My stomach drops before my brain catches up.
I sit up fast, heart thudding too loud for how quiet the cabin is. Sunlight spills through the curtains in pale stripes. Birds chirp. Somewhere outside, a generator hums and a door creaks open and closes.
I peer out and the lake looks peaceful.
Nothing about it feels peaceful.
I pull on my shorts that I hung to dry, one of Oaks’ shirts, drag my hair into a messy knot and step outside barefoot.
Oaks’s across the clearing with the other officers, cut on, expression carved from stone. Legend’s speaking. Royal’s nearby, still as a shadow. Holler stands with them too, coffee in hand, eyes scanning the treeline like he’s listening to a different story.
Oaks ain’t looking my way.
Not once.
I wait for it anyway. A glance. A flicker. Something private in his face that tells me last night is still ours even if the camp is awake.
Nothing.
When church breaks and men scatter into teams, Oaks walks past me like I’m just another body at camp. No brush of fingers. No quiet word. No secret smile. No hand at my waist guiding me away from the shoreline like he did yesterday.
It’s like last night belonged to someone else.
Lottie watches the whole thing from beside me, her face too knowing, too gentle.
“You okay?” she asks quietly.
“I’m fine,” I say, and the lie comes out smooth because I’ve had practice.
She makes a small sound, half snort, half sigh, but she doesn’t push. Lottie’s the kind of woman who knows when a girl needs space to bleed in private.
I tell myself he is busy.
I tell myself the club comes first.
I tell myself grown men don’t wake up magically different, especially men with a patch and a marriage and a president watching them like a hawk.
But when he passes by again mid-morning and asks Rye about search grids without so much as acknowledging me, something sharp lodges in my ribs.
He got what he wanted.
That thought hits ugly and fast.
He wanted me. He took me. Now he is back to being Vice President, professional and untouchable. The humiliation burns hotter than Bethany ever did, because Bethany’s cruelty is obvious. Bethany’s hatred is loud.
This is quiet.
This feels like being erased.
By lunchtime, two club girls are whispering behind me near the dock. They ain’t even trying to hide it. Their voices float just loud enough to land.
“He don’t keep what he fucks.”
“Flavor of the week.”
I don’t turn around.
I pretend I didn’t hear.
