Her shoulders jerked into a quick shrug. “According to Jake, you can ask out anybody you want. You can date, kiss whatever girl you happen to be with, and then you can win a truck at the end of the summer. Pretty sweet deal.”
“Is that what you think I’ve been doing?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really care, I guess. I knew better than to agree to this stupid bet with a player.”
I swallowed back the retort rising in my throat. I deserved it. “I broke off the date, Tess. I don’t want to go. I never really wanted to go.”
She held her hands up while she shook her head. “No, please. Don’t break anything off on my account. I’ve been played one too many times by guys like you, and I’m sick of it.”
“Guys like me?”
She nodded, finally meeting my eyes.
“I wasn’t playing you, Tess.” I made a move toward her, but she lurched backward three steps, holding her hands outward.
“No. Stop. Fine, I’ll be honest. I felt stuff…for you. Okay? I thought we had connected, taken this big step forward. But the day after the orchard, you asked another girl out on a date. So, obviously, we were in different places.”
“We’re not in different places,” I stated, heart pounding at my confession.
She stared at me, the hurt in her eyes turning to anger. “You asked her out last week. Last WEEK. That sounds like different places to me.” She turned and yanked at the zipper on my tent. “You were kissing me twenty minutes ago, and you have a date with another girl in a few days.”
“Hada date. And it was dumb. I got scared, and I’m sorry. I don’t like Jen.”
“Quick to change your mind, but I guess that’s pretty on brand with you.”
I jerked back like I’d been scalded. “Hold on a minute, where do you come off judging me like I’m some womanizing jerk? I used to go on a lot of dates, yeah, but that’s not a crime. I wasn’t using anybody or stringing anybody along—”
She held up her hands to stop my words. “Look, it’s fine. I’m not angry, I promise. I knew the bet, but I don’t want to do this anymore. Forget about Jen, but if your solution when things get scary is to run off with the first girl you can find, I don’t want any part of this. Next week, we get our truck from Jake, and then we can be done.”
Done.
She turned around, her movements jerky and stiff as she crawled in the tent. “I’m only sleeping in here because I’d rathernotget eaten by a bear tonight, ok? I’m changing really quick, so don’t come in.”
I blew out a frustrated breath as I waited outside the tent. In a matter of twenty minutes everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong. And it was all my fault. I had been a different person when I asked Jen out a week ago, terrified of a pint-sized blonde who had weaseled her way into my life and turned my world upside down. All summer long I had been stumbling before it finally felt like I had caught my footing this past week. And now, I’d managed to trip myself hard and fast, right over a cliff. I may have felt like a changed man, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be consequences to my previous actions.
I rubbed my hands over my face as I paced the ground outside the tent. It was marketed as a two-man life tent. Which was laughable. It packed snug and tight in a backpack and was meant to keep a person alive in below-freezing temperatures. It could keep a kitten alive in the Arctic, but one idiot male and an angry female, plus luggage, was questionable. It would be hard to not touch her in general, but also, logistically speaking, we would practically have to be cuddling for us both to fit. I had more I needed to say to Tessa, more I wanted to explain, but she was ticked at the moment and rightfully so. I’d wait for a good opening to talk and take it, but if none came until morning, I could wait. I deserved to wait. Besides, no offense to all the relationship counselors out there, but going to bed angry, when I was this attracted to the girl literally millimeters away from me and my wandering hands, would probably be for the best.
If I were a gentleman, I would have volunteered to sleep outside. But deep down, I was also scared of getting eaten by a bear, so when Tessa gave me the all-clear, I crawled inside.
The tiny bit of light left from the sunset had faded, so Tessa had my lantern on and was already wrapped in her sleeping bag, taking up a good three-fourths of the four-foot-wide tent. She was facing the tent wall, her head burrowed under her fluffy sleeping bag, the top of her blonde hair all I could make out.
I was soaking wet, but it didn’t seem like she was going to be spying on me, so I changed and dried off as quickly as I could, kneeling awkwardly in one square foot of space. Because the tent ceiling was so low, I had to lie down on my sleeping bag to pull on my boxers and pants, which meant lying halfway on top of Tessa as well while I yanked them on.
“Ow.” Tessa scooted farther against the wall.
“Sorry, Jailbait, but I gotta have more than two inches.”
“Why are you even changing? I thought you’d be back in the pool with Jen by now.”
I took a deep breath, trying to keep my cool. She was hurting, and I had done that.Me. I had messed up big time. I had zero interest in Jen.Iknew that, but Tessa did not. I was fine with giving her time, but she was throwing accusations at me like she personally knew me to be some sort of man-whore. Like she had expected all along for me to be cheating on her—or whatever we were. It was...aggravating.
“Can we talk, Tess?” I finally asked, keeping my tone neutral.
She didn’t say anything.
I reached into my duffel bag and dumped a sackful of granola bars and sandwiches between us. “You don’t have to talk to me right now, but you do need to eat. I’ve got to put this stuff in the bear box before we go to sleep.” I should have done that as soon as we got to camp, but since learning I would be sharing one tent with Tessa, my mind, understandably, had been otherwise engaged. She didn’t move, didn’t say a word. So, I sat there for a moment, wondering what to do with this livid woman who really needed to eat the peanut butter sandwich I held in my hands inside a flimsy nylon tent deep in bear country. It was then that I realized I would much rather havesomereaction than none at all.
“You ready to eat, Princess?”
