11. Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Gina
A loud crack of thunder rattles the lodge windows, and I take a quick look at the radar on my phone. The storm is a predominantly green blob with specks of yellow—nothing I’ll need to warn campers about. A look out the window confirms no one is on the beach or swimming.
It’s just me in the lodge with a family of four playing cards at one of the tables. Diana’s gone home, and I’ve checked everything off my to-do list, so I go back to ignoring my word search and daydreaming about Benji.
Five minutes later, it’s bucketing. There’s something soothing about rain on the lodge roof and a couple of kids ruthlessly slaughtering their parents at Uno.
The bell chimes over the door. I glance up as Milo sticks his head in, strands of wet hair plastered to his face. “How’s Benji?” he asks.
“Not here.” Fear prickles like ice up my spine. “Why isn’t he with you?”
Milo swears under his breath and disappears outside.
Shit. My brain screams Worst Case Scenario as I chase him out into the rain, catching him in the middle of the wide gravel parking lot. “What happened?”
He shakes me off his arm. “Chunk of wood sliced his shin—it’s not bad, but I thought he should get it checked out, so I sent him to the lodge. Maybe thirty, forty minutes ago.”
“For fuck’s sake, Milo!” It shouldn’t have taken Benji any longer than ten minutes to walk to the lodge. “Why didn’t you drop him off if he was bleeding?”
Frustration tightens his jaw. “It’s not that far—how the hell was I supposed to know he’d get lost?”
“You had him take the shortcut?”
He nods.
Fuck. That stupid trail branches off to join other trails, and since Milo and I are the only ones who use it, it’s unmarked.
I grab the helmet from Milo’s hands and start toward his dirt bike.
“Gina, stay here, I’ll—”
I round on him. “You left him to walk back injured when he’s been here for two days. You stay here.”
“Gina—”
I ignore the guilty look on his face, slip the helmet over my head, and walk over to his bike. He doesn’t say anything as I kickstart the dirtbike, but his hands are locked on top of his head. He looks like he wants to scream.
The bike fishtails as I take off, and I swear under my breath.
The bike is a little too big, a little too powerful for me.
If I’m not careful, I’m going to crash it.
I have to slow down when I turn onto the trail.
The mud has me slipping and sliding. Time crawls as I fight to push forward.
I don’t care that my tracks will dry into nasty ruts on our well-maintained trail. Benji’s hurt and lost.
My arms shake from the effort of controlling the bike, but I finally see him through all the rain. I slow, then slide to a stop.
Benji brushes his wet hair back, grinning as I climb off the bike and yank off the helmet. I want to throw my arms around him, but I skid to a stop in front of him, unsure if I should.
“How bad are you hurt?” I ask, brushing the rain from my eyes. Even under the canopy of the trees, it’s coming down hard. Benji is soaked through, his Happy Lake T-shirt plastered to his chest. His athletic shorts are in danger of falling, hanging heavy and low on his hips.
“Not bad,” he says, pointing to his shin but not looking at it himself.
I crouch down in front of him. He’s right, it’s not bad. It’s stopped bleeding at any rate.
“Come on,” I say, standing up and turning toward the bike. “There’s a first aid kit in the treehouse. It’s not far.” The thunder has moved on, so it’ll be safe enough. I can’t take Benji on the bike. I barely managed to keep it upright. Adding Benji’s weight will make it impossible to control.
Benji protests that he can push the bike, but I give him the helmet and flat-out refuse. I direct him down another small trail that connects to a larger one, and within a couple of minutes, we reach the treehouse.
It’s dark and gloomy inside, but at least it’s dry. Benji glances around, turning toward me as I shut the door behind us.
“I’m sorry, Gina,” he says quietly.
“You’re not the one who needs to apologize. Now sit.” I point at a bean bag chair and walk over to the bookcase.
“I’m soaked,” he says.
I wave him off. We both are, and we’re going to leave puddles, but everything in here will dry. Inevitably, someone leaves a window open, and rain gets in at least once a summer.
The first aid kit is right where it should be on the top of the bookcase.
I turn back to him as I rummage through the kit.
“Now let’s have a look at your—” shin. Shin is definitely what I mean to say, but the sight of Benji standing in the open door with his back to me in nothing but white boxer briefs derails every thought in my head.
They’re as wet as the clothes he’s wringing out, which means I can see the dark shadow of his ass crack.
If he turns around, I’ll be able to see his dick through that fabric.
“What are you doing?” I squeak.
He glances at me over his shoulder. “I don’t want to get everything wet.”
“Too late,” I say.
A slow grin spreads across his face. He forgets about the clothes he’s wringing water from. “Gina.” The way he says my name is loaded with implication, the vocal equivalent of a smirk married to an eyebrow waggle.
“Sit on the bean bag so I can patch you up,” I snap. My face is burning. My body is hot in places, and the cold of my wet clothes makes for some conflicting sensations.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, dropping his clothes to the floor and taking three steps to the bean bag chair.
He lowers himself down slowly, giving me ample time to see how little those boxer briefs conceal, except I make a point of not looking.
I stare at his hard little nipples instead until I realize that’s not much better.
He’s nearly naked, and he’s hotter than a metal slide on a sunny summer’s day, but I can do this.
It’s just a leg. I’ve touched legs before.
The air feels warm and stuffy in the treehouse as I kneel at his feet with the first aid kit. The dim light and rain on the roof make the space feel smaller.
I take a deep breath, pull the mini mag light from my pocket, and shine the light on the cut.
It’s not so bad. I don’t see any splinters, and it’s not too deep or wide. I sanitize my hands and reach for an alcohol wipe. “I’m going to give it a quick clean,” I say.
Benji groans and leans back. The sound draws my eyes from his shin to his thigh, up the ladder of his abs to his chest.
Why is it so hot in here?
There’s a grimace on his lips, which I only notice when I finish my slow perusal.
He’s hurt, and I’m drooling over him. I am the worst.
I shake it off and refocus, sticking the end of the mini mag light in my mouth so both my hands are free. Benji holds perfectly still, every muscle taut, while I clean around the wound with the alcohol wipe. He takes a deep breath, holds it, and lets it out.
Something tight in me relaxes as I slowly work at bandaging him up. Benji loosens, too.
“All done,” I say softly, resting my hand on his knee.
“Thank you,” he whispers back but doesn’t move.
I should get my hand off his leg and put the first aid kit away, but I don’t want to break the connection. “We’ll wait here for the rain to let up,” I say.
“Sounds good,” he says, then yawns. “There’s room for two if you want to join me.”
Someone from the camp coming along and finding me cuddled up to my mostly naked alleged second cousin is the last thing I need, but I’m tempted. My adrenaline has worn off, and there’s something soporific about the rain falling outside.
“Tell me about our wedding,” I say instead. “How did we decide to get married?”
Benji closes his eyes like he’s reliving that night. I want to see what he sees behind those eyelids.
“It started with a woman at the cantina,” he says.
My hand drops from his knee. “What?”
He laughs softly. “You asked me if she was someone from Real Housewives. Neither of us had seen the show, but she had those vibes. Overdressed for a cantina, too. Anyway, she was sitting two tables down, obviously waiting for someone. We were a few margaritas in when she started screaming into her phone—accusing her fiancé of cheating. The entire cantina heard her.”
I wince. The secondhand embarrassment I was likely feeling at that moment rears to life.
Benji shifts so he’s sitting up and resting his arms on his knees.
“She ended the call, stomped over to us, and slapped this ring on the table. ‘Take this,’ she said. Actually, she said a lot. I won’t repeat the whole rant about her worthless, cheating man or about how cute we were and so clearly in love. ”
I roll my eyes. “We’d known each other for what? Two hours?”
His eyes take on a distant look. “Yeah, that’s about all it took.”
My butterflies take that as a cue to start fluttering again, and they go into a frenzy when his eyes refocus on mine. I’m so aware that it’s just the two of us. That I’m wet, and he’s almost naked, and his lips look so, so soft and warm.
He doesn’t kiss me. Doesn’t touch me or shift closer.
But that smile returns as he returns to the story.
“So we had this ring—we tried to return it to her, but she was gone. I had it in my pocket as we were walking along Fremont Street, and you slipped your hand into mine, pulled me to a stop, and said, ‘I want to marry you.’”
My mouth drops open, but instead of denying it, I squeak indignantly.
Benji laughs. “Yeah, that was my reaction, too. But you said you wanted to decide. You chose me because…” his voice trails off, and I immediately go cold.
“Because why ?” I ask in a terrified whisper.
I don’t think I’ve seen this man blush, but he does now, like he’s embarrassed for me, which is not helping.
He leans in close and says in a hushed voice, “Because dimples.”
“Because dimples ?”
“That’s a direct quote.” He grins, putting those dimples on display.
“I am never drinking again.”
Benji laughs. “It was adorable. So I started fishing for more compliments.”
I groan. “No.”
He nods. “Yes.”
I cover my mouth with my hand like I can stop the words that got out months ago. “What did I say?”
“I had nice eyes, and you liked being with me, and you could fall in love with me. That you could see us having a future together.”
He’s still smiling warmly, which softens my embarrassment at having said all that to a stranger.
“Not in Vegas,” Benji continues. “You made it clear that I’d have to come to Happy Lake.”
Of course, I did.
He takes my hand, his thumb brushing over my knuckles. “So here I am.”
Here he is, and here I am, with the rain pouring down outside and this snug little treehouse to ourselves. But only one of us is having an existential crisis about all this.
It was hard enough to believe I would’ve said yes to him on a whim—I felt trapped and upset after agreeing to marry Milo—but to propose?
That’s more than a major departure from who I am.
It’s a cry for help. Or maybe I’m no better than my mother, doing what I want without thinking about who I might hurt.
Benji brings my hand to his lips and gently kisses my knuckles.
“I did get down on one knee, put the ring on your finger, and ask you to marry me, even though you’d asked me first.” His thumb brushes over the engagement ring Milo gave me, sadness dimming his eyes.
I’ve never wanted to rip that thing off my finger more. “Do you still have the rings?”
They’re in a little trinket box under my bed, but at the end of the month, Benji is going to divorce me.
He’ll leave then or at the end of the summer.
I don’t have my memories of the night—only the rings.
I can’t return them. Besides, the engagement ring is fake, and the wedding band must have been inexpensive. “I lost them,” I lied.
Benji looks briefly troubled, but a smile breaks through. “It’s okay. I’ll get new rings for you. But it might take a couple of paychecks.”
I press my lips together. I don’t want to bring up the divorce again, not when he’s still seeing a future for us.
The sound of a four-wheeler in the distance, muffled by the rain on the roof, grabs my attention. I’m on my feet immediately, gathering up the bits of trash from the first aid supplies I used. “Get dressed. We’re about to be rescued.”
“Your fiancé?” he asks, not moving.
“Yeah,” I pocket the scraps of paper and return the first aid kit to the bookcase. “He’s probably worried I’m lying in a ditch with a broken leg or something. Taking a bike I can barely ride in this weather was a little reckless, but it was the closest—oh.”
Benji’s hands close gently over my upper arms. I hadn’t heard him rise to his feet or follow me to the bookcase, so turning to find him so close makes me suck in a breath.
He’s taller than me, but I only have to tilt my chin to look into his eyes.
“You don’t have to marry him,” he says softly.
Maybe if the Gina I was in Vegas were here, she’d pull him into a kiss, and we’d make out against the bookcase.
Maybe she would even believe that he might be right, that I don’t have to marry Milo.
Despite the wedding and the money already spent on it, we could call it off.
But that version of me isn’t here, and I don’t know where she’s gone or where she came from. “You need to get dressed. Now.”
He bends his head, and my eyes close as his lips brush my forehead, warm and soft like I knew they’d be. “You have a choice.”
He turns and walks to his clothes, and I choose Happy Lake. I’m just a little less sure about it than before.