Chapter thirty- nine
Rory
Morning at the campsite begins the way mornings always begin when thirty children have slept in tents and woken up convinced they are suddenly wilderness experts.
Loudly. Someone is already shouting about missing socks before the sun has properly climbed over the treeline, a tent zip tears open somewhere behind me with the enthusiasm of a chainsaw, and the smell of damp grass, smoke and instant coffee drifts across the clearing like a slightly depressing perfume.
I’m sitting on one of the wooden benches beside the fire pit when I spot Freya.
She’s standing near the long folding table where breakfast will be thrown together, mug in both hands, shoulders tucked into that thick jumper she wore yesterday, her hair twisted into a loose knot that is already falling apart.
Last night is still sitting somewhere at the back of my mind like a half-remembered dream.
The quiet. The fire burning low. The way she looked wrapped in that blanket with the stars above her and the whole clearing asleep around us.
The way she spoke about us and our past. And the worst part is that I hadn’t expected it either.
“Dad!” Isla crashes into me with the sort of enthusiasm that suggests she has been awake for at least twenty minutes already and has been saving that energy for impact.
“Morning,” I say, catching her before she topples the bench.
“We’re doing orienteering today!”
“Yes,” I say. “I heard that somewhere around the fourth time you mentioned it last night.”
“We get maps,” she continues, ignoring this. “And compasses. And we have to find checkpoints in the forest.”
Theo appears beside her. “Mum says we have to stay with the instructors,” he announces.
Freya walks over then, coffee still in her hands, the faint pink in her cheeks probably from the cold rather than anything else.
“Correct,” she says. “No wandering off to build your own settlement in the woods.”
Theo looks disappointed by this limitation.
Isla swings her backpack onto one shoulder. “Are you coming with us?” she asks.
“Not today,” I say. “You’ve got the instructors and two teachers for that.”
Freya nods. “We will be assigned glamorous adult responsibilities.”
Theo narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Like what?”
“Tidying the campsite, washing up, chopping firewood” Freya says.
“And emptying the toilets,” I add with a grimace.
Theo makes a face like we’ve just suggested he cleans the toilets himself. “That sounds boring and gross.”
“It absolutely is,” I agree.
The whistle blows from the centre of the clearing and the instructors begin gathering the kids into their groups. Within minutes the quiet morning dissolves into chaos again as maps are handed out and backpacks are adjusted.
Theo hugs Freya quickly. “Bye Mum!”
“Stick with your group.”
“I will!”
Isla throws her arms around me next.
“Don’t get lost,” I say.
“Dad,” she replies with deep patience. “We have compasses.”
Fair. Within a few minutes the entire group disappears down the narrow path into the forest, bright waterproofs flickering between the trees as the instructors lead them deeper into the hills. And suddenly the campsite is quiet again.
Freya exhales slowly beside me. “Well,” she says.
“That’s unsettling.”
“What is?”
“The silence.”
I grin. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”
The teachers who stayed behind start dividing up the jobs around camp for the day.
Empty the toilets.
Chop more firewood.
Take the washing up to the main house.
Freya volunteers for washing up almost immediately. And because my brain apparently stopped functioning sometime around last night’s campfire, I volunteer too. Idiot. You are actively walking toward trouble.
Now we’re halfway up the narrow gravel path that winds away from the campsite carrying two crates full of dirty plates and mugs that clatter every time one of us adjusts our grip.
The path climbs steeply through the trees, twisting back on itself as it leads toward the main house.
Freya is walking a few steps ahead of me with one of the crates balanced against her hip.
Which means my view is currently… Right.
Focus. Look literally anywhere else. Except unfortunately she’s wearing those dark jeans again and the climb is making the fabric pull in ways that my brain is finding extremely distracting.
“Why did you volunteer for this?” she calls over her shoulder.
“Because I’m helpful. And also I didn’t want to empty the toilets.”
She laughs softly and the sound drifts back through the trees.
The path curves around one last bend and the main house comes into view through the branches.
It’s enormous. A huge white building sitting at the edge of the woods like it belongs in a period drama rather than the middle of a Welsh outdoor centre.
The walls are bright against the dark green trees, tall windows stretching up the front of the building beneath a steep slate roof.
“Looks like a hospital,” Freya says.
“Or a haunted boarding school.”
“Do you think it’s haunted?”
“Statistically speaking, probably.”
We push through the front door into the entrance hall.
Inside it’s warm and vast. The ceilings stretch high above us, wooden beams crossing overhead, the space echoing slightly as our boots step across the floorboards.
To the left a huge common room opens up, filled with long wooden tables, battered sofas and a massive stone fireplace that could probably roast an entire pig.
The place smells faintly of soap, wood polish and whatever lunch the kitchen staff made earlier.
“Kitchen’s through here,” Freya says.
She leads us through to a long galley kitchen that runs along the back of the house.
Two large industrial sinks sit beneath tall windows looking out toward the forest. Stainless steel counters line the walls and cupboards are stacked high with plates and mugs.
Beyond the kitchen a corridor leads toward the communal shower rooms and the staircase that climbs up to the dormitories in case the weather turns bad. The whole place is completely empty.
“No one here,” I say.
“Good,” Freya replies. “Less witnesses to my terrible washing up singing.”
We dump the crates beside the sink. She rolls her sleeves up immediately and fills the basin with hot water.
“You wash,” she says. “I’ll dry.”
“Yes ma’am.”
For a while the only sounds in the kitchen are the tap running and the clink of plates. Sunlight spills through the windows, catching in her hair as she dries each dish with a tea towel. I watch her longer than I should. She notices, obviously.
“You’re staring,” she says without looking up.
“Sorry.. I err.”
Then she reaches across me to grab another mug. Her hip bumps mine. Neither of us moves away.
“Rory,” she says quietly.
“Yeah.”
“You’re doing that thing again.”
“What thing?”
“Looking at me like you’re thinking something inappropriate.”
Well. She’s not wrong. We stand close, way too close, staring at each other for a beat.
Her icy blue eyes bore into mine and her mouth parts slightly as her tongue darts across her bottom lip.
My hand slides to the small of her back before I can stop it.
It isn’t a decision I consciously make. It’s instinct.
The kind that takes over when you’ve been standing too close to someone for too long while pretending you’re not aware of every inch of space between you.
Freya inhales sharply. The sound is small, but it instantly makes my dick twitch.
She turns, her body shifting so she’s facing me fully.
She’s close enough now that I can see everything.
The faint flush in her cheeks from the walk up the hill.
The loose strands of hair that have escaped from the knot at the back of her head and fallen around her face.
The way her lips part slightly when she breathes in like she already knows exactly what I’m about to do.
Fuck. She’s beautiful. Not in the obvious, polished way that people mean when they say that word.
There’s something softer about Freya than that.
Familiar in a way that sinks straight into your bones because you’ve known the shape of her face and the sound of her laugh for most of your life.
And right now she’s looking at me like she knows exactly what I’m thinking and hasn’t decided to stop me.
My free hand lifts before I have the sense to talk myself out of it.
I drag my knuckles slowly up along the line of her jaw.
Freya’s eyes close briefly. Just for a second.
But it’s enough to almost finish me entirely.
My fingers slide down to the side of her neck, curling slightly into the hair at the nape.
A faint shiver runs through her body when my thumb brushes the edge of her jaw.
And that’s the moment something in me snaps.
Because I have been thinking about kissing her for far too long.
I’m already leaning toward her before my brain catches up.
And then I kiss her. It isn’t careful. It isn’t slow.
It’s the kind of kiss that happens when two people have spent too long pretending they don’t want it.
Her mouth opens against mine immediately.
Like she was expecting it. Like she was waiting for it.
Her hands come up and grab the front of my shirt, fingers fisting the fabric hard enough that it pulls me closer against her, and the moment our bodies meet properly something hot and electric shoots straight through me.
Jesus. She tastes like coffee and sugar and warmth.
My brain stops doing anything useful and my cock immediately grows in my jeans.
Her fingers slide into my hair, gripping the back of my head as she kisses me back with the same intensity that’s been simmering between us for weeks.