“Nothing,” I muttered.
“Looks like something happened. You look like you’re trying not to confess to a crime.”
Violet and Fifi erupted into giggles.
“She slept with Carson!” Violet blurted.
“VI!” I shrieked.
Beck froze. Blinked. Blinked again. “Wait— Carson? Like guide Carson? Like tall, silent, broody, mountain man Carson?”
I covered my face again. “Please stop saying words.”
“Oh damn,” Beck said. “So that’s why he was all weird the other night.”
“What?” I yelped. “Weird how?”
“Oh, nothing,” he said too casually. “Just… pacing outside his cabin like he was preparing a speech or rehearsing a breakup or something.”
I choked. “A breakup? You just said… we’re not even. That’s not—”
Beck grinned. “Man’s in a blender.”
Violet nodded sympathetically. “So is Sienna.”
“I’m not,” I insisted to the heavens.
“Yes, you are,” all three said.
I groaned into my hands. “He doesn’t need my help with the trips. He’s good at what he does. Better than good. And I told him he didn’t need me, and now things are weird and awkward and…”
“And you like him,” Fifi finished again.
I rested my head gently on the counter.
Beck clapped my back. “Hey. Don’t worry. If things go horribly wrong, the zebra will comfort you.”
“Oh my god,” I muttered. “I’m moving to Alaska permanently.”
Violet leaned against the counter, arms crossed, grin wide. “So when are you telling him?”
I shot upright, horrified. “Never!”
“Sienna,” Fifi said softly, “you’re twitching again.”
“No, I’m not!”
My knee twitched.
Everything on me was twitching.
Violet sighed dramatically. “You can’t hide it. He likes you. You like him. You’re on three more trips together. This is going to get messy. But maybe… good messy.”
I folded my arms so tight my ribs protested. “It’s not going to be anything. It’s done. It was one time. Heat-of-the-moment wilderness insanity. He probably regrets it.”
Even as I said it, my stomach twisted.
Because Carson Reed did not strike me as a man who regretted things.
