Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
The back of Lila’s neck prickled. But it had been prickling for the whole last three hours. They were very nearly at the end of how much they would be doing today, and then they would head back and set up camp. But something had changed in the air, and she couldn’t put her finger on it.
She and Nolan were getting along at least.
She was absolutely humiliated after the way that she had behaved yesterday. She might as well have just announced to him that she was hot for his body.
But it had just been terrible, the most upsetting thing in the world to have felt like she had accomplished all that with Jason, like she was finally putting herself on a path where everything wasn’t Nolan, when he had put his hands on her, he had touched her, drawn closer to her, and had instantly aroused her more than the intentional touching and flirting that Jason had been doing.
And she knew that it was something she was going to have to work through. She knew that it was all a process, and it was okay to have a momentary relapse. Especially when your long-term object of desire had been standing between your legs.
She was going to go on a date with Jason so the stuff with Nolan didn’t matter. It was just a lingering thing.
So she had done her best to get over it. To show up today with a brave face on, but things had just felt... tense in an indefinable way.
Not tense in an angry way. She really did feel like he forgave her. He’d been furious yesterday, and she really couldn’t blame him. She had pushed him to the end of his goodwill, and that was bound to happen. She was too reactionary with him.
But she was pretty sure she had sorted all that out.
It was just that things still didn’t feel settled.
Maybe they never would. Maybe that was the real issue, was that she wanted to have some kind of comfortable relationship with him. The kind that she imagined they ought to have because they had known each other for so many years, and maybe it was just never going to be that.
Maybe her own issues over the last few years had damaged things too much.
Well, there was no point dwelling on all that now.
They finished up work for the day and headed back the short mile toward where they had left their things.
They had a pop-up tent that condensed to a manageable size for transportation, and she suddenly realized that she had only brought the one, and they were going to have to share it.
That was something she would have normally carefully considered.
But they had two different sleeping bags, and there really was no way to get separation better than two sleeping bags.
Plus, the tent was pretty big. It wasn’t like they would be on top of each other, they would just be in there, sharing the same air while they slept.
Not something that had never happened before, but everything felt so fraught at the moment.
Whatever.
Nolan was getting a fire started and got out the package of hot dogs that she had brought. He speared a couple of hot dogs on a stick and started to roast them.
Her stomach growled.
She had brought a soft cooler, and along with the hot dogs, she had packed beer, and she took one bottle out for him and one for her.
She handed it to him after she had cracked the top off with her keychain bottle opener.
“Good work,” he said, tipping his bottle toward hers, and she clinked it.
She was trying to turn over a new leaf and not be a jerk. Maybe that would fix some things. She had to hope that it would.
“You too.”
Soon enough, the hot dogs were ready to go on their camp plates. She hadn’t really brought fixings, but between the two of them, they polished off half the package, sitting there in relative silence, nodding and chewing, and roasting.
She wanted to do something to fix the events of yesterday. She wanted to do something to fix them. Maybe the key was actually treating him like a brother. Maybe the key was not avoiding conversations around relationships.
Maybe she should actually... ask his advice. Hell, if you had access to a big old manwhore who was not your brother, shouldn’t you use his expertise?
“So,” she said, picking up a hot dog off of her plate. “Do you think that Jason likes me?”
His head snapped up, his expression sharp. “Likes?”
“I mean, do you think he’ll go on a date with me?”
“Yes, Lila, I think he’ll go on a date with you. But I don’t think that a date is his end goal.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You’re not naive. Come on.”
“No, I don’t think I’m naive. But... It’s hard to gauge those things when it comes to yourself.”
He lifted a brow. “Is it?” And then he sat there for a moment, his face going blank. “Okay. Maybe sometimes it is.”
“Right. So, I met him, and I think he’s really cute, and I want to go out with him, but, you know, I’ve started questioning things. Like whether or not he was being genuine.”
“It depends on what kind of genuine you’re talking about.”
“Explain,” she said, squeezing the hot dog slightly, touching a burned spot on the skin before taking another bite.
Nolan shifted.
“I genuinely think he wants to hook up with you. Beyond that, couldn’t say.”
“Oh, great,” she said. “That was kind of my goal.”
He frowned. “Okay,” he said. “And why are you telling me this?”
“I want to call a truce. All this stuff between us, it’s really silly. And it doesn’t need to be happening. We can get along. And I just realized that I could have asked you some questions this whole time, and I haven’t. So I want to do that.”
“Right. Great. Honored. I think. But that’s my take on the situation.”
“Okay. So I should call him.”
“He can call you. Make him work for it at least a little bit.”
“Why? If I want to, shouldn’t I just do it?”
“Call me old-fashioned. But I believe that the man should initiate the one-night stand.”
“Do you really think it would be a one-night stand?”
He let out a long sigh. “I don’t know, Lila. I can’t gauge his intentions on that level. I just thought he seemed like a standard yahoo douche.”
“You really didn’t like him.”
Again, his face became impossible to read.
Her palms were sweaty, and she felt nervous, which was unlike her.
She wasn’t usually nervous, but something about having this conversation with Nolan felt dangerous in a way that was intriguing.
And scary. It reminded her a little bit of back when she had done barrel racing.
She always got such a rush of adrenaline right beforehand, and then afterwards, she was always shaking so badly she could barely stand.
But she loved it. Scary wasn’t necessarily bad.
Sometimes she wanted to go towards scary.
Maybe because it made her feel strong, maybe because it was another way that she felt in control.
For some reason right now, she was feeling kind of intoxicated with the power that she had. She didn’t know why she thought she had power in this moment, only that she felt like she did.
“It’s not a matter of liking him or not. But I care about you. And I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“Getting hurt is part of life.”
“Yes. But I have been in these streets. Meaning, I recognize guys like him.”
“You are a guy like him,” she said. “Just like seven years older.”
He looked offended. “I am not seven years older. Also, I’m not like that.”
“Yes. You are. I have watched you pick up a steady stream of rotating women over the years. I know that you’re like that. I just saw you with a woman a few months ago, when we took Cara shopping in town back when she and Zane were hooking up.”
“I didn’t have sex with her,” he said.
His words, blunt and to the point, caught her off guard. “You didn’t?”
“No. I didn’t. I took her on a dinner date, that was it. We didn’t have sex; we didn’t see each other again.”
“Oh. I just assumed that—”
“You just assumed that I was only ever going to be with a woman if I was going to fuck her? That’s what you think of me?”
“No. I thought I was being realistic.”
“Is that why you were harassing me when you saw me with her?”
“I wasn’t harassing you. I was...”
But she remembered that she had called out to them and said something deeply unflattering about Nolan. And at the time, she had convinced herself that she was teasing, but the truth was she felt a kind of acrid pain in her stomach that was maybe not so much playful as it was jealous.
“Sorry. I think sometimes I’m trying to be funny, and it comes off meaner or harsher than I want to.”
That was only part of the truth.
“It’s fine. I know you. I filter all that.”
“I just assumed that if you weren’t looking for a serious relationship, you were at least looking to get laid.”
He tilted his head back and took in a deep breath, like he was in pain. “Okay. You’re not wrong. A lot of the time that is true. I’m not above meeting up with a woman to fulfill a bit of mutual need.”
“Mutual need,” she said, poking at the hot dog. “That is a delicate way to put it.” She picked the hot dog up and bit the tip off. “Tasteful.”
He looked like a thunderstorm. “I’m very tasteful.”
“Naturally,” she said archly.
“But that isn’t all I think a woman is good for. Sometimes I just want to enjoy their company. And in that case, that’s what I was doing.”
“Right. Well, maybe Jason just wants to enjoy my company.”
“No. He’s in his twenties. That’s not what he wants.
And listen,” he said, his eyes meeting hers, intense and direct in a way she wasn’t accustomed to.
“If that’s what you want, I respect that.
It’s fine. If that’s the way that you like to do things, that’s great.
There is nothing wrong with it. You’re right.
That is the way that I’ve behaved, that Cody’s behaved, that Walker’s behaved.
What’s good for the goose and all that. If I got a little weird about it, it’s just because...
You’re Lila. And I feel protective of you. ”
“Great,” she said, prickles of offense breaking out over her skin. Lila. She was Lila, not a woman. Just a Lila.
“What?”