Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Summer
“ H ey, anyone in there?” A voice cuts through the comforting thump of Price’s heartbeat as I sit bolt upright. “Hey, Price!”
The warm orange and yellow sunrise peeks up over the trees out the window of the small bedroom, and there’s the pluvial scent of the morning after the rain all around.
There’s silence for a moment, as I stare into Price’s narrowing green eyes. He eases his hand from behind my neck, slides out of the bed, stuffing his feet into his pants on a grumble.
I’m not sure how much we slept. Not a lot, and it’s early. The night was incredible. Not just the sex but how rough and demanding and greedy he was one second, then so tender and attentive and concerned the next.
Losing your v-card to an overachieving boner like Price’s has left me achy and sore, but the magic that man can do with his mouth?
I’d forget I had third degree burns with his face between my legs.
Which happened a lot. A. Lot.
Not the burns. The face. Between the legs.
“Get dressed.” He leans over, planting a kiss on the top of my head, cupping my cheek in his rough palm. “Do as I say.”
“Wait, but—” My words are lost as he stuffs his still half-hard cock behind his zipper, then heads through the door, swinging it half closed behind him after whisking his shirt off the floor in one long-armed swipe.
There’s an impatient knock and the voice calling out again as I reluctantly push onto my knees, reaching out to touch the warm spot where I was tucked against the hardest, biggest chest in the world just a moment ago. His warmth is still on the sheets as I crawl to the edge of the bed and throw my legs over with a soft hiss, the pinpricks of pain in my newly deflowered lady bits reminding me to move gingerly.
Even in his bare feet, Price’s footsteps make vibrating thuds through the floor, then the hinges of the front door let out a pained squeak.
I pull the rumpled blanket from the bed and tuck it around me. When Price went to the living room to get me some water after I nearly passed out from the rolling orgasms he insisted on giving me with his mouth after destroying my cherry, he hung my clothes near the wood stove on a chair to dry.
The same gruff male voice comes clearer now through the open door. “Price, hey, you okay?”
“Yeah. Good.” Price grunts in his best monosyllabic caveman impression.
“Yeah, I see you’re as talkative as ever. Ted called me. Said he didn’t want to leave Hailey but needed someone to come up and check on you. Said you set off yesterday and didn’t get back. No cell service up here, so people were worried. So, here I am.”
“There was a bear,” Price says as I tiptoe and inch along the wall of the bedroom, peeking around the doorframe to see the visitor dressed in an olive-green uniform and wearing a matching hat with a brass badge front and center. Price shoots a quick look over his shoulder as he slips his arms into his shirt, then says, “I… we ….never mind. The bear had cubs with her. Came up to the door too.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen her around on the trail cams and on our tracking. We tagged her a few years back. Named her Electra. She’s not the friendliest as black bears go. She’s got the personality of a grizzly. Good idea to stay put,” the ranger says, his eyes catching me when I ease the door open a couple inches, smiling on a knowing nod toward Price, then lowering his voice, leaning in conspiratorially. “Ah, sorry man. Didn’t pick up you were here with your girl.”
Price’s response comes faster than I expected, with a shake of his head. “No, just one of the camp counselors. Came up with me yesterday to check things out.”
His denial sounds final. Decision made, and a darkness clouds around my heart.
“Fair enough. Your Jeep’s okay, few branches down on the road from the storm though.” Price nods in response. “I’ll follow you back down. I’ve got a full can of bear spray just in case.” He taps the spray can clipped to his belt. “Saw your pack out there. Bears had their way with it. Your rifle too. Looks like mama bear sat on it.” He nods toward the contents of our packs strewn under the trees in front of the cabin. Then he leans to the right on a sly smile. “I’ll wait over there. When you’re ready, just holler.”
“I didn’t want that ranger knowing our business,” Price explains as we head down the last section of the road, the Jeep hitting a pothole with a hard lurch. “People talk too much.”
The ranger just split off onto another road in his truck ahead of us, leaving us to make the last bit of the ride back to the camp unescorted. I squeeze the remnants of the small pack I tossed on the porch last night. One strap is torn off and there’s a new ragged opening down one side.
I feel the way it looks. The afterglow of the morning seems to have turned into the cold light of day.
I turn toward Price, noting the way he’s gripping the steering wheel, the flex of his jaw muscle and the way the tendons on his neck are standing out.
I get why he feels he has to raise Hailey out here in the wilderness, and I get why he doesn’t think I can be a part of that.
I wear glittery body lotion, and floral-embossed hiking boots. I have a standing salon appointment every Wednesday at noon. Outside of the boots I bought to come up here, ninety-nine percent of my shoes would be woefully inappropriate for even a walk on the grass in a park. I like heels and dresses and fussing over my magnetic lashes until they are perfect.
Besides, I’ve wanted to go to NYU since my sophomore year at Michigan State. I love New York. The noise and the smells and the fashion.
Speech therapy might not seem glamorous, but I love what I do and there’s a lot of money to be made being a private therapist to the upper, upper class. It’s what I’ve planned for almost three years.
I also know I pushed him last night. Taunted him really. Like I did that night after the bar.
He’s a man, after all. He saw the opportunity and read the invitation and showed up ready for the party.
I got what I wanted, right? He destroyed my v-card, summer goal achieved.
“I get it,” I finally choke out, trying not to say too much because my chin is starting to quiver.
“When we get back, there are some things I need to take care of. Then we’ll talk. The parents are dropping off kids, I need to meet the network guys and—” He palms the wheel of the Jeep, turning under the tall carved log archway into Camp WanderLust. “I need to get some things sorted out. I know Hailey is going to rapid fire questions at me about why I was gone. I want to make sure she’s okay.”
Before we got in the Jeep to head out, Price had the ranger radio back to his headquarters and told them to call Ted and let him know we’d be back soon. Campers are arriving today so there’s a lot to handle I’m sure.
I shrug. “Sounds good. I need to change clothes and get ready for another session with Hailey. Consistency is key with speech therapy. I know she’ll be waiting for you. She comes first.”
He opens his mouth. It hangs there like the words are frozen on his tongue, then he closes it without saying anything, only swallowing on a nostril-flaring inhale.
He doesn’t know how to say what we both know needs to be said.
He told me this couldn’t happen. And like an idiot, I thought that was negotiable.
But if I got what I wanted, why do I feel like pieces of my heart are scattered around my feet?
The next few minutes on the gravel road back into camp, Price accelerates like he’s ready to be away from the tension that thickens the small interior of the Jeep.
“See ya,” I say as casually as I can muster when he slows and parks the Jeep in front of the main hall. Counselors are waving as some early families pull in to drop off their kiddos for the next few weeks.
I grab the handle to the door and pull, swinging it open and hopping onto the ground before Price has the ignition off.
Hailey is a handful in the best sort of way. Her IQ has to be off the charts, but it’s also her personality. She’s forty years of wisdom and sass packed into a six-year-old’s body.
The rest of the counselors were organized at tables checking in campers when we got back. I scooted off to my bunkhouse, jumped into a lukewarm shower, trying to wash away the clutching feeling in my chest along with Price’s scent.
As I dressed, the reality of what we did came crashing down around me.
Raw. No condom.
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
It’s been a few hours now, there’s campers all around finding their way, and Ted asked me to stick by Hailey because the older woman that’s her sort of nanny-ish stand-in grandmother, Wiley, is down with a migraine and Ted and Price have official new camp owner and TV network duties to tend to.
Hailey’s been trying to teach me how to climb the rope in the outdoor obstacle course, scurrying up it like it’s a ladder, then touching the branch it’s attached to and inching back down. And I can tell how proud she is of keeping up with the exercises we were practicing yesterday, her ‘s’ sounds much more sibilant as she repeats the tongue twister I taught her as she goes up and down the rope.
Funny, I sort of feel settled here. Not out of place with a desire for a Starbucks, or the sirens and twenty-four hour noise of the city.
I thought I wasn’t the outdoors type, but here I am being taught to climb ropes by a six-year-old, and yesterday I went hiking in the wilderness. And I’m having fun doing it.
I did break a nail earlier today, and there was a quick twinge of angst that there’s nowhere to go for a fix, but other than that, I’m getting downright outdoorsy.
Hailey waves at someone over my head, and I turn to see Price addressing a group of older kids by the start to the bigger obstacle course. His voice carries on the warmth of the summer breeze as he waves his thick arm toward a steep wooden wall with a knotted rope hanging down. He’s covering rules and safety stuff, then, like magic, he’s giving a quick demo of how to climb the wall.
In five effortless, hand over hand movements, he’s pulled his entire body weight up the rope, then flings himself over, falling onto his feet in a superhero landing on the other side, in a puff of dust.
The depth of his strength and skill leave me frozen and rapt as he comes around, wiping his hands down the front of his t-shirt, then claps three times, making a gesture for the campers to give it a try.
“Do you think my dad will mawwy you?” Hailey suddenly says, drawing my attention back to her.
I want to say no, because honestly, I think Price has made his choice and I know I should say no, but my tongue has a mind of its own. “How would you feel about that?”
“I’d wike it.” She frowns. “Then you’d be my mom, sort of.”
“Hailey.” I crouch down to her level as she wipes at her eyes.
“I do have a mom already…”
“I know,” I tell her. “Nobody can ever take that away.”
“But you can have two moms, can’t you?”
“You can. Lots of people do. But I think your dad wants it to just be the two of you for a while.”
She shakes her head. “Uh uh. He wooks at you wike he wooks at me, except I’m his daughter. You’re not his daughter.”
“No. I’m not,” I agree. “But me and your dad, I think we’re just friends.”
She shakes her head again. “No you’re not. He thinks you’re pwetty, I can tell. He’s never wooked at anyone wike you. I think you’re pwetty, too. And you’re nice.” She shrugs, swinging the end of the rope back and forth, her hair in two Cindy Lou Who pigtails on top of her head, and I wonder, did Price do her hair? The image of his ridiculously large, thick, calloused fingers being able to do something so delicate has a clutch starting again down in my belly. Hailey cocks her head on a nod like she’s come to a decision on something important, then says, “I wouldn’t mind if you mawwied him. You’d have my bwessing.”
I hesitate, then reach up and pinch her chin softly. “Thanks. I wouldn’t mind, either.” I force a smile I’m not feeling. “But right now, you need to teach me how to climb this rope. I don’t want to be the only one at camp that can’t do it.”
She laughs and nods, her little face spreading in a much more genuine smile than my own, and I wish I could give her a more certain answer.
Kids.
Jesus. They have a way of making complicated things sound so easy. Marry Price, be Hailey’s stepmom, live happily ever after.
But life isn’t a fairytale.
Price would probably shrivel up and die in the city, with honking taxis and all the concrete and lack of nature. He’d look ridiculous in a suit and tie, sitting behind a desk, where adventure would consist of a walk in the park or eighteen holes of golf. No, this is his natural habitat and where he belongs.
And as for me?
I tell myself that I have a master’s program to attend. I have a life mapped out. Goals set.
Hailey gives me pointers on how to climb the rope as she scurries up, reminding me of how Price tackled that rope over the wall a minute ago.
They both belong out here. I’m just suddenly not sure where I belong.