I glance at the bags again. Then back at her. Then at the bags.
“You’re going camping.”
“Yes.”
“At the risk of repeating myself… voluntarily?”
She scoffs. “Obviously.”
I rub my jaw, trying to picture Ivy surviving in the wild.
I lean against the counter, smirking. “Are you sure you don’t just want to go back to making more clay gnomes? That seemed less… life-threatening.”
Ivy sticks her tongue out at me. “My gnome work is thriving, thank you for asking”
I raise an eyebrow. “Thriving?”
She nods solemnly. “I may or may not have steadily added to my army. They are currently gathering on my windowsill, awaiting further orders.”
I shake my head, “Remind me to stay on their good side.”
She grins, but then her expression hardens. “But no, Theo. This time, I am serious. I am going camping.”
I watch as she folds her arms, her shoulders squaring like she’s expecting me to challenge her.
I sigh. “Ivy, if I’ve learned one thing about you, it’s that when you put your mind to something, you will do it. No matter how ridiculous or ill-advised it may be.”
She props her chin up on her hands and looks at me from under her eyelashes. “But?”
I hesitate, rubbing the back of my neck. “But… unlike baking or yoga or—God help us all—the gnome factory, if something goes wrong with this, you could be in serious trouble.”
Her eyes narrow. “You think I can’t do it.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s exactly what you meant.”
I exhale. How do I tell her that I just want to keep her safe with every fibre of my being without sounding like a bloody creep or, even worse, anything more than a friend? “I mean that you’re going into the middle of nowhere, in a tent, alone.”
Her chin juts out defiantly. “Plenty of people do that.”
“Yes, but plenty of people also end up lost, soaked, frozen, or eaten by foxes.”
She snorts. “I think I can handle a fox, Theo. I live in London... plenty of foxes around here.”
I drag a hand down my face. “That’s not the point. Look, I get it—you want to prove something, and I know you can do this. But camping isn’t just a hobby you can abandon if it goes wrong. If you mess up a cake, fine, you bin it. If you fall out of tree pose in yoga, no one dies. But if you get stranded in the middle of nowhere with no phone signal and a tent that won’t go up…” I shudder thinking of everything that could happen to her. All the nutters that could hide behind the bushes and—Theo now you are losing it!
One look at her tells me I won’t win this argument. I have to admire her determination even if it scares me more than I care to admit.
“I’ll be fine,” she grins and chugs back the rest of her espresso.
I nod slowly, biting back everything else I want to say. I cross my arms, watching as Ivy absentmindedly traces the rim of her coffee cup, her expression shifting between confidence and the realisation that she might not have thought this through.
“Alright,” I say, nodding at the mountain of gear beside her. “When and where is this grand expedition happening?”
She hesitates. “Uh… sometime in the next few weeks?”
“That’s vague.”
