tent is supposed to look like. Where are all the poles?"

  "I put them away. I'm going to sleep under the stars."

  "You are going to sleep under the stars?" I ask. "You? You the girl who still sleeps with a nightlight?"

  "I do not sleep with a nightlight."

  "That light that's plugged in beside the sink in the bathroom? Or the one I know I saw in your bedroom?"

  "Those are not nightlights. Those are night safety devices."

  I scoff. "OK, whatever, crazy girl. So, you are going to sleep out under the stars. You? You the girl who insists on sleeping with night safety devices?"

  Fiona suddenly rolls to her back and looks up at the sky.

  "Yes. The stars. Besides, I will be under the greatest night safety device of them all. The silvery moon."

  I have the feeling if she currently had control over her arms rather than having them pinned to her sides by the tent, she'd fling them open to encompass the evening sky above her.

  "The silvery moon?" I ask, chuckling quietly. "Seriously?"

  She stares back at me, missing the joking note in my voice.

  "Yes," she says.

  "Perfect. Well, I've heard the bears around here are friendly. Maybe you'll be cuddling soon."

  I expect a moment of a confused expression before the absurdity of what I just said dawns on her. Instead, her eyes widen in panic, and she begins to frantically roll to the side, uncoiling herself from the tent.

  "Son of a bitch! Bears? Did you say bears? Are there bears here?"

  She finishes unraveling and jumps to her feet. Her eyes dart from side to side as if she expects a pack of Goldilocks' homies to roll out of the trees any second.

  "I mean... Yeah, I'm sure there are, but I don't think any of them are actually going to come out here and try to cuddle with you."

  "Then why did you – " she pauses, jumping slightly and shifting nervously to the side, "– say that?"

  "What the hell happened to you?" I ask. "You used to be outside all the time. You never seemed to mind running around with no shoes on or sitting by the fire with me."

  I notice her cheeks flush and realize what I said. My body responds to the color and the way she bites down on her bottom lip. I take a few involuntary steps toward her, dying to hold her in my arms. Fiona sees me approaching, but doesn't move. I stop before I make a stupid mistake, and force my eyes down to the abandoned tent on the ground.

  "Why don't I help you with the tents, and we can build the fire together?"

  She nods.

  "Sounds good."

  I nod, and she walks over to the blue tent bag, reluctantly pulling out the poles. "I have to warn you," she says. "There aren't any instructions in there."

  "I don't need instructions," I say. "I could put this tent up with my eyes closed."

  Fiona looks around at the growing darkness around us.

  "That's probably a good thing because if it takes too much longer for us to actually get this done, it's going to be dark enough you might as well be doing it with your eyes closed."

  She offers me the poles.

  "Oh, I'll be fine," I say. "After all, I'll have the light of the silvery moon."

  That was enough. It finally clicked. Her eyes narrow at me and she swats me on the arm.

  "Shut up," she says.

  I laugh as I move to position two of the poles. With them in place, I pick up the next and move around the edge of the tent, humming a tune as I go. I know that just like me, Fiona remembers Gramps singing when he was in a really good mood. Often, he would sweep Grammie into his arms and twirl her into the middle of the living room floor, dancing as he serenaded her. The way he gazed into her eyes – it was like they had completely forgotten Fiona and I were there. Those were the some of the best moments. I'd never seen love like that before. I grew up with two adults in the home with me, but they didn’t act much like parents.

  The truth is, it’s thanks to Gramps and Grammie that I got to this point. Before I started spending time with their family, I had a warped view of love and connection. My parents' relationship was, and as far as I know, still is, volatile and intensely dramatic. They were like a pendulum, constantly swinging between crawling all over each other and disappearing together for stretches of time that could range from a few hours to a few days, to violent bursts of fighting. Never once did I see them look at each other the way Grammie and Gramps did when he held her in his arms and mumbled his way through the words of old croony love songs in his tobacco-tinged voice.

  I connect the poles and reach for the remaining ones, looking at up at Fiona as I hum a little louder. She tries to keep her expression angry, but her eyes are glittering, and I see the corners of her lips curving up as she reaches through the poles to playfully shove my shoulders.

  "Stop," she yelps.

  I duck down under the poles, grabbing her around the knees. Fiona laughs as she collapses, curling up so she doesn't run into the skeleton of the tent, and lands on top of me. I tickle her, and she squirms away from me, giggling quietly. We both drop onto our backs and stare up at the sky. Inky blue clouds have made their way across it, hearkening in the night. I want to stay there, lying beside her forever, but we need to hurry if we're going to get camp set up before it's too dark. I turn my head and look at her.

  "I think this tent is missing something," I say.

  She glances around, feigning confusion.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," she says. "I think it's perfect."

  I laugh and pat her on the thigh.

  "Come on," I groan. "Let's get the rest of the tent put together and then we'll work on the fire. Once it's going, I'll put mine up."

  Twenty minutes later, we finished piling sticks and twigs inside the ring of smooth river rocks. Dry moss and leaves at the heart of the kindling act as tinder, and I watch as Fiona cautiously guides the burning stick I handed her toward it. She jumps back slightly before it fully ignites, and I step up behind her. I remember how far she always stood away from the ring when Gramps was lighting the fire. She'd stay far from it until all the frantic, dancing sparks of the first few minutes of burning had settled before venturing any closer.

  "It's alright," I murmur. "It's not going to hurt you."

  "Are you sure?" she asks.

  I want to laugh at the soft hint of fear in her voice, but it sounds genuine, so I don't. Stepping up behind her, I slide one hand along her arm to settle over hers. My body is just close enough to feel the brush of her from my chest down my thighs, and I indulge my desire to touch her by wrapping my other arm around her to bring her other hand up to meet the first on the stick.

  "Come on," I say. "Just lean a little bit forward and set it in the tinder." I guide her forward and feel my cock jump as she bends, nestling her hips back into me. The flame at the end of the stick touches the tinder and there is a slight pop and hiss as some of the moss ignites. "It's alright," I murmur as I feel her body tighten and she tries to pull back. "I've got you. I won't let anything hurt you."

  Fiona relaxes, and she tosses the stick forward into the growing fire
, and we take a few steps back. I regret moving my body away from hers, and as she turns to look at me, I see the flush on her cheeks has deepened and spread across her beautiful, moonlit face. We look at each other for a few seconds, and I still feel the heat of her body against mine, and the softness of her skin beneath my hands. I start to take a step toward her, and she looks back over her shoulder sharply as if purposely trying to break the heated attraction between us.

  "Do you need help with your tent?" she asks.

  "It's alright," I tell her. "I can handle it. Why don't you go in the cooler and get the meat out so we can start cooking? I'm starving."

  Fiona nods in agreement. “Me, too.”

  As she makes her way toward the cooler, I head for the tent still wrapped in its bag at the edge of the clearing. I bring it several feet away from hers and start setting it up. Glancing over my shoulder, I see Fiona set the cooking equipment at the edge of the fire the way Grammie taught us. Within a few minutes, the smell of burgers fills the air around us, and my stomach grumbles even more than it was before. Now that my tent is set up, I head back into the edge of the woods for the fallen tree I'd seen earlier when I first made my way toward the river. I kick it a few times to make sure that no woodland creatures have taken up residence inside, and that it won't completely crumble the second I touch it. Since it passes the test, I grab hold of the log and bring it back toward the fire.

  "There," I say when the log is securely in place, "now we have a bench."

  I toss a blanket over it to make it a little more comfortable, and Fiona carries plates over, handing me one before settling onto the log beside me. We eat in silence for a few minutes before she opens her mouth to say something, but stops and stares down at her plate.

  "What?" I ask. "Were you going to say something?"

  Fiona looks into the fire, then back at me.

  "I just wanted to say I'm sorry for the way I've been acting since I got to the house. I've been a spoiled brat."

  "No, you haven't," I say. She gives me a questioning look, and I nod with resignation. "Well, you kind of have. I was trying to be nice."

  "You weren't very nice before we got here," she points out. "But I deserved it. I don't know what's gotten into me. I've been frustrated since the second I heard she had fallen and hurt herself. I don't know why her getting hurt would make me so angry."