Silas
Ifumbledfor the phone on my nightstand in the half-darkness of my room, and answered without checking the caller. “Yeah?”
“Hey, Si. Did I wakeyou?”
Dare sounded surprised and I didn't blame him. I wasn’t really the kind of person who answered the phone on the first ring at sunrise on a Saturday morning. Then again, I didn’t usually spend most of a Friday night staring at my ceiling, so this had been a week of unusualexperiences.
Two weeks, morelike.
I cleared my throat. “Nah, I’m awake. There a problem? Needhelp?”
Herriman-Sizemore State Park, where Dare worked, was relatively small as state parks went and didn’t get a lot of tourists in the shoulder season before peak foliage hit. But every year, there were at least one or two people who wandered off a trail and were too tired, disoriented, or injured to make their way out again. When that happened, the state conservation folks, like Dare, would call in reinforcements from local policedepartments.
It was a sad thought that I actually wouldn’t mind if he was calling me out for something. I needed a distraction, and none of my usual methods were cuttingit.
“Kinda. Actually, I was calling to see if I could talk you into grabbing breakfast with me this morning. I’ve been having a craving for the pancakes at Goode’s. Early bear season starts on Monday, and I feel the need to load up on carbs before I have to deal with thatshit.”
I chuckled. “And to think, you could be working for the FBI right now if you’d just picked the right track out ofcollege.”
“Yeah, right.” Dare sounded amused. “Then I’d be hunting serial killers. I doubt I’d be sleeping better atnight.”
“Any word on the missing camper?” Iasked.
“Meet me at Goode’s,” Dare insisted. “I’ll fill you in on what I know. And you can tell me what the hell is going on withyou.”
I frowned and ran a hand through my hair, which was overdue for a cut. “There’s nothing going on withme.”
“Really? That's not what I'veheard.”
I grimaced, though Dare couldn't see it. “Pretty sure I don’t want to know what you’veheard.”
“I heard you haven’t made plans to come back to Camden and reschedule your date with ReggieCarbury.”
Carbury. That was his name. Like the chocolate, butnot.
I’d considered calling him. Once. Last Saturday night. And then it had occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t mess around with a guy if I couldn’t remember his last name, so I’d deleted Reggie’snumber.
Look who was developingstandards.
“It wasn’t a date,” I informed Dare. “I met Reggie for a hookup… and it wasn’t eventhat, in theend.”
“Pardon me,” Dare said. “I forget that for youdatesandhookupsare vastly different things. So, why haven’t you had a hookup re-do? Reggie’s cute. I see him around town sometimes. Seems like just yourtype.”
“Mytype?”
“Cute. Short. Smart. Interested insex.”
This assessment felt vaguely insulting somehow, though it was accurate enough. “I just wasn’t into it, that’s all,” I told Dare. “There’s no deep secret here. We just didn’tmesh.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Dare said. “Carl was at The Dark Horse a couple weeks back and saw you and Reggie, quote, making eyes at one another like they was ready to fuck over thetable.”
“Jesus.”
Dare chuckled. “And since the tables at the Horse are really fucking high, and that would not be remotely comfortable, I can only assume that means you two werevery muchinto eachother.”
I snorted. “Reggie was cute, like you said. But he got pissy when I got called out, and then… well. I realized I just wasn’tinterested.”
“You,” Dare said skeptically. “Youweren’t interested in a hot young teacher who’s interested in you? Because word around town is that he’s tried calling you several times and you haven’t returned hiscalls.”
