Chapter 20
Alice
In honor of their first non-disastrous week of camp, Alice and Briar hosted a poker night in their cabin.
Alice arranged a spread of snacks they had confiscated throughout the summer: bowls of barbeque-flavored crisps, chocolate-covered pretzels and matcha-flavored KitKats.
As she did, her eyes were drawn to the other side of the room, where Briar was stirring hot chocolate on a burner.
She was flushed from the combined heat of the summer evening and the bubbling pot in front of her, and she looked perfect.
Alice wished she could take a picture to capture the moment and bring it back to London with her.
Briar opened a bag of marshmallows, popping one into her mouth. The white powder stuck to her lips in a way that derailed Alice’s thoughts entirely. She watched in equal parts horror and awe as Briar licked her fingers clean.
‘What?’ Briar asked innocently.
‘Nothing,’ Alice said, shaking her head. ‘You ever have one of those moments where you think, in hindsight, you really should’ve realized you were gay sooner?’
She refrained from mentioning that she meant all the times she’d watched Briar eat marshmallows and had a funny feeling in her stomach.
At the time, she’d attributed her queasiness to Briar’s seemingly endless capacity for sweets.
Now she recognized the want for what it was, an ache low in her belly.
Briar shot her a funny look. ‘All the time.’
‘Like,’ Alice ploughed on, determined for Briar to not figure out what had prompted this train of thought, ‘our obsession with the middle school English teacher who was definitely a lesbian.’
‘Ms. Monroe,’ Briar said, smiling fondly as Alice reminded herself not to stare at the dimples in her cheeks. ‘Man, she was really into the gender roles in Shakespeare.’
‘And that phase we had where we would only watch foreign movies that just happened to be gay,’ Alice added, thinking about their legs tangled together in Briar’s bed, watching movies on her laptop.
‘Well,’ Briar said sarcastically, ‘that was obviously because we were incredibly cultured teenagers, and not for any other reason.’
‘Do you remember when they scissored in Blue is the Warmest Colour and we had to immediately Google if that was a real thing?’ The scene had fascinated teenage Alice, and she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it for weeks afterward.
Briar laughed. ‘Yeah, because I’d just come out and needed to make sure I was an expert in all the gay shit in case people came to me with questions.’
‘Are you guys talking about Blue is the Warmest Colour?’ Noah’s voice came from the doorway, and Alice turned to see him and Harper there. ‘The movie you made me watch with you like five times the summer before senior year, even though I fell asleep every time?’
Alice had felt a spark of magic the first time she’d watched the movie with Briar and proceeded to try to recreate it again and again without success.
She’d wondered what was wrong with her for the longest time, that watching a movie with her boyfriend didn’t feel as good as watching it with her best friend.
‘You just didn’t appreciate film the way we did,’ Briar teased.
‘Or maybe I wasn’t as gay as either of you,’ Noah said, then looked at Alice. ‘Sorry, am I allowed to call you gay? I know Briar is okay with the umbrella term—’
‘Yes,’ she cut him off before he could work himself up. ‘I’m very gay, thanks.’
‘Babe, you can’t just ask someone if they’re gay,’ Harper said, settling onto the floor and looking around. ‘This place looks nice.’
Briar and Alice had pushed the desk to the side of the room and laid blankets and pillows on the floor for people to sit on, trying to make the space cozy for their guests.
‘I hope you lot are ready to get smoked,’ Freddie sang as he and Sierra entered. ‘Mama needs a new leather jacket.’
‘Sorry,’ Sierra said, as they settled on the floor. ‘We did tequila shots, and you know what they do to him.’
‘Yeah, they make me awesome.’ Freddie grabbed the cards and started shuffling.
‘Pretending I didn’t hear that,’ Alice said, sitting between Briar and Freddie. Her thigh rested against Briar’s in the cramped space, and she tried to ignore the heat between them.
‘It’s our night off, let us live,’ Sierra said. ‘What are we betting? Chips or clothes?’
‘Chips,’ Alice and Briar said in unison, trading a glance. A half-naked Briar wouldn’t help Alice’s barely existent self-control. Noticing Briar’s flushed face, she wondered in a way that felt strangely like hope if Briar was facing a similar dilemma.
Sierra and Freddie both booed.
‘I’m game,’ Harper said, surprising Alice. If someone had suggested this in high school, Harper would have been the first to protest. ‘I’m totally comfortable with my body.’
‘You’ve got a great body, sweetheart,’ Noah said, squeezing her arm.
‘Okay, gross,’ Briar said.
‘You’re outnumbered, darlin’,’ Freddie said, imitating a Southern drawl as he dealt the cards out. Alice chanced a glance at Briar and prepared herself for a very long night.
An hour later, Sierra had swept them all out of their pocket money and most of their clothes.
Alice had been the first out of the game, having refused to take off her bra and underwear even when heckled.
She was now nursing her hot chocolate, watching Briar and Noah put up a valiant effort to win back some dignity.
‘I’ll cover your kitchen shift,’ Noah said to Sierra, thumbing his cards. He’d just lost his pants and was resorting to more creative betting.
‘What about your boxers?’ Sierra asked, waggling her eyebrows.
‘Stop trying to get us to take off our underwear,’ Alice admonished. ‘That was a ground rule!’
Freddie sighed, leaning heavily against Alice.
The tequila had hit him hard in the second hand and he’d been completely useless ever since.
His weight shifted Alice even closer to Briar, and she struggled to resist the gravity that was pushing her practically into Briar’s lap.
Alice silently thanked the universe that Briar hadn’t lost her shirt yet, because she wasn’t sure she could stand the sight of Briar in just a bra.
It had been hard enough when she’d lost her shorts in the last hand.
‘Kitchen duty it is,’ Sierra said, not skipping a beat. She turned to Briar. ‘You calling?’
Briar frowned at her cards, then shook her head. ‘I fold.’
Sierra whooped, momentarily waking Freddie, who gave a sleepy pump of his fist in celebration. ‘Take it off!’
Briar rolled her eyes, grabbing the hem of her oversized T-shirt and pulling it over her head.
Alice had mentally prepared herself to see Briar in a bra, but she hadn’t expected the plunging black mesh – that seemed engineered specifically to make Alice crazy.
Briar’s nipples were just barely visible through the thin fabric, and Alice’s face felt very hot all of sudden.
Harper whistled. ‘Since when do you own lingerie?’
Briar stuck out her tongue. ‘Bite me.’
‘Yeah, yeah, Briar has tits,’ Sierra said. ‘Let’s get back to me winning.’
She splayed her hand on the blanket, revealing two kings and an ace. Noah’s face lit up.
‘Three jacks! Take that!’ Noah said, throwing down his cards and raking in the pile of cash. ‘We’re rich!’
‘That’s like two hundred dollars,’ Briar pointed out, laughing.
‘Yeah, but on his salary…’ Harper trailed off when Noah frowned at her. ‘Sorry.’
Alice sensed tension in the air as Noah and Harper exchanged glances. She wanted to look at Briar, to see if her expression gave anything away, but she couldn’t trust herself to glance anywhere in Briar’s vicinity right now.
‘I think we’re gonna call it a night,’ Noah said, after a moment.
‘Please,’ Freddie said, shaking himself awake. ‘These kids have ruined me. I’m knackered.’
‘Yes,’ Alice said wryly, ‘the kids and nothing else have made you tired.’
Sierra looked up from counting her other winnings. ‘My work here is done.’
The others stumbled back into their clothes and said their goodbyes, leaving Briar and Alice still half-naked and alone. Alice stood purposefully, keen on setting the office back to how it had been and going immediately to bed before she did anything stupid.
‘We should move the desk back,’ she said, grabbing blankets and pillows and throwing them across the hall and into their bedroom. ‘Tidy up.’
‘Okay.’
She heard Briar moving behind her. Alice hoped that the way she was staring at the opposite side of the room seemed normal. Her eyes caught on the CPR poster in the corner.
‘Thinking of getting recertified?’ Briar teased. Her voice came closer. ‘It’s probably like riding a bike.’
‘I could have forgotten,’ Alice said indignantly, refusing to turn around. She wished she had thought to put her clothes back on. Then she wouldn’t feel like this, like her skin was on fire, prickling over every inch exposed to Briar’s gaze.
‘And it’s very important to remember CPR, obviously.’
Alice turned to face Briar. She was standing very close now, and something rooted Alice to the spot. ‘Exactly. What if a camper is struck by lightning?’
Briar huffed, and Alice focused on maintaining extremely careful eye contact, not letting her gaze dip. ‘I know CPR. Brains and a great rack – really, I’m the whole package.’
Alice’s cheeks burned. She’d hoped Briar hadn’t noticed her fleeting glances during the game of strip poker, but she was sure now that Briar had been paying close attention. Maybe they’d been trading those same fleeting glances for the past week.
‘I haven’t noticed anything related to your… um…’ Alice blinked rapidly, trying to think of something to say to defuse the tension but also wanting more than anything else to just give in. It felt like Briar was testing her, and she desperately wanted to ace the test.