“Where have you gone so far?”
“Anywhere backpacking hostels are cheap.” She grinned, looking very youthful. Not younger than her age, exactly, but young for her age. “Belize was a favorite. Iceland was another, although that was only three days.”
“Why only three days?”
“I got an insane deal on airfare two years ago, and those were the dates.” She shrugged. “Better something than nothing.”
But his favorite insight was around her rules for pizza toppings, because make-your-own-wood-fired-pizzas were on the dinner menu.
“Wait, let me get this straight,” he said as he rolled his now-empty beer bottle back and forth between his fingertips. “You will eat pineapple on a pizza—in a pinch—but only with barbecue sauce and chicken, no ham in sight?”
“It’s weird with tomato sauce.”
He chuckled. “And the ham thing?”
“I’m just saying it’s not really Hawaiian pizza. Did you know a Canadian invented it? To me, the true island taste is chicken and a spicier sauce.”
“That is complicated. What are your rules around pepperoni?”
She grinned. “You’ll find out at dinner.”
“I guess so.” He laughed. “Cliffhanger.”
She stretched her arms high above her head. “Would you like another beer? It’s almost happy hour.”
He did.
But he also didn’t. “I might take a break before dinner.”
She nodded, her gaze already locked on the main lodge below them. “All right. See you later. I’m going in search of another G&T.”
He walked her as far as the back door, then cut around and skirted along the edge of camp until he found his cabin.
But when he stretched out on his bed, he didn’t like the silence.
He closed his eyes and tried to find some stillness in his thoughts. He failed miserably. Instead of peace, he had pain and confusion and, in an unexpected twist, some curiosity too. He wondered if Grace had already found a new drinking buddy at the bar.
What sort of insanity didStarCrossed-inspired campers get up to at Happy Hour?
He lay there for another fifteen minutes before giving up. He wasn’t going for pre-dinner drinks. He was going to dinner, just a few minutes early. And if he found Grace again, well, he’d have someone to eat dinner with, which certainly wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
Plus then he’d find out what her deal was with pepperoni.
He found her in the lobby of the main lodge, listening with obviously polite-but-not-genuine interest to a group conversation. Her nods were too regular, her gaze not sharp enough.
And when he walked in, her eyes flicked in his direction. She smiled and he returned the gesture.
She excused herself, and relief coursed through him.
“Hey,” she said quietly as she came abreast. “Hoping to be first in the pizza line?”
“Damn straight.”
She laughed, and just like that, he had a dinner date.
No, a dinner partner.
They headed to the dining hall and were the first through the doors when they opened. After setting their drinks on a table, they headed to the pizza stations. It was quite cleverly set up so multiple people could be assembling a pizza at once, which meant Grace disappeared around the far side of the station as he was building the world’s best deluxe pizza.
