His smile pauses halfway. “There—therehaven’tbeen other birds, right?”
“Only people who help build a fire to cook dinner get answers to that question.”
“You’re so mean.”
If you’d told me two weeks ago I’d feel like the luckiest woman in the world when Oliver Cumberland teased me about being mean, I would’ve laughed until I choked.
But the glint in his hazel eyes and the curve of his lips and the way smiling makes him almost look his own age—this isn’t a road trip effect.
This is just Oliver.
Being who he’s free to be when it’s the two of us, alone, in the middle of nowhere.
No family expectations. No job expectations. No worries about anything at all.
Goddess knows he wouldn’t put on airs for me. Pretend he’s happy when he’s not. Bend over backward to put my comfort ahead of his own.
And that—that knowledge that I like him, this man that he’s becoming, the man he’s always had inside of him, the man he’s finally free to be, coupled with the knowledge that this can’t last—means as much as I’m happy for him, I’m sad for me too.
My smile back is forced as I push up off the ground and head to the car for the rest of the supplies we picked up at ValuKart, and yes, I’m running away from my own feelings. “If you have any energy left, go gather some sticks for kindling. We need smaller stuff if we’re going to make this firewood work.”
I hear rustling behind me, and I know he’s following directions.
“You make fires often?” he asks me.
“When I go camping.”
“You camp often?”
“I got into it maybe a year after my parents cut me off. Some of my coworkers invited me. I try to go with them a few times every summer now. It can make your neck hurt, but also, there’s nothing like sleeping in the fresh air under the stars to put your life in perspective when things are shitty.”
“Are things shitty now?”
“No. Just a general observation. And things don’t have to be shitty for camping to be amazing. Tonight, for instance. Tonight, camping will be amazing because we’re doing it becauseI won.”
“Only because you left fifty grand at that pinecone museum. They won’t know what to do with fifty grand.”
“They figured out how to do enough with pinecones to make a museum. I think they’ll figure out how to efficiently use fifty grand.”
I move things around in the trunk to give myself space to spread out a tablecloth and prep dinner here instead of on the ground,oofing when I attempt to move the last and biggest duffel of cash.
“Why is this last bag heavier than the other two?” I call to Oliver.
A noise that sounds like a snort of laughter answers me, so I glance back at him.
He’s gathered a good pile of sticks that he’s holding in both hands, and he’s laughing.
Giggling, really.
Full-on snort-giggling.
That’s as much permission as I need, as far as I’m concerned.
I unzip the hard-sided case and pop it open.
Half of it is cash.
The other half, though, buried underneath the cash?—
