Chapter Ten #2
“To the sea,” Barra replied, not stopping.
She didn’t even look back over her shoulder, and even if she had, Allie wouldn’t have noticed.
Her gaze had flicked down to Barra’s long legs and stayed there.
Her eyes only traveled up as far as her waist, and even then.
.. well, she couldn’t help where they went next. Barra had a great ass.
Then, as if she’d been pinched, Allie realized she was staring.
But only because Elodie and Anna were staring at her, watching her with annoyingly amused grins on their faces, as if they could somehow read her mind.
But what was she even thinking about? Last night’s almost kiss.
Obviously. And, annoyingly, what might’ve happened if she hadn’t pulled back so fast, if she’d let the kiss land, if she’d moved her hands down to Barra’s. ..
“Zoned out,” Allie said quickly, swatting the thought away like a fly.
And then, without looking at them, she turned and jogged down to the beach.
Not to where Barra was wading deeper into the waves, letting them crash off her chest, but a few feet to the left, where Allie could pretend she wasn’t deliberately keeping her distance.
She pinched her nose shut and dipped under the water. When she came up, she blinked hard against the salt and dragged her hands back through her hair. It stung. Everything always stung out here. And it was hot. And humid. So fricken humid.
“Why are you all the way over there?” Barra called, cupping her hands like a funnel over her mouth. She was back on the beach, sitting with her legs stretched out in front of her. “Come here.”
Allie obliged. But she walked slower than normal, and it had nothing to do with the resistance of the ocean against her legs. When she reached Barra, she settled down beside her on the sand, keeping a respectable distance. One touch and she might just relive last night.
“How was your confessional?” Barra asked, turning her entire body toward her.
“How do you know I had a confessional?” Allie asked.
Barra laughed. Was Allie just imagining it, or was her laugh just a little louder than yesterday? “Because you’ve got that windswept look about you,” Barra said, scooping up a clump of damp sand and rubbing it across her legs. Nature’s exfoliation. “Did they ask you about last night?”
Allie nodded.
“And what did you say?”
“They know about us,” Allie whispered that last word so softly that she’d be surprised if Barra had heard her. But she did.
Barra nodded slowly, taking her time to process the information.
Then she flicked her gaze back to camp. Margaret was the closest to them, but she was concentrating on untangling a knot in her hair.
Behind her were Tilly and Toph playing tic-tac-toe on the sand with long sticks.
Neither of their attention was anywhere on the beach. “What did you tell them?”
“Just that we met at a wedding and got to know each other,” Allie said. “Tracy was trying to get more out of me, but then we heard the commotion back at camp and I escaped. She would’ve pushed for more details if she’d had the chance.”
Barra looked relieved.
Allie felt the opposite. “We should’ve just been honest from the start,” she said, dragging a line through the sand with her finger, then flattening it out again.
In her line of work, transparency mattered.
If one of her artists lied to her, he or she was done.
She couldn’t possibly stand beside their painting and look a collector in the eye and say this artist matters.
Nothing mattered after trust had been broken. “Everyone would’ve understood.”
“No,” Barra said, shaking her head. “Just trust me when I say this is better for our game.”
“Our game,” Allie said, more to herself than Barra, who last night had promised she wouldn’t tell Hazel about the protection bracelet. But how honest had she been? Or had Barra just said it to appease Allie? “How do I even know I can trust you?”
“I haven’t told anyone about the bracelet yet, have I?”
“Yet,” Allie said. “You’ve still got—” Her words got cut off by something landing on her calf.
Something with spindly legs and wings, and then the fucking thing took a bite.
“Ouch, shit!” she yelped, smacking her hand down hard.
But whatever bug it was darted off before she could get it.
Her skin immediately started prickling. “I swear the bugs here are targeting me,” she said sourly.
Right on cue, every welt on her legs suddenly felt as if it were on fire.
She didn’t know which one to scratch first. She’d need another hand to scratch all of them at the same time.
“You know you’re the only one in camp who has gotten bitten,” Barra said, leaning a little closer to get a better look at Allie’s legs. She reached out a finger and touched her skin just beneath a swollen lump on her thigh where the skin stretched shiny and pink. “That one looks painful.”
“It is,” Allie replied resentfully.
“It’s like the bugs know you hate nature.”
“I don’t hate nature,” Allie said, just as she swatted at her arm. She felt a soft, awful squelch under her palm and froze. “Ugh,” she muttered, looking down at the splatter of blood and two crooked wings that were left. “That’s revolting.”
Barra had proved her point.
“Fine,” Allie said. “I don’t love nature.
I tolerate it.” Barely. She was the type of woman who needed high thread count bedding, relied on lavender oil baths to get her through particularly grueling days, and enjoyed a chilled glass of Sancerre while a fire crackled behind glass and Gracie Abrams played in the background.
Barra laughed. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about; some people are just city people.”
“And you’re not?” Allie shot back, twisting her arm in such a way that she managed to scrub the dead bug off against the sand. “Don’t you live in New York City?”
“I do, but I was born into a camping family,” Barra said. “While my friends went to Europe for holidays, we hiked the Adirondacks.”
“So you love hiking then?”
Barra shook her head immediately. “No,” she said, pulling a face. “I don’t.”
“Then what do you like?”
Barra took a minute to think about it. “Have you ever been to Venice?” she asked.
“Yes,” Allie replied. “Twice.” Her third-ever lesbian kiss had taken place on the Bridge of Sighs. It had been very romantic. Until Allie had fucked it up with an “it’s not you; it’s me.”
“Well,” Barra said. “I love traveling. But mostly to places where the buildings are the main attraction. Like in Venice. And Prague. And Barcelona.”
“So you travel for the architecture?” Allie asked. “I guess they do say if you’re passionate about something it won’t ever feel like—”
“So, what do you two think about voting Valerie out tonight?” Sutton said, cutting her off. She dropped down in front of them and leaned back on her palms.
“Valerie’s got the protection bracelet,” Allie pointed out, feeling an itch of irritation she couldn’t describe. Or maybe she could. Maybe she was irritated that Sutton showed up and was ruining a perfect moment. A soft moment between Allie and Barra.
“She’s lying,” Sutton replied matter-of-factly. “And I hate liars.”
Allie caught Barra’s eye. Liars. They were the liars.
“Do you think Hazel will go for it?” Sutton asked Barra.
Barra snapped her eyes away from Allie’s and toward Hazel, who had joined the game of tic-tac-toe. She was standing with her hands on her hips, squinting down at the sand. Toph was standing beside her, scowling. “I’ll talk to her,” Barra said. “And Tilly and Toph too.”
Sutton looked satisfied. Then she smacked Allie’s ankle and leaped up. “Come with me to the watering hole. I want to catch Anna and Elodie, and I need you there as a buffer.”
Allie groaned inwardly but didn’t protest. “Fine,” she muttered, but only because without her, Elodie and Anna would probably shut Sutton down in under thirty seconds.
Allie wasn’t prepared to go out just because Sutton didn’t have a gentle bone in her body. She pushed herself to her feet and brushed sand from her legs. Then she shot Barra a look and mouthed, “wish me luck.” Though she probably needed more than luck.
Barra chuckled, and for a brief second Allie felt warmth slip down her arms. She almost stopped to question it, but then immediately shut it down.
It was just the sun. The relentless, baking sun.