Torch

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Hunter

I need a minute to catch my breath. I need a moment to let my brain catch up with this, to make myself slow down, to process. I lean our foreheads together and let my thumb wander along Clementine’s jawline. I think I might be trembling, and I take a deep breath, force myself to stop.

Before I know it I’m kissing her again, because I feel like I can’t restrain myself. My tongue is in her mouth and hers is in mine, and it feels right and perfect and great, and this is what I’ve wanted from the minute I saw her again.

She snakes her fingers through my hair, pulling me even closer, and I think, I’ve wanted this for longer than that.

I’m hard, and as Clementine rocks her body against mine, I know she can tell, heavy jackets be damned.

I have to fight the urge to slide my hand under her jacket and feel the warm, soft skin of her back, run my fingers over the notches in her spine.

Suddenly, Clementine pulls away. She whips her head around.

Then she gasps.

“Hey!” she shouts and then she’s out of my arms, practically running across the field.

There’s a kid at one of the telescopes, standing on his tiptoes and messing with it, his face intent.

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!” Clementine shouts, and the kid looks over, suddenly freezing. “Those are very expensive and also very breakable!”

The poor kid looks terrified, and he backs away, his sad eyes looking up at her.

“I wanted to look at Andromeda,” he says. “This one was positioned the closest, and you looked busy, so I just thought...”

I walk over as Clementine checks the telescope quickly, then heaves a sigh of relief.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“Aidan,” he says.

“Aidan, I know you’re just interested, but these are very delicate and you need special training to use them without breaking them, okay?” she says.

“Sorry,” he says, looking a little like he might cry.

I feel bad for the little guy. He’s obviously just over-eager and let his excitement get the better of him. Apparently satisfied that the telescope is fine, Clementine looks at the kid, then looks around.

“Where are your parents?” she asks.

He looks a little guilty.

“In the camper,” he says.

We all pause a moment.

“Asleep,” he goes on.

Clementine sighs.

“Okay, we’re going to walk you back there now,” she says.

“But can I just—”

“No,” she says, and points in the direction of the campground. “Move it.”

The three of us start walking, Aidan between the two of us. He sighs very dramatically for an eleven-year-old, and I almost feel bad.

“Where is Andromeda?” I ask, trying to get his mind off of this.

He looks up at me, suddenly excited.

“It’s next to the constellation Andromeda,” he says.

“I thought we were talking about the constellation,” I say.

“That’s perfectly visible to the naked eye,” he says, as though he’s explaining this to an even younger child. “I wanted to look at the Andromeda galaxy. It’s the spiral galaxy closest to the Milky Way, and you need a telescope to really see—”

“Aidan!” a voice shouts.

We stop and squint into the darkness on the road. A moment later, a man appears, running in sweatpants, a t-shirt, and unlaced hiking boots.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the man yells. “I woke up and you were just gone, you scared the shit out of your mom and me. I had no idea where you were. You can’t do that.”

When he gets closer, he looks at Clementine and me. His hair’s wild and he’s breathing hard, completely freaked out.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I had no idea he was gone, thank you so much for finding him...”

“No problem,” Clementine says. “He just wanted more telescope time.”

The man gets on one knee and looks Aidan in the face.

“You cannot just disappear like that,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” says Aidan, looking at the ground. “I just wanted...”

The man pulls Aidan in for a long, tight hug, practically squeezing the air out of the kid.

“You’re still grounded,” he says. “God, are you grounded.”

Clem glances at me, obviously trying not to laugh.

“Thank you,” the guy says to us again, then stands. “I nearly had a heart attack when I woke up and he was gone.”

“I’m just glad he didn’t get eaten by bears,” Clementine says, half smiling.

Aidan’s eyes go wide.

“Don’t worry, we only lose a couple kids a year that way,” she says.

Aidan’s dad mouths thank you over Aidan’s head

Then the two of them turn and walk away, the dad still lecturing Aidan on all the reasons not to wander off in the middle of the night. Clementine and I turn back and start walking to the telescopes.

“We should put those away,” she says, her hands jammed into her pockets. “It’s not good to leave them out for very long.”

“Sure,” I say.

She makes sure they’re turned off, lens caps on, legs folded up, and in their cases. It’s my job to carry them to the Forest Service SUV, because each case is about four feet long and heavy. When we finish, we drive them to the visitor center, and Clementine locks them away in the store room.

I watch her lock the door, leaning against the wall. I want to push her up against it and kiss her again, her mouth under mine. I want to lift her up so she can wrap her legs around me and feel the way her hips move when she rubs herself against me.

I don’t. If I’d just made out with any other girl I’d have already done it. We’d probably be naked in the back of the truck right now, and then tomorrow morning I’d have forgotten her name already.

Not Clementine. I tried to forget her name and couldn’t, and I know I won’t tomorrow, either. So instead of pushing her against the wall I slide a hand around her hip and pull her in toward me.

I know it could end badly. I know how badly, but I want what I want, and I want Clementine more than enough to throw caution to the wind. I’ve never been good at denying myself, at least where women are concerned.

“It’s been a while since we made out in a car,” I say, pushing my thumb beneath her shirt, stroking the soft, warm skin on her side.

She leans against the building too, the faint light from the moon and stars glowing dully on her dark hair.

“You want to go park it behind the old middle school?” she teases.

There weren’t a whole lot of places in Ashlake dark and quiet enough to park and fool around.

“Hey, we’re adults now,” I say, moving my hand to the small of her back, still against her skin. “What’s wrong with right here?”

“Do we have to get in the car?” she asks, a smile crinkling the corners of her eyes.

I kiss her again, her lips warm and inviting and yielding, her hand on the back of my neck, pulling me in toward her. I lick her lower lip again and she opens her mouth, her tongue against mine, and I hear someone growl quietly.

Me. It’s me.

This time I’m already rock-hard and I know she knows, just from the way she’s pressing her hips against mine, just barely shifting back and forth, the pressure driving me crazy. I pull away, gasping for breath, our foreheads together and she puts her hand on my face, her eyes closed.

“Is this stupid?” she whispers.

I don’t know the answer. Somewhere, deep in my subconscious, I’ve been wondering that myself.

“It could be,” I say. “But I don’t fucking care.”

She kisses me, long and slow, pulls back again.

“That means yes,” she says.

Kiss.

“Stupid’s not the same as wrong,” I murmur.

Kiss.

“I know it’s not wrong,” she says. “That wasn’t the question.”

Kiss.

“I have a question, then,” I say. “Your place or mine?”

Her back muscles stiffen below my hand, instantly, but I don’t take the hint.

“I vote your place,” I murmur. “I’ve got three roommates.”

I kiss her again, and she kisses me back but it’s almost like she’s not present any more, and I pull away.

Clementine is already shaking her head.

“I have to get up early tomorrow morning,” she says.

I know an excuse when I hear one, and I just stay silent. We look at each other for a long, long moment. She finally swallows and looks away.

“And I don’t want to sleep with you,” she says, her voice just above a whisper.

I almost say yes, you do, I fucking know you do but I know better.

“No?” I say.

She flicks me an are you kidding me glance, but it doesn’t stick.

“No,” she says. “Not—”

Clementine takes a deep breath and pushes her hand through her hair, tucking it behind her ear.

“Not tonight,” she says, her voice softer. “Blank slate or not, I can’t just pretend this is all brand new.”

I don’t want to pretend that, I think. Not exactly.

I nod, trying to ignore my hard-on.

“I get it,” I say.

She finally looks at me again.

“Sorry,” she says, softly. “You want a ride back to your bunkhouse?”

Slowly, as we drive back to town, things get back to normal between us. Or, the normal of the past two days. If we even have a normal.

Clementine tells me about Trout the dog, how she got her name when they found her in a burlap sack next to a trout pond. She was probably the runt of her litter, probably part husky, part golden retriever, plus a hodgepodge of other dogs that Clementine can’t identify.

I tell her about the Elkhorn fire, the one that recently got put out, the one she gave us a plaque for.

I tell her about the frustration of spending days digging a firebreak — a wide strip of bare earth that a fire can’t cross easily — only for the wind to change direction and the firebreak to be useless.

When we pull up in the driveway of her house, I can hear that the party has moved back to the dorm. From the sounds of the merriment, it’s co-ed, and there might even be more women than men in the back yard right now.

“Want to come over for a drink?” I ask.

Clementine kills the engine and shakes her head.

“I really am getting up early,” she says. “I’ve gotta drive to Ashlake and help my dad move.”

“Where are your parents moving to?” I ask.

She looks out the windshield and blows her bangs out of her face, her hand still on the keys in the ignition.

“Not my parents, just my dad,” she says. “They’re getting divorced.”

I blink in surprise. I can’t imagine my parents getting divorced.

“Shit, Clem, I’m sorry,” I say.

“Thanks,” she says, and then there’s a long pause.

“It’s been rough, but I think it’s for the best, long-term,” she goes on, though it doesn’t quite sound like she believes herself.

She doesn’t make a move to get out of the car, so neither do I.

“They were never really happy together,” she says quietly, still looking out the windshield. “I don’t know. Maybe they’ll be happier apart.”

I put my arm around her and pull her close. She presses her face into my neck, and I take a deep breath of her hair — lemon and pine needles — and force myself not to do anything but give her this friendly, chaste hug.

I want her. I want her like crazy, because I absolutely remember how incredible everything we did was. But I know better than to think I’ll get her by pushing, because Clementine’s also fucking stubborn.

“Thanks,” she mumbles into my neck, and I can feel her lips move, her voice vibrate. It sends a tremor through me, and I clench my jaw against it.

I don’t say anything, and we stay like that for a while, in the front seat of the Forest Service SUV. Quietly, slowly, I press my lips against her dark hair, hoping she doesn’t notice.

“I gotta get to bed,” she says, and sits upright.

Then she turns her head to look at me.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s just... I need to think.”

“Don’t think,” I say, and give her my most charming, rakish smile. “Give me a night and I can change your mind.”

Clementine makes an annoyed face.

“Is that what you think is gonna happen?” she says. “That’s what clean slate means?”

Shit.

“Clem,” I say.

She just shakes her head again.

“Just give me a couple days,” she says, and gets out of the car.

I have a couple beers at the party. I talk to Mandy, her roommate, for a while, along with a few other girls from town.

The other guys are all pretty drunk, and I mostly sit back and watch.

Normally I’d be right in there, but I feel a little like I’ve been capsized, like everything I thought I knew is upside-down.

The waitress from the barbecue joint is there, the one who wrote her number on my receipt. She flirts with me, and I try to flirt back — it’s harmless, and besides, Clementine just turned me down — but my heart isn’t in it, and after a few minutes she goes off to find someone else.

I finish my beer and go to bed, muttering something to Daniel about not feeling too great. Once I’m there, I lie awake on the too-soft mattress, and wonder if I’m an idiot.

I shouldn’t have told her why I signed up for another tour of duty. I shouldn’t have told her that I didn’t think I could handle seeing her with anyone else, even a year after we split up. I wish I didn’t know she missed me afterwards.

For a long time after the break up, I was pretty sure she’d cheated on me.

I never had any proof, but I was wildly, insanely, incurably jealous.

We’d video chat sometimes when she got home from a night out, and it would be three in the morning for her, early afternoon for me.

I was with a bunch of other guys in a dusty hellhole, and she was getting drunk and going to parties.

She made friends. She had homework, and study groups, and a social life, and suddenly it seemed like she was popular, miles different from the nerdy, kind-of-shy girl I’d fallen in love with the year before.

We talked less and less, and I thought more and more that I was the former, forgotten boyfriend on the side, the guy she thought she couldn’t break up with because he was serving in the military.

I have no idea if she really did cheat on me.

She swore up and down that she didn’t, even when she was sobbing in her dorm room and shouting at me over a staticky connection.

In the end it didn’t matter because we broke up anyway, and then I re-enlisted, even though I was three years away from finishing the term I was already on.

I went halfway around the world, and I ended up in the same tiny town with her anyway. If I believed in fate, I’d think this was it, but I don’t. I’m stuck thinking this is just cold, unfeeling coincidence, and I’m not sure which is worse.

I fall asleep to the sound of drunk horseshoes, thinking about Clementine’s lips on mine with the stars above.