23. Casey
twenty-three
Casey
I stood under a pine tree, watching Matt chat with the campers. I wasn't spying—not exactly. I'd just happened to take the long way to breakfast and found myself frozen, tracking his movements like some lovesick teenager. An hour ago, we'd woken in his bed, tangled in his sheets, and fucked one last time. Now here I was, pretending I wasn't hoping for one more look before he left me for two days.
How was I already so addicted to him? Ever since that day on the lake, I hadn't been able to get enough.
Matt stood by a weathered wooden bench, his long hair secured in that messy bun that made my stomach flip. He gestured toward the mountains as he spoke, and the early teens around him nodded with excitement, adjusting their overstuffed backpacks. The morning sun caught on his forearm tattoo—that detailed mountain scene I'd traced with my fingertips just last night.
"You've got this," he was saying to a nervous-looking boy. "Two nights under the stars. Best sleep you'll ever get."
I swallowed hard. Two nights. Two fucking nights without Matt's weight pressing me into his mattress, without his calloused hands mapping my skin. We'd already said goodbye in private—a lovely, sexy kiss, nothing dramatic. Just as it should be for what we were: the camp director and his summer fling. No strings. No expectations.
So why was I still standing here?
One of the female counselors handed Matt a clipboard, and he scanned it, that little crease forming between his eyebrows. My fingers itched to smooth it away. Pathetic. Two weeks of sleeping together, and I was already a catastrophe of need.
The campers began loading into the van, tossing in backpacks and sleeping bags. Matt helped, his broad shoulders flexing beneath his Eagle Ridge t-shirt. He hadn't noticed me, and now they were preparing to leave. It was fine. This wasn't a relationship that required dramatic airport goodbyes.
I turned to go, hands shoved deep in my cargo shorts pockets. Five steps away, I started listing all the things I could do with my suddenly free evenings. Catch up on that novel. Organize my music lessons for next week. Practice my guitar. Not think about what Matt felt like inside me.
"Casey!"
I froze, my heart skipping a beat, then turned slowly, trying to look surprised rather than pathetically eager. Matt was jogging toward me, still wearing that goofy camp director smile, but something softer lived in his eyes.
"Hey," I said.
"Thought you'd be at your cabin doing laundry by now." He glanced over his shoulder at the van where the campers were climbing in, then took my elbow and guided me behind the nearest equipment shed.
"What are you—"
His mouth covered mine before I could finish, his hands cupping my face with a gentleness that made my knees weak. He tasted like coffee and the blueberry muffins from the mess hall. I grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, pulling him closer, starving for him.
When he pulled back, we were both breathing hard. "Sorry," he whispered, though he didn't look sorry at all. "I just... needed that. I'm going to miss you."
I blinked up at him, hating how much I understood. "The campers—"
"Can wait thirty seconds." He pressed his forehead against mine. "For me to make sure you're okay. And get one last taste of you for the road."
The words hit me like a cannonball to the chest. "It's just two nights," I said, my voice betraying me with its roughness.
Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys, pressing them into my palm. "I meant to give you these, and I almost forgot. They're for the house. In case you... I don't know, need anything while I'm gone."
I stared at the keys like they might bite. "Why would I need your keys? I have my own cabin, remember? With Oliver?"
"I know." His thumb traced small circles on my wrist. "It's just in case you want to stay at my place. Or, I don't know. In case you need somewhere to hang out."
"I won't." I should have handed them back. It was too intimate, too couple-y. But my fingers closed around the metal, warm from his pocket, clutching the keys like a lifeline.
His hand closed around mine. "Keep them. Just in case. I should get back," he said, peering around the shed. "Dave's probably wondering if I fell in a ditch."
"Yeah."
He brushed his lips against mine again. "See you in the day after tomorrow, Casey Kim. Maybe next time you can come backpacking with me so we don’t have to be apart."
“Fuck no,” I muttered. “This is as much wilderness as I can handle. I like beds. And showers.”
He smirked at me, then wrapped his big hand around my throat and gave me one last kiss, and this one was devastating, soul-shattering, wild, and hot, his tongue reminding me of every dirty thing he’d done to me over the past two weeks. He backed off and stared at me for a long moment, a little smile playing around his lips, a question in his eyes.
“Still no,” I grumped.
He burst out laughing, his eyes sparkling. “I have another two weeks before I’m on the schedule to take the kids backpacking. That’s two weeks to convince you… in every way possible.”
“Good luck with that.”
He kissed the tip of my nose, beaming. “It’ll be fun to try, even if it doesn’t work. Bye, Casey. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Then he was gone, jogging back to the van where the kids were hanging out the windows, shouting and laughing. I watched him climb into the passenger seat, the van pulling away down the gravel road in a cloud of dust.
I stood there clutching his keys, a heaviness behind my ribs that I refused to name as anything but an inconvenience. It was just sex. Great sex—phenomenal sex—but still just sex. In five weeks, camp would end. I'd go back to Oregon State, and he'd stay here, planning next summer's adventures. That was our reality.
So why did those keys feel so significant against my palm? I shoved them deep into my pocket and headed back to the cabin, skipping breakfast, telling myself that it was fine as I let myself inside and looked around the cabin. Oliver was hunched over his laptop at the small wooden table by the window. He glanced up, his glasses sliding down his nose in that perpetual way they did.
I flopped onto my unmade bed, wincing at the twinge in my lower back. Two weeks of getting thoroughly fucked by Matt Blackstone had left its mark. My body craved him even as my brain screamed that I was getting in too deep. Two damn weeks, and I was already an addict jonesing for my next hit. Pathetic didn't begin to cover it.
"You look like shit," Oliver observed.
"Thanks, Ollie. You really know how to boost a guy's confidence." I rolled onto my stomach, burying my face in my pillow that smelled too much like me and not enough like Matt.
Matt's keys dug into my thigh through my pocket. I should've left them on his desk or something. Or given them back the moment he gave them to me.
"Aren't you supposed to be doing laundry today?" Oliver asked, his voice carrying that light teasing tone that only brothers can perfect.
He was right, of course. I'd planned this whole productive day: laundry, followed by organizing my music sheets for next week's lessons, then maybe catching up on that novel I'd been trying to read since camp started, and practicing guitar. All perfectly reasonable tasks that had gone by the wayside as my focus had turned to Matt.
"Working on it," I muttered, not moving an inch.
My phone buzzed with a text. I scrambled to grab it, nearly falling off the bed in my haste. It wasn't from Matt, which I should have known, because there was little to no cell service in the area they were hiking in. It was just Mom, checking in. I tossed the phone aside, irritation prickling under my skin.
"So," Oliver said, closing his laptop, "how long are you going to mope because Matt's gone on that backpacking trip?"
I shot up, glaring at him. "I'm not moping."
"Uh-huh." His eyebrows disappeared behind his too-long bangs. "That's why you've been sighing dramatically every five minutes since you walked in."
"I don't—" I stopped, catching myself mid-sigh. Fuck. "Whatever. I'm just tired."
"From all that late-night 'work' you've been doing with our esteemed camp director?" Oliver made air quotes around "work," his face perfectly neutral save for the knowing glint in his eyes.
Heat rushed to my face. "Jesus, Ollie. Can you not?"
"Hey, I'm not judging. Matt's hot, if you're into that whole 'mountain man with a man bun' thing." He shrugged. "Just didn't expect you to fall for him so hard."
"I haven't fallen for anyone," I snapped, shoving myself off the bed. I grabbed the laundry basket, desperate for activity. "It's just sex." I fingered the keys in my pocket. "Though he gave me his keys, so I might... Just go check on his place and see if it's okay."
Oliver tilted his head, studying me with that analytical gaze that always made me feel like a particularly interesting science experiment. "Okay. Do what you need to do."
"I don't need it, Ollie. It's a favor, for Matt."
Oliver smiled. "Got it. I'll have pizza and a movie if you come back, but I won't wait up."
"I'm coming back. After I check on Matt's house. You know, water the plants and stuff." Looking around, I found my overnight bag, and stuffed a few things into it, ignoring whatever Oliver was obviously thinking about that, then I picked up my guitar and breezed out the door, pausing to shout, "the space has nice acoustics!"
I didn't know who I thought I was convincing, but I rationalized my need to go to Matt's place a hundred different ways as I walked down the narrow path from camp to his house. It was early afternoon, and I had plenty of time to check on the house real quick, then get back to my cabin and watch a movie with Oliver.
The lock clicked open, and I stepped into semi-darkness, fumbling for the light switch I knew was just inside the door. A warm yellow glow illuminated the space as I pulled up the blinds and let in some sunlight, looking around. 400 square feet of Matt Blackstone distilled into physical form. His scent. His clothes. His... presence.
The air smelled like him: cedar and the essential oils in that fancy soap he used, with undertones of coffee. His Camp Eagle Ridge hoodie hung on a hook by the door next to his rain jacket. A half-empty mug sat on the small kitchenette counter beside a dog-eared copy of some wilderness survival guide. So perfectly Matt—practical, a little messy, completely lived-in.
I stood awkwardly in the center of the room, feeling like an intruder despite the key in my hand. What was I doing here? The place was fine. No burst pipes or rampaging bears. Mission accomplished.
But instead of leaving, I set my guitar and wandered toward his bed—really just a big mattress on a platform built into the loft space, accessible by a small ladder. I'd climbed that ladder so many times in the past two weeks, usually with Matt's hands guiding my hips, his breath hot against my neck.
I scaled it now, slower and more carefully without him behind me. The bed was hastily made, the thick blankets pulled up but not smoothed. Next to the pillow lay a phone charger cord and an empty glass of water. Evidence of our rushed morning, when Matt had realized he'd overslept and nearly missed breakfast before the backpacking trip.
I sat on the edge of the bed, running my hand over the blanket. The sheets beneath had been changed yesterday—I knew because I'd been here when Matt had done it, complaining that I was leaving him to do all the work while I lounged naked, laughing at his domestic skills.
"Just checking on things," I said aloud to the empty room, my voice sounding thin and unconvincing even to my own ears.
I smoothed the blanket, then did it again. And again. My hand moved over the fabric in slow, methodical strokes as if I could somehow press out the wrinkles of my own conflicted feelings. I shouldn't stay. I should go back to my cabin where Oliver was probably ordering a gross vegetarian pizza. I should sleep in my own bed with its standard-issue camp mattress and scratchy sheets.
But I was already pulling off my shoes. Already slipping under the blanket. Already turning to Matt's side of the bed, where his pillow still held the indent of his head.
The silence pressed in, broken only by the ticking of the small wooden clock on the wall and the distant sounds of the night guard making their rounds. No Matt's steady breathing. No Matt's occasional sleep mumbles that I'd started to find endearingly ridiculous. Just emptiness and the weight of my own thoughts.
I pulled his pillow to my chest, burying my face in it and inhaling deeply. Still smelled like him. Still felt like him in the oddest way.
"This is so fucking stupid," I whispered into the fabric.
Five weeks. The same thought that had plagued me all day returned with a vengeance. Five more weeks of camp. Five more weeks of Matt's hands and mouth and voice in my ear telling me how good I felt around him. Five more weeks before I had to go back to real life and leave whatever this was behind. If I couldn't survive two nights without him, how would I survive months?
Why had he given me his keys? It wasn't just practical—he didn't need anyone to water his plants. But he'd given them to me, just in case I needed them. In case I needed to be closer to him even when he wasn't here? How could he have known?
I clutched his pillow tighter, closing my eyes against the sting of unexpected tears. This wasn't supposed to happen. Summer flings were supposed to be light and fun and forgettable. Not this ache that felt like it might crack me open if I examined it too closely.