Chapter 14
Blake
Two and a half days.
For two entire days, I’d avoided the main camp like the plague and only took the back routes to get to and from where I needed to go.
Two days of jumping at every person walking by, every call that came over the radio, and every single tall, tanned man with reddish brown hair that I happened to see out of the corner of my eye that soon turned out to be just another stranger.
God, I was losing my fucking mind.
I was stupid to think this thing was never going to affect me. That I could fool around with Marlow and purge myself from the desperation to have him and work it out of my system like a bad cold, never to be infected again.
I was so wrong. So dead fucking wrong it was painful.
Waking up in his bed, tucked against his side like I was a long time lover was the most unnerving situation I’d ever woken up in and had freaked me out into high-tailing it the fuck out of there the second I could.
I was well aware of how much of a coward I was, particularly when Marlow had done nothing wrong and it was all me.
Leaving him without an explanation was probably the only way to go, though, considering all I had in terms of explaining myself was ‘I’m fucked up in the head’.
There was no good reason for me to feel some sort of attachment to him now that we’d fooled around.
We were dating and we certainly weren’t making anything exclusive.
He was a flirtatious playboy at heart and I was a workaholic loner who was only supposed to be focusing on the rest of the camp’s season and not letting himself get tangled up in a fucking torrid love affair.
Marlow and I were in two completely different classes of life. Not compatible in the slightest and with no way to actually workout, even if there was actually some semblance of a budding relationship between us.
I was never leaving Wakefield and he was going back to Ellington Heights soon to live among the ritzy upper class he’d grown up with.
And that was that.
Getting upset about it was stupid. It wasn’t worth my time.
No matter how often I caught my attention drifting out the windows of my office and down to the camp below looking for a familiar head of hair, or found my hand wandering over to the walkie settled on its cradle on my desk to check in on Marlow’s assigned group for the day, I quickly stopped myself from escalating any further.
I had a full day before my youth groups were here and I’d be swamped with making sure they were being kept from the adult section of the property as well as behaving amongst themselves.
This was going to be the first time I had so many kids staying on the property and so far, all was going according to plan.
Hopefully, it stayed that way.
My walkie’s shrill alert sound had me jumping a mile off my chair.
“Blake, can you come down to registration?” Talos’s voice came through the speaker of the communication device.
Wasn’t he supposed to be with Marlow’s group again today?
Anxiety hit me instantly. There was no way another white water rafting incident was occurring so soon after the first one. Marlow seemed to be a magnet for getting into interesting situations, and so far, he’d made it out alive and without a single scratch.
But soon, that luck would eventually dry up and I really didn’t want to be the cause of that.
I may be avoiding him like the damn plague currently, however, that didn’t mean I wished him ill will.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
There was an agonizingly long pause on the other end of the walkie that had me up and out of my chair and already shoving my shoes back on my feet.
“Yeah, you got a visitor.”
I stared down at the walkie.
Who the hell would be coming all the way out here to visit me?
We were in our busy season, which my siblings knew to steer clear of unless they wanted to get roped into some off-hours volunteer work.
Same with my parents.
That left only one person...
Smiling, I held the walkie up to my mouth again. “Did he just come in?”
“No, he’s been chatting with Lindsay for twenty minutes. I just happened to walk by and spot them. Better come quick before he gets talked into heading up to the adventure courses.”
In the background of the call, right before Talos’s line cut, my granddad’s distinct laugh filtered through the speaker, warming my heart instantly.
“I’ll be right down.”
Tossing the walkie back onto the receiver, I grabbed my keys and headed out into the afternoon sunlight. My granddad didn’t make it up here as often as we both liked nowadays but I was always excited to see him, nonetheless.
Along with the rest of the staff on property.
He was a beloved figure among us all, starting Austin Adventures from the ground up and building it into the incredible destination spot that it currently was.
All I did was maintain it and keep a little extra money flowing in from some of the young students that came through here on field trips—and now my youth group.
Everything else was all him.
I was damn proud to be a part of his bloodline and even more so when he’d passed the torch to me a few years back once he thought I was good and ready.
The first two years had been nerve-wracking as fuck, even with him at my side on a part-time basis.
By year three, though, I had gotten into the swing of things.
And now year five, I was finally feeling comfortable with calling the shots and not consulting with him first about it.
He had full faith in me, which meant I needed to as well.
Taking the back route to the registration office, I quickly arrived with Talos still there chatting with Lindsay and Lydia, both of whom were leaning against the desk under the fan blowing overhead.
My granddad was sitting on the rolling stool behind the desk, elbow deep in the registration book with a cord phone tucked between his ear and shoulder while his pen quickly flitted over the page in front of him.
The sight had me shaking my head instantly. “You’re already putting him to work?”
Lindsay’s head whipped around to the sound of my voice. “I swear, he volunteered.”
“Took the phone right out of her hand and everything,” Lydia corroborated.
I didn’t doubt any of it for a second.
That was the one thing my granddad absolutely hated about his retirement.
He missed the daily grind and operations of this place.
While in its hay day, he loved to claim he hated paper pushing and preferred getting off the property and heading out to explore with our tour groups, in reality, though, he loved it all.
The behind the scenes, the on-field work.
All of it.
There wasn’t a single thing that man wouldn’t volunteer to do given the opportunity.
Turning my attention toward Talos, I said, “Thought you were supposed to be with a group today?”
He shrugged. “Came back early. Temp got a little hot so we turned back. If any of them want to go out later, there’s that firefly path hike we can do but most of them were keen on coming back to swim in the lake.”
I wondered what side Marlow was on: be grateful to head back to camp for the day or antsy to take up another course if given the chance.
It was hard to say. He was such an enigma that it made him hard to read.
He had so much energy that made him the perfect client to take on any of the tougher courses to burn it off, but at the same time, he’d been content sitting around the bonfires at night, hanging out with the other groups he’d joined earlier that day.
“I see. Anyone giving you any trouble?”
He shook his head. “Nope. All good on my end.”
“Mine too,” Lydia answered. “Though, Chatterbox was in quite the mood today.”
My brow shot up. “Who?”
“Marlow Knight,” Talos supplied.
Now I was confused. “I thought he was assigned with your group today?”
I made that plan specifically because it was going to be tougher on him, and therefore, give him the challenge he was always craving.
Why the hell would Lydia take him when her guides were usually on the lighter side?
Talos shrugged. “He wasn’t interested in the hike. Wanted to head out on the jet skis.”
“Which was weird,” Lydia replied. “Because he didn’t even get on one. Just sat on the dock with his feet in the water and watched everyone.”
That... was odd.
My stomach churned.
I hoped it wasn’t because of me. Or what we did Thursday night. The last thing I wanted was for his time here to be less fun because I’d given in and let myself cross that line that never should’ve been crossed in the first place.
Putting distance between us this weekend was my only solution to try and combat the wave of guilt I felt, along with what I was beginning to suspect were budding feelings I was trying to do everything to not let take root.
“Mood... as in?” I ventured.
Lydia shrugged. “Uh, tired I guess? He said he had a headache but he seemed fine other than that. Just wasn’t as chipper, I guess you could say.”
Oh god.
I rubbed a hand over my face, hiding the sudden panic that was coursing through me.
Seeking him out to talk to him was probably the worst idea I’d ever had. Then again, if he needed to vent or be mad at someone, it most definitely should be me. If I was the source of him no longer enjoying staying here, that was for me to deal with and address and not anyone else.
Putting that on someone else’s plate wasn’t fair in the slightest.
Right as I dropped my hand to tell Lydia I’d talk to him, my granddad’s phone call finally ended. “Ah ha, there’s my grandson.”
His cheery smile was had to not mirror. “Didn’t expect you today. Everything okay?”
He winked and pushed himself up from the stool, his body wobbling slightly as it slowly balanced out again. “Of course. You up to taking a walk with me?”
“Always.” Nodding to the rest of my staff, I held out an arm for my granddad and escorted him out into the sunshine.
“Ah, nice day today. As always,” he commented. “Why don’t we head over to the docks? I’d love to dip my feet in the water.”
My heart lurched at the suggestion. Hopefully, by now, Marlow was moved on to some other activity. With Lydia down visiting Lindsay, that was a good sign that her group had dispersed and had absorbed themselves into other ones.
“Yeah, definitely,” I said, turning and leading the way.
Please, please, don’t be there.