Chapter 4 #2
Two shadows turned towards me as I approached the rocky beach ahead. I couldn’t exactly turn around and go back, four eyes were trained on me.
I refused to look at them.
My body tensed, I’d lost my cover. Here I was, sweaty, wet, and with my mess of hair blown all about and my glasses slipping halfway down my face.
My eyes remained laser focused on the shoreline to avoid accidentally looking at this figure who was still mostly obscured in shadow.
I was so focused, in fact, I didn’t think to slow down the kayak as I approached the rocks. A loud scraping sound echoed through camp, the four eyes remained staring.
The boat jolted when it crashed, thrusting me forward and sending my glasses tumbling off my face. They were free of damage as I inspected them, only my fragile ego was cracked.
“Shit,” I exclaimed, probably a little too loudly. There should be an award given for how quickly I’d managed to make a fool of myself in front of whatever D-lister was before me. Sue’s raspy chuckle was loud enough to break through their quiet conversation.
It was now or never. Curls stuck to my forehead and cheeks as I wrangled them into a manageable ponytail and took a deep sigh.
I was already anticipating a snarky comment from Sue about my “lack of care” for the shared recreational amenities and blatant ignorance of her singular instruction for today.
Deep breaths.
I tossed my bag onto the rocks and it landed with a soft, graceful thud. Now it was my turn. Swing one leg out. Splash. Brace my wobbly hands on the top of the kayak. Nearly flip it over in the process. Push up and out. Splash. Drag the boat onto dry land.
After I’d nearly fallen into the water twice and thoroughly soaked my shorts, I flipped the boat over on the beach in a huff, making a perfect cave for spiders to rest in for the night. They’d scare the shit out of me next time I used this boat, we had a symbiotic relationship in that way.
I was thinking about spiders now to distract myself from this inevitable meeting.
Now to stalk past this stranger and pretend he doesn’t exist. Familiarity struck me like lightning when he spoke. A puzzle piece slotting itself into place.
No.
No no no no no.
There wasn’t a damn chance this was who I thought it was. It was an impossibility. A fluke. I pinched the inside of my forearm. Not dreaming. How the hell was this not a dream? A nightmare, actually.
Thousands of alarm bells were going off in my head simultaneously.
My brain was an airplane swiftly losing altitude and both of the pilots were asleep at the wheel. A crash looked imminent and I couldn’t grab a hold of the steering wheel to correct the course.
Avoidance felt like the easiest solution here, because if I didn’t confirm my suspicions they wouldn’t come true. I offered him and Sue a stilted wave and started to walk back to my cabin. I’d apologize to Sue, offer to pay for the week stay like I’d planned—
“Dani!” Sue’s voice radiated through my entire skeleton. “Come say hi to our guest for the week!”
I paused for a moment, closed my eyes and took a deep inhale.
This wasn’t going to be an easy week at camp.
Because deep down, I knew that this was no washed up D-lister, nor narcissistic influencer. Each step towards him and Sue provided more clarity and paired with it, more anxiety. My footsteps synched up with my heartbeat as the realization fully set in.
Right before me, clear as day, ripped straight from the fictional world of Thorndown, was Sir Erwyn himself.
Evan Fucking McLeod was here. At camp. No more than 4 feet away from me.
The sound rushed back into my ears sometime in the middle of Sue’s introductions. “Dani, this is Evan, sorry, what’s your last name again?” Sue clearly hadn’t a clue as to who this guest was, which was both charming and alarming. Her voice was the only thing keeping me from blacking out.
I could do this.
What were five things I could see? The dining hall. Sue. Evan McLeod. No, shit. Try again.
“Evan McLeod, pleased to meet you, Dani,” Evan cut me off from my piss poor attempt at a mindfulness exercise.
He was here. He was a real person. He said my name.
I flexed my fingers at my side, seeking any sensation to confirm that this was real life.
The darkest corners of my imagination could not conjure up a scenario where Evan McLeod—goddammned Sir Erwyn Nightingale of Rospice, the person who I had written hundreds of thousands of words about—was standing in front of me.
Towering over me, actually.
An easy grin settled into his features, the crinkles by his eyes…well…crinkling in a very affable manner.
He was easily the most handsome man I’d ever seen. I knew this face well. I’d described it so many times, in detail, that I could sculpt him from memory. As he was standing before me, I forgot all of it and was seeing him for the first time.
Features came into focus one by one.
Wavy light golden brown hair that danced along his sculpted jaw.
A beard trimmed a hair shorter than he wore it in the show.
Thick biceps that strained the sleeves of his t-shirt.
Blue eyes that looked gray in this light, looking me over, taking this human disaster before him in. Evan’s eyes softened when they met mine, slowly raking over my features as though they, too, were familiar.
A small grin teased at his lips and he ran his tongue across them as neither of us could look away.
That had to have been completely hallucinated, not a chance I witnessed him linger.
Evan extended his hand, and I was frozen. My body was reacting in ways that my mind couldn’t seem to prevent. My stomach had become a block of cement and my ankles turned to Silly Putty. My arms had been rendered useless as he invited my hand to join his.
The physical effort I was making to not scream or pass out was harder than the furious paddle back to camp I had just made.
Was I dying? Was the sight of Evan actually going to be what killed me?
My heartbeat was pulsing so quickly it became one rapid vibration. I couldn’t feel my fingertips, but my brain went into overdrive. Be normal and shake his hand, dammit!
My hand slowly extended to curl around Evan’s as he introduced himself so casually like a used car salesman and not, well, him.
His hand was large, and warm, and surprisingly callused. The rough spots on his palm brushed against the softness of mine. He looked down on me, a simple feat given that he was easily a foot taller than I was.
I felt like a bug under a rock he lifted up. I wanted to skitter away into a dark corner and hide in the dirt.
Glancing up at those soft, unblinking, blue-gray eyes, it was impossible to not see Sir Erwyn standing before me. I was no better than a regular damsel in distress.
After silent, painful moments processing what on earth I was supposed to do, I cleared my throat and smiled weakly. “Nice to meet you, Evan. Don’t worry, I’ll stay out of you and your entourage’s hair this week.”
After taking a deep breath I hoped went unnoticed, I tapped into the version of myself I normally saved for casual work conversations or introductions to strangers at a party.
As I patted myself on the back for how calm, cool, and collected I was, I realized I might have held on to his hand a smidge too long.
Evan also wasn’t letting go.
We stood there, engaging in the world’s most drawn out handshake until he barely released his grip, and my still slightly numb hand swung loosely to my side, haunted by the ghost of his touch.
He chuckled, a warm effervescent noise that rumbled straight from his diaphragm. “No entourage, just me.” His cheeks pinkened when he grinned.
This was far worse. Evan Fucking McLeod and an entourage was one thing. Now I had the confirmation that I would be alone. For a week. With no one but him and my aunt and uncle.
It was a sick joke from whatever powers ran the universe. What had I done in my past life to deserve this fate?
“Dani,” Sue interrupted my panic. “I thought you might be able to help out and serve as a guide for Evan here.” She turned to Evan and put her hand on his shoulder, so casually as if he were any other guest. Imagine being able to casually lay a hand on Evan McLeod.
“Dani’s been coming up to camp since she was in diapers, she knows every trail, every hidden cove, and how to get the shower working.
” She nudged him in the side and he stiffly laughed.
I hardly needed, nor wanted, to serve as a personal forest ranger for him, but Sue was letting me spend the week here at no cost, and she knew that I owed her the favor.
The devilish glint in her eye as she spoke had told me more than enough.
All this time I assumed I would be paying my way by washing dishes or clearing brush, not playing tour guide with the actor who played a character I’d been emotionally attached to for all of my twenties.
Evan gave me a weak, apologetic smile. Like he was sorry for being a bother.
Him. A bother.
“Oh yeah, sure, I’m down in that cabin over there if you need anything,” I heard myself say in a cool, disconnected tone. I adjusted my tote bag on my shoulder, and wrapped my arms across my chest. I finally had an out, I took half a step backward.
I felt exposed now, my entire torso was on display in my black bikini top and jean shorts.
The waistband laid open, creating a low-hung v on my hips.
IfI could choose what to meet Sir Erwyn himself in it wouldn’t have been anything close to this.
I couldn’t have him perceiving this much of me.
Ideally he shouldn’t be perceiving any of me.
“Perfect, we’ll be next door neighbors in that case,” Evan replied as he played with his baseball cap. Curls of hair swooped over his ears, the tops of them bright red after he spoke.
I shot a quick look at Sue, who confirmed this information with a half nod. Short of Sue saying there’s only one cabin with one bed to share, this was about as trope-y as it could get.
Was all part of some sick perverted scheme to completely ruin my life?