Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Summer
“ W hat’d that asshole do?” Dolly crosses the cabin from the door, grabbing me by the arms. “I’m going to fucking kill him. I told him not to hurt you or he’d have to deal with me. Guess he made his choice. Spill, girl.”
She tugs me down to sit on the edge of my cot next to her. I’m shaking my head, trying to find the words through the tears that now won’t stop.
“It’s not his fault,” I manage, looking down to see I’ve broken two more nails.
My knee burns where I skinned it falling off the end of the rope after Hailey went to eat with the other kids and I got a wild hair thinking I was some big adventurer and could climb all the way to the top.
“The hell it isn’t. He looking for free babysitting in the form of a new stepmom for his kid? I fucking knew he was going to try—”
“No!” I splutter, swiping the back of my hand over my wet cheeks. “No, he doesn’t want me. He has this amazing life planned. Out here, in this crazy world that makes no sense to me with all the spiders and bears and.... stuff. I should never have come here.”
I draw back, my legs needing to move as I start to pace the small counselors’ area of the cabin. My stuff is scattered everywhere. What the hell was I thinking, bringing fucking bath bombs to camp?
None of what I am makes sense here.
“I have to go, Dolly. Will you tell him I quit? I can’t. I just want to go. I’m sorry about our wild summer. I should have known this was not going to be my jam.”
“Wait, what? You don’t quit things. You’ve never quit anything in your life, including when I dragged you to auto shop as your sophomore elective. You did that . Talk to me.”
I draw a deep breath, expanding my lungs until they feel like they’ll burst, bending down to pick up my pink velour Betsy Johnson tracksuit and shove it into my suitcase. “He hasn’t said anything. I went looking for him. More like snooping for him… I shouldn’t have, but I went in his office. It wasn’t locked…” I try to justify the unjustifiable invasion. “I wanted to talk, I mean, we needed to talk. I started poking around and there was a contract. For the TV network. With a big clause that forbids him from having any sort of relationship during the length of the contract.”
The sounds of kids squealing outside and my racing heartbeat muffle everything else.
“But you don’t want a relationship. Do you? Just a summer fling…”
I shrug. “Right. No. I don’t know!” I hiss in frustration. “I… Ugggg.” I groan. “I don’t fit in here with spiders and dirt and everything, but, I like it. I love Hailey, I love the air, the thrill, I love… I’m in love with Price. I could see myself living like this, with him, but it doesn’t matter. Even if he wanted something with me, clearly he can’t have it.”
The tears come no matter how hard I fight, and I can’t take it anymore. I throw the tube of toothpaste I was packing down onto the bed, and run, ignoring her pleas for me to stop. The cabin is too close, there isn’t enough air. I need be outside, so I run. I’m not even a running type of girl, but right now my legs are carrying me away, away, away.
I head for the lake. I’ve never been in a lake before. I was always too scared there were fish in there and what if the bottom was slimy?
As I catch sight of the water, doubt and confusion hurdle around inside me. I want to dive in the dark water and let it swallow me, so I don’t have to think or feel or wonder about what I should or shouldn’t do here.
I’m so out of my element with these crazy feelings.
I stop, leaning forward, bracing my arms on my bent knees, then stand straight, unclipping the green metal clip from my belt, cocking back to throw it into the water.
“What are you going to do?” I whisper-ask myself, my arm frozen, ready to throw the strange but emotional gift into the dark water but the silence is broken with footsteps from behind me.
It’s gotta be Dolly.
A hand encases my upper arm, squeezing. Hard.
Dolly’s been working out , I think as I turn, and I find myself face to chest with him .
“What are you…?” I glance around, but we’re alone, and he’s definitely not been chasing me down. His breathing is calm and steady but the set of his chin and the way he’s hollowing his cheeks makes him look more intense than usual. “How did you find me?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing. How’d you know where I was?”
“I didn’t…” I shake my head, as he tugs my arm down, pressing the carabiner back into my palm and closing my fingers around the cool aluminum. I’m overcome again with his size and the odd comfort I feel when I’m close to him, even in the midst of so much uncertainty and overwhelming emotions. Not to mention, the idea that what we did last night could be creating something inside me right now.
Price grunts, a muscle in his cheek ticks. “Then why were you running? What were you going to do with that? You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
“I was running because I wanted to and I was…never mind. I shouldn’t be here at all. Here, I mean, in all this,” The certainty in my voice falters as I think of how I called him Daddy. How he called himself Daddy. What was I thinking? That was a bit over the top for a girl’s first time, right?
Then why did it feel so good?
“Doesn’t matter. We’re going to talk.” The words come out stuttering and stalled, like he’s forcing them out of his throat. “I hate talking, but with you, it’s all I seem to want to do.”
I raise my eyebrows for a second and he rolls his eyes.
“Okay, that’s not the only thing, but it’s something I’ve never wanted to do with anyone else.”
I release a sardonic chuckle, feeling the tears start to sting the corners of my eyes again. “It’s okay. I get it. Let’s not talk. I’m tired of talking. I don’t want to hear you say we can’t be together. You were straight with me from the beginning, and I’m just a stupid, stupid girl.”
“Don’t ever call yourself stupid,” he growls, his massive hands resting on the sides of my head, encasing me with their power as I squeeze the metal clip in my hand.
His gaze makes my heart thunder. It’s like being trapped by a mountain lion, one that’s decided I’m his next meal. And I’m too confused to fight it.
“Don’t ever put yourself down,” he repeats. “You’re perfect. Too perfect. I have no right to ask anything of you, my Daisy, but I’m going to anyway, because I can’t imagine a future without you in it. I love you, baby. Like , love you , love you, you get it?”
I open my mouth, then hesitate as I catch sight of a tiny movement on the top of his shoulder. I squint, knowing instantly what’s coming.
Heat blasts through me, but for once, it’s not fear, it’s just… annoyance.
I clip the carabiner back on my belt loop on a huff.
I’m annoyed at the spider crawling down the sleeve of Price’s gray t-shirt, but I’m more annoyed at my own naiveté about summer flings and no strings.
Seems there’s no such thing.
I reach up and flick the black creeper off his arm, watching it fly in an arc through the air, then cross my arms. A crow caws in the distance as I throw it all out there. “What about the TV deal? That’s sort of a non-starter for a relationship. I saw how much they’re offering you, Price, it’s a lot. I saw the…no fraternization clause.”
“And it doesn’t mean a fucking thing if I don’t have you. I know you have plans too. Dolly told me. I’m ready to fit in with them. Me and Hailey. It will be a different kind of adventure, but one I want more than all the ones that came before. Whatever you want, we’ll make it work. I’ll get a job as a fucking bank teller. I don’t care, none of it means anything if you aren’t with us.”
I shake my head, turning up my hands. “You said you would never let Hailey grow up in the city. She’s happy here.”
He winces, as if at some deep pain. “She’s happy with me. And she’s happy when she’s with you. I’ll figure it out. I’ll keep you both safe, even if it means I never let you out of my sight. I… I don’t know. All I know is that I can’t be without you. And I can’t take away the things you want in your life.”
I watch him struggling to reconcile his own needs and what he wants for his daughter, and suddenly it all becomes clear.
What am I even crying for?
“You said you love me,” I say in a kind of daze, and he nods. A smile starts to tickle at the corners of my lips, and I wipe at my drying eyes, his massive hands still clutching my head like he’s afraid I might fly away somewhere. “You love me?”
“I love you, Summer. Daisy. Little Sis. Baby. All of you. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I live on instinct and my instincts have never been wrong.”
“And you don’t care about the TV deal?”
“I’ll tear up the contract in an instant if you just say the word. I’ll find a way to pay Ted back for his investment in me and this place. There’s more than one network out there. Shit, I’ve had all sorts of companies after me for endorsements for years. I always thought it was a sell out to do that, but I see it differently now. I’m not poor by any means, but I made promises. I’ll figure it all out. If I can climb my way out of a swamp in the Amazon with no compass and a broken arm, I can do this. Hailey too, she’s toughened me up in ways I didn’t know I needed to be tough. I can take on anything, even living in a city. With her. With you. None of it means anything without you. You’ve made me want a different life. A life I never imagined before you.”
“So, you don’t need to take Hailey to the city. Because I’m staying here.”
He frowns. “What?”
“If you’ll have me?” I slide my hands around the hard muscle of his waist, his hands dropping to grab me by my ass, tugging me upward, mounted on the front of him like a baby in one of those chest carriers.
“You’re not giving up your dreams, but I got you, baby. Daddy will always be here for you.”
He’ll never let me go, never let me fall.
I didn’t think I wanted a life of adventure, but with him behind me, beside me or on top of me, it will be the safest adventure of all time.
“Dolly’s gonna kill me,” he murmurs into my ear, before planting a kiss on that magical spot on my neck, my skin rippling all the way down to my toes. “She told me if I ruined you, I’d have her to deal with.”
“Better make the ruining worth it then, don’t you think?” I say with a grin, rolling my hips against him, working the bottom of my t-shirt up and over my head. “Let’s live dangerously.”