Leaning down, I wrapped my hands around his face. “You know, this place is pretty fantastic. “
He chuckled softly. “Glad you think so.”
My head tilted, my lips hovering above his. “Now shut up and kiss me.”
His hand came around my neck, my name falling from his lips like it was a prayer. “Shutting up.”
Grant and I had shared many moments like this, but certain ones hit me in a profound way. Like this one. Kissing my husband inside the truck I remembered him working on with his dad when the man wasn’t too drunk to see, after having just blown up our personal house of horrors, right before we were about to eat with our daughter and her boyfriend.
These were the moments a person lived for. The moments a person died remembering.
That place between life and death, that was where we were really alive. That was what I’d come to realize. That space between was where all the good stuff happened.
Breaking the kiss, Grant kept his eyes on mine. “I love you so damn much, Ryan. I’d die for you. A million ways, a million times, I’d die for you.”
“I know.” My fingers curled into his face as I kissed him once more. “And I’d live for you. A million ways, a million times, I’d live for you.”
Phoenix is set on hating summer camp. Family summer camp.
Callum knows his future ends one way: a dead end.
What they didn’t count on was each other.
From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nicole Williams, comes a pitch-perfect romance about late nights, first loves, and learning to trust again.
Chapter Three
I’d been all set to hate camp. That was my plan.
It became harder to keep to it once I started to explore the place. The camp might have been covered by trees, and the cabins might have been leaning hard toward the rustic side, and it might have felt like it was an entire world apart from California, but it wasn’t so bad.
Not as bad as I’d imagined when the words family camp and summer break slipped from my parents’ mouths in the same sentence.
I’d only been wandering for a few minutes—I didn’t want my dad to go totally ape-poop waiting for his precious Wi-Fi password—but it was enough for me to realize that Camp SomethingOrOther could have been a lot worse.
Not that that was an endorsement for spending an extra hour past what we had planned, but at least my outlook on the place had improved from worst summer ever to just worst summer this decade.
After weaving around the outskirts of the camp, I meandered down one of the walking paths that looked like it headed toward the center of camp. The place seemed to be arranged like a bike wheel—one large circle of cabins tucked into the trees, with numerous trails connecting the cabins to the hub of the camp.
Once I’d moved past the circle of cabins, the grounds thinned out and a blanket of grass covered the center of camp. It was the kind of grass that made me want to kick my sandals off and walk barefoot through it, wiggling my toes and letting the blades tickle my toes. I missed grass. California and its drought situation made grass ancient history.
I would have been happy just to lie down in the grass and take a nap since I’d slept a total of three hours last night. As I trudged across the lawn, I noticed a large group of campers clustered outside the big building ahead.
One problem, though—the main, if not only, entrance to the dining hall was right behind the campers sprawled on the lawn and listening to what looked to be some kind of lesson on paddling.
I skirted as far around the cluster of campers as I could, hoping I could sneak into the dining hall without anyone noticing. As I got closer, I could hear someone talking to the campers. It must have been one of the counselors, but he was kind of hidden from view. All I could see was one foot sporting a muddy hiking boot, and every few seconds his forearm when a bright yellow paddle would circle into view.
I slowed my pace and adjusted my path so I was closer to the group on the lawn and tuned in to what was being said. It only took a few seconds to figure out nothing more thrilling than paddling was being discussed. He was talking about what to do if you fell from the raft into the river—“just go with the flow,” whatever that meant.
I kept moving toward the dining hall. I didn’t make it far.
Since I was still trying to check out Instructor Paddle Stroke, I missed the step leading to the porch. Well, my eyes missed it, but the toe of my sandal did not.
I went down hard. And loud. Just great, Her Gracefulness has arrived.
I didn’t need to check across the lawn to wonder if anyone had noticed my wipeout. The sudden quiet was all the confirmation I needed—nothing like easing myself into camp life and flying under the radar.