Never Will I Ever

Five

Avery

Week Two

I fucking hate this place.

Loathe it with the passion of a thousand burning suns, and I have no idea how I’m supposed to survive the next two months out here in the middle of nowhere. We’re only a week in, and I’ve already regretted every second I’ve been living in a tiny log cabin tucked deep within the bug-infested wilderness.

Even with every activity over the past few days being on the lake just outside of camp—all thanks to the unseasonably hot temperature for June—I’m still miserable. Don’t get me wrong, I love being out on the water, but I’d much rather it be on a sailboat. Or anything that’s a lot harder to tip over than a kayak or paddleboard.

And believe me, I did tip over. On multiple occasions.

Needless to say, I’m entirely out of my element here. To the point where I might as well be Matt Damon in The Martian, stuck on a foreign planet and having to find a way to survive.

But today, we’re finally doing something that should be easy, even for me.

Hiking.

After all, hiking is just walking in the woods, right? Maybe add in some hills, rocks, and tree roots as obstacles, but it’s still walking. And it’s not like we’ll be going all that fast when there’s twenty-ish kids with way shorter legs who need to keep the pace too.

At least, that’s the small amount of hope I’m holding on to as I check all the boys’ packs for the things they might need on our excursion. Water bottles, sunscreen, trail maps, first aid kits. EpiPens for any of the boys who have allergies to things found in the woods.

The crunching of footsteps comes up behind me as I’m about to zip up the final pack, and when I rise, I find none other than Kaleb staring at me. Not just the typical kind of staring, but the kind that breeds the transparent feeling in those awful dreams where you show up at school in only your underwear.

And with that thought, I’m instantly brought back to the other night in the showers. Which makes me feel hot in very different ways. Ways I really would rather not think about.

“Can I help you?” I ask after his staring reaches the point of discomfort.

Kaleb’s brow arches, a dubious look etched into his features as his eyes scrape their way up and down my body. “What the hell are you wearing?”

What?

I glance down, taking in my forest green camp tee and khaki shorts before looking back up at him with a frown. “The exact same thing as you.”

He taps the toe of his dirt-covered hiking boots to the toe of my boat shoes. The same ones I’d wear when Dad and I’d go out sailing on the Columbia River or any typical day visiting the coast.

My frown turns into something of a scowl. “You have a problem with my shoes now?”

“For hiking? Yeah. Going up and down five miles of trails wearing those is a sure way to end up with feet covered in cuts. Or worse, blisters.”

“Because you’re the expert, right?”

He blinks those stupidly green eyes at me. “Yeah. I kinda am.”

This fucking guy. So sure of himself and what he’s saying.

Granted, he was right earlier this week when we took the kids out in the kayaks, telling me I’d end up as red as a lobster because I didn’t put enough sunscreen on for this high of altitude. Something the petty, stubborn side of me refused to listen to. And wouldn’t you know, he was right, and I had a sunburn from hell that took three days to tan over.

Him calling that outcome has only made him more smug. I can read it all over his face right now as we have this little staredown.

“I’ll take my chances.”

Kaleb’s perfect, white teeth sink into his bottom lip before he lets out a wry laugh. “Suit yourself, Reynolds. Not my feet that’ll be two slabs of raw meat afterward.”

“Whatever,” I mutter, brushing past him. “You coming with me to get the kids or what?”

“Oh, they’re on their way,” he tells me while grabbing his pack. “I just came from telling them all to hit the bathrooms before meeting us here.”

He’s right; not more than five minutes later, we’re handing out their packs and doing our headcount. And in true Kaleb fashion, he’s taking every opportunity he can to roast me in front of the kids as they count off, all the while flashing me little looks to gauge my reaction.

Playing annoyed isn’t hard, but ignoring the weird swirling flutter in my gut definitely is. Because while we still clearly bicker like children, there’s now this strange undertone to it. Has been ever since the other night in the shower.

Maybe even since the day I got here.

I could be imagining it now, especially since I caught him jerking it after I’d just finished doing the same thing, all while having no idea he was in the stall right beside me. Or maybe because it was his sharp jaw, chiseled six-one frame, and forest green eyes running through my errant thoughts the entire time.

Do not go there. Not right now.

Kaleb calls for the kids to fall in line, and without any more preamble or digs, he sets off with a single-file line of eleven-year-olds behind him. I wait and fall into step at the back of the group as we head up the trail; one, to make sure there aren’t any stragglers getting lost in the wilderness—hello, lawsuit waiting to happen—and two, because it’s as far away from Kaleb as humanly possible.

The more distance between us at this point, the better.

“You two don’t get along, do you?”

I glance up from where I’ve been carefully staring down at the trail to prevent myself from tripping or stubbing my toes on a root, only to find Elijah Marshall has fallen back in step beside me.

A little scoff leaves me. “That obvious, huh?”

The dark-haired pipsqueak looks up at me, his brown eyes peering through a set of dark-framed glasses. He’s a tiny guy, easily half a head shorter than the rest of the boys in his age group, and is reserved and soft-spoken to match his stature.

“Just a bit. You’re both good at pretending for the most part, though.”

I smirk, already really liking this kid, along with his lack of filter.

We’ve spoken a couple times over the past week, but nothing more than him asking for help getting his kayak to push off from the dock or grabbing the hammock carabiners from the top shelf since he couldn’t reach. All in all, not a whole lot to go off, and definitely not enough to be fulfilling this so-called favor with his uncle.

“How do you spend all this time with someone you don’t like?” he asks suddenly, cutting through my thoughts.

“Now, hang on,” I muse, slowing my pace to walk beside him. “Who said I don’t like him?”

Elijah gives me one of those give me a break looks, eyebrows basically pulled up into his hairline. Which is hilarious with those glasses on. “You asked if it was obvious. And it is.”

I let out a sharp laugh as I glance up ahead. Kaleb’s still at the front—easily spotted by the National Park snapback sitting backward on his head that rises well over everyone else—leading the pack toward our destination.

“I don’t not like him. We just…” My sentence falls off at the end, not entirely sure how I feel about him. I just know my dick and my brain aren’t in agreement, and I’m almost positive all this mountain air is fucking with my sanity.

“You just don’t get along all the time,” he supplies.

His way of circling back makes me crack a grin. “Exactly. We have to work together, so we need to be civil despite our history.”

“History?” he asks, and I don’t miss the way he perks up with curiosity.

My teeth scrape over my bottom lip and I debate how much of this story to divulge. But if I’m really going to take Colin’s advice to heart and build some sort of relationship with the kid, I’ve gotta start somewhere. Might as well be with what landed me in his life to begin with.

“We played baseball together in college until he got me kicked out about a month ago.”

I glance over at him just in time to catch his eyes widen into saucers. “He got you kicked out, and you can still stand to look at him every day?”

“Well…it’s more like I did something to get myself kicked out. But if he hadn’t said anything about what I’d done, I probably wouldn’t have been.”

“So he’s a snitch.”

That gets a chuckle out of me. “At first, that’s kinda how I felt. But what I did was wrong, so I can’t blame him for snitching.”

His nose scrunches up as looks at me. “If you know it was wrong, then why’d you do it?”

The question is one I’ve been asked plenty of times before now, seeing as it’s so obvious, but this is the first time I find myself actually willing to answer it. “Because I was hurt and angry, so I wanted to hurt that person back. But it turns out hurting them back didn’t even make me feel better. Instead, it made everything worse.”

He nods, his brows still knit together as he processes. But one of the gears in his brain must hit a snag, and his head snaps up again.

“You didn’t like…commit murder or anything, did you?”

I burst out laughing before deciding I really like this kid. I don’t think getting to know him over the next couple months will be much of a hardship. “Nothing illegal, I promise.”

A sharp, dramatic breath leaves him. “That’s good.”

The subject changes after that, and I’m quick to realize he’s a quirky, curious, and extremely observant kid. With a major emphasis on observant, because right around mile two, he notices the gap between us and the next kid has more than tripled in size.

“What’s wrong?” Elijah asks before looking down at my feet. Then he stops mid-step and starts giggling uncontrollably. “Kal was right. You really do look more ready to go on a yacht than you do to go hiking.”

The jab only sends a slight twinge of annoyance through me, but I’m willing to chalk it up to the searing pain shooting through my heels and pinky toes with every step.

“Yeah, yeah. Everyone’s a critic today,” I mutter, still giving him a faint smile through the burning around my toes and heels. “C’mon, kid. Pick up the pace. The last thing we want is to be left behind.”