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.”