Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
NOAH
I ’m adding a mile to my jog this morning, hoping that it will take my mind off of Victoria. Ever since the tent incident, it’s been impossible to think of anything else. And now that the admins are coming for a visit, I need to be focused on the kids. The activities. The site tour.
Anything but Vic and the way she’s turned my heart inside out. The way her hands feel on my chest, the way her full bottom lip feels caught in my teeth? Yeah, I’m not even going to go there. Better add another mile. Because she’s right: we never should have let that happen here. I have to shift my focus back to camp, where it belongs.
Whatever’s happening with Victoria will have to wait.
Three more days .
Easy-peasy.
I turn up the volume on my earphones, concentrate on the rhythmic slap of my sneakers against the pavement. No more thoughts of Vic and what comes after. No more thoughts of how perfect her body felt curled against mine. My job is this camp, and these kids—and they deserve my full attention.
But the minute we’re off this mountain, Victoria will have every scrap of my attention.
I swear I hear her calling my name, even over the pounding of the music. My brain pops back into overdrive, planning the most creative ways I can show her what she means to me the second we’re alone for real. I frown, legs pumping harder, as if I could ever outrun all these thoughts of her.
“Noah!” I hear again, this time louder, and my stupid brain needs to get the memo already. No more fantasizing about Victoria. Period.
My name rings in my ears again, and then I feel a hand on my shoulder.
I stumble and catch myself before I hit the pavement, then pull the earphones from my ears. Victoria bends over at the waist, breathing hard. Her hands grip her thighs, squeezing, and that is the last image I need to have burned into my brain right now.
“Jesus,” she pants. “I’ll never understand why people love to run so much. I feel like I’m actually dying.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask. With her cheeks bright pink and her hair so unruly, she looks like she’s trying to outrun a wildfire.
It’s also sexy as hell.
“We need to talk,” she says, her voice ragged. Her hands are planted on her hips as she leans back, face toward the sky. This draws my gaze down her body, exactly where it does not need to be, and I consider jumping into the nearby pond just to get my body under control. Because her flushed cheeks combined with all that panting is going to make me combust.
“Not here, though,” she says. “Can we meet in the office in a little while? Sophie’s going on a supply run, so we won’t be interrupted.”
“Okay,” I say. “Sure.” Whatever she wants to talk about so urgently can’t be good. Especially if she needs to plan a time and location when we can be alone.
She nods, biting her lip, and I can’t take much more of this. I want to scoop her into my arms and pin her against the nearest tree and kiss that pouty lip of hers until her heart’s pounding as hard as mine is.
“What’s wrong with you?” she barks. “Why do you look like you just ate a ghost pepper?” She’s staring at me with that adorable little furrow in her brow that I want to smooth out with my thumb.
“Nothing,” I reply. “I was just running too hard.”
She frowns like she doesn’t believe that for a second. “I have to make a phone call in a few minutes, but what if we talk right after? It’s important.”
“How about in half an hour?” I offer. That’s time enough for me to run one more lap and then take the coldest shower in the history of the world. I’m going to need every drop of this ice-cold mountain water just to get my heart back to its baseline rhythm.
“Perfect,” she says.
Before I can say anything else, she heads off toward the main building, shoes pounding the pavement like it did her wrong, and I’m left feeling like a house on fire.
Thirty minutes later, I find Victoria in our office inside the admin building.
She’s leaning against the desk, smiling and nodding as she cradles the phone to her ear. When she sees me, she gives me a quick wave and holds one finger up— Give me a minute .
Turning my back to the big bank of windows in the conference room, I study the framed prints in the hallway—modern photos of the Horseshoe Nebula and the Helix Nebula, which I learn from the caption are the result of dying stars. I’m transfixed by the swirling red and green gases, streaks of color as bright as auroras against the vast black of space. It’s hard to imagine that this beauty comes from something as it dies.
The door behind me opens and Victoria says, “Okay, I’m done. Thanks for waiting.”
“Of course,” I say, following her back into the room. “Good news from home?” I close the door behind me, and she sits on the small sofa at the back of the room. Because it’s more like a loveseat, I sit in the chair next to her.
I get the feeling that she needs some space to tell me what’s on her mind.
“That was a work call,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Or, potential work, I guess.”
“Was that Roxy? Did something full-time come up?”
Her brows pinch together. “No. Another real estate office made me an offer. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Are you going to take it?” I ask. Her answer means everything. And the way she glossed over it? I don’t know how to take that.
She waggles her finger at me. “One crisis at a time, Valentine.”
“Crisis?” I ask, because apparently, I’m now a parrot.
“Roxy asked me if something was going on between us,” she says. “She swears the admin visit isn’t about that, but I’m freaking out. She sent me photos.”
“Wait. What?” My heart drops straight into my stomach. “Okay. This is not what I was expecting.” If the admin staff gets a whiff of fraternizing, then they’ll fire us both in a heartbeat and I can kiss this camp gig goodbye—permanently.
“Yeah, this is not how I expected to start my day, either,” she says.
I rake my hands through my hair, trying to stay calm. “What did you tell her?”
She sighs as if she has the weight of the world on her. “I told her that we’re old friends. But a couple of photos went up on the site, and Roxy saw them.” A blush rises in her cheeks, and she tugs on the ends of her hair, a habit I remember all too well. It means she’s nervous and anxious. Scared.
I want to fold her into my arms and tell her it’s going to be okay—but that’s the impulse that created this problem.
“The photos were nothing terrible,” she says. “I mean, it’s obvious that we’re friendly and close, but it was nothing beyond that. It just raised a flag for Roxy because she’s got this ridiculous sixth sense about people.”
“Jesus,” I breathe.
“We have to take a step back,” she says. “I think we have a lot to sort out, and I have a bunch of feelings to untangle, but the point is that we have to be one hundred percent professional, and we haven’t been. My life already feels like a train wreck right now, and I don’t want to screw this up, too.”
I nod, resisting the urge to take her hand in mine. “You’re not screwing anything up with me,” I reassure her.
She blinks at me in confusion. “I mean the job ,” she says. “Roxy vouched for me, and here I am breaking the one big rule. I don’t want to let her down, or ruin this camp for the kids.”
Her words hit me like a knife in the chest. Of course she’s worried about the work, not me. She’s concerned about her reputation, her future with the program. She’s not worried about how we fit together after camp is over.
“And then there’s your job,” she says. “You’ve been doing this for years, and I don’t want to wreck that for you, either. I know how important it is for you.”
I nod, swallowing hard. Although she’s right, these are not words I want to hear.
“I just don’t want to ruin all of this,” she says. “I’ve missed our friendship so much, and being here has helped me see that. I was hoping we could have that again. If you wanted it, too.”
“Friendship,” I say, straining to keep my voice even. “That’s what you want?”
“I hated the way things ended between us,” she says. “I hated that things were unresolved for so long.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
She stares at me for a long moment, like she’s working through a complicated math problem.
I lean closer, daring her to deny what’s written all over her face. Daring her to deny that she wants more than friendship between us. Because that kiss? It didn’t feel like the end of something. It felt like the beginning.
“You want me to be your friend?” I ask her. “Nothing else?”
She practically leaps to her feet, pacing in front of me. “I’m not sure of what I want anymore. You said it yourself—camp time is compressed. Things happen fast, and they feel more intense. I think we need to hit the pause button and think harder about what happens next. Don’t you?” She tugs on the ends of her hair, a dead giveaway that she’s feeling torn. “I just feel like everything in my life is turned upside down right now, and it’s all happening so fast, and—” she pauses, letting out a weary sigh. “Making decisions in the heat of the moment is never a good idea.”
My heart feels as heavy as a brick. I thought we were on the same page—that she wanted to see where this might go, too. She seemed so certain when we were on the camping trip: by the waterfall, at the campsite, after the bridge.
But something has changed. Now she’s saying that she hasn’t been feeling at all what I’ve been feeling. She just wants closure. To smooth out the rough patch of our history and then say goodbye. My stomach’s twisting into a knot. This feels just like that night on the beach in college, when she kissed me like it was our last night on Earth and then ran from whatever she was feeling and refused to talk to me.
Before I can put any of that into words, she presses on. “When the admins are here, we have to be icebergs,” she says, back to her nervous pacing. “Pretend like you can barely tolerate me. And I’ll do the same.”
When her gaze flicks back to mine, it’s stern and calculating. That look means there’s no room for negotiation. She’s decided what she wants, and it’s not me.
“Can you do that?” she says, her voice softer, but still insistent. Twisting that knife in my chest.
“Icebergs,” I repeat. “Whatever you say.” The words hang heavy between us and my heart sinks like a stone.