Chapter 22
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
ALLY
B y the time the kids were all in their tents on that second night, I fully understood the beauty of sleeping outside. I was so exhausted that I’d have happily slept on a pile of rocks.
“It’s only nine,” I told Clay when I backed into our tent so my feet stayed outside while I unlaced my hiking boots and took them off. “Nine, and I’m ready for bed. I feel like it’s one in the morning.”
Lying on top of his blue sleeping bag with his ankles crossed, he chuckled. “Hiking wear you out?”
“No, the kids, the hiking, the constant fear of bugs and wilderness...that’s what wore me out. But I’m excited that I can go to sleep at nine.”
“I’m excited for you. How’s Jayne doing?” Tonight, I spent some one-on-one time with her while Clay entertained the kids by the campfire. She’d brought a small drumming pad and drumsticks in her pack, and she demonstrated how she practices at home without making much noise.
“Feeling much better. I think she’ll be back to her old self just in time for pickup tomorrow.” I stuck my feet into my sleeping bag and wiggled my toes in my socks. “I guess this is the point of camping—to get so worn out that sleeping on the ground feels amazing.”
Our head-to-feet arrangement didn’t feel nearly so awkward tonight, and as we both hunkered deep into our respective sleeping bags, there was enough moonlight for us to see each other in a silvery glow. “I wish you could see how beautiful you look,” Clay said, raising himself onto his elbows to look more squarely at me, and making my view of him that much better.
“Something pretty about moonlight. It’s working for you too, greyhound,” I admitted.
Lying back down, he reached for my hand, which I had draped outside my sleeping bag. Intertwining our fingers felt like a victory. Somehow so much more intimate in the quiet of the tent, now that we were alone. My skin buzzed at all the places his fingers touched mine, as his thumb softly rubbed circles over the back of my hand.
Lying here with him, I felt a sense of calm contentment that I’d never experienced before with a man. I didn’t hear my usual warning voices telling me that guys like Clay were only bound to break my heart. This man—the Clay I’d gotten to know over the past couple of weeks—seemed like the kind who had my back. That’s what he’d been telling me, and I was starting to believe it. “This is nice.” My voice sounded as sleepy and contented as I felt.
Clay sat all the way up and brought my hand to his lips, kissing each knuckle. The feel of his breath over my skin sent a ripple of warmth through me and I sighed quietly.
“C’mere,” he said, pulling me up to sitting. “One kiss. Just to tide me over, yeah?”
I nodded, my movements slowed by the desire to stretch this moment to infinity. Clay slowly pulled me closer until our clasped hands were sandwiched between us. When his lips swept across mine, I breathed him in and my eyes drifted shut.
His mouth covered mine more fully and our lips melded. Discovering, tasting, hinting at more. Then Clay pulled away and brushed his nose against mine before leaning back to look at me. I drank in the strong line of his jaw, the warmth in his hazel eyes, the stubble on his face that I ached to have in my hands.
Hands still joined, we each lay back down on our sleeping bags and I heard a deep sigh rumble from Clay’s chest. It mirrored how I felt. And how I felt surprised me.
In all the years I’d observed Clay from afar, I’d done so with the idea of him being off-limits. My brother’s best friend. A guy who couldn’t commit. The very sort who my mother warned me against. And yet, this wasn’t the Clay I’d gotten to know.
Maybe I didn’t need the fantasy I’d always imagined. Maybe I could allow myself to enjoy something—even just a kiss—without worrying about commitment or labels or the fact that Clay didn’t do relationships. And about that...
“Clay, I just need to ask...what’s your deal? Why do you not do relationships? Is it just that it’s annoying to be fixed up all the time? Or do you like to keep your options open? Or are you a loner or a commitment-phobe or a?—”
“No. It’s none of those things,” he interrupted, squeezing my hand.
“Then what?”
“Alexandra, it’s pretty simple. The only woman I’ve wanted is you.”
Maybe in my wildest romantic fantasy sequences, someone like Clay would say something like that to me. But not in real life. “Wh-what?”
“You heard me.”
And I had no idea what to do with that information. “Since when? Since our camping trip in your yard?”
“Since forever.”
I raised my head to get a better view of Clay and found him staring up at the tent. The moonlight cast shadows on his face, but I could still see the furrow in his brow. “Clay... what? ”
“It’s been years, Ally. I wanted to stop thinking about you. I tried to stop. But I...can’t.” His voice cracked on the last word, and I heard it strain. It sounded feral, a tight guitar string on the verge of snapping. “And I don’t want to try anymore.”
“I thought...” I couldn’t articulate what I thought without spilling a lifetime of insecurities, and right now, I didn’t want Clay to know that side of me.
“I know. I’ve never been clear with my intentions toward you.”
“Your intentions...” He was speaking like one of the heroes from my historical romance novels, and instead of suitably swooning, I was repeating his words and looking at him with round, blank eyes.
“Yes. My intentions.”
“Which are . . . ?”
“Everything. All of it.”
“We’ve worked together all these years. How come you never even...asked me out?” It seemed like the very most basic concept.
He continued staring upward and let out a long exhale. “It’s kind of a long story.”
I barked out an incredulous laugh. “We’re in a tent with nothing else to do. Seems like a good time for that.”
He was nodding, but when I could see that he wasn’t ready to look at me, I dropped my head back down and stared up as well. When he began speaking, his voice was so steady and soft, I almost mistook it for a faint gust of wind.
“I told you I’d been diagnosed with depression. What I didn’t tell you was that it came on the heels of a bad breakup. I’d been dating a woman who’d moved here from Colorado. This was years ago.”
I thought back and tried to figure out a timeline. I’d all but lost track of Clay when I was in college, and until we’d started teaching together, I didn’t know what he had done.
“We dated for a year and a half,” he went on. “I fell hard and fast. It was my first serious, long-term relationship, and it happened right as I was starting to feel heavy signs of clinical depression, but I didn’t know how to recognize that’s what it was at the time. I needed her for my endorphin rush. She was the only thing keeping me happy, so I decided I wanted to marry her.”
Jealousy had no place here, but I couldn’t help the ugly twinge in my chest. It shouldn’t have pierced my heart to hear him describe his feelings for someone else right after he’d just finished telling me that he’s wanted me for all these years. But it did.
“It sounds a little ridiculous saying it now, but I didn’t understand what was happening with my mental health. I just knew she became the lifeline that made me feel better, and I thought she was the key to being happy.”
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous,” I said, feeling my heart squeeze at the kind of pain he must have felt.
“Anyway, long story short...she was separated from her husband when we met and she kind of abruptly decided to move back to Colorado and try again with him. I didn’t see it coming. And I...spiraled. Like, it was bad. Your brother knows. He’s the only one.”
“How bad?” I wanted to understand, needed to know.
“I called Jeff, told him I was sitting with a bottle of pills. He came right away. We tossed them in the toilet, made some calls to psychiatrists. It took work, but he got me straightened out. I owe him...everything. And as to why I don’t do relationships, I guess I was always afraid of it happening again—all of it.”
I sat up and scooted across the floor of the tent in my sleeping bag until I could wrap my arms around Clay. He sat limply for a moment, letting me hug him, before finally encircling me with his arms.
We sat like that for a long time, not talking. It felt good to return all the warmth Clay had shown toward me, even if I wasn’t sure it was enough.
“How do you feel now? Do you feel afraid with me?” I asked, finally. Clay loosened his grip and backed away enough to look at me. His eyes were dark, deep thoughtful pools that swallowed me in their intensity.
“No. With you, I feel really good.”
I leaned forward and kissed Clay’s cheek, trailing my lips down to his and placing a soft kiss there. I moved back to my spot, head next to Clay’s feet, and closed my eyes.
“That’s why...,” I said, slowly realizing, “my brother told me not to mess with your head.”
“He did? When?”
“The other night at Genie’s. I had no idea what he was talking about, and it was Jefferson—he sometimes makes a big deal out of things that aren’t big.”
“This one’s big.”
“Yeah. But it’s not insurmountable.”
“No, not insurmountable. At least I hope not.” He squeezed my hand.
I sat up and brought it to my heart. If he could trust me with this, I wouldn’t betray him. Even if we weren’t right for each other, I wouldn’t let him fall. “Okay, then,” I told him. “Let’s start with that. Let’s start with hope.”