CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I tried saying no again. Ran it through my mind. No, no, no, no. And no.
Instead my mouth formed the word, “Sure.”
“What happened to my cookies? Dan made me leave mine behind.”
“I ate them and I don’t even feel bad about it. You should know better than to leave me in a room with sweet confections.” I focused on trying to get the netting away from my hair. It was catching on a couple of the bobby pins.
“Do you need help?”
“I’ve got it,” I told him, hoping that was true. If it wasn’t, I was going to have to sleep sitting up because there was no way I could let him put his fingers in my hair. “Why do we even have mosquito netting? There’s no mosquitoes.”
He went over to his cot and lay down, his feet hanging off the edge. “There are, but they’re farther inland. This part of the island has fire ants, cockroaches, rats, sometimes scorpions. The worst, though, is the foot-long centipedes.”
I finally got the last bit of netting free from my hair, but his words made my hands drop down to my sides. “You’re making that up.”
“I’m absolutely not. They have a nasty bite and they’re not afraid of people.”
My eyes went wide and I clamped my mouth shut. I pulled my legs in close and wrapped my arms around them. I started surveying the ground and the tent walls. The ceiling. Centipedes could climb upside down, couldn’t they?
Camden turned his head toward me. “Wait, are you scared?”
“Yes, like any reasonable person would be. Insects should not be twelve inches long!”
“Is it wrong that I find this cute?”
What was wrong with him? “Yes, that is wrong. I’m freaking out. Why would you think that’s cute?”
“Because you always seem so ready to take on the whole world. It’s cute that there’s something that scares you.”
“So many things scare me! Clowns! Crocodiles! Zombies! And now foot-long centipedes with venomous bites!”
He turned on his side, propping his head upon his hand. “The hotels do a really good job when it comes to pest control. I don’t think you have to worry.” He paused a beat and then asked, “Why are you scared of zombies?”
“Because if they ever become real, people should have a healthy respect and fear of them.”
“Logical. I like that about you, too.”
I grabbed for the blanket and shook it out, making sure there were no bugs of death hiding inside it. When it seemed clear, I wrapped it around my shoulders. “Does anything scare you?”
He looked down, like he was considering something. “Dan’s mom dying.”
This. I’d been wondering about this very thing. I knew I had to tread carefully, but I couldn’t keep my question to myself. “What about your own parents?”
“My mom left right after I was born. She decided she didn’t want to be a mother and I’ve never spoken to her. She signed away her parental rights. I don’t even know if she’s still alive. My dad was in a bad car accident and died when I was thirteen and since I didn’t have any other family, Dan’s parents took me in. They weren’t well off, but Dan and I never wanted for anything.”
“Wow. I’m really sorry.” I’d kind of suspected something along those lines. I was struck by the passion in his voice, and how he would share something so personal with me. He had no ulterior motive for telling me about his life—the charade was over. He just wanted me to know, to share a piece of himself. It made me feel more connected to him.
“I feel like I owe Dan and his family. The company going public is my chance to give them the world. To make sure Irene has the absolute best medical care.”
Did he not understand that he was enough for them? “You know you don’t owe them anything. It’s so obvious that she loves you like a son and that Dan thinks of you as his brother. I’m sure that all they want is for you to be happy.”
He rolled onto his back. “I’ll be happy when I know they’re taken care of.”
“I admire that about you.” It felt like all I did was give him a hard time, so when he did something heroic that got me all weak kneed, I should probably share. “How hard you work for other people.”
“Aren’t you the same way?”
“I try to be. I don’t know if I always succeed.” Like now, when I was letting my own personal desires get in the way of the job I was supposed to be doing.
Although, if I wanted to be technical about it, the night was officially over. We’d put on a show for Sadie’s followers—sung songs, made s’mores, had a ridiculous pillow fight.
I was off the clock. The rest of the night belonged to me and I could spend it however I wanted.
And what I wanted was to be here, in this tent, with Camden. I was understanding that illicit feeling of excitement Sadie had expressed. I had a handsome man in my tent. If only the girls I’d gone to summer camp with could see me now.
I’d just have to do my best to ignore the possible crawly, invasive predators.
Camden let out a groan and got up, stripping the cot and throwing his bedding on the floor.
“What are you doing?”
“I can’t spend the entire night with half my body hanging off the bed.”
This also meant that he’d gone from being four feet away to right next to my cot. I lay down, turning on my side so that I could face him. “But you’re going to sleep on the ground?”
He could hear the distaste in my voice. “Weren’t you the one who grew up going camping?”
“I went to camp, not camping. Very different things. But that’s also how I know how much I despise the entire thing. Years of experience. This is why people made civilization. So that we wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground anymore.”
He put his pillow under his head. “Think of it as an adventure.”
“I think of it as a pain in my butt. Do you know what doesn’t have mosquito netting?”
“Is it your bed in the hotel?”
“It is my bed in my hotel room,” I confirmed.
“But you don’t get to be close to nature in your hotel room.”
That was the entire point. “Nature and I already have a good relationship, thanks. I stay indoors and nature keeps to itself. Something about this feels unsafe.”
He grinned at me, looking like he was enjoying our conversation. I was having a fun time, too. “What’s unsafe? Besides the bugs, which I don’t think will be an issue?”
“Um, have you never seen a horror movie? We’re all sitting ducks out here.”
“You think a serial killer is going to tear through here and get us all?”
I nodded. “That’s exactly what could happen. We get lulled into a false sense of security by chocolate chip cookies and then bam!”
“You ate my cookies.”
“I guess that means you’ll be ready if it does happen. Honestly, you should be thanking me for not letting you get sucked in by them.”
“Rachel, you do know that there’s an entire children’s fairy tale about not eating sweets that don’t belong to you?”
I wagged my finger at him. “The moral of that story is about not eating sweets you find in weird places. Like attached to a house. Plus, there aren’t any witches here.”
“Just deadly centipedes and serial killers,” he said with a smile.
“Exactly.”
I put my hand over the side of the cot because I wanted to be closer to him. I saw the way he studied my hand, as if he were considering reaching out to take it. I held my breath, mentally encouraging him to do it.
Instead he folded his hands over his chest, looking straight up at the ceiling. “Are you planning on doing the sunrise yoga?”
“The only thing I want to be doing at sunrise is sleeping,” I told him. “I’m not really one for greeting the sun, either. Which you can tell from me being so pale.”
“Are you anti-yoga, too?”
“If I’m going to pretend to work out, it’s going to be actual exercise.”
He laughed and then said, “Yoga can be pretty intense. Have you tried it?”
“I’ve had to bend over to pick up the TV remote after I dropped it, and based on that experience, I don’t think yoga’s for me.”
He tilted his face back toward mine, and there was something in his eyes I didn’t recognize, a feeling that eluded description. “Putting everything else aside, I want to say that I like being with you.”
“I like being with you, too.” It felt safe enough to say. But those things he wanted to put aside? They were too big for us to ignore indefinitely.
My phone buzzed, reminding me that there was a real world beyond this one. I sat up and scooted down the length of the cot until I reached the canvas tote that had my things in it. I rummaged around and discovered my extra room key, the one I always kept in my pocket. I grabbed it and then located my phone in my purse.
It was a text from Mandy asking me to meet her in the lobby immediately. “Uh-oh. I have to go.”
“What’s up?”
“I think something’s going on with Sadie’s mom.” I put my keycard and my phone into the pocket of my pajamas.
“I’ll come with you,” he offered. I knew I should probably turn him down, but I rationalized my negative feelings away by considering that I might need his help. I had no idea what I was walking into. And Camden seemed reliable enough.
“Okay. But we can’t let Troy catch us. He’s out there patrolling the border like he’s in the secret police and apparently forcing people to go back to their tents.”
“We’re on a secret spy mission, then.”
“I’m not a spy!” I protested but he ignored me as he crawled over to the tent entrance. He stayed low, peering through the flaps.
“It looks safe to me, let’s go.”
Then he grabbed my hand and I didn’t even have a chance to register the sensations flooding through me because we were running across the grass toward the hotel, both of us crouched over. I wasn’t sure how that was supposed to help, and I couldn’t help but giggle as we ran.
When we got through the lobby doors, I noticed the curious looks from the different staff members and guests as Camden held up both his arms and yelled, “Made it!”
I didn’t get a chance to laugh because Mandy was waiting near the front desk, looking serious. I made my way over to her. “What’s going on?”
“She’s drunk. The concierge is helping me get her room key. I know I could go ask that wedding planner, but then Sadie would find out and I want her to have this one night where she doesn’t have to worry.”
“Where is Brandy?” I asked.
“In the hallway on the fourth floor. She raided a mini-bar restock trolley. I’m so sorry. I was watching her and then she said she wanted to go for a walk and I believed her and—”
I put my hands on Mandy’s shoulders. “You didn’t do anything wrong and this isn’t your fault. Camden and I will go get her to her room while you grab the key. Meet us there.”
She nodded, wiping away tears from her eyes. I wished there were a way to make Brandy see the damage she was doing to her family, how much her addiction hurt the people she claimed to love.
Camden had come up behind me and gave Mandy his room number and full name. “You tell the concierge to bill all of the expenses to me. I don’t want Dan or Sadie to know about this.”
That made my heart flutter in my chest. If I hadn’t been attracted to him before ... this would have pushed me over the edge. “We have to go to the fourth floor,” I said, telling my surging hormones to behave.
I tried to fill him in on how bad things had been with Brandy during the events this week, and how I’d taken it as my personal responsibility to try to keep her sober for Sadie’s sake.
“That’s not your job,” he told me as we walked out of the elevator.
Only, it was. And I wasn’t doing so hot.
We came around the corner and found Brandy surrounded by mini-bottles of alcohol. I glanced at them. Rum, vodka, tequila, whiskey—it was like she was trying to host a United Nations summit in her stomach. At some point her liver was going to declare its independence and flee her body in order to save itself.
I berated myself for my mental unkindness, but gallows humor had often been my go-to when I felt this stressed and upset. I knew alcoholism was a disease and that I should be more patient with her. “Come on,” I said to Camden, “We’ve got to get her up.”
Camden reached down and hefted her up easily, getting her into a standing position. It was so nice having an extra set of hands to help me. Somebody else who was willing to shoulder the burden. I was really grateful for Mandy and her personal connection to the situation, but having Camden here to help was making a world of difference.
He put one of her arms around his shoulders and I got on her other side, doing the same thing. We supported her weight between us, with him bearing most of it.
“This is why I like hanging out with you, Rachel. Nothing but nonstop excitement.”
I told him to hush as we walked back toward the elevators.
“Are you trying to tell me I don’t look good on this white horse?”
“Yes, and all that humility is very becoming,” I said. His words reminded me of Krista’s comments earlier about him being a knight in shining armor and made me suspicious that she might be having conversations with him behind my back.
Brandy decided to join the conversation. “Hey! What’s happening!” Her words were slurred, but it was easy enough to make them out.
“We’re taking you back to your room,” I told her. “You were passed out in a hallway.”
“I’m not drunk!” she yelled. “Do you hear me? I’m not drunk!”
“Yep,” Camden said. “We hear you loud and angry.”
She seemed to realize who I was, because she shifted from anger to glee and said, “Hi there, alcohol warden! I broke out of jail!”
The elevator arrived and we maneuvered her into it. I let out a deep sigh instead of responding to her jab. This whole situation just sucked.
Brandy wiggled against us, trying to break free but lacking the strength. “I don’t need your help.”
I let out a yelp as she stepped down hard on my foot. “Ow! This must be what it feels like to be the mother of an ungrateful child.”
Camden appeared concerned. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. But at this point I’m worried that a smaller Brandy is going to come out of her mouth and try to bite my head off.”
He grinned. “I always appreciate a good sci-fi reference.”
Mandy was waiting for us at the door. Her relief at seeing us was evident, and she quickly opened the door. “In here.”
“Mandy! How ya doing?” Brandy asked as we helped her into the room.
“I can’t believe you’ve been drinking,” her sister snapped back.
“Only liquor, I promise.” Then Brandy laughed hysterically as we helped her over to the bed. She slid out of our grasp, collapsing on top of the blanket.
“What now?” Camden whispered to me and I shrugged.
Mandy overheard us. “I need to go back to my tent and grab my thyroid medication. I’m planning on staying here tonight to keep an eye on her. I’ll make sure she gets to the sunrise yoga thing tomorrow morning.”
“I can help,” I offered.
“It’s okay. I’ve been dealing with this my entire life and she’s my responsibility.”
Brandy should be responsible for herself, but it wasn’t my place to say anything.
Mandy continued, “If you guys can stay here a second, I’ll be right back.”
“Sure thing,” Camden said.
The sound of the door slamming shut seemed to rouse Brandy. She started taking off her glamping pajamas, throwing them on the floor. Camden shielded his eyes, and fortunately she was wearing underwear.
Then she leaned over the bed and threw up directly on her pajamas, as if that had been her intent all along.
The smell was almost enough to make me puke, too.
This, unfortunately, happened to be one of my areas of expertise. Taking care of drunk people. I looked around and spotted an empty bag in the trash can. I pulled it out and then placed the pajamas inside, tying off the bag.
I placed the bag inside the bathroom and then washed my hands.
When I rejoined Camden I felt like I needed to apologize. “I’m sorry you had to deal with me last night when I was like this.”
“You were nothing like this,” he countered. “But if she’s supposed to go to that yoga thing tomorrow, isn’t Sadie going to wonder what happened to her pajamas?”
I hadn’t even considered that. “I’ll give her mine. They might be a little big on her, but it’s better than nothing.”
“And how are you going to explain your lack of pink jammies?”
“I’ll tell her I got marshmallow and chocolate on them. Better for Sadie to think I was clumsy than that her mother got wasted. But I don’t really want to walk around the hotel half-naked.”
“Here. Wear this.”
Then he took off his pajama shirt, handing it to me.
My jaw practically flew to the floor once I witnessed the glorious hotness on display in front of me.