12. Saturday
CHAPTER 12
SATURDAY
W ell, that was one way to disprove a hypothesis. One of the more enjoyable ways, sure, but Maggie still didn’t like to be wrong. And she most certainly had been wrong. The night before had not done anything close to getting Daniel Becker out of her system. It had, if anything, spread the infection. He was everywhere. His fingers gripping wooden slats as she made the bed. His wild groan under the hum of her electric toothbrush.
Insufferable man.
Her feet thumped against the dirt path up Whippoorwill Hill. She’d taken to running this trail every morning before breakfast, but this morning Maggie was going hard, pushing her body to a near sprint up the steep incline in a desperate attempt to white out her mind with the pure physical pain of aching legs and burning lungs.
In her newly established routine, her alarm woke her at 6:30, which gave her plenty of time to run, shower, and get to the dining hall by 8:00. This morning, she’d woken early, when she could still see stars out the bedroom window, surfacing from a dream she’d already forgotten, left with only a pointless wanting. Maggie never wasted time trying to fall back asleep (once you were trying, you’d already failed), so when she’d woken up, she’d made a pot of coffee, padded past where Parton was snoring gently on the couch, and plunked down at her aunt’s desk. She’d intended to do some paperwork, but the rustle of the pages had reminded her of the way Becker had shivered when her finger had grazed his throat. She sipped her coffee and found it disappointingly unlike the salty tang of the sweat along his jaw. She opened a ledger and choked back a laugh at the list he’d scrawled in terrible chicken scratch down the margin.
Nicknames for Daniel
Dan
Danny
God
Wikipedia had helpfully backed up his alleged Hebrew school memory that Daniel means “God is my Judge,” so he had decided that God was no more of a stretch as a nickname than Daisy was for Margaret. Maggie had demonstrated great restraint in not asking when, in particular, he was planning on asking to be referred to as God. It wasn’t really her thing, anyway.
She’d accomplished exactly nothing by the time the sky blessedly faded to a deep blue, and she could feed Parton some early kibble, pull on some Nike shorts, and head out for a run to clear her mind.
Unfortunately, that last part was not going particularly well. She pushed herself to a full sprint as she neared the grassy expanse at the top of the hill. She’d been very, very wrong to think that one night with Daniel Becker would rid her of this nagging attraction. In her defense, she’d had sex with plenty of people and then subsequently had no interest at all in repeating the experience. But this had been…not that.
What a sweet summer child past-Maggie had been.
She reached the top of Whippoorwill Hill with heavy legs, lungs heaving, and mind not one bit quieter than it had been when she’d set out.
It was going to be a long day.
The Barn Dance social was off to a much livelier start than 80’s Night. As soon as the Blue Harbor campers had gotten off their buses, each one had chosen the name of an Oak Ridge dance partner out of a Stetson, and each new duo was immediately directed to promenade with the growing crowd around the Oak Ridge gym. Maggie, who had always hated this excruciating ritual as a camper, had convinced Becker that everyone should have the choice of buddying up with a cabinmate or opting out entirely, and she was supremely satisfied to find that the numbers had worked out almost perfectly.
The gym was less lavishly decorated this week, its wood-on-wood-look interior doing most of the work to give the impression of “barn.” At the far end, the long table supporting the MacGyvered sound system was covered in red gingham and surrounded by bales of hay someone must have stolen from the horses in Oak Ridge’s actual barn. Jordan, Maggie’s trusty head of mountaineering and the evening’s Caller, looked dapper in a plaid button down tucked into bootcut jeans. An Oak Ridge crafts counselor who’d introduced himself as Grey was set up at the laptop, ready to DJ. They’d divided the pairs of campers into groups of four and were now teaching everyone the basic steps they’d need for the evening. Maggie had been roped in to complete a square opposite one of her paddling counselors, a short blonde woman named Amanda, and was, she thought, holding her own, all things considered.
About forty-five minutes in, after a second attempt at “Turkey in the Straw,” Jordan announced a break in the formal dancing. Grey threw on the opening twangs of “Sweet Home Alabama” and a “woo!” of recognition swept the room as campers broke rank to find their friends. Maggie took the opportunity to hit up the Bug Juice table.
She’d just ladled herself a slightly overfull Dixie cup when Daniel Becker sidled over. And sidled really was the word for it. He had on medium wash jeans that hugged his thighs in a way that might have made someone—definitely not Maggie—jealous of a piece of denim. He’d accessorized with a chestnut leather belt and boots, an honest-to-god cowboy hat, and a sleeveless blue plaid button-down that had surely been bedazzled by the same demon-possessed crafter who’d made her own godforsaken dress.
The tank top was a sight gag, but the restraint she had to muster to refrain from biting into one of his biceps was no laughing matter.
Maggie had never been very into the whole “nice guy” thing. Nice guys were dull. Male gallantry always felt like patriarchy with better PR. Give her a twisted villain, a Frankenstein’s monster of bitterness and regret. They were a lot of fun after dark. Except that when Daniel Becker winked at her over his broad smile and tipped his actual hat in greeting, she could not for the life of her remember what allure bad boys had ever held.
She watched, half-mesmerized, as he poured himself a cup of the neon crimson punch. When he stepped aside to lean against one of the gym’s polished log pillars, she followed. That sparkling tank top had its own gravitational pull.
Two hundred campers were still scream-singing about the Alabama skies, so Becker waited until she joined him against the pillar to attempt anything like a conversation.
“You weren’t kidding about your do-si-do,” he half-yelled. “Award winning.” Daniel took a sip that left his lips stained slightly redder than they’d been the moment before.
They probably tasted like sugar and artificial strawberry.
Jesus, she needed to rein it in.
She refocused her gaze in the much safer direction of the dance floor.
“I would never joke about the Virginia Reel,” she said, using her outdoor voice.
Not looking directly at him was helping. A little.
“Nice dress.”
Maggie glanced down as if she’d forgotten what she was wearing. Because she had, in fact, briefly forgotten. Mind: blank. It was, of course, the dress he’d summoned from the depths of Goodwill hell.
“Thank you, I think it clashes nicely with my hair.”
After a final chorus, the song ended with a screech of microphone feedback. Then Grey’s voice crackled over the tinny speakers, announcing the start of the Two Step lesson and instructing campers to return to their assigned partners. Thank God. Maggie needed to put some distance between herself and Daniel Becker’s dangerous lack of sleeves.
“That’s my cue.” She downed the rest of her Bug Juice like a shot of whiskey, tossed the cup into the recycling bin nestled behind the pillar, and scanned the crowd for her dance partner, Amanda. Unfortunately, when she spotted her, Amanda was up on the stage, arm around Jordan’s waist, talking animatedly at Grey as he scrolled on the ancient laptop serving as his DJ turntable.
“Looks like you’re down a partner,” Daniel observed with a put-on twang, dropping his now empty cup into the same bin. “Might I do the honors?” He held out his hand with a flourish. He was being dorky and embarrassing, and she definitely hated it. She was absolutely about to decline when she heard at least one camper whoop.
Turning toward the sound, she expected to find a snarky teen. But no. Her eyes landed on Mia, the chubby bunny evangelist, smiling angelically and giving her two thumbs up. She was backed by a growing army of pint-sized co-conspirators drawn by her rallying cry. From somewhere in the crowd, a voice called out. “Maggie and Daniel sitting’ in a tree?—”
Becker had been right again. It really was the ten-year-olds you had to watch out for.
There was nothing for it. Maggie held out her hand as Becker laughed his easy laugh, and she let him lead her over to an empty spot on the dance floor, hoping her color was already high enough from the heat of the room that no one noticed her blush.
As Jordan began to call out the steps, Maggie tried to get the hang of the basic slow-slow-quick-quick pattern. This was not a dance she’d learned in P.E. She would have sat it out if she hadn’t been so desperate to get some space from Daniel Becker.
So, naturally, instead of getting space, there she was, attempting the Two Step in Daniel Becker’s unsleeved arms under the watchful eyes of several hundred miniature matchmakers. His left hand loosely held her right, and his right pressed lightly against her shoulder blade. Maggie’s own left hand was, as the form dictated, resting on one of Becker’s scandalously naked biceps. She tried very hard to ignore how smooth the skin felt under her fingers, how the muscle tensed and relaxed as he guided her across the gym with gentle confidence. Unfortunately, her mental highlights reel kept offering up flashes of the previous evening’s adventure with that same skin, those same flexing muscles. Maggie was aware that no one could read her mind, but it nonetheless felt very inappropriate to be having the thoughts she was having in the place she was currently having them.
“Don’t look at your feet,” Daniel scolded, annoyingly able to focus on the task at hand.
She looked up and caught his amused smirk.
Well, she certainly couldn’t look directly at him if he wanted her to stay on the beat.
And she was managing it, mostly. They weren’t exactly gliding across the basketball court slash dance floor, but they weren’t the worst of the duos. The campers around them seemed to be two-stepping, and possibly three-stepping, to several different rhythms, none of which had any relation to the music. She and Becker were holding their own.
Or, they were, until a collision resulting in a six-camper pile-up pulled Maggie’s already tenuous focus. She “quicked” when she should have “slowed” and stepped hard on his foot.
“Sorry!” She looked down again.
“That’s what the boots are for. Now, eyes on me,” he said in a tone that was only role-playing as stern.
Maggie raised her gaze to meet his and was startled by the heat she found where the easy warmth had been. Maybe she wasn’t the only one inconveniently aware of every single centimeter of skin on skin.
He was breathing, she realized, in time to the music. And so was she.
In (slow-slow)
Out (quick-quick)
In (slow-slow)
Out (quick-quick)
“Stop counting in your head,” he said, after they’d reestablished their rhythm. “Don’t think about it. Just do it.”
Slow-slow-quick-quick
Slow-slow-quick-quick
“You know how when someone tells you not to laugh, you immediately want to laugh?”
“Fine,” Becker smiled beatifically, “definitely count. It’s very important.”
They kept moving across the floor, Daniel leading and Maggie doing her best to follow. She kept her gaze trained just over his shoulder, ostensibly watching the campers for any signs of Two-Stepping trouble. She couldn’t look at him, obviously, couldn’t look down, couldn’t count, couldn’t ignore her heightened awareness of the places their bodies touched—and the places they didn’t. God, there were so many places they didn’t. This was a children’s summer camp, after all. As her youth group leader had liked to say, they had to leave room for Jesus.
And Maggie tried, she really did, to just let her feet do the stepping. Annoyingly, Becker was right. For the few measures at a time that she managed to relax into it, she stepped on exactly zero toes.
The thing about relaxing, though, was that she was extremely bad at it.
Slow-slow-quick-quick
Slow-slow-quick-quick
“Stop counting.”
“How are you doing that?” Seriously. How was he doing that? Was she mouthing the numbers?
Slow-slow-quick-quick
“I can see you thinking about it.”
Slow-slow-quick-quick
“You can see me thinking about it,” she said, skeptically. Well, it was significantly preferable to him seeing what she’d been thinking about a few minutes earlier.
“Just let go.” Now he was gently coaxing. Maggie did not respond well to gentle coaxing. “Follow my lead.”
“We don’t know each other very well, Becker, but you may have noticed that I don’t take direction well.”
Becker’s cheeks burned so hot that she thought he might combust. His expression was caught halfway between embarrassment and arousal, lips slightly parted, pupils blown all to hell. Now who knew what who was thinking? Annoyingly, she found it, against all odds, sweet.
And still, to his credit, he didn’t so much as “slow” when he should have “quicked.”
The satisfaction of ruffling Becker’s feathers was somewhat tempered by the fact that, at the sight of his blush, her own body had lit up like a live wire, sparking wildly with the memory of just how much he’d enjoyed taking direction. She could do nothing but stare as his Adam’s apple traced a path along his throat, up and down, as he swallowed. She wanted to lick it.
There was something wrong with her.
And then, while she was still actively reminding herself that they were in a room full of impressionable young minds who would mock them mercilessly if they got so much as a whiff of k-i-s-s-i-n-g, Becker had the temerity, the absolute gall, to pull his shit together.
“You know,” he said, in the tone he probably used when he was shooting the breeze with some camper’s dad, “something gave me that sense.”
The Two Step lesson ended before Maggie found it within herself to form another complete sentence. Becker, who was still holding her with plenty of room for a presumably very scandalized Jesus, dropped her hand and let go of her shoulder. When she didn’t move, he glanced meaningfully at the spot on his arm where she was apparently leaving claw marks.
Whoops.
She released him.
When Maggie met Becker’s gaze again, the left side of his mouth was quirked up in a half smile. He seemed extremely pleased with himself. “Look who finally stopped counting.”
Damnit, he was right. She had.
Maggie lay awake that night, staring at a crack in the ceiling she had never noticed before. She wished she was at some impersonal white and grey Hilton or Hyatt, anywhere with a gym that she could swipe herself into in the middle of the night because she wasn’t about to go for a run through the woods, but, god, she felt like she was going to crawl out of her skin.
For the rest of the social, Maggie had found herself in absolutely real, not at all manufactured demand, constantly needing to do something important and Camp Director-y in a location coincidentally very far away from wherever it was that Daniel Becker happened to be.
She wasn’t exactly proud of herself, but, as her Innovation professor had liked to quote without attribution: “It is also a victory to know when to retreat.”
Now, though, there was nowhere to go. Nothing to distract herself with.
She considered and dismissed the idea of pulling her travel vibrator out of the bedside drawer. Usually, when she was this particular kind of edgy, that did the trick. But right now, it didn’t sound at all appealing. Alone, in the dark, in the middle of the night, she could admit to herself what she really wanted. And, for some reason, what she wanted was Daniel Becker. The weight of his body on the mattress, the breathless anticipation of his response to her touch, the alchemy of skin against skin.
God, she hated this feeling. Restlessness and impotence.
Maggie reached for her phone almost without thinking and shot off a text. It was an impulse, though of self-preservation or self-destruction, she wasn’t sure. Probably both.
Truth or Dare
She dropped the phone onto the mattress as though there were a five second rule that could erase the entire reckless interlude.
The momentary relief of having done something , anything dissipated, and she was back to feeling a bone-deep twitchiness. She wanted to swim midnight laps in the murky lake just to take the edge off. She probably should have because: shit. Becker was surely asleep. He had early to bed, early to rise energy. He’d get that text at 6 a.m. and see she’d still been thinking about him at…she tapped her phone screen like it might burn her. 1:07 a.m. She stared at the glow until it went dark. Then kept staring.
Suddenly, it lit up with a text.
Dare.
Well then. She typed out her response and paused. Not in hesitation, but because it irked her how much her body wanted his. Because it was his body, in particular, that she wanted. She wasn’t going to cut off her nose to spite her face, but she was going to make him wait, just for a minute. She imagined him watching those three little dots on the screen taunt him.
Ok maybe thirty seconds was long enough.
She hit send.
Come here.
Daniel knocked lightly on the front door less than fifteen minutes later. That was gratifying, at least, his speed. She’d given Parton another peanut butter-filled chew toy to keep him from alerting the entire camp to the arrival of her midnight caller. The dog had retreated happily to his favored spot on the couch. He was an extremely ineffective chaperone. Small blessings.
When Maggie opened the door, Daniel was leaning with one arm raised, forearm braced against the frame, like a stock image of a Casual Man. Except that he was wearing his outfit from the Barn Dance, hat and all.
“Hey there, little lady.” There was that terrible drawl again. What a cheeseball.
Maggie pursed her lips against a smile and tried to cover her choked laugh with a no nonsense “Get inside, Becker.” She stepped back and jerked her thumb over her shoulder like a ticked off Little League coach. She hadn’t bothered to change out of her pajamas, which meant she had her hair tied back in a silk scrunchie, and she was wearing an ancient, oversized t-shirt, underwear, and nothing. She didn’t really want to be standing like that in front of an open door regardless of whether everyone nearby should be asleep.
Daniel stepped into the cottage and shut the door behind him. His nonchalance dropped away as his eyes skimmed down her body. She could feel his gaze like a physical thing. In the light of the living room lamp, dim and pinkish through its fringed shade, his strong features cast shadows across the planes of his face. His normally warm brown eyes appeared black, bottomless pools reflecting Maggie’s own hunger back at her. They stood like that for a long moment, barely breathing.
And then Maggie couldn’t take it anymore. She pounced. Suddenly Daniel’s back was against the door, her mouth crushing into his, her fingers in his hair, angling his head just so until his tongue rasped across her palate, tangling with her own. It was urgent and messy and, oh, thank fuck.
When she finally pulled away to take a breath, Becker tipped his head back against the door, eyes closed, and smiled up at the ceiling, panting like he’d run all the way from Oak Ridge. God, he was beautiful. In a fluid movement, she grabbed a handful of the sleeveless plaid button-down that had been taunting her all evening, and tugged, drawing him with her as she backed over to the kitchen table and perched on the edge. She wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled their bodies flush so that he was nestled between her bare thighs. The coarse denim was rough against her delicate skin. Becker grabbed the tabletop with one hand and wrapped an arm around her waist to brace as he pressed himself against her cotton underwear and groaned into her mouth. She kissed him hard, wanting to hear the sound again.
Instead, in a disappointing turn of events, he leaned away, putting enough space between them that she could meet his gaze. His eyebrows arced up toward his hairline as if he had asked a question and was expecting a response.
Maggie was slow to comprehend. He must have read the confusion on her face because he glanced meaningfully over his shoulder to his right.
And then he groaned again.
Except…he hadn’t.
Maggie followed the direction of Becker’s glance to find Parton’s face peeking over the side of the couch, chin propped on the overstuffed arm.
And then he groaned. The dog. The dog groaned.
Maybe he was a competent chaperone after all.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do this with Parton right there,” Becker said.
Parton, presumably hearing his name as an invitation, leapt off the couch, sliding a little as he landed on the wood floor, and rushed over to the kitchen. Not wanting to be left out, he pushed up on his back legs, settled his front paws on Becker’s bare shoulder, and began to enthusiastically slurp at the man’s face.
“Off. Off, buddy,” Becker gently pushed at the dog’s chest and twisted away until all four of Parton’s paws were firmly planted back on the floor. The dog was panting now, his tail swishing back and forth with such delight that it was wagging his entire body.
“There are treats in the cupboard next to the fridge,” Maggie said.
Becker crossed the small kitchen to grab one and returned with a stick of yak cheese.
“Sit,” he said in a tone that was more coaxing than commanding. Parton stayed standing, but Becker shrugged and tossed the treat into the living room anyway, and the dog chased after it.
Turning back to Maggie, he said, in a perfect deadpan, “This is probably a good time to tell you that I’m not into threesomes.”
That was the final straw. The giddy energy fizzing through Maggie’s veins bubbled over, and she dissolved into a fit of laughter. She collapsed forward onto Daniel’s chest, muffling the noise in the worn plaid and rhinestones of his still-sleeveless shirt.
When she’d managed to calm down, Maggie inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the scent of sweat and cotton, and sat back to find Daniel looking chagrined. “This isn’t exactly what?—”
She hiccupped. Then slapped a hand to her mouth.
“Do you have the hiccups?”
“No,” Maggie lied, literally through her teeth.
“You do.”
She removed her hand and took a breath. “I don’t get the hiccups.”
She hiccupped.
Daniel grinned.
“Well, this night has gone somewhat off the rails,” he said, amusement in his tone.
He stepped out from between her legs and walked around the table to the kitchen sink. Maggie watched him over her shoulder, definitely not hiccuping intermittently as he opened and closed cabinets until he found one of Aunt Peg’s old ceramic mugs. He filled it with tap water, set it on the counter, and then moved to open the freezer.
“By all means,”—hiccup—“make yourself at home.”
Maggie turned her head back to face the living room, where Parton seemed to have returned to the couch and was happily chewing on the yak cheese. She stared daggers at him. Or she tried to. It didn’t feel very menacing when her glare was soundtracked by hiccups and what she thought was the plunk of ice cubes into a cup of water.
“Alright, here.”
Maggie looked over at Daniel.
“Here, what?”
Hiccup.
“You have to stand flat against a wall and drink a glass of ice water backwards.”
“How do you drink”—hiccup—“backwards?”
“I’ll show you.”
Curiosity got the better of obstinance and Maggie hopped off the table and walked over to where Daniel was holding out the mug, handle toward her. She took it. He did a quick scan of the kitchen and living room.
“Over here.” Daniel headed to the empty stretch of wall between the bedroom door and a midcentury credenza. Maggie hiccupped and decided she was in no position to argue. “Back against the wall.”
She stood tall against the plaster.
“Ok, now drink the water as fast as you can but out of the far side of the mug.”
“What?”
“Bend forward and pour it away from you into your mouth.”
“You’re just”—hiccup—“fucking with me.”
“I would never,” he said, like a church lady accused of idly gossiping.
She gave him the look that comment deserved, although the look was interrupted by another hiccup, so perhaps didn’t have its hoped-for withering effect.
“Alright, I might, but this is what my mom always had me do when I got the hiccups, and it works.”
“Well who am I to argue”—hiccup—“with your mother.”
“I wouldn’t recommend trying.” He smiled with rueful fondness. “She’s a Harvard-trained attorney.”
Maggie waited until she hiccupped again, hoping to maximize the inter-hiccup window, then bent forward, almost doubled over, and made a valiant effort to drink from the far side of the mug. It required significantly more of her concentration and flexibility than drinking typically did, and still the majority of the icy water was spilling past her lips and dribbling inelegantly onto the hardwood.
Hot.
It took a while to drink down the entire mug. Or, drink down half the mug and disgustingly spill the other half all over the floor. She was probably most of the way done (though it was hard to tell since the mug itself was heavy and also being partly supported by her chin) when an ice cube lodged itself in her throat. Maggie tried to cough, but she was upside down with the lip of the mug between her teeth, so it came out as sort of a choked snorfle. And, worse, it didn’t seem to do anything about the ice cube. Fortunately, since it was ice, it seemed to be rapidly melting in the heat of her throat. She wasn’t looking to test Becker’s First Aid certification. Unfortunately, since it was ice, it was also giving her a particularly unpleasant brain freeze. She squeezed her eyes shut against the burn, still doubled over and quietly snorfling, waiting for the situation to sort itself out. She could feel Becker hovering nearby, trying to decide whether he needed to intervene.
After what was probably less than a minute but felt like at least an hour, the brain freeze subsided. With a final cough, this time at least politely made into the crook of her arm, Maggie straightened and opened her watery eyes. Becker looked at her very wet and presumably splotchy red face expectantly.
“I’m fine, thank you for asking,” Maggie said, when she couldn’t take the silent scrutiny any longer.
But he just kept looking at her.
So she waited. And waited. And she realized he was waiting for another hiccup…which never came.
Finally, he seemed to decide that they’d waited long enough, and said triumphantly, “See? Works every time.”
Maggie faked a hiccup.
Becker gave her a dark look. “Don’t tempt fate. People die of the hiccups.”
“They absolutely do not.” Maggie stepped over the puddle in front of her with as much dignity as she could muster and went to grab a towel from the kitchen.
“It happened on Grey’s Anatomy.”
“Well, in that case. You saved my life Daniel Becker. I owe you one.”
“I’m a real American hero,” he agreed, touching the brim of the cowboy hat he was, somehow, still wearing.
Maggie knelt to mop up the spill. “Well. I get up at 6:30 to run Whipoorwill Hill, so…” She trailed off, still dabbing at the floor, perhaps somewhat more meticulously than was strictly necessary. Sex was clearly off the table for the evening, so it was time for Becker to leave. Maggie was no stranger to kicking people out of her bed, hotel room, flat, private train car, what have you…She didn’t do sleepovers. She liked her space, both physical and emotional, and the morning after was a minefield, so she did everyone a favor by bypassing it entirely. And yet, for some reason, she didn’t want to have to see Daniel’s face when she oh-so-smoothly kicked him out.
“I should go,” he said, like it was a question. She pretended it sounded like a statement.
Maggie stood and walked leadingly to the front of the cottage. Becker made a quick detour to the couch to ruffle Parton behind the ears. The dog let out a deep, contented sigh. At least one of them had gotten their itch scratched.
She’d finally gotten Becker out the door when he turned to say goodbye. Except he didn’t say goodbye. What he did was take her face in his hands and kiss her in a way that she knew, absolutely knew, was meant to leave her deeply unsatisfied.
Well, mission accomplished.
The man was insufferable.