Cocky Bastard(13)

“What are we stopping for?”

“Supplies.” He parked the car. “I’ll be out in ten minutes. You can stay with Billy the Kid so no one steals him.”

I was outside the car stretching when Chance returned, both of his arms filled with bags. I bent at the waist, finishing a rotation of stretches and leaned to my right to greet him.

“What is all that?”

He didn’t respond for a minute. I bobbed up and down slightly, leaning into my bend and then looked up at his face to find what had made him quiet. He was looking right down my shirt. It wasn’t his fault; I was basically putting it on display right before his eyes. My shirt gaped in the front giving him an eyeful of my cleavage. I stopped bouncing. Eventually, his eyes lifted and found mine watching him. Our eyes locked. I knew that look. I’d seen it before. In the mirror after I’d gotten a look at his ass.

He shook his head and blinked a few times. “Gear.”

“What kind of gear?”

“Tent, lantern, kindling wood, sleeping bags.” He shrugged. “Basic camping supplies.”

“For what?”

“Camping.”

“You’re going camping?”

He shook his head and shoved the bags wherever he could find any free space. The trunk and backseat were packed to the brim when I started this trip. And now I had an extra passenger, a goat…and apparently camping gear. “We’re going camping.”

“Ummm…I don’t camp.”

“Then Curry over here.” He pointed to the backseat. “Is sleeping in the car.” Chance closed the trunk, and his hands went to his hips. “What’s it going to be, Aubrey? Camping or he sleeps in the car alone.”

Apparently I was going camping. There’s a first time for everything.





Chapter Five


“I take it you’ve done this before?” We’d only been at the campsite for a half hour, and Chance had already started a fire and was almost done pitching the first tent.

“Every summer with my family. My dad took my sister and I camping every year in the Outback. Best memories of my life. It wasn’t fake camping like this, either.”

“Fake?”

“No numbered campsites, bathrooms and security. We did real camping. What about you? What soured you to camping?”

“Nothing. I’ve just never done it before.” Chance finished putting up the first tent and stepped back, admiring his handywork. “That tent’s huge.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that,” he snickered.

I shook my head. “Why did you buy such big tents?”

“Damn it!” Chance yelled as he swatted a mosquito from his face. The boisterous sudden rant scared poor Esmerelda Snowflake, and she froze in place and proceeded to tip over and faint. We got a good laugh over that one.

Chance threw some more wood on the fire and sat down. “What about the other tent?” I asked, looking over the fire at him. I really hoped he wasn’t expecting me to attempt to figure that one out myself.

“What other tent?”

“You only bought one tent?”

He pulled a Pixy stick out from his back pocket and tilted his head back, shaking some of the sugary powder into his mouth. “Tent has two rooms. There’s a divider. You and your son can sleep on one side. I’ll sleep on the other.”

I didn’t really have a right to complain, seeing as he was doing all the work and paid for all of the supplies. So I didn’t, for a change.

We munched on what would normally be a month’s supply of carbs for me and sat around the campfire. Chance peeled a stick with a pocketknife and popped a marshmallow on the end before offering it to me. He really was good at this stuff.

“So, I’ll be sharing a tent with you tonight, we adopted a pet together, and I don’t even know what you do for a living?”

“I guess you can say I’m retired.”

“Retired?” At what? Twenty-six, twenty-seven?”

“Twenty-eight,” he corrected.

“Oh. Well that makes it better.” It was dark, even with the light of the fire. I lifted my roasted marshmallow to check it. The color was browned nicely on one side, the other side was still white. “So what did you retire from?”

“Soccer.”

“You played professionally?”

“In Australia. Yes. Well, not for long.”

“What happened?”

“Torn ACL.”

“It couldn’t be repaired?”

“I had a few surgeries. But it tore again.”

“I’m sorry. How long did you get to play for?”

“One game.”

“One game? You mean you tore it in your first professional game?”