Chapter 5 #2
Toeing off my shoes, I trudged over to his living room and let my body flop down on one of the couches.
My muscles were sore from being bent over my desk all day, trying to map out an appropriate timeline for next week’s activities.
The problem with having a bunch of teenagers coming onto the property was that they tended to scatter like rats when trying to be wrangled.
There was too much fun, too many things to look at, too much for them to get their hands on, for it to be a quick and easy process to get them all accounted for and assigned to their cabins.
Thankfully, they were going to be at the back of the property, away from all of the adults and accidentally witnessing any lascivious activities.
The last thing I needed on my hands was the police showing up for indecent exposure to a minor.
“I’d ask if you had a long day but we did hike a trail together.” Marlow hovered the freshly uncapped beer over me, waiting until I had a solid grip around the base before letting it go. “Before you ditched me, of course.”
I sighed, sitting up straight. “I’m sorry, again, about that.”
“Hey, I get it. I’d rather be in the AC sometimes, too.”
“I’ll remember that when I’m elbow deep in tax forms.” The beer was cheap tasting when I took a healthy swig, and weirdly, it reminded me of my undergrad days.
College had been a quick two years to get my Associates Degree before taking over the business. Simply a way to prove to vendors, investors, staff, whoever, that I wasn’t going to be running this place on hopes and dreams and had an actual solid business plan on what the fuck I was doing.
“Here’s a crazy idea.” He shifted down onto the couch across from me, his legs spreading wide and catching my attention just long enough to dart my eyes down to see what he was packing between those muscled thighs of his. “Shred them.”
“You’re right. Fuck the government.”
His grin was diabolical. All dimples and mischief. It had my heart skipping a beat. “Love the sound of that. Anarchy looks good on you.”
“I’m surprised you’re not trying to sell me on some stock portfolio.”
He chuckled. “Nah. I can’t do that in good conscience. I’d actually feel bad if I lost your money.”
I slammed back another swig before saying, “You’re that bad at your job, huh.”
“Wow, really going for the jugular there, Blake.”
“Have to make up for earlier. I let you off too easily.” My head was beginning to swim, and not from the beer. What I really should’ve done was get Lydia to quiz him on the way back down to base camp and then report back to me.
Marlow struck me as the type of person to need some kind of constant pushback or else he got bored and started to create his own drama to fill the void. Keeping him contained by proxy would probably save a lot of us from running into some interesting situations.
He quirked a brow. “Which time? The waterfall or when I asked you to sneak me some condoms?”
“Do you always like to push people’s buttons?”
“Helps me know where the line is. Though, I’m surprised that’s a button of yours.” He suddenly leaned forward. “Blake, you’re not some religious zealot, are you?”
I blinked.
Where did that come from?
“Can’t say I’ve had my fair share of churchgoing. Why?”
He shrugged, settling back into the couch. “Just curious.”
He kicked one leg up over his knee, resting his barely touched beer on top of it.
Compared to me, and my half finished bottle, he was looking like a regular Sober Sally.
There was a possibility he’d already drank plenty down at the bonfire, though given the lack of slurring in his words, I was going to go with a no on that one.
Not a big drinker, then?
That also seemed surprising. Marlow had the perfect personality type to get anyone hyped up at the bar and feed shots to as many victims that happened to cross into his line of fire as possible. Not to mention, wasn’t there a big drinking culture around finance?
I did tell him to detox while he was here. Maybe he was taking it literally.
“I’ve been wondering... you’re from Ellington Heights, aren’t you? Why come all the way out here? You’ve got a lake your way.”
He gasped. “Not you exploiting your power and looking at my file.”
“Guilty. Arrest me now.”
He rolled up onto his feet. “I’m calling the cops.”
“Good luck getting a signal.” I tilted the rest of my bottle back, draining it.
His eyes twinkled, a bemused smile stretching across his lips.
My mind was growing fuzzy with each passing second.
What was it about Marlow that made me feel so relaxed?
This felt like old times, like we’d been shooting the shit for centuries and this was yet another tally to add to our endless list.
I’d never in my life met someone I clicked with so easily and so quickly. To the point where it was beginning to worry me. I’d had plenty of relationships in the past, platonic and sexual, and none of them had ever made me feel this way.
Not even close, in fact.
I wanted to soak in his presence. To let him keep me here, trapped in this ridiculous back and forth, for as long as humanly possible. The planning for next week could wait. The paperwork continuing to pile up on my desk could wait. Hell, even my weekly phone calls with my siblings could wait.
If it meant staying here for one minute longer.
“To answer your question, I wanted to come here to get in shape,” Marlow said.
I raised my brow. “Bit of an odd way to go about that.”
He shrugged and then surprised me by settling down onto the couch next to me.
His back sunk deep into the cushion, the plush material wrapping around his wide shoulders like an embrace.
Strangely, he wasn’t looking at me, instead choosing to stare down at his beer bottle while fiddling with it in his hand.
When he finally spoke, he wore a strained smile. “My dad died late last year. Heart attack caused by four blockages. Quite the tragic end.”
Shit...
“I’m so sorry.”
His expression turned bitter. “Sad thing is, none of us saw it coming. He seemed healthy as a damn horse but clearly that wasn’t the case. My mom woke up one morning and he was cold to the touch. What a way to go, I guess.”
Jesus. Tragic, indeed.
Nodding, I said, “Makes sense why you’d want to keep up your health regimen. I guess I’m just surprised you’d come all the way out here when you’ve got a lake back home. No clubs or adventure camps out that way?”
“Listen. I don’t know if you know anything about Ellington Heights, but it’s full of a bunch of pretentious motherfuckers who’d wither away if they so much as sweat a single drop.
They’ll buy designer workout gear any day of the week, but ask them to use it outside of going to the grocery store? Forget it.”
“Not you though, right?” I teased.
Thankfully, that had him perking up a bit. “All of my gear will come home with me well-worn, trust me. I came from rags. I know how to get my money’s worth.”
Interesting.
Every sentence that came out of Marlow’s mouth was more intriguing than the next, leaving me waiting with baited breath as he geared up for the next one. I’d assumed he came from money and stayed on that path, yet hearing that he hadn’t was infinitely more fascinating.
I hadn’t grown up with money, either. Hell, I still wasn’t.
Most of the profit that Austin Adventures made went right back into it to pay off labor costs and restock what needed to be replaced.
After that, repairs were done and accounted for, and if there was any money left over after that, I used it to fund the non-profit.
All in all, I wasn’t exactly raking in the dough personally.
I wondered how long it was before Marlow found his way into money.
After he got his job?
A little before that?
My phone went off, scaring the shit out of me. Fishing it out of my other pocket, the number for Guest Services flashing across the screen, I held back a sigh. If I was being called this late at night, there was something going down. And not in the good way. “Hey, what’s up?”
Kaylee sighed on the other end. “Can you come down here? We’ve got two couples fighting over the last pack of ramen.”
Good grief. “Yeah, I’ll swing by in a minute.”
Marlow snagged my empty bottle as he rolled to his feet again. “Duty calls?”
“It’s never ending, this season.”
Though who was I kidding?
This was every year in a nutshell.
Normally, I welcomed the busyness that came with the camp being fully open for the summer. It was a nice change of pace compared to the molasses-like winter months that seemed to drag on for years instead of a few weeks.
Yet now, I was wanting to drag my feet in getting back to my duties, wanting to linger for as long as possible until I was getting tracked down and dragged back to the problem waiting to be solved.
What was Marlow doing to me?
“Thanks for stopping by,” Marlow said.
“Yeah. Sorry I couldn’t get what you were looking for.” Getting up from the couch without crinkling said things was an Olympic sport. One I was most certainly winning gold in.
“No worries. I’ll talk one of my couple friends into sneaking into town and grabbing us a box. There are people who leave the property for lunch and stuff, right?”
My mood instantly dampened, my instincts driving me to saying, “No.”
“You can’t tell me the food in the mess hall can beat Taco Bell?”
He was clearly ribbing me, but now I was absolutely not feeling it. In fact, all I wanted to do was storm out of here and head back to my cabin to bury my face into a pillow and scream.
Sending one of his future fuck buddies into town for condoms... who the fuck did that?
Responsible adults, Blake.
Obviously, Marlow’s whole little setback tonight wasn’t stopping him from overseeing his goal in sleeping with this married couple. Enough to already have half a plan devised.
Would it be fucked of me to tell all of my staff not to let anyone off the property tomorrow unless a dire emergency rose?
Oh my god, listen to me. Gatekeeping this man from sex like he was my fucking boyfriend.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
I didn’t even know how to date, let alone keep a man like Marlow Knight entertained for longer than a twenty minute window.
He was high energy. Needed constant stimulation or it seemed like he’d implode.
How else was he going to blow off that much energy outside of exercise?
My hand itched to shove it into my pocket and pull out the sleeve I’d taken with me for that exact purpose. Yet, no matter how hard I willed myself to do so, my body wouldn’t move—frozen in place while Marlow headed into the kitchenette to wash out both our beer bottles.
It wasn’t my place to do this.
Plus, what was stopping him from saying ‘fuck it’ and hopping into bed with them anyway?
Literally nothing.
“You need a flashlight to get back?” he asked, turning around again. “I got this killer one that has 500,000 lumens.”
That snapped me out of my spiral almost instantly. “What the fuck are you doing with the power of the sun in your back pocket?”
“I heard it was good for bears.”
“To what, flash bang them?”
He laughed. “You want it or not, Blake?”
My stomach clenched. “All good. I’ve got my phone’s light.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. Maybe I’ll shine it up at the sky. Give you some sort of beacon to follow.”
“Do that and we’ll have the government showing up with a swat team, ready to apprehend the idiot who took out their satellites.”
“Can that actually happen?”
I shrugged, slowly forcing myself to inch toward the door to put my shoes on. “I don’t know. Don’t they work off lasers?”
“Dunno, I work in finance. Though, I did have one guy on my payroll who worked for the NSA. Maybe I can hit him up.”
I rolled my eyes. “Goodnight, Marlow.”
“Hey, I’m serious about that beacon offer.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Before he had an actual chance at fishing out that ridiculous flashlight, I quickly hurried out onto the porch, the blast of fresh air hitting me in the face and instantly clearing away any residual fuzziness that had collected in the corners of my brain.
Forcing myself not to turn around and look over my shoulder as I descended down the steps and onto the gravel path again was hard.
Harder than I wanted it to be. For that want to be there, broiling just beneath the surface of my subconscious, of Marlow waiting on his porch and watching me go, long enough to make sure I got to where I needed to be, was kind of killing me.
I’d never experienced this deep of a draw to someone before and it was beginning to scare me.
I didn’t want to be caught up in the drama of having some kind of summer crush on someone, let alone letting it distract me this badly. I couldn’t exactly kick him off the property and rid myself of these blossoming feelings, yet trying to deal with them was apparently only making them worse.
Avoiding him. That’s what I needed to do.
At all costs.
No matter what.