Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
VICTORIA
N oah Valentine has scrambled my brain. I’m supposed to be focused on these kids and making sure they have three weeks of amazing summer camp that they’ll never forget. I’m supposed to be making sure they’re safely shuttled from location to another, that their skinned knees are bandaged and their food allergies aren’t forgotten, and all I can think about is Noah: his devastating smile, his eyebrows that are so emotive it hurts, and the tender way he looks at me.
I always wanted you, he said.
I never saw it back in college, and now I know why: because I didn’t think it could be true. I’d been trained to see my flaws front and center, and assumed everyone else saw them, too.
It’s long past midnight, and the kids are finally asleep. It’s been raining steadily since Sophie and I made the last round an hour ago, when the last of the kids’ flashlights had snapped off. Satisfied that everyone was in for the night, Sophie went back to her tent and I went back to mine. And I haven’t been able to stop my racing thoughts since.
After all the activity today, including my panic attack on the bridge, I should be sleeping like a brick. But the moment my eyes closed, all thoughts went to Noah: the soothing rumble of his voice on the bridge, the warmth of his embrace, the deep green of his eyes as they searched mine.
And then, what he confessed under the stars.
The rain’s heavier now, and my tent is leaking like a sieve. Every few seconds, a raindrop splatters on my cheek, and now I’m aware of every drop that’s falling inside. My sleeping bag’s covered in a thin sheen of water, my pillow damp. By morning, everything in this tent will be soaked, including me.
Awesome.
My phone reads 1:37 am. My body’s exhausted, but my brain won’t let go of these thoughts of Noah Valentine. When I close my eyes and count backward from a hundred, I don’t even make it to eighty before I’m thinking about him again—how he clutched my hand in the grass by the amphitheater but it felt like he was holding every part of me. The way he whispered in my ear and I could feel it deep in my chest, down to my toes.
How he smiled so sadly when he told me about camping with his dad, and how he lit up when he told me why this camp was so important to him. How his breath hitched when I slid my hand over his, and how he laced his fingers in mine as if we were holding a secret together.
A raindrop splatters onto my face. And then another. And another. It’s like Mother Nature herself is trying to wash those thoughts of him away, but it’s not working.
No earthly force can wipe Noah from my mind.
My options are few: I can lie here all night, praying I don’t wake up with a cold, or I can go sleep in the Tahoe. I might wake up feeling like a pretzel, but at least I’ll be warm and dry.
Another fat raindrop splatters on my cheek.
Grumbling, I wriggle out of my sleeping bag and unzip the door of the tent. I grab my rain jacket and shove on my hiking boots, and as I tie them I think of Noah holding my foot against his thigh that night in the shoe store. On my first day here he wanted to make sure I had what I needed.
Because it was so obvious I was not prepared for this trip.
And not prepared to see him again.
It must have been so awkward for him, too. But his first move was to take care of me.
The rain blows directly into my tent as I scramble to get out of it. Flashlight in hand, I walk softly around the back side, away from where the kids are sleeping. I pause long enough to make sure no one else is awake and outside their tent, and then head towards the small paved lot where the vehicles are parked. It’s maybe fifty yards from where the tents are, so not too far from the kids.
Once inside the Tahoe’s passenger seat, I proceed to enact a modern retelling of The Princess and the Pea and try each seat in every position I can think of: semi-reclined in the front, slumped against the window like a sack of flour, curled up knees-to-chin on the back seat. Finally I settle for lying on my back with my knees up and feet flat, like I often lie on my sofa at home.
But this Tahoe is no sofa. The seats are hard and a seat belt buckle is poking into my hip. Rain’s pelting the roof and I’m still fixated on Noah and that jolt of electricity that shot up my arm when he squeezed my hand in the dark.
With each deep breath, I try to push him out of my mind. Stop thinking about the way things ended, the sorrow that I felt when he told me about Samantha, and the hurt that came when I realized he’d slipped away.
All of that old hurt has come rushing back—but also that feeling of missing him that had burrowed deep down between my ribs and hidden for so long that I thought I didn’t feel it anymore.
But I do feel it. Now more than ever.
This isn’t the place to have an explosion of complicated feelings though, because we still have a week to go here. These kids need the best camp ever—not two adults making things weird and cooking up a tension that no one can name but everyone feels.
I spent my entire childhood that way, and it’s no fun. My parents operated as if difficult feelings would just vanish if you pretended they didn’t exist.
Spoiler alert: they don’t.
I don’t want to ignore all these feelings I have for Noah anymore, but I have to be a professional here. I have to do my job well and give these kids my all.
Thunder rumbles overhead, and a chill hits me so hard my teeth clack. I climb out of the car again to search the cargo area for something warmer than my fleece. Light floods the parking lot when I open the lift gate, but I see what I need. Noah, planning ahead, stashed extra blankets, water, and snacks in the back compartment of each vehicle.
Just in case, he’d said.
“Thank you, Noah,” I mumble as I unearth the two wool blankets. “Bless you and your over-preparedness.” I might feel like I’m sleeping on a rock, but at least I’ll be warm. I grab a bottle of water and close the gate, then fold myself into the back seat again. I’ve just managed to burrow under the blankets and get myself somewhat cozy when a tap on the window makes me nearly jump out of my skin.
Noah’s standing outside the car window, his hand held up in a wave.
When I open the door, he says, “Hey, is everything okay?”
“Sure,” I say, as if finding me this way isn’t one bit unusual.
His brow lifts in that way that says he doesn’t believe me for a minute. He climbs inside, and for a moment, he’s illuminated by the light inside the car. He’s wearing his plaid flannel pants and his rain jacket, a thin tee shirt underneath. Rain drips from the ends of his hair, the tips of his eyelashes.
“You want to try that again?” he asks.
“Okay, fine,” I say. “My tent’s leaking. I couldn’t sleep.”
He frowns. “You won’t be able to move tomorrow if you sleep in here.”
“I’ll be okay,” I insist, though he’s not wrong.
“Vic,” he says, his voice gravelly. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day. You’ll be miserable.”
No, I think. Miserable is losing someone like him because you’re a big fat chicken.
“I’ll manage.” My shrug feels more like a shiver.
“This is silly,” he says. “We’ll switch tents.”
“My tent has a pond in it by now. So unless you brought a snorkel with you, that option’s out.”
He lifts a brow. “Then sleep in my tent. There’s plenty of room.”
“Omigod. No.” The thought of sleeping next to Noah is too much. Squeezed against all of that hard muscle with only a little flannel between us? My heart might actually explode.
“What are you so afraid of?” he says, his voice low.
“What if someone saw us?” I say, my voice trailing off. “Sophie or one of the kids—” I shake my head because this is dangerous territory. He knows as well as I do that anyone who saw us sharing a tent would immediately think we were breaking the number one rule.
And they might not be wrong.
We’d both be fired. His camp days would be over. And I could kiss any future job with the program goodbye.
“Is that all?” he asks.
He says all like it doesn’t mean everything .
I bite my lip, wishing my heart wasn’t thundering in my chest again. Thankfully, the interior light has clicked off, so he can’t see the heat rising in my cheeks.
“Look,” he says. His voice sounds so close to my ear, but I know he’s still on the other side of the car, his hand resting by the door handle. “You need sleep. I have a warm, dry tent. I’m your colleague right now, offering you a safe place to spend the night. That’s all.”
Of course, he makes it sound like the logical solution. Still, I can’t help but fear the worst.
“What happens if someone sees us?” I ask.
He shrugs. “We tell them the truth. That you got a D-minus in tent set-up and I took pity on you and saved you from drowning.”
I smack him on the shoulder, and he snorts.
“Let me worry about that,” he says. “Part of my job is to take care of my staff, okay? So let me take care of you.”
His words fall like warm hands on my shoulders. When was the last time I let someone truly take care of me? Even if it was just offering a soft place to land?
“Okay,” I say. “But you have to wake me before it’s light out.”
“Well, obviously. If we sleep in, we miss Sophie’s ranger coffee and campfire donuts.”
“I’m serious, Valentine.”
“So am I. Those donuts are to die for.” He gives me a playful smirk as he opens the door, and I follow him out into the night, trying to quiet that voice in my head that’s screaming This is the worst idea in the history of bad ideas!
We turn our flashlights off as we approach his tent. The rain’s falling softer now, and the campground is quiet. Noah unzips the tent flap, and when I’m convinced no one is watching us, I climb inside after him.
Technically, it’s a two-person tent. Apparently, that classification assumes you’ll be super cozy with the person you’re sharing it with because we’re already tripping over each other. Noah unzips his sleeping bag and spreads it out so we can share. As he sheds his rain jacket, I settle in under the extra blankets and try to ignore the flex of his biceps and the way his snake tattoo curls around it. He keeps the flannel pants on, along with the thin tee shirt that’s stretched taut over his muscular frame.
It’s criminal that he can look so alluring in an old tee shirt and pajama pants, his hair soaked from the rain.
When he slides under the covers next to me, his lip ticks up in a tiny smile, and my whole body lights up.
“Isn’t this better, Griffin?” he says, his voice a low rumble. “Warm and dry. Not at all like a pretzel.”
“Are you waiting for someone to give you a medal?” I roll my raincoat up until it’s mostly pillow-shaped and curl up on my side, facing Noah.
The last thing I see before I close my eyes is his deadly smirk and that dimple that haunts my dreams.
He’s silent for a long while, lying on his back. Just when I think he’s asleep, he says quietly, “Listen, about the bridge. I’m really sorry. If I’d known you were afraid of heights, I would have planned a different hike.” His voice has a sad edge to it, like he’s been thinking about this for a while. And knowing Noah, he has.
“It’s okay,” I tell him.
“You don’t have to say that. It can be not-okay.”
I breathe in the faint scent of woodsmoke, listening to the quiet thump-thump of my heart. “I didn’t think I was that afraid of heights. I don’t know what was different today. I just froze.”
“I still feel bad about it,” he mutters. It sounds like he’s biting off the rest of the sentence. There’s more he isn’t saying, and I wish he would let those words out, too.
“Don’t,” I tell him, a little too sharply. “You have no reason to.” Something twists in my chest, and I wonder if we’re still talking about a bridge.
“I don’t have anything else like that planned,” he says. “After the canoe trip tomorrow, everything else is low-key.”
I remember this from the schedule, of course, but he says it like the words might be a balm. Like he’s trying to protect me and put me at ease. It’s typical Noah—he might have changed in some ways in the last six years, but not in that way. He’s still looking out for me.
“I didn’t do what I wanted to,” he says, his voice a low rumble.
“What do you mean?”
He turns toward me and sighs. “When we were on the bridge. I wanted to be the one to take your hand and give you what you needed.”
The words strike me dead-center. “Oh,” I breathe.
“I thought you wanted me to keep my distance. To give you space. But that’s not what you wanted, was it?” His voice is so tender I want to fold myself in his arms.
I swallow hard because I’m not sure what happens if I admit this truth. But I have to be braver. I can’t keep bottling all these feelings up, pretending they don’t exist.
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t.”
He reaches for my hand under the blankets, lacing his big fingers in mine. “I knew what you needed, but I did what you asked.” He slides his thumb along my palm in a way that makes my heart flutter. “But you’ve never liked asking for help.”
I nod, feeling a lump in my throat.
“I won’t make that mistake again,” he says, eyes wide in the dim light. “Because that summer, I thought you wanted space, then, too. But I was wrong, wasn’t I?”
I swallow hard. Then whisper, “Yes.”
His big hand squeezes mine, and it’s taking everything in me not to dive under this blanket and remove every scrap of fabric that’s stopping all of his skin from touching mine. No one’s ever come close to knowing me the way that Noah does. Over the years, I tried to tell myself that other guys did, but that was a lie that I told myself to make losing him hurt less. All of these feelings I have for Noah? They’re tangled and complex. They didn’t diminish over time, and now that we’re here together, I can’t keep lying to myself and telling myself they aren’t real. What I feel for Noah is deeper than anything I’ve ever felt for anyone else, and I don’t want to tamp it down anymore.
I want to climb on top of him and kiss him until we both come apart.
But we can’t do that here.
I think of Roxy, who got me this job. The kids, who deserve a summer camp that only has kid-drama and not drama from two adults who have to sort out their own complicated wants and their complex past that’s riddled with mistakes, missteps, and wounds that are hard to name.
I think of ice cold water, pounding rain, hungry bears, itchy sports bras—anything to take my mind off Noah Valentine and his big warm hands and sexy scruff, his molten stare that still makes me feel like I’m the eighth Wonder of the world.
He always seems to know what’s in my heart. I can’t hide anything from him, which means he has to know how I’m feeling right now: elated to be so close to him again and devastated because I can’t yet tell him all the truths I’ve been holding back and touch him the way I want to.
I lie quietly in the darkness, willing my breaths to be deep and even. I may not be able to sleep, but I can at least fake it for his sake. In the stillness, I feel his heartbeat in the palm of his hand, slowly falling into rhythm with mine.
Lord have mercy. This is going to be the longest night in the history of the world.
Just when I think he’s asleep, he turns over, so he’s facing me. In the darkness, I can barely see the furrow in his brow, the intensity of his stare.
“I have so many things I want to say to you,” he says. “Starting with this: I never should have taken that trip with Samantha. I was head over heels for you, and it completely terrified me. I’d convinced myself that you didn’t have feelings for me, and then the moment you showed me you did, I froze.”
He brings my hand to his lips. “I felt like I had to be the good guy and follow through with that trip with her because backing out meant I was like my dad. But doing that hurt you, and that was never what I wanted.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper, because somehow it is. “I should have told you how I felt, but I was embarrassed because I thought you were in love with someone else.” Someone prettier, more adventurous, more fun. Seeing all of the photos of them together on his social media had just underscored how very different she was from me. And my brain conflated different with better .
“It’s not okay,” he says. “All that time, I was afraid to tell you how I felt because I thought you only wanted to be friends. And I didn’t want to blow up our friendship because it meant everything to me.”
“I’ve never been good at this,” I whisper.
“Good at what?”
“When feelings get complicated,” I explain. “Back then, I didn’t know how to say what I needed, didn’t feel like I could ask for what I wanted. And what I wanted most was you.”
His teeth graze my knuckles, and my heart bangs against my ribs. I want more of him—here, now, and always.
“It’s still hard for me to talk about my feelings,” I tell him. “I get overwhelmed and choke. Sometimes, that just means I hold everything inside.” In the Griffin house, it was out of the question to discuss uncomfortable feelings like embarrassment or hurt because my parents saw that as weakness. I was supposed to suck it up . Forget about it. When something hurtful happened and made me cry, my mom would stiffen her jaw and tell me, Straighten up your face. To me, that meant pretending it never happened.
I’ve done a lot of pretending over the years. But I don’t want to anymore—especially not with Noah.
“I get that,” he says, his voice gravelly. “But you can always tell me how you feel. The only way you’ll hurt me is if you lie to me.”
My chest tightens as he moves closer, his knees brushing against mine.
“Please don’t hide from me,” he says.
I didn’t think I’d been hiding exactly, but as soon as he says the words, it feels true. I’ve been hiding parts of myself, and that might be the same thing.
“You’ve always made me feel safe,” I tell him, sliding my free hand along his jaw. “Like it was okay to be my weird little over-achieving, insecure self.”
“It’s more than okay. You get to decide who you want to be. Not your parents, not your ex, not your friends, and not me, either.” He holds my hand to his lips, and I nearly combust. “You can be as weird as you want, Griffin. It only makes me like you more.”
I snort out a laugh. “You say that now.”
“Try me,” he says, and I can feel his lips curve into a smile.
His foot slides over mine, and I feel another tug low in my belly. There are so many points of contact now—his thigh against my knee, his lips on my inner wrist. When I shiver again, it’s not from the cold.
“Hiding my feelings for you is my biggest regret,” he says. “I don’t want to keep any more secrets from you.”
“Same,” I whisper.
“Can we just chalk the past up to being stupid kids?” he says.
“We did do some stupid things back then, didn’t we? Mixing J?ger bombs with truth or dare, Fall Break on that sketchy riverboat that caught fire and nearly sank. It’s a miracle we survived at all.”
He grins and nuzzles my hand, his lips moving against my wrist, and it ignites something deep in my chest, this wanting that won’t go away.
Mercy, how I don’t want anything else between us.
“I have a proposal,” he says, his voice doing that sexy-rumble that makes the little hairs on my neck tingle. “Let me take you on a proper date. In one week, when we’re off this mountain.”
My heart hammers in my ribcage, so loud I’m certain he can hear it. “What would we do on this date, Valentine?” I say.
He makes a sound deep in his throat, low and gravelly, and it nearly unravels me.
“Telling you would spoil the surprise,” he says. “But we have a lot of lost time to make up for. Wouldn’t you say?”
His knee nudges between mine, just barely, and my heart flutters like a bird.
“A lot,” I agree.
“I’d like to see where this goes,” he says. “I think we owe it to ourselves, don’t you?”
I reach over and run my fingers through his hair—so soft, like a rabbit’s fur—and he makes another contented sound that makes me feel like a match that’s been struck. And just like that, my resolve is gone. I twist my fingers in his hair and pull him toward me. His mouth crashes against mine, and I can’t help myself. His lips are soft, his movements achingly slow, and the rough scrape of his jaw sends a chill down to my toes. His fingers slide along my cheek as he nips at my bottom lip, and all I can think is Yes. This. Finally.
His fingers trace my collarbone, and when his lips move to my neck, I slide my hands beneath his shirt and feel the heat radiating from his chest. Those hard muscles feel even better than I’d imagined, and when his hand squeezes my hip, I feel certain he could make me explode like a star.
I’m dying to touch him everywhere, to feel all of his skin pressed against mine.
But we can’t.
I pry myself away from him and scramble to sit up. “Omigod,” I blurt. “I’m so sorry.”
He lifts a brow and says, “Good lord, why?”
“I should go,” I tell him. “I don’t trust myself around you.”
He gives me a devilish grin that makes my heart do a barrel roll. Being with him feels so right, but this is the absolute worst time to be thinking of all the ways I want to touch him and all the places I want him to kiss me. No, not want. Need.
It’s obvious he wants me to do all those things and more—and that intense hunger in his eyes is not helping this situation.
“I’m serious, Noah. I should leave. Right now. Before I get us both fired.”
“Stop,” he says, taking my hand again. “Roll up your giant blanket and stuff it between us. I’ll stay on my side of the sleeping bag. I promise.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about.”
His eyes flicker with mischief. “I’d love to hear more about that later. Maybe you can tell me on our date.” He tucks his hands under his cheek and nods toward the space next to him.
I bite my lip, knowing I should leave. Because it’s the professional thing to do. The right thing.
But it’s definitely not what I want, and that might be the scariest part of all. Thunder rumbles in the distance, and he reaches for my arm.
“Stay,” he says. That one word, so quiet and tender, tugs at my heart. I think of that moment on the beach years before, how I left him without a word, and I can’t make myself do it again.
He shoves the blanket between us, a flimsy barrier that’s merely symbolic. When we’re finally settled under the covers, him on his back and me curled toward him like a comma, I close my eyes and concentrate on the sound of his breaths, the pattering of rain on the tent.
Another glimmer , I think, feeling the warmth spread through my chest.
Sometime later, I wake up and realize that Noah’s arm is draped over my side, his big hand splayed over my hip, my blanket barrier long gone. He’s sound asleep, his breaths coming deep and even. His body’s locked tight against mine, so snugly that all of his hard parts are pressed into my soft ones. I know I should move away and shove that blanket back between us, but I can’t make myself do that. It’s too nice, this feeling of his hips tucked against mine, his broad chest so warm against my back. I don’t even want to go to sleep anymore—instead, I want to catalogue all the points of contact, the way it feels to have him so close. I want to etch all of these feelings into my memory so I never forget.
His hand tightens on my hip as he pulls me closer, and I wish I knew what he was dreaming right now.
One more week, I tell myself. Seven days on our best behavior.
Starting now.