It took Cole forever to come take the fish from me, mainly because he was laughing too hard to stand up. As the chuckles eventually died down and all went back to a relatively normal state, Rachel asked between giggles if I wanted a towel. I told her that would be appreciated, and she returned with a beach towel that featured a couple of princesses. I removed my shorts and wrung the water from them, watching as a steady stream dripped onto the rocks. My shirt and shorts I spread out on the bank, hoping that they might dry at least a little, because I didn’t have any extra clothes.
I wouldn’t need any, I had been assured.
Yeah, right.
Standing there only in my peacock swimwear, I wrapped the kiddie beach towel tightly around myself as the water dripped down my legs.
“Who had thirty minutes?” Tony asked, looking at Sara and Rachel. They glanced guiltily at me.
“I think Jeff had thirty,” Sara stated.
“Nobody thought to suggest attacked by a fish,” Tony stated with a chuckle. Sara and Rachel hid their smiles behind their hands, and Cole smiled at me like a little boy. I narrowed my eyes as I stared back at him.
“Cole had falling in the river,” Jeff interjected, causing a couple more chuckles.
“Wait a minute,” I snapped. “You all were betting on how long it would take me to humiliate myself?” I don’t know if it was from embarrassment or shock or the fact that they had expected me to make a fool of myself, but I was suddenly borderline furious. Did they bring me camping just to make fun of me? “What else did you bet I would do? Set the camp on fire? Knock the tents over? Come on, I want to know!”
My anger did not have the intended effect, because they all started laughing again, with the exception of Cole, who was regarding me with a strange expression. He was staring at me, actually, as though he was deep in thought. I absently braided my damp hair across my shoulder and then went to the truck to find a hair tie in the black bag I brought. As I backed out of the cab of the truck, something brushed against my arm and I jerked back, finding Cole standing behind me. He was close enough that I couldn’t move without bumping into him or shoving him aside, so I plopped down into the seat and glared up at him.
“What, you’re mad at me?” he asked softly, those puppy dog eyes sweeping across my face. I was determined not to let him undo me.
“I cannot believe you brought me out here just to make fun of me,” I hissed. He took a deep breath and a slow smile touched at the corners of his mouth.
“Nobody’s making fun of you,” he said, appraising me with his eyes. I started to feel self-conscious, and I pulled the towel a little tighter around my midsection.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I demanded quietly as the back of his fingers trailed down my cheek. “And stop touching me. You’re making it impossible to be mad.” He leaned toward me and I felt the heat of his breath across my collarbone before his lips gently grazed my neck, and suddenly every sense I had was heightened. He pulled his face within inches of mine and trained his eyes directly into me.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered as his hand moved to the back of my neck.
“Uh huh,” was all I could manage.
“Don’t you want to know why I’m sorry?” he chuckled, his dark eyes smiling at me.
“Don’t care,” I breathed, closing the distance between us. His mouth was warm, and I could feel his fingers against the bare skin of my back, my stomach tied in a solid knot. I relaxed into him for a moment, and then I gently pressed against his chest until he backed away. He smiled easily then and pulled me out of the truck, wrapping the towel around my shoulders carefully.
“Four weeks,” he said more to himself than me, and then he took my hand.
“Hmm, until then, do me a favor,” I said in a soft voice, putting my hand on his arm.
“Anything,” he whispered, and I believed he really meant it.
“Don’t find yourself alone with me,” I suggested with a smile. “I’m not sure I can be trusted.” He laughed and pulled me into the biggest hug possible before we returned to the riverbank and joined the others.
No mention was made of the wagers a few minutes before as Cole and Jeff started a fire and then loaded their fishing gear into their trucks. I sat close to the fire in an attempt to force my garments to dry. The menu for the evening was hot dogs, potato chips, and s’mores, and I watched as Rachel and Sara went through the things they had packed. I felt rather useless until Cole settled down beside me and wrapped his arms around me, kissing me on the cheek. Jeff was quick to order him not to start being all romantic so that he and Tony would be labeled jerks. Cole responded by asking if I needed anything and calling me sweetheart, causing Jeff to roll his eyes and walk away.
The hot dogs were roasted on sticks that the guys had whittled into points. Cole had managed to find one that he could make into two points. Rachel and Sara made remarks about how sweet he was taking care of me, but I knew he was probably just protecting himself from being stabbed or set on fire. When Cole asked me what I wanted on my hot dog, however, I figured he was showing off. I checked my clothes and realized that my shirt was nearly dry, so I slipped it back on and draped the towel over a tree branch so it could dry. Cole returned with my hot dog and sat down next to me. For a split second I thought about Cole’s hands touching that stupid fish and now touching my food, but I supposed I touched that fish too, so it didn’t really matter. Gross.
“So, Camdyn, you need to tell us about yourself,” Sara suggested. “Tony and I don’t really know you yet.” I smiled around the bite of hot dog in my mouth and wondered what I should say.
“She’s been proposed to six times,” Rachel told them. I half-choked, and Cole patted me on the back gently.
“Six times, really?” Sara asked, wrinkling up her nose. I wiped some mustard off the side of my mouth and nodded.
“Only the sixth one counts,” Cole interjected, smiling over at me. “Besides, she probably doesn’t want to talk about that.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of humiliating,” I agreed.
“So, how do you like camping so far?” Tony asked. “I’m dying to know, one city kid to another.”
“Aside from falling in the river, getting slapped by a fish…” I sighed as I heard a couple giggles. “I guess you should probably ask me later, after I have to take care of business in the bushes.”
“Camdyn, you’re so funny,” Rachel chuckled. “The first time we brought Tony camping, he was trying to fish and he snagged the hook on the back of his own shorts.”
“Yeah, good times,” Tony stated, shaking his head. “There’s always some sort of mishap on your first outing – that’s why we tried to figure out what yours would be.”
“I can’t believe Cole guessed that you would fall in the river,” Rachel told me. “He thought it would only take fifteen minutes, though.”
“I guess he knows me well enough to think that would be the case,” I said dejectedly, causing Cole to lean over and kiss my cheek again. “You want to know something about me, Sara? I’m sort of a klutz on my best days, and on my worst, I’m a hot mess.”
“An enchantingly beautiful mess,” Cole agreed with one of those smiles, threatening to turn my heart inside out.
“Man, Parker, I’m going to have to insist that you stop saying things like that,” Jeff ordered. “You’re setting the bar way too high.” He turned to look at Rachel. “Baby, do you want another hot dog? Perhaps a delightful walk down the riverbank? A foot massage?”
“Keep it up, Cole,” Rachel teased. “I like where this is headed.” Jeff rolled his eyes as he stood up and grabbed another hot dog, stretching it out over the fire. Cole looked at me and raised his eyebrows to see if I wanted anything else, but I just smiled and shook my head.
“So, you said you were a city kid, Tony?” I asked. “Where are you from?”
“I was born in Germany, actually,” Tony stated, swirling his soft drink around in the can. “Moved around a lot until I was about six, Dad i
n the military. When my parents split up, Mom took us to Memphis.”
“Us?” I clarified.
“I’ve got three older sisters.”
“That’s why he’s so weird,” Jeff informed me, causing Cole to choke on his soft drink.
The sun had set, and twilight settled over the river. The flames danced in between the six of us, casting strange shadows. My sentiment before was still holding true – peaceful. Rachel opened a bag of marshmallows, and once again Cole took responsibility for both of us, giving me a knowing smile. So I almost impaled him with a marshmallow once – you would think he would have forgotten it by now!
“So how did you two meet, then?” I asked Sara. She smiled and looked at Tony.
“Oh, let me tell it,” Tony insisted. “I make it so much more interesting.” Sara gave Tony a look of fake exasperation, but he didn’t seem to notice. “One night I was out at a club with a couple of my buddies, and we’d all been drinking too much. We took off, and Patrick had no business driving, but neither did I, so I wouldn’t have said anything. Anyway, he winds up driving into somebody’s backyard, taking out their fence. The cops showed up, hauled Patrick off to jail, but they took me to the hospital because I had this gash on my head.”
“Yeah, I’m working the ER that night, and in comes this obnoxious drunk guy…” Sara offered.
“Wait a second, I wasn’t obnoxious,” Tony interjected. “I was charming, okay? Very charming. I see this beautiful blonde nurse, and I say… Babe, what did I say again?”
“You said, ‘Baby, I think you could be the answer to all my problems,’” Sara stated. I laughed out loud and then covered my mouth with my hand.
“Yeah, okay? Come on, that’s charming,” Tony told me. “So, she stitches me up, and I asked her out, at least three times. She kept saying no, would not relent.”
“I don’t know what was wrong with me,” Sara said dryly. “There’s something so sexy about a drunk guy who has just been brought in on a stretcher.” Rachel and I both launched into giggles that time.
“So, back to my story,” Tony started again. “A couple months later, I’m at this party at a hotel. I had taken some pills that my friend’s brother gave him, no idea what they were. I’d been drinking since early that day. I’m totally wasted out of my mind. I decide that I’m going to jump into the pool. Mind you, we are in a second story room. I step out onto the balcony, jump toward the pool…only I missed, by about two feet. Landed on the concrete. Another ambulance, back to the hospital.
“As luck would have it, here comes that beautiful blonde nurse. This time I wasn’t quite so suave, with a broken collarbone and a couple of broken ribs. What did I say to you then?”
“Hmm…” Sara smiled to herself. “You said, ‘Baby, we have to stop meeting like this.’ To which I responded, ‘If you weren’t such a loser, we wouldn’t have to.’”
“Ouch,” I laughed as Cole slid the sticky marshmallow off the end of the stick and handed it to me carefully.
“So I had to have surgery, and afterwards I was resting in my room, and here she comes. She couldn’t resist me.”
“I was checking on him because I thought he might be homeless.” I felt Cole tense up next to me as he started laughing. I bit my lip to keep from launching into giggles myself.
“So what was I supposed to do?” Tony asked with a lot of machismo. “I told her that destiny had brought us together, and I asked her out again.”
“He looked so pathetic in his hospital gown, all beaten up and bruised,” Sara offered. “I told him that I would go out with him, but I would have to pick the place.”
“Yeah, she would have to pick the place,” Tony continued. “So I said, ‘Anywhere, baby, you name it.’ She says she wants to go to an AA meeting. I’m thinking, okay, this girl is a raging alcoholic. I wouldn’t have guessed it, but who was I to judge, right? Anyway, a couple weeks later, she picked me up at my house and took me to my first AA meeting. Real romantic, right?”
“He must not have minded too much,” Sara told me with a smile. “It’s been five years, and we’re still together.”
“Five years sober and five years happily in love, thank you very much,” Tony announced, holding his soft drink can in the air for a toast. Everyone seemed more than happy to oblige, the sound of tinkling aluminum wafting through the air.
“That is a totally awesome story,” I told them, leaning contentedly against Cole in the moonlight.
“I wish I had an awesome story,” Rachel stated. “Jeff, you should be more romantic sometimes.”
“You would rather I had been an alcoholic?” Jeff asked, causing Cole to laugh again.
“Well, when did you and Jeff start dating, Rachel?” I questioned her as she folded a marshmallow between chocolate and a graham cracker.
“My junior year, but we were kind of incognito,” she offered, glancing at Jeff with a smile.
“Yeah, we started dating after the prom,” Jeff added. “Cole and I were seniors, and I purposely didn’t ask anyone to the prom because I was secretly hoping that Rachel wouldn’t have a date and we could just hang out with Cole and Steph. We did that all the time anyway, so that was my plan. About a month before prom, she started dating Grant Andrews. I was totally ticked off about it, and I kept telling myself that I should have just asked her to prom myself. As fate would have it, he broke up with her the week before prom, so she wound up tagging along with us anyway.”
“I had no idea he liked me, at all,” Rachel told me, smiling.
“So all summer, we found ways to hang out together without anyone being the wiser, because we didn’t want Cole to know. We thought it might be weird, since I was his friend and all.” Jeff winked at Rachel, and I thought about Charlie and Trina. She had been my friend way before she and Charlie started dating, and it was weird for a long time.
“When I came home from college at Thanksgiving, they were a couple,” Cole said as he handed me another marshmallow. “When they realized it didn’t bother me, they were kind of miffed.”
“Yes, a little bit,” Rachel admitted with a sigh. “This is fun, talking about old times. It reminds me of that one time after the fourth, do you all remember that? Gosh, there must have been twenty of us at the river, and then that dog…” Cole, Jeff, and Sara busted into laughter as a unit, and Tony looked at me with wide eyes.
“You’ll have to get used to that,” Tony informed me. “There are always these ‘remember when’ moments that end with me feeling like I only caught half of the story. Usually when Sara tells me the full story later, it’s not nearly as funny as it seemed in the first place.”
“Duly noted,” I said, stuffing the marshmallow in my mouth. It might have been fun to grow up here, I decided, and share the same friends for years, recalling old memories. I only had a handful of friends in high school, and I lost touch with them right away. Just not enough in common to care, I guess. I never had a real friend until I met Trina – not one I could be myself around, anyway.
“Dare I even ask how ‘mister romantic’ and ‘the one’ met?” Tony directed at me. “I’m not sure I want to know, since I just ate some s’mores and too much sugar might make me sick.”
“Yes, ‘miss writer,’ tell us a good story,” Rachel requested.
“Well,” I began slowly, “it was a dark and stormy night…” Sara giggled, but Rachel shook her head.
“No, no,” she said. “Go back further and tell the whole story – don’t leave things out.”
“Okay,” I took a deep breath. “Going back further… it actually started with a humiliating marriage proposal that wound up on the local news. These news reporters were showing up at my apartment, and all my neighbors were acting funny. I decided impulsively that I had to escape, so I packed everything that would fit into my suitcases and left in a shroud of darkness.”
“Ooh, shroud of darkness,” Rachel echoed. “I like that.”
“I drove for hours to get to my brother’s house, but I couldn’t fig
ure out where to go. After thinking about it, I decided to do some more research on the book I was writing about my ancestor. I knew the general area where she lived, and I knew which cemetery I needed to visit. I mapped the cemetery on my phone and decided to stay in Jackson, so I mapped out directions to a hotel. Everything should have been fine, but right after I left I was embroiled in the mother of all storms. I fought the driving rain for hours.
“When I stopped for dinner and the waitress told me I had only an hour to go, I was so relieved. After I left, though, my phone wasn’t working correctly, and it was eventually useless. I followed the directions I had, but I wound up sitting on a gravel road in the middle of nowhere in a thunderstorm. As it turns out, my phone somehow reverted to the cemetery directions rather than the hotel directions.”
“Wow, that stinks,” Sara sighed. “What did you do?”
“I prayed, and I cried, and I told myself I was stupid,” I said with a laugh. “Finally, I decided to get my atlas out of the trunk, so I braved the rain. That was when I met Cole.”
“What were you doing out in that storm?” Tony wanted to know. I sat back and looked at Cole, somewhat eager to hear him tell the story.
“I was just sitting at home when I had this gut feeling that I needed to check on Aunt Rosalie,” Cole offered. “So I’m driving along and I happen to see this car at the entrance to the gravel road, just sitting there, and something seemed off about it. I turned around and went back, and I get there just in time to see Camdyn climbing out of her trunk, soaking wet. I got out of the truck and asked her if she was okay, and it was so funny – she said she wasn’t sure, and then asked if I was there to help her or kill her.”
A Reason to Be Alone (The Camdyn Series Book 2) Page 11