Chapter 22 Sadie
I stumble in near-darkness, a pair of hot cocoas in hand, until I find Thorn and our sleeping bags.
Even though there’s plenty of room to spread out, we’re all still relatively close together, six or eight feet between the various clusters of friend groups. Thorn’s at the far end, integrated enough that it won’t be too obvious that the two of us are attempting to carve out some alone time.
He takes one of the cups as I sit down beside him.
“You weren’t kidding about the view,” I say.
He grins. “Just wait till the fire’s all the way out. It’ll blow your mind.”
I don’t know how it can get any better than this, honestly: the sky is bursting with light, pinpricks of white splashed all over the dark, velvety canvas.
The twin cliffs cut into the horizon, their white rock faces dim in the shadow of night.
We’re not terribly close to the waterfall, or the creek that carves into the basin just below it, but its soundtrack is a constant crashing that makes this place feel alive, magical.
I sip my hot cocoa, taking in two gooey marshmallows in the process.
“So,” I say a moment later. “When was the first time you discovered this place?”
Thorn squints, like he’s trying to see far back into the past.
“First time I remember was when I was around eight years old,” he says.
“Hiked the Mackenzie Lake Loop with my dad one time, probably came back here every couple of months after that. He always tells people I’ve been hiking since I was a baby, though—he and my mom used to come on weekend trips, and they’d take turns wearing me in one of those little carriers. ”
“Does your mom still hike?”
“Hell if I know,” he says, then takes a long pull on his hot cocoa.
“Did she break his heart?” I ask, tentatively stepping through what I think is an open door. “Or was it the other way around?”
He gives a little half laugh. “Dad couldn’t break a heart if he tried.
” As quickly as his mood darkened at the mention of his mom, it shifts lighter now—the smallest hint of a smile plays at his lips.
“He did try to break a heart one time, actually. This woman he dated while I was in college, his first relationship after the divorce, it just wasn’t working out.
She still came for Thanksgiving that year because she didn’t want Dad to have to prepare a feast for Matteo and me all on his own. ”
“Your dad sounds like a nice guy,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “He really is.”
I hug my knees tight to my chest. At first, the hot cocoa was like a little furnace, warming me from the inside—it was nice while it lasted. Now that it’s gone, the chill in the air is hard to ignore.
“Cold?” Thorn asks, taking immediate notice of the goosebumps all over my arms and legs.
He pulls a thin flannel blanket from his pack and wraps it around my shoulders, tucking me in close to him in the process. The blanket helps, but the heat radiating from his body is even better. I breathe in the smell of him, outdoorsy with a hint of spice.
“Want to know a secret?” he says quietly, his lips brushing against my temple. “There’s a little cave behind the waterfall that isn’t part of the tour, just big enough where you can sit and watch the sunrise. The light looks incredible from behind the water…I can show you tomorrow, if you want?”
The idea of going on my own little private excursion with Thorn is too tempting to resist.
“Yeah?” I reply. “Won’t the others feel like they missed out, though?”
“Not if they don’t know what they’re missing.” He pulls back just enough, and I turn so we’re face-to-face. “And besides, it’s not like it’s off-limits—it’s just not advertised. They can go on their own if they want.”
I hear his words, but they hardly register. We’re so close right now, all it would take is the slightest tilt of my head—or his—for us to kiss.
And now kissing him is all I can think about.
My eyes flicker from his eyes down to his lips, then back up again. We’re already this close, and the moment feels like magic.
“I really, really want to kiss you right now,” I confess, barely a whisper.
He smiles. “I really, really want to kiss you right now, too.”
“Is it too risky out here?”
It’s extremely dark now that the fire’s out, and it’s quiet—most people, I think, are either watching the sky or have already fallen asleep. Without the tent for privacy, though, we’re just so…exposed.
I feel his chest rise and fall as he considers it, probably thinking the exact same thing I am: that as close as we are, we already look like a couple.
We can explain it away—it’s cold out, he’s helping me warm up. It would be harder to explain the other things we both clearly want to do.
“Tomorrow,” he says like a promise. “At the waterfall.”
It would be so easy to steal a kiss right now.
He still wants to, too, I can tell—he hasn’t budged at all, and I can see the restraint it’s taking written all over his face even in almost pitch darkness.
“Tomorrow,” I agree.
We slip into our sleeping bags, mere inches away from each other. I miss his arm around me already, and I’m shivering within minutes.
“Here’s a trick I learned a long time ago for when it’s cold out,” Thorn says. “It’s going to sound weird—you’re going to have to trust me on this.”
“Let me guess,” I say, intrigued. “We both cram into a single sleeping bag and get so distracted by how cramped it is that we forget about being cold?”
He stifles a laugh, careful not to wake anyone up.
“Not exactly. Okay. So it’s going to sound counterintuitive, but if you strip down to just your underwear, you can stuff your clothes at the bottom of your sleeping bag, by your feet—that will help block cold air from getting in, and your body heat will circulate better as a result. ”
“Strip down to my underwear?” I whisper-hiss. “What is this, some sort of prank? Is a camera crew about to jump out from behind the waterfall?”
“I’m not pranking you, I swear—so that’s a no on the camera crew,” he says, laughing. “But I did warn you that it’d sound counterintuitive.”
I do as he says and shimmy out of my pajamas—discreetly, not because I’m ashamed for him to see anything (if he could even see anything in this darkness) but because I don’t want anyone else to get the wrong idea—then kick them into place at the bottom of my sleeping bag.
Thorn is making a huge effort to not look too interested, but the fact that he’s being so deliberate and obvious about it tells me he’s very, very aware of how little I’m wearing right now.
I’m thankful I wore a sports bra—I’m not sure he and I could make it through an entire night of keeping our hands off each other with me being that naked right next to him. It’s hard enough already.
“I hope this works,” I say, my teeth chattering.
“It’ll work,” he replies, eyes trained on the stars.
I look to the sky, too.
It’s a much-needed distraction—from the cold, from the sleeping bag fabric rubbing up against my skin, from Thorn himself.
In my wildest imagination, I never guessed it could look this beautiful.
I count one tiny cluster of stars until my eyes cross, losing count somewhere around fifty.
I take in the depths of the Milky Way, its explosive streak like a gash across the night sky.
I’m all too aware of Thorn, stretched out in his sleeping bag beside me, and I’m almost certain he’s not asleep.
“Thorn,” I whisper a while later, when I’m still wide awake and the constellations have shifted in the sky. “At what point should I start feeling warmer?”
But his breathing has finally evened out, and he doesn’t reply.
Eventually, I fall asleep too.
I wake up gasping and shivering.
It’s still dark out—dark and extremely cold.
It is the absolute worst time for a steamy dream in more ways than one: not only am I not drenched in sweat from Thorn’s body being pressed up against mine, as I was just a split second ago in whatever subconscious haven my mind spun up while deeply asleep, but I am fully regretting my choices.
What was I thinking, putting my clothes at the bottom of the sleeping bag?
“What happened?” Thorn says beside me, instantly awake—and instantly panicked. “Sadie? Are you okay?”
This can only mean one thing: I was loud enough to wake him up somehow. The fact that he’s asking if I’m okay is my only reassurance; I probably didn’t moan anything X-rated before my rude awakening.
“S-so c-cold,” I manage. “The t-trick didn’t w-work.”
His eyes go wide, landing on where the sleeping bag is draped over my collarbones.
“I, um. I might have forgotten to mention one crucial detail.”
“What, that clothes might actually be helpful with not freezing my ass off?”
He tugs at a little bungee cord that hangs limply from the top edge of the sleeping bag. “The trick only works if you pull this as tight as it will go so your body heat stays inside—and so no cold air can get in.”
“Seriously?!” My eyebrows shoot as high as they’ll go. “That would have been a fantastic detail to know about!”
Thorn bites back a laugh.
“It’s not funny!” I protest, but I’m teetering on the edge of a giggle fit myself despite it all, made funnier by how we’re both trying to be quiet—and coming dangerously close to waking up the entire camp.
“Here,” he says, his voice gravelly with sleep as he stretches an arm across me, pulling tight. “I’ll warm you up.”
A couple of inches is all it takes, and then we’re pressed together as tightly as two people can get with a pair of sleeping bags between them.
I’m the little spoon, and I feel every inch of him pressing up against the back of me.
It’s nothing like the dream I just woke up from—he’s not on top of me, we’re not in a sailboat off the coast of Italy, and we’re very much not alone.
Still, though: this reality feels almost steamier.
It’s not just my imagination fulfilling whatever subconscious hopes spring up in the dead of night—Thorn is here, right here, flesh and bone and heart and hands making sure I don’t turn to ice before the sun comes up.
I’m all too aware of his arm around me, strong but gentle, his fingers splayed over my bare skin just below my shoulder.
Nothing risqué there, but it’s close enough, especially given that my clothes are still stuffed at the bottom of my sleeping bag.
It doesn’t take long to warm up. He’s his own heating system, generating more than enough warmth for us both, his breath hot on the back of my neck even through the curtain of my hair.
The longest night ever suddenly can’t last long enough.
I don’t care that I woke up shivering. I don’t care that I woke up at all, or that I’m going to have the hardest time trying to fall back asleep—or that I’ll be miserably exhausted tomorrow if I don’t get at least a little bit more rest.
I want to feel every second.