Chapter Twelve
The water was perfectly pleasant, the afternoon sun lazy above their heads. Somewhere in the distance, Sydney could hear the chatter of other campers and the squealing laughter of kids running freely about.
“I could live here,” Liv said, sitting on the river bank, leaning on her outstretched palms. Her eyes were closed, face up to absorb the sun, and her skin glistened with the white remnants of sunscreen.
Liv didn’t go anywhere without copious amounts of sunscreen.
Sydney, on the other hand, forgot more often times than not, which worried Liv tremendously.
Every year she booked Sydney a dermatologist appointment, just in case.
So far, all her moles—two on her back and one on the side of her thigh—were all benign.
“Build a little hut under these trees,” Liv went on. “And live off the land.”
“You’re joking, right?” Sydney chuckled. “You nearly had a panic attack the other day when you ran out of concealer. Not to mention there’s like no reception here.”
Liv opened her eyes and shot a glare in Sydney’s direction. Her brown eyes narrowed to slits. “I could do with a social media detox.”
“You’ll die.” Sydney teased, stepping into the water. “And I don’t want you to die. You know I can’t live without you.”
“So touching.”
Vince took a running start, and then leaped into the river, his legs drawn up to his chest. Droplets arced into the air as he disappeared beneath the surface, and when he reemerged, he whipped his head back like he was in a shampoo commercial.
“This is exactly what I needed,” he said, running his fingers through his wet locks and over his face. “Especially after the week I had.”
Liv snapped her head in his direction, her brows scrunched. “How hard can the life of a marine biologist actually be? Don’t you just look at fish all day?”
Vince, who adopted the same expression he wore every time someone downplayed his job, glared in her direction.
“There’s a lot more to it than that, Liv.
Tracking environmental changes in vulnerable ecosystems is actually quite complex.
We’re dealing with a lot of intricate data…
” His voice trailed off as his gaze shifted, landing on something else. Or more so, someone else.
Morgan had arrived. Clad in a black bikini with thin straps adorning her slender shoulders, she stood beneath the shadow of a large tree. Her black hair, porcelain skin, and legs that went on for days made her look like some ageless ethereal deity emerging from the woods at the full moon.
“Wow,” Sydney muttered before she could stop herself.
She felt Liv’s eyes on the side of her head, but she ignored her friend.
Sydney wasn’t a love-sick mess. She was just a woman who could recognize incredible beauty and appreciate it, nothing more.
Or maybe there was something more. Maybe the feeling of bee wings buzzing nervously in her stomach wasn’t just an appreciation or even just infatuation, but something bigger than that, something bolder.
Maybe it was something strong enough to take the air out of her lungs, to squeeze her heart until it felt like it wanted to explode.
“Come on in,” Liv said, wrenching Sydney out of her thoughts. Those feelings only dimmed, their intensity fading a few degrees but not disappearing completely.
Liv, who had walked into the water a moment ago, was now floating on her back, her arms and legs splayed to keep her buoyant. “The water is refreshing, Morgs.”
But Morgan didn’t move. In fact, she barely even reacted to the nickname Liv had used. She only stared at the water like it was covered in a layer of thick oil.
“It’s perfectly pleasant,” Sydney said, cringing at the overly enthusiastic tone in her voice.
She realized she was appearing desperate, trying too hard to impress Morgan.
Maybe she was trying to make Morgan enjoy herself, even though it wasn’t really her place to do so.
It dawned on her then that Liv was right.
Sydney was turning into a love-sick puppy trailing behind Morgan, craving her attention and silently shouting, Look at me, I’m here!
“You won’t regret it,” Sydney quickly added, hoping she sounded more like herself.
Yet Morgan only seemed to study the water, her right incisor nibbling at her full bottom lip, those grey eyes intent and sharp, as if she was weighing up the pros and cons.
There were no cons. The river was absolutely scrumptious.
“You know it’s tradition to jump into the river,” Vince said, his lips curling slyly. Sydney knew that smile. She knew just how dangerous it was and before she could say anything to stop him, he was already barreling out of the water toward Morgan.
Without a word, he scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder, charging straight back into the river. Morgan’s surprised squeal was drowned out by the splashing water.
She was under the water for at least a minute. Or at least it felt that long.
Sydney waited with bated breath, her skin prickling from goosebumps although she wasn’t cold.
And when Morgan finally surfaced, it felt as if all the oxygen was sucked out of the air.
She was half expecting the woman to explode in indignation, for that lovely head of hers to combust in a fiery retort.
But instead, Morgan’s lips quirked up, slowly, as if testing a new feeling.
The next moment, she burst out into a laugh.
It was a laugh so pleasant Sydney was sure it could rival a siren’s call.
It had her under a spell, after all. A giddy, intoxicating spell.
She couldn’t take her eyes off Morgan, watching her mane of curls as they were momentarily subdued, pressed flat against her perfect head before they sprang back to life.
Vince, holding a freshly opened bottle of beer, waded through the water toward her. “Well, now that you’ve been baptized, you’re obliged to drink a beer.”
“I think I might need two,” Morgan said, catching Sydney’s eye.
She smiled even broader, and Sydney had to suck in a lungful of air because it wasn’t like any smile Morgan had ever given her.
This one was unrestricted. All that weight that seemed to sit on the woman’s shoulders, hunching her over, crippling her down, was gone.
Lifted. She looked completely unburdened, and her smile reflected that. It was a gorgeous smile.
“You can have all the beers you want,” Sydney said, laughing through all those feelings she was experiencing. She even ignored Liv, who gave her a look that had her insides squirming. It was the look that said, You’re whipped, girl. You’re completely whipped.
She might just be.
After the swim, everyone retreated to the campsite.
Vince had sprawled out on a towel under the oak tree to take a nap.
Liv had spent a good amount of time walking around the campground, phone lifted in the air, searching for a signal, while Morgan had disappeared into the tent.
Sydney, who had stopped herself from following the woman into the tent, spent the remaining minutes of sunlight reading a new mystery book.
By the time the sun had set, the fire was already roaring, bright orange flames dancing across the night sky.
The stars were incredible. Millions of them clustered together above their heads.
Sydney always felt so small, so insignificant under that vast glittering expanse, like she was just a tiny speck in the universe’s grand design.
It was comforting because it reminded Sydney that there were things far bigger than her worries.
“What’s taking you so long?” Vince exclaimed; his forehead deeply set. “Liv’s driving me mad. I didn’t think it was possible, but she’s worse than you, Sydney.”
“I am not,” Liv retorted. “You’re the one going on about some lumberjack fantasy. Have you seen your arms, Vince? You’ll barely make a dent in a log.”
“I’m coming,” Sydney said, smiling, smearing butter on the last butter-less burger roll.
Vince and Liv often bickered like brother and sister. At family gatherings—Liv was always welcome at the Parker family house—Sydney and Liv would gang up on poor Vince.
She grabbed the container with the raw burger patties Vince was going to grill when the fire was ready and joined the others.
Vince and Liv were perched on a log, animatedly debating the perfect style for a lakeside cabin.
Liv was all about an A-frame, with huge panoramic windows and a wraparound deck where she could sip coffee and pretend she was in a movie.
Vince, however, dubbed himself a purist. He insisted on nothing less than a classic log cabin, complete with a roaring stone fireplace and creaky wooden floors.
Sydney could easily imagine him putting in one of those massive aquariums you could see from all angles of the house.
“I’m with Liv on the cabin thing,” Sydney said. “A modern lake house is more practical.”
“A classic log cabin has character.” Vince held firm. “You can’t beat the feel of a place that looks like it was built by hand.”
“Not your hand,” Liv teased. “Unless you want to live in a matchbox.”
“It’s very unbecoming of you to make fun of a man’s muscles,” Vince puffed, scooting himself away from Liv. As if that would help. On the contrary, Liv would never give up an opportunity to mercilessly tease Vince.
Sydney flicked her gaze to Morgan. She was quiet, her eyes unblinking, staring at the flames. She sat on another log with her knees together, heels digging into the bark, and her arms wrapped around them.
“Hi,” Sydney said, sitting down beside her. “What’s your take on lakeside homes?”
Morgan tilted up her head a smidgeon, a faint furrow forming between her lovely, shaped brows. “Um… I don’t think I have a take.”
“Because you’re not a fan of lake cabins or you just haven’t thought about it?”
Morgan shrugged, her bare shoulders falling slightly lower.
“Both, I suppose. My family never took trips to the lake. We didn’t really take any trips…
at least not with me tagging along.” That mask Morgan always wore dropped right back over her face.
It was so obvious to see that Sydney experienced a physical clench of her stomach, a pain that accompanied the worry that she might never see that mask lift again. It was a horrible feeling.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Morgan said, far too icily. She tore her gaze away from the fire and locked eyes with Sydney, who could see orange flames flickering in the woman’s grey irises. It was disturbing. A unique combination of beautiful and terrifying, like seeing fire reflected on a glass lake.
“I… umm… I have no idea. I just—”
“Well, don’t be,” Morgan interrupted before Sydney could even find a reason for saying sorry. Not that she needed a reason. An apology for a sad childhood was completely appropriate, wasn’t it?
There was a beat of silence between them that Sydney wanted to fill. She was desperate to fill it up even if it was over the weather, trivial discussions of nothing specific, nothing important.
“Did you have a nap? Earlier.” Sydney asked, suddenly curious to know what Morgan had gotten up to in the tent all by herself.
“I did some reading.”
“Oh,” Sydney perked up. “Me too. I’ve got a weakness for cozy mysteries. The protagonist in one I’m reading has a pet chicken called Zeus. How adorable is that? What are you reading?”
“Neural Labyrinths and the Complexity of Brain Physiology,” Morgan said, looking once more at the fire. “It’s all about mapping out the brain’s physiological response to external factors. It’s quite a pleasant read.”
Sydney’s stomach did a somersault. Despite her expertise as an EMT and her well-read medical knowledge, she had zero interest in reading books with facts on her days off.
Her free time was dedicated to soppy romances or cozy mysteries that wouldn’t teach her anything other than true love was always within reach, and curses weren’t frowned upon by best friends.
Clearly, Sydney and Morgan were more different than she wanted to admit. What if they were too different? What if they were as mismatched as their book choices? Yet Sydney couldn’t deny the pull she felt whenever Morgan was close, either physically or in memory.
The rest of the evening went smoothly. The burgers were delicious, and the beers were never in short supply.
The conversation flowed effortlessly. Though Morgan only weighed in when someone asked her a question, and even then, her answers were short, curt, barely offering enough of herself to satisfy Sydney’s curiosity.
At least there was plenty of eye-catching, of both Morgan and Sydney shifting subtly closer to each other until there was less than a fist gap between them.
It was nearly ten p.m. when Liv yawned, not bothering to put her hand in front of her mouth. “I’m off to bed.” She got up, stretched her arms above her head, and left.
Vince took a final swig of his nearly empty beer and also stood up. “Me too,” he said, ruffling his hair, and then rubbing his flat stomach. “All that food is going to put me in a coma.”
“Well, be sure to wake up tomorrow morning. We’re hiking to Pfeiffer Falls. If you’re not up, I’m leaving you behind,” Sydney said.
With a grin, he saluted like a soldier, though Vince would never survive the army. He headed off to his tent.
Sydney and Morgan remained.
“Are you going to bed?” Sydney asked. Her body buzzed with a swarm of nerves just thinking about falling asleep next to Morgan. She wasn’t sure yet if she should thank Liv for being such a princess or resent her.
“Not yet.”
“Me neither,” Sydney said, stifling her yawn. She was exhausted, but she would never be able to fall asleep knowing Morgan was sitting out there alone. So, instead, they sat together in silence.
Morgan leaned back, her gaze fixed on the stars. She stayed like that for so long that Sydney’s neck began to ache just from watching that awkward angle. She stared so intently, even, that Sydney actually jumped when Morgan rose to her feet.
“I’m going for a stroll,” Morgan declared, already ambling off to the tree line. “You can join me if you want,” she added, glancing back over her shoulder. “Or you can go to bed. It’s your choice, Sydney.”
There was an unmistakable invitation in her tone, though Sydney wasn’t sure what to expect or where Morgan was going. One thing was certain—she wasn’t about to decline.