10. Jamie
ten
Jamie
The next couple of hours went by in a daze.
I attempted to meditate after yoga but images of Autumn in tight spandex destroyed my ability to clear my mind.
During pottery, I had to resculpt the vase for my sister three times because I kept thinking about all the things I wanted to learn about this new version of her.
She’d always been strong, witty, and cutthroat in debate, which had humbled me.
Autumn had been a leader before, but outside of our small debate club, her confidence had always been lacking, no matter how well she did in school.
It was a remarkable feat seeing her perform in front of a rapt audience with an air of assurance, as if she was comfortable in her skin.
How did she come to live here, of all places? Dreams we’d once whispered were mostly about status and money. How we’d conquer the world. Back then, just an imagined life that once upon a time we might have had together.
While I’d followed the same boring dream, she was living a vibrant new one. And even if my first impulse was that she was wasting her potential, I could also see the appeal of jumping off the conveyor belt and taking a risk.
My infatuation only grew in the downtime I had in my cabin between pottery and cooking class. I’d been staring at the knots in the wood on my ceiling for a disturbingly long time before Ren pulled me from my thoughts.
“James, hey.” I must have looked like a startled deer because he backed up and then started laughing. Ren stretched his arms and yawned.
“Let me guess, you needed a power nap after a long day of pining after Grant.”
“You’re one to talk. How’s Autumn?” He smirked.
“You mean pumpkin spice latte season? It’s not for another month.”
“Don’t play that way with me. Everyone at camp, from the zipline to the craft cabin, could feel the tension between you two at paint night.” Ren took a seat on the edge of my bed, kicking his feet like a child waiting for a story. “Tell me something happened right now.”
His face dropped when I turned toward him. Feeling the cool wood floor under my bare feet steadied me as I said what I didn’t want to say.
“I think she’s in a relationship with someone. Which reminds me, I need my phone back.”
“You’re not going to do a background check on anyone,” he said knowingly.
Well, there went that idea.
Six cooking stations were set up at tables in the mess hall, loaded with ingredients for the southern dish we’d be making for brunch. I’d joined cooking class today because I’d bypassed breakfast, and I was starving.
Utensils were set next to hot plates for each cooking team, and laughter bounced back and forth between the six students who’d already arrived.
Everyone except me was partnered up. Ren and Grant, the newly inseparable pair, sat at a table across from Gia and Emerson who were both inspecting ingredients.
I took my place at an empty station.
“Hi, there. Can I join you?”
“James, of course.” A ring-clad woman named Irene stood up to shake my hand, and next to her sat Leroy, who I remembered from my arrival. He seemed more at ease than he had on the first day. “You can pair up with my cabin leader. She’ll be here in a sec.”
A moment later, Autumn arrived, looking like sheer perfection. Could I get any luckier in one day? Her golden hair shone softly. It almost distracted from her tattoo peeking out, daring me to stare. Big hazel eyes searched mine for a long moment, and I wondered if she was just as stunned to see me.
If she was thrown off, however, she didn’t look it. I held my breath and tried to keep my cool as she headed in my direction and sat right next to me.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.” Why did my voice sound deeper than usual?
Subtly, I glanced at my ex-girlfriend, engrossed as she stared at our instructor, determination in her eyes. This should be interesting.
I used to be in my element when I was cooking, and back when I’d had more time, I’d loved it. A renewed sense of urgency thrived under my skin. Maybe I’d be able to impress her.
Things may have been different, but the Autumn I knew didn’t cook. Seventeen-year-old Autumn had looked at me like I was a god the day I’d made her a pesto grilled ham and cheese sandwich. Now, she rolled up her flannel sleeves and gave me a challenging look, as if daring me to say something.
Everyone was rapt with attention as Azalea started her cooking lesson for the chicken fried steak dish. She told us she’d be by in a bit to check on each table’s progress and then she let us go.
Once in a while, two people find a rhythm and flow in working together toward a common and delicious-smelling goal. This wasn’t one of those times.
Autumn and I jostled for control of the same pair of tongs, bumping into each other. We ended up in each other’s spaces more often than not, slowing the process down. There was no rhythm. And the fact that we weren’t taking it seriously didn’t help.
Azalea’s voice carried from the front of the room as she joked with everyone not to mess around with the knives because “I’m hungry, and I don’t want to deal with any severed fingers in my food.”
“Do you always eat this well?” I asked my cooking partner. Everything we’d eaten so far had been stellar and I couldn’t imagine dining like this all the time.
“Only during the camp season. In the off-season, the four of us make some family meals, which is nice. And we’re lucky enough to be less than a mile from the main part of town, so we have options.” She smiled as we measured the flour. “Which reminds me, are you still obsessed with fried ravioli?”
“Obsessed is such a strong word.” Images of breaded pasta dipped in marinara flooded my senses. I could almost taste the dusting of oregano.
“Well, there’s a place in town you’d love.”
Maybe I’d convince her to show me when we went into town tomorrow.
“So, what’s it like living here anyway?” I’d take any tidbits I could get.
“It was definitely an adjustment to go from being one in a million to everybody knowing your name. The other day, the general store owner reminded me to buy tampons.”
I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.
She added salt and pepper to our flour mixture and asked casually, “But what about you? What’s it like living downtown instead of in suburbia? I know you always wanted to live in the city.”
I remembered the first day in my condo, and the silence that followed when the movers were gone. Loneliness was not something I’d prepared for. But at some point, being alone felt more like a choice.
“Sometimes I like feeling like one in a million. Other times…”
“Other times?”
“It makes it easier to lean into the anonymity.” I didn’t mean to get this personal with her, but she’d always found a way to get me to reveal more than I’d intended, whether I liked it or not.
She furrowed her brows. “You used to be so social.”
“I’ve definitely gotten more reserved, if that’s the right word.” I hadn’t noticed the contrast between past me and current me before, but it was the truth. When had I allowed things to change? And was I even happy with that?
“I’m having a hard time imagining that. Back in school, all I did was study and hang out with you and your friends.
Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t keep up.
” She avoided looking at me and popped the lid back on its container.
Autumn’s admission had me questioning my perception back then.
She may have been on the quiet side, but I always thought she was having a good time.
I stared off in the distance as I stirred the roux.
“I’m the same person. My social battery just drains a little faster than it used to.
I think the bigger revelation is how much more outgoing you’ve become.
” I was happy to redirect the conversation back to her.
I didn’t like being on this side of a cross-examination, however innocent it may have been.
Autumn removed the steak from the bowl. “I wasn’t that bad back then. Okay, maybe you’re right. I guess you brought me out of my shell. Until you left.”
And there it was. The elephant in the room. It was practically stomping all over our beef… Which she was now hammering with a meat tenderizer.
I placed a hand over hers. “Listen, Autumn, I…”
Her eyebrows tilted inward, as if she’d regretted her statement. She looked at the other students, who were already at their stoves in various stages of cooking. “Not here, Jamie.”
I wanted to press, but she was right. This wasn’t the place for it. I knew I’d have to address it soon enough.
Azalea interrupted my train of thought. “Now if you’ve finished beating that meat—”
Autumn let out a puff of air, and it was as if she’d forgotten about our sobering moment.
I elbowed her gently, my lips quirked as I whispered under my breath. “Be serious.”
That only egged her on. “I don’t know. Would you rather we tenderly stroked it? Or we could wank it. You would know better than I would.” She rolled her lips inward and her body shook, as if she was bursting at the seams.
“This isn’t jerk chicken. You need to have some finesse.”
Autumn snorted at my bad joke and leaned across me again. I tensed as she brushed against my side. Hell, did this woman even know what she could still do to me? I took a centering breath, trying to push my ill-timed lust aside and focus on the meal. But there she was at every turn.
The scent of strawberries overwhelmed my senses with familiarity, but now there was an overlay of sunblock and the outdoors.
Sucking my bottom lip into my mouth was the only way to keep my wandering lips and needy tongue off the only path they wanted to trailblaze: Autumn’s neck.
I could still remember the taste, even ten years later.
I longed to learn more about her earthly sweetness, which had my head spinning.
Get it together. You only have a few more days.
“I’ll take that.” She grabbed the tongs right out of my daydreaming hands.
I hadn’t turned my steak like I’d meant to, but her hand brushed over mine and the meat no longer existed.
Our eyes locked, and the tongs slipped from her fingers, both of us aggressively diving for the fallen utensil before it hit the ground.
The tongs clattered, and in the madness, Autumn’s elbow banged hard against the saucepan where our gravy was beginning to thicken.
“Shit!” She cried out at the contact, and the pan was in slow motion.
I tried to recover, grabbing the side of the pan with gazelle-like reflexes, just missing the handle. “Fuck, that’s hot!” I yanked my hand back and the pot tipped, spilling the concoction across my shirt.
I pulled the material away with a startled noise, almost embarrassed by the sound that came out of me.
Quickly I removed the sauce-covered shirt before it could burn me.
I regained my composure and found Autumn’s eyes were on my stomach the moment I looked up.
Her gaze felt hotter than the sauce ever could.
“Like what you see?” I smirked, my eyebrows tilted toward her. Daring her. Autumn’s cheeks flamed pink. I cocked my “I know you still want me” smile at her.
She huffed and grabbed my hand, careful not to touch the burn. “Don’t be stupid. We’re going to get this looked at.”
Azalea had rushed over during the commotion, and was cleaning the gravy from the floor. She waved us off.
“I’m fine.” I was still grinning, glad to know I wasn’t the only one affected by this thing between us. “Unless this is a ploy to get me alone?” I teased.
But Autumn remained undeterred. Keeping hold of my hand, she led me out of the cooking class toward the front office. “Be warned, Jamie, I know every inch of these woods. It wouldn’t be difficult to hide your body.” The menacing threat forced a laugh from me, and a twinkling annoyance in her.
Leaves crunched under our feet as we walked side by side down the path. At some point she’d let go of my hand and I already missed it.
“So you’ve learned about my job, but I know nothing about yours,” I said. The pain in my hand was already fading, and I was grateful for the slow pace we’d adopted so that we could continue our conversation.
“What do you want to know?”
“Are you lumberjacking a hundred percent of the time, or…”
She chuckled. “Lumberjacking’s part of it. I also manage all the activities, promote, recruit staff, and help with the building of the camp,” she offered, much more articulate than she was in our first conversation about her role here.
“That sounds like a big job.”
Autumn shrugged. “It’s not quite surgery or saving lives, but in its way, I think it helps.”
Being here two days was already helping me sleep better. But I didn’t think she was looking for a compliment in the moment, and I didn’t want her to shut down. Instead, I focused on the breeze, which felt wonderful on my skin, up until I brushed her hand, wanting to reach out and grab it.
“Don’t put yourself down. You don’t have to be a doctor to have a worthwhile career.”
She let the compliment roll off her shoulders. “Well, if you want to see me in action, I’m in charge of craft time later today, it’s my last activity. And if you’d like, some of my friends and I will be having dinner after. You should come.”
“That sounds great. I’ll be there for both.”
We walked toward the front office. “You know, before we see to this burn”—she nodded to my injured hand—“maybe we should find you a shirt.”
I saw the thing clutched into a ball in her hand and wondered if I’d get that back.
“You’d want to hide all this?” I laughed and gestured toward myself.
She tried to hold back her smile, trying even harder not to look at my bare chest now that we were alone. “You really need to spend some time with Jack. You two would be perfect for each other.”
Her smile was wide and teasing, but just like that, the spell was broken. Shit, I’d almost forgotten about the man she’d been laughing with during yoga just a few hours ago. Jack, the luckiest man in the world.