I couldn’t go over that river with these guys. We must’ve gone farther than I expected last night, and we discussed our plans before sleeping last night. We were supposed to trek around the last mountain, then they were going to head north where they thought their group was, and I was going to keep going east to where the Mori were.
“Morning!” Spencer held a hand up, bent over by the fire. He was stirring a pot over it. His hair was wet and he had a changed his clothing. Seeing my lingering gaze on his hair, he grinned and pointed to the top of his head. “I took a quick dip. There’s a river half a mile thatta way.” Twisting around, he pointed in the direction I hoped he wouldn’t have. I’d been hoping he said there was a different river. I could’ve led them that way instead, but nope. He’d been closer to the Mori than I ever wanted him to be.
I took a beat and pushed the small panic aside, then I smelled coffee.
Wait—coffee? I sniffed the air, and scrambled out of the tarp. “Oh my God.” I started for him.
Spencer’s grin spread. There was an extra pan sitting at the bottom of his feet and he moved back. “Yep. Instant coffee.” He lifted a spoon of it and poured it into a thermos he’d taken out of his bag. I couldn’t even let him fill it. I grabbed it after the first scoop and guzzled it. “Oh hey.” He laughed, taken aback by my quickness. He blinked a couple times. “You must’ve been out here longer than you thought, huh?”
I closed my eyes, savoring the taste of the coffee grounds. I stuck my nose into the cup and inhaled the aroma of it. My euphoria was back, and I held the thermos back to him, a dreamy smile on my face. “I declare it here and now. I love you.”
“You love me?” he teased back, taking the cup from me.
“And I’ll worship you forever if you have more in there I can drink.”
“Ha!” He was already reaching for the pan. “I’ll take you up on that. I got my heart crushed before going on this trip. Knowing one girl worships me does wonders for my ego.” He poured three more scoops into the thermos before the spoon scraped the bottom of the pan. “Oh.” He peered inside, and grimaced. “It’s half full. Sorry about that.”
He held it out to me, and I took it, sinking down to the ground beside him. Good God. Being The Immortal should’ve allowed me to make coffee out of nothing. I needed to work on that magic. Screw protecting vampires or Kates. I needed to look out for my caffeine needs first.
“Hey,” he called out, turned behind us. “Did you bring more water? Davy loves coffee, apparently.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the same time I heard shoes breaking a twig. Cal was coming back from the river. His hair was wet as well, and he had changed his clothes, too. Both guys were up and ready to go.
Fuck.
“Oh yeah?” Cal ran a hand through his hair, shaking some of the water out. A towel was thrown over his shoulder and he flipped up the end to dry his face. He lifted up his other hand, holding a bucket. “Good thing I brought extra. I figured we’d need it for the pans, too.”
“Sweet ass.” Spencer shifted around, still bent down, and took the water from him once he got to the fire. He pointed to the other pan he’d been stirring. “I splurged this morning. I made the grits.”
“You did?” Cal grabbed his bag and sank down on the other side of the fire. He glanced at me. “Spencer is pulling out all the stops if he made the grits. We were saving it for a celebration day.”
Spencer snorted. “Yeah, when we weren’t lost anymore.” He pointed to me with a wooden spoon. “And thanks to her, we won’t be. Since she came from the west, and knows what’s east of us, we’re pretty sure where our group is. We won’t be lost for long.”
Aaaaand that was my cue. They couldn’t go past the river. “Hey, um.” I lowered the coffee cup. “You know. We could wander north from here. We don’t need to go over the river just yet.”
“The fuck?”
Cal shared in Spencer’s sentiment, frowning instantly. “Uh . . . why?”
“I mean, we might’ve overshot our destination a bit. I mean,” Fucking A. I was horrible at lying. I felt my cheeks growing red. “Well, I mean . . . I recognize that river.”
The two guys shared a look. Both furrowed their eyebrows forward.
Spencer echoed my words, “You ‘recognize’ the river—”
“—that you haven’t seen yet?” Cal finished for him.
I couldn’t squirm under their gazes. “Yeah.” I shrugged, glancing down at the cup on the ground. “How many rivers are there? And I recognize this area, too.” I gestured to the trees around us. “We’re closer than we realized. I think you guys need to head straight north.” I paused a beat, swallowing over a knot in my throat. “And, you know, maybe steer clear of the river . . . if at all possible?”