Chapter 9 Brooke
brOOKE
My pulse races as I stride across the campground. “It’s just three nights,” I mutter to myself.
Three nights with the only man I’ve been attracted to in years sleeping across from me, but with cabins full of students just next door. “Not good.”
“What’s not good, miss?”
I startle as Justin and another boy stride out from the forest.
“Oh um, not good that the storm last week has left some of the cabins damaged. Stay away from the Wolf area, the trees could be unstable.”
“Will do.”
“Where are you headed?” I ask. I need to put Joel out of my mind and remember why I’m here: to support my students.
“I’ve set up an interview with Bruce.” Justin grins. “I want to know how an old hippie ends up driving a state of the art mini-bus.”
Justin is naturally curious. He’s got good instincts, much like Dana. “I like that angle, but be careful going into the interview with assumptions about people.”
“Okay,” he says. “How do I do that?”
“How do you think?” I tilt my head, waiting to see if he will answer his own question. I like my students to come to their own conclusions.
“I guess keeping the questions open ended?”
“That’s one way to do it. Listen. That’s the most important thing you can do. Listen to what he’s not saying as well as what he is.”
Justin nods thoughtfully.
“Have you got some questions ready?” I ask.
“Nah, I thought I’d wing it.”
Which sounds like Justin. “It’s good to have some questions as a starting point. Then you can go off script as the interview progresses.”
“Can you come and watch?” Justin asks shyly.
Justin puts on a confident persona, but underneath he’s still a boy trying to figure things out. “Of course.”
“Thanks.” He gives me a broad grin before heading to the maintenance sheds.
It’s later in the afternoon; the equipment is packed away, dinner has been eaten, and I’ve posted the new cabin allocations.
It’s been a good afternoon for the students.
Justin’s interview went great, and I checked in on some of the other groups.
I’m pleased that the camping trip is going well, so far.
I linger in the hall until the last student files out with their belongings. Only then do I sling my backpack over my shoulder.
“Let me take that.”
Joel is by my side with his hand already on the strap of my bag.
His fingers graze my shoulder as he lifts it off.
There’s that tingle again. Every time I touch him, a current leaps between us.
I wonder if he feels it too, but I don’t trust myself to make eye contact right now. He might see how much he affects me.
“Thank you,” I say demurely, keeping my head down.
He shoulders my pack easily and picks up his duffel bag in his other hand. His bag is half the size of mine and army issue.
“We’re in Rabbit sector,” he says, indicating for me to go first out the door.
“Why do you think it’s called Rabbit? All the others are fierce animals, Bear, Bobcat, Wolf. Why do we get Rabbit?”
He chuckles. “I would have put you more as a bobcat myself.”
I turn toward him, surprised. “A bobcat, why?”
He regards me with a half-smile on his face. “There’s something feline about you, the way you move, and I bet you’ve got sharp claws when you need them.”
I smile, unable to hide how happy I am with his assessment.
“And you like to sleep during the day,” he adds.
I duck my head in embarrassment, remembering the way I woke up on his shoulder.
“I can’t decide if you’re a Wolf or a Bear.”
He tilts his head. “A wolf surely?”
I pretend to consider his words. “Both are dangerous, the kings of the mountain. But wolves are cunning, and I’m not sure you’re cunning. The more I see of you, Joel, the more I think you’re a big cuddly brown bear.”
His eyebrows shoot up, but he doesn’t look displeased. “Oh really?”
“This tough SEAL act doesn’t fool me. Under that tough exterior is a kind heart.”
He chuckles. “You got me. A bear maybe, but not a rabbit.”
We pass a wooden post with a symbol of a rabbit on it.
A path leads into an opening between the trees.
Five A-frame wooden cabins sit in a semicircle.
Lights shine out of four of them, and there’s the excited sound of the students as they unpack their bags.
Four of the cabins are large, and through an open door I glimpse bunk beds.
The boys’ cabins are at the end, and the girls’ closest to the toilet block.
A small cabin sits a little further away than the others.
It’s an A-frame design with round wooden beams slotted together, like the others but smaller. Decking surrounds it on three sides, and there’s a wooden love seat and a small table out front. A plaque nailed to the door reads ‘Rabbit 5.’
“This is ours.”
I push open the door with trepidation. This is the place where me and Joel will be alone together, and I have to pretend I’m not attracted to him, which will be hard when I see how tiny it is inside.
Two single beds are pushed against the side walls, tucked under the slope of the A-frame roof.
The space between them is just enough to dump our bags into.
Behind the heads of the beds is a small shelving unit each for our stuff.
At the back of the cabin is a sink, and a cupboard with a kettle.
In the corner near the door is a round table and two chairs.
“It’s smaller than I imagined.” I’ll be able to reach my hand out from the bed and practically touch Joel. If he did the same, we could just about hold hands in bed.
I shake my head, clearing the thought. What the hell am I thinking about holding his hand? It’s entirely inappropriate.
Still, as he drops my bag onto one of the beds, my gaze shifts to his strong hands, and I wonder if he has calluses on his palms.
“I can pitch a tent if this is uncomfortable for you?”
My gaze snaps back up to his face and the genuine concern there. I’m the weirdo thinking about lying in bed holding his hand, and he’s concerned that I might be uncomfortable.
He would do it too. He’d pitch a tent if I asked him to. I recognize the military man in Joel. Ready to solve a problem and not concerned with his own discomfort.
“No, it’s fine. Really. We’re both grown-ups.”
I sink onto the bed, and it’s softer than I like, but I know I’ll sleep fine.
I’m used to moving around too. Adapting is one of my superpowers.
And I’ll just have to adapt to sharing a small cabin with a very hot man who I can’t touch, because we’re the grown-ups on a school camping trip and it would be entirely inappropriate.
I just have to keep reminding myself that.
I reach for my bag and pull out my school notes. I keep my clothes in the bag. The last thing I want is Joel catching sight of my giant underwear.
On my shelf, I put my folder of notes and my toiletries. It seems intimate, having my toothbrush on display. I discreetly retrieve the box of tampons I always carry and stuff them in my backpack.
While I unpack, Joel inspects the cabin. I’m aware of him moving around in the small space. Every time he gets too close, I can smell his woodsy scent.
He opens the cupboard under the sink and lets out a long, happy sigh.
“There’s coffee. We’ll be able to have a cup in the morning.”
I don’t point out that there’s coffee in the main hall. It will be nice to sit on the deck here in the morning, looking out at the woods.
“Do you think the students have a kettle?”
He frowns. “I hope not. Dana goes nuts on caffeine.”
I hear him rummaging around in the cupboard. “There’s also herbal tea. Do you want chamomile?”
After the long day, a chamomile tea before bed sounds perfect. It might help to calm this restless energy I feel with Joel so close, the nervousness of spending a night in the same room as him. I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep otherwise.
“Chamomile sounds perfect, thanks.”
He fills the kettle and sets it to boil.
There’s a knock on the door, and Madison’s anxious face appears.
“Everything okay?” I’m up off the bed immediately.
She presses her lips together and fidgets with the door.
“I left my medication at home.”
I must have asked the students a hundred times to check that they had everything they needed, including any medication, but there’s so much to pack and think about, and they’re always excited about going away. I can understand how she could forget it.
“It’s an easy thing to forget,” I reassure her.
“I don’t know what to do. It’s four days…”
Her bottom lip wobbles, and she glances anxiously behind her. She won’t want any of the other students to see her, especially if she cries.
I put my arm around her shoulders and guide her inside. “Come and sit down, and we’ll figure out what we’re going to do.”
She sits on the bed, and I sit next to her. I’m aware of Joel sticking to the background, keeping busy roaming through the cupboards under the sink.
“What medication is it?”
I have a list of everything the students take, but I can’t remember off the top of my head. She mentions an anxiety drug, which explains why she’s so worried about it.
“It’s for anxiety, and this is a highly anxious situation. I think I need to go home.”
She’s starting to spiral, and I rub her back, trying to calm her.
At that moment Joel crouches in front of her, and the jolt of someone new captures her attention. He holds out a steaming mug.
“You want a chamomile tea?”
She nods and takes the mug from him.
“When I was in the military, we were always losing things.” He speaks quietly, softly, and I see the father in him coming through. The gentle side to his military hardness. “If we discovered we’d lost something while on a mission, do you know what we’d do?”
She shakes her head, as enthralled by his words as I am.
“The first thing is, we’d take a deep breath. Can you do that with me?”
She takes in a long, shuddery breath.
“Sometimes it takes two or three.”
She breathes deeply again, and by the third breath her hands have stopped shaking. “The breaths remind you that right here, right now, in this moment, you’re okay.”
She nods.
“Now that we have a clear head, it’s easier to solve the problem.”
He leans toward her. “First things first, we have to try the obvious. I know you must have searched your bag, but sometimes, when you’re not feeling like yourself, it can be easy to miss something. Sometimes, you need a second pair of eyes to see the things you can’t.”
I see where he’s going with this, and I stand up off the bed. “I’ll go get your bag.”
I leave Joel speaking quietly to Madison while I slip out and into the cabin next door. Dana is in this one with Becky, and they look up from their laptops when I come in.
“Which one is Madison’s bag?”
Dana points to a purple suitcase open on the bottom bunk.
Clothes are strewn everywhere, and a pair of hair straighteners dangle over the edge of the bed.
I’m no longer surprised by teenage girls who bring hair straighteners to camp.
I just hope they grow out of it and realize their self-worth is about so much more than the way they look.
All I threw in was a hairbrush and a hair tie.
I throw her belongings into the bag and zip it up.
“Is Madison going home?” Becky asks, her eyes wide, no doubt hoping for a bit of gossip.
“No. I’m just helping her find something.”
By the time I get back to the cabin, Joel is speaking animatedly, and Madison is sipping her tea with a smile on her face.
They both glance up at me as I set the suitcase on the bed.
“Plan A,” Joel says. “A second pair of eyes goes through your belongings.”
“What’s Plan B?” says Madison.
“Plan B,” I say, unzipping the case. “If the medication isn’t in here, then I call your mom and arrange to get it sent up here to you.”
Madison’s face crumples. “But that won’t be until tomorrow.”
Joel puts a hand on her shoulder. “But that’s okay. That’s plan B, and we’ll only think about Plan B if Plan A doesn’t work.”
He keeps speaking to her while I go through the case slowly and methodically. Her clothes are in bundles, unfolded, and I take each item out of the case, shake it out, fold it, and leave it on the bed. I pull out a purple t-shirt, and a package falls out of it.
Madison gasps. “There they are!”
She grabs the pill case and lets out a long sigh of relief. “I thought I’d left them at home.”
It’s good to see her smile, and I’m relieved too; crisis averted.
I help her fold up the rest of her clothes and put them in the suitcase. She stays in the cabin drinking her tea until the color returns to her cheeks.
Joel carries her case back to her cabin, and I watch him go.
He knew exactly how to handle Madison. He’s more than just muscle. There’s a thoughtful, calm, caring man under that hard exterior.