Chapter 20
Marlow
Heading down for roll call with a pep in my step and feeling like a million fucking bucks with my plans for after the bonfires solidified and squared away, I was ready to blast through the day’s activities and get to the part I was really looking forward to: Blake coming over tonight.
I still couldn’t believe he actually found a box of condoms and hid them from me, all in an attempt to prevent me from getting laid.
Honestly, what a brat.
I knew I sniffed out envy when he’d caught me with Aimee and Luke. My only problem was not realizing how deep it went, how long he’d been secretly holding onto his possession of me and practically barking at whoever came wandering by wanting to take a gander at what I had to offer.
Blake was the most interesting man I’d ever met.
For someone so hell-bent on keeping me at arm’s length, he’d taken some painstaking measures to keep me from growing attached or interested in anyone else here. It was like he was fulfilling a self-imposed prophecy at this point, one I was all too happy to keep feeding into.
Why stop when we were both getting what we desperately wanted?
I was looking forward to finally putting his box of condoms to good use tonight.
He lied right to my face about them, too. No wonder he’d looked so guilty.
The memory had me laughing.
“You’re in a good mood today.”
Whipping around, I spotted Talos hanging out by the marquee signs, his arms crossed over his chest while his eyes were covered up by dark sunglasses. I fitted him with my best smile and wandered over to where he was standing.
If he’d swung by to check on Blake after I’d headed over to drop off the ice pack, we were totally busted.
I doubted that office had soundproof walls, let alone something that would buffer any kind of noise coming from inside.
My dear Director definitely wasn’t the quiet type, so I could only imagine what the hell anyone heard while wandering by last night.
Hopefully, they figured it was someone’s nearby TV on full blast. Or a young couple getting it on in the woods close to where the officers were and weren’t so discreet as to run off to their cabin before getting frisky.
There were plenty of excuses I could come up with to deflect the heat off of Blake and save his poor reputation among his coworkers. The only real problem, it seemed, was Talos being completely immune to bullshit.
It was hard to tell from the way he was staring at me behind those dark sunglasses what exactly he knew.
In retrospect, he could’ve not made the journey up to Blake’s office at all and stayed down with the rest of the guides supervising the fires and called it a night once the last person packed up and headed in for the evening.
Or, he could’ve come around long after we’d picked up and hurried back to my cabin to hunker down, giving him no reason to suspect either Blake or I had had more than a passing conversation exchanged along with the ice pack.
Either way, both situations kept us in the clear.
While the first option was most likely the real timeline of events, that meant Talos no doubt noticed I never returned last night after dropping off the ice pack. On the one hand, he could’ve chalked it up as me retiring early for the evening. Or two... well.
That stamped a big old GUILTY mark across my forehead.
“What’s on the agenda for today, teach?”
All he gave me was a single quirked eyebrow before unfolding the clipboard from under his arm and flipping a few pages. “You’re signed up for the overnight hike.”
“Pardon?”
He flipped one more page. “You signed up for it Friday. We’re taking you all up to Craigleith’s peak and camping up there. It’s about a day’s walk there and a day’s walk back. We’ll be gone from base camp for about three days.”
Trying to keep my jaw from dropping at the news was a Herculean effort. Especially, when it occurred to me how Friday I’d been a complete yes-man to whatever the fuck the guides were throwing at me in order to get them to let me duck out early to start my weekend with Avery and Silas.
Fuck me.
“Anyway, I can postpone that to next week?”
Talos slowly lifted his head up from the clipboard. “Afraid not.”
“What about yanking my participation altogether?”
He stared at me for a long moment. “Seeing as how we all spent the entire weekend painstakingly assigning your entire group to specific sets of hiking partners and matching the athleticism as closely as we could with each of you so neither of you in your group will fall behind, I’m going to have to say no. ”
Holy shit, this had to be a joke.
Right?
Was this Talos’s way of fucking with me because he was suspicious I had the hots for his boss and was trying whatever tactics he could to steer me away from him?
There was no way I was being forced on this fucking camping trip, especially when all of the other activities were a completely voluntary venture.
“So, what happens if I say I wasn’t prepared to go on a journey like that today?” If this man could, for once, give in to my charm, that would be great.
He sighed—oh boy—and then tucked the clipboard underneath his arm again.
“Look, I can’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do.
You’re an adult and are capable of making your own decisions.
I’m not here to parent you. But what I will say, is that if you pull out, you’re fucking over your hiking partner.
Like I said, we spent all weekend making these teams and if one party backs out, we don’t have a backup that can just slip in seamlessly to take their place.
That’s why on Friday we had you sign all that paperwork to double check that you were good with making a commitment like this. ”
He was laying on the guilt real thick. I had to admit, it was totally working.
If not for the fact that he was making me sound and feel like a total asshole for signing a bunch of waivers and forms without paying an ounce of attention, it was definitely him piling on that I’d be disappointing my hiking partner, too, who was probably incredibly excited about going on this trip.
I was probably the only dumbass that signed themselves up for an intense excursion like this without reading the fine print.
Friday was such a blur with how strung out my emotions were from Blake leaving, I hardly remembered anything before I climbed into Avery’s car and jetted off to the closest dive bar.
Shit, how the hell was I going to let Blake know?
My stomach knotted at the thought of him waiting outside of my cabin, knocking in that quietly polite way of his, wondering why the hell I wasn’t opening up the goddamn door and sweeping him off his feet.
The last thing I wanted was for him to think I ditched him when that couldn’t be further from the truth. He was likely to jump to conclusions, figuring I went off and got distracted with my swinger friends and ended up at their cabin instead.
That would then start our whole vicious cycle from last week over again where we had to gain each other’s trust back when we just fucking got it.
I blew out a long breath.
Three days.
Out in the woods, hiking up a mountain to reach the peak.
Three days without coming back to base camp and seeing Blake.
Three fucking days before I was going to be able to touch him again.
Fuck my life.
“So, who’s this mysterious partner of mine...”
If he picked up on the defeat in my tone, he completely ignored it. “Her name is Elaine. She’s got a lot of energy, like you, so you two should get along fine.”
“Wonderful. Sounds like a total blast.”
Talos wasn’t at all amused by my plummeting mood.
If my hangover on Monday wasn’t my karma for being a total idiot last week, this certainly took the cake. By a large margin.
“When do we set off?” I asked.
If it wasn’t for another hour or two, that still gave me time to pack and leave a note for Blake up in his office.
I doubted he was going to head up there at any point today while his youth group was here, but outside of tapping a note to my own door—which I was absolutely going to be doing—there wasn’t much else I could do without being completely obvious.
Asking Talos for directions to Blake’s cabin was definitely going to blow my cover.
And if it wasn’t from him, any other guide I asked would be giving me the side-eye.
No matter how peaceful and innocent I could make my intentions seem, no one in their right mind was going to give a guest the directions to the Director’s cabin.
That was asking for a lawsuit.
“You’ve got two hours. I suggest you head back to your cabin and pack what was on the list. You’ll need it all.”
“So... about that list.”
He actually rolled his eyes before slipping a piece of paper off of the clipboard and handing it over to me. “Marlow, I’m going to say this once. Please, be on your best behavior.”
Yeah, okay, whatever. Easy to ask that of me when I was internally debating running into the nearest wall to see if I could pop my shoulder out of its socket before we set off for our three day journey.
“You got it,” I said, throwing him a thumbs up.
His face remained unamused. “I’ll see you in two hours.”
I plastered a grin on my face before turning around and heading off back to my cabin. What a fucking wet blanket thrown onto my good mood. I was really confident nothing was going to ruin it today, and just had to go and tempt fate like that with my overconfidence.
I hoped Blake wasn’t going to be mad. If there was a way I could write him an extensive note apologizing and sticking it to my door without the worry of other people coming around to read it before he got a hold of it, I absolutely would.
All I could do now was pen out a quick note that was vague enough for anyone not to read too much into it if it got into the wrong hands, but had enough small details scattered throughout that Blake would pick up on what the hell I was talking about.