Chapter 27 #3
I ease us down carefully, because the knot has us for a few minutes and there’s already sand in places sand has no business being. Reese settles on her side with her back against my chest, and I get an arm under her ribs and hold her there.
For a minute neither of us says anything.
Then, quietly, “Cameron.”
“I’ve got you.”
“I know.”
I press my mouth to her shoulder.
She reaches back after a minute and very carefully touches the new mark. “That’s eight.”
“I can count.”
“Can you? Because Tyler said you miscounted the oar inventory twice last month.”
“Tyler’s a narc.”
Her laugh goes through me before I hear it.
I freeze.
Reese does too.
Then she starts laughing harder.
“Shut up,” I say with a groan, dropping my head in the sand.
“I didn’t say anything,” she answers between giggles.
“I can feel you laughing.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“It is literally inside my body now.”
That makes her laugh even harder, and because apparently this is my life now, I can feel the edges of it running through the bond while I’m trying not to join her.
I put my face against the back of her neck, close to Bo’s mark. “This is terrible.”
“You love it.”
I don’t answer.
She doesn’t make me.
We stay there until our breathing evens out and the cold starts reminding us we’re naked on a beach in the middle of the night. The lake keeps being a lake. The crickets keep making too much noise. Somewhere back toward the trees, an owl calls twice.
Eventually Reese sighs. “They’re going to be awake.”
“Yep.”
“All of them.”
“Definitely.”
“Tyler’s going to have health center paperwork waiting on the kitchen table.”
“He printed it two days ago.”
She twists around as far as the knot allows. “What?”
“It’s in a folder by the door.”
Her eyes narrow. “You knew this was happening tonight.”
“I hoped.”
“Cameron.”
“Tyler prepared. There’s a difference, and he’d want you to know it.”
“Of course he would.”
By the time we can separate and get dressed again, the cold has settled in properly. Reese finds one boot immediately. The other has somehow ended up six feet away.
She looks at it, then at me.
“Don’t.” She stabs a finger at me, her voice all cox now.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did.”
“I have a very neutral face.”
“You absolutely do not.”
“My entire personality is a neutral face.”
She laughs under her breath and goes to get the boot.
Her shirt takes longer. We find it half under the jacket, damp with sand, and she makes a face when she pulls it on.
“I’m going to have sand in my ass until nationals,” she groans.
“Probably.”
“Romantic.”
“I told you this was an excellent date.”
“You fed me a chili dog and fucked me on the ground.”
“And yet.”
She looks at me while she zips her jacket, trying not to smile. “Don’t get cocky.”
“Too late.”
We walk back toward the bike with our boots crunching over the gravel at the edge of the track. Reese is quieter now, but not how she’s been quiet all week. There’s nothing wound tight about it.
At the bike, I pick up the spare helmet and hold it out to her.
She takes it but doesn’t put it on.
“You never ask me for anything.”
I stop.
She looks down at the helmet between her hands. “Two months, Cameron. You’ve never asked me for a single thing.”
“No.”
“Why?”
I could tell her I haven’t needed anything. It would even be mostly true. But that’s not what she’s asking.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Probably.”
Her eyes lift to mine. “Ask me for something.”
I almost make a joke. She’d let me. A few hours ago I probably would have.
Instead I think about it.
“Sit in the middle at breakfast tomorrow.”
Her forehead creases. “What?”
“You always sit at the end of the table.”
“Because it’s closest to the coffee.”
“No, it isn’t.”
She opens her mouth, thinks about the layout of our kitchen, and closes it again.
“You sit there because you can get up without making anybody move,” I say. “Somebody needs something, you’re already halfway out of your chair. Bo can’t find his keys. Jackson wants hot sauce. Tyler needs somebody to check a date. You get up.”
“I don’t always.”
“Yes you do.”
She looks away toward the dark track.
“Tomorrow, sit in the middle.”
“Why?”
“Because then somebody has to move for you.”
That brings her eyes back to mine.
For once, I can’t tell exactly what she’s thinking. The old instinct is there, trying to work it out from the set of her mouth and how she’s holding the helmet, but I let it go.
She can tell me.
“That’s what you want?” she asks.
“That’s what I’m asking for.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nope.”
She watches me for another second, then her whole face softens.
“Okay.”
I take the helmet from her long enough to pull the strap straight where it’s twisted, then hand it back.
She puts it on.
I swing onto the bike and start the engine. Reese climbs on behind me, and her hands settle against my ribs, flat and warm in the same place they were before.
She says something through the helmet.
Three words.
The engine eats most of them.
I could turn around. I could kill the bike and ask her to say it again.
I don’t.
I caught the shape of them through the visor.
For tonight, that’s enough.
We take the county road home with her hands on my ribs and the new bond warm somewhere under my skin.
When the house finally comes into view, every fucking light is on.