Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Dex
What a night.
After Bob and Hildy disappeared to what he, somewhat regrettably, referred to as their “love den,” Tori suggested we collect Caroline and score some hot cocoa for the walk back to the cabins. I said that sounded great. Especially if there was whipped cream and mini marshmallows for the cocoa.
Things got even better when Sayla offered to bring a mug back for me, so I could leave to grab a quick shower tonight.
She’d barely finished the sentence, and I was thanking her, then trotting down the path to our cabin.
I wasn’t gonna get a chance to be alone with her anyway.
I figured I might as well get cleaned up, throw on some fresh clothes, and wait for her on the porch to talk.
We have plenty to discuss.
Like the half kisses I planted on her, which were supposedly just for show. And the fact that Bob and Hildy think we’re a couple now, too. Not just Tori. More importantly, though, I’ve got to deal with the fact that tonight solidified a shift in my attitude toward Sayla.
She’s no longer just a coworker I enjoy riling up. She isn’t some woman I want to keep at arm’s length to fight a stupid physical attraction. Sayla Kroft is so much more than her beautiful surfaces. She’s someone I genuinely care about. Respect. Admire, even.
The urge to protect her has been growing in me for a while, and I know those emotions could get tricky.
They already are. So it’s time to come clean with her.
I need to confess my feelings are real. Or maybe I should lead with admitting to the first stirrings of feelings.
Just the barest beginnings. Nothing too crazy.
I don’t want to scare her off, after all. With her history, Sayla’s like a baby bird newly hatched in my hand. If I freak her out too much, she’ll fly away. Possibly never to return. So I’d better move slowly. Start with a gentle pet of her feathers.
Like forehead kisses.
Yeah. That.
Steam fills the bathroom by the time I finish my shower, heating the air, fogging the mirror.
Kinda like the heat and fog in my Sayla-addled brain.
So I quickly towel off, work my sweats and T-shirt over my still-damp skin, and take a deep breath.
I’m not fully ready to get this vulnerable with her, but then again, I may never be.
We’re ripping off Band-Aids here. One strip at a time.
Speaking of which, I should probably check on Sayla’s blisters tonight, offer to change the bandages, smooth on some more Neosporin.
She hasn’t complained about her feet all day, but I’ve learned that’s no guarantee she hasn’t been suffering.
Like me, she buries a lot of pain inside her, and this knowledge cracks loose a wedge of granite in my chest.
I want to be the one Sayla opens up to now. Then, maybe someday, I’ll open up to her, too. So I emerge from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, ready to talk.
“Don’t worry, Kroft. I’m fully dressed toni—”
Oh. The cabin’s empty.
A sliver of disappointment pricks my gut, but now I have time to snag some Band-Aids and Neosporin from my first aid kit before she returns. Except my kit is on the nightstand. Also on the nightstand are two ceramic mugs heaped with mini-marshmallows.
She’s already back.
As I take my mug with me outside, a smile hooks my mouth like I’m a fish caught on a line. I expect to find Sayla in one of the Adirondack chairs, but the porch is deserted, too. Huh. Our lanterns are both next to the door. If she made it back to deliver my cocoa, where is she now?
I drag my hand along the rough wood of the railing, and a splinter snags my palm. I’ve got tweezers in my first aid kit, but no patience. So I just bite the shard out quick and spit it out into the night.
Moonlight drenches the path to the main lodge, reflecting off the gravel, but all around the cabin, the forest is black. Crickets chirp in the darkness. A rustling of leaves hums in the air. There’s a burst of laughter inside Tori’s place.
I’ll bet Sayla’s in there.
I could see her wanting to give me plenty of space to finish showering. She’s considerate like that. Not to mention, the last time I came out of the bathroom after a shower, I was wearing just a towel.
Still, other explanations ping-pong behind my ribs.
Sayla might be reluctant to be alone with me now, thinking I might try to kiss her again, which—yeah, tempting.
Not that I’d ever make a move of any kind without her permission.
Or maybe she simply has cold feet when it comes to talking about us.
Either way, we can’t put off the conversation forever.
It’s time to get real about what’s been happening, and a delay might make total honesty even more difficult going forward.
So I take a breath and head next door with my cocoa in hand.
Now or never.
“Sayla was here,” Tori tells me in the doorway. She holds the screen open, waving at a bug that’s circling the porch light. “She came by asking to use our bathroom while you were still in the shower.”
“But ours was already occupied,” Caroline pipes up, from inside the cabin. “By me. When nature calls … you know.”
My jaw ticks. “So, she left? Alone?”
“Wherever she is, she’ll be back any minute,” Tori says.
“Yeah, thanks.”
“I’m sure she’s fine.”
My blood runs cold.
Fine.
I hate that word.
“See you in the morning,” Caroline calls out, as I cross their porch in a daze.
Behind me, the door shuts with a thunk, and I stumble down the steps, heart sprinting for my throat.
My breaths come in anxious sips, and I press a hand to my sternum to slow my galloping pulse.
I haven’t had a physical response like this in years.
And I’m overreacting now. At least that’s what I tell myself.
Still, the spinning in my head threatens my balance, so I brace myself against the oak tree between my cabin and Tori’s.
No, not my cabin. Ours.
Sayla’s and mine.
She is safe, I repeat to myself. She has to be. These are just old memories rearing their ugly heads. And yet my skull echoes with a menagerie of less comforting words. I can still hear my parents’ voices coming in hushed whispers. At first only nervous, then sliding toward frantic.
The doctors said she’ll be fine. She has to be fine.
Fine.
I shut my eyes and let out a low moan, while an ache rises in my gut, threatening to stifle me. She is not safe. I am not okay. I’m suffocating in a world full of oxygen.
“Dex?”
I drop my mug.
Sayla leaps away as the ceramic smashes to the ground, splattering cocoa and marshmallows across the dirt. I lunge for her, and she freezes as I pull her into my arms.
“What on earth—” she gasps.
I grip the solidness of her body, patting her down, proving she’s here, murmuring into her hair, “You’re all right. You’re all right.” It’s a low mantra I barely notice I’m repeating.
“Of course I’m all right!” she says, but the statement is muffled because her face is smashed against my chest. “What did you think happened to me?”
I pull back, leaving just enough room to see the whole of her. To confirm she’s real and I’m not dreaming. “Nothing,” I rasp. “I mean, I don’t know. I have no idea why I just … I just …” My voice trails off, and I draw in a long breath. “I couldn’t find you.”
“I just needed to take care of some lady things.” She lifts her small purse, and I clear my throat as a picture of her juggling tampon boxes pop into my head.
“I got kind of desperate,” she continues. “And Tori’s bathroom wasn’t free either, so I ran over to Gretchen’s.”
I glance back at our porch. “You didn’t take a lantern.”
“I used the flashlight on my phone like a normal person.” She stifles a laugh, but when I don’t react, she pauses to examine my face. “Hey. Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“That’s how I felt for a minute,” I say. “Everything was so dark out here, so I got worried. But you’re safe.”
“I am.” She looks down at the smashed mug sitting in a puddle of marshmallows and wrinkles her nose. “Your cocoa, however, is not.”
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, rubbing them hard. This night, man. I feel like it’s already lasted a whole week.
“I’ll clean up,” she offers, picking up the two largest pieces of the mug and starting for the cabin.
“I’m the one who got you all freaked out.
” I want to follow her, but my feet feel rooted in place, planted under this tree.
“You’d think I would’ve remembered to leave you a note on a clipboard,” she says from the porch. “I only have a million of them.”
Her soft laughter loosens something in me, like tectonic plates shifting under the earth, signaling a quake.
Suddenly I’m unfrozen, rushing toward her, leaping up the steps.
I collect the broken mug pieces from her and set them on one of the chairs.
“This was my mess,” I say. “I’ll take care of it. ”
She huffs out an amused breath. “If you insist.”
“But first”—our gazes meet and need pulses through me—“I think we should kiss.”
“Ha!” A nervous titter squeaks out of her, and she glances over at Tori’s cabin. “We got that over with already, remember? Bob and Hildy and Tori definitely believed you. Us, I mean. We have nothing to prove now.”
“I’m talking about a real kiss,” I say. I’m going for broke. Forget being gentle with the baby bird. “Unless you don’t want to.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So you’re saying you do want to kiss me.”
She blinks. Gulps. “I’m saying … we’ve barely got our professional relationship in order.
And we’re still adversaries when it comes to that grant money.
Tomorrow, when we head back to school, both our jobs will be turned upside down, at least until the SACSS visit.
” She lets out a sigh. “Fiddling with that whole house of cards would be pretty dumb.”
“Yeah.” I shift my weight. “No one’s ever accused me of being smart.”
This draws a laugh from her. “That’s pretty much the only thing I ever gave you credit for.”
My guts cinch up, but Sayla’s got a point. And she may be reluctant to kiss me. Either way, I’d never push. So for now, I’ll walk this back to make her comfortable. The subject can wait a few weeks. Whether or not I want to.
“Friends, then?” I ask, even as my insides churn with the desire for more.
Her lips curve up. “Friends.”
So in the end, we’ll leave Camp Reboot with a functioning work relationship. Complicated, yes. And not about to get any easier. But at least my request for a kiss didn’t destroy what we’ve managed to build here.
“For the record, though,” she says, “that forehead kiss got me thinking kissing you for real would be … epic.”
We lock eyes for a moment, the tension crackling between us. Then she turns toward the door, but I catch her wrist and spin her around, pulling her to me.
“Sayla.” I search her face, surveying every feature, committing each tiny detail to memory. The spray of freckles across her cheeks. The way her nose turns up at the tip. The curved ridge of lashes.
Her eyes are shadows in the moonlight. Wide and full of desire.
Then they drop to my lips.
“Dex.” She breathes my name. “This is a bad idea.”
“Is that a no?”
“It’s not a no.”
“Good,” I say. “Screw it.”