“Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it,” I say, fighting embarrassment.
“As long as you can carry it,” she grins before laying her hand gently on Olly’s shoulder.“I’m pet-sitting Buster for the weekend.He’s inside, if you wish to say hello.”
Olly gawks and bolts for the fairy house.
Venus’s light smile turns in my direction as I take a hit off my inhaler.Her brow creases in the middle.“The air quality is poor today.Controlled burns over the river.Are you sure we should do this tonight?”
I inhale deeply and motion to the cross-body bag around my chest.“Yep.I’ve got every asthma medication known to man, and I’ve got you.I’ll be fine.”
Her smirk grows.“We can always retreat to the house.You’ll tell me, right?”
“I promise.”I smile, leaning over to kiss her cheek.
She blushes, glancing over her shoulder to see that Olly isn’t watching.I hook my hand around her waist and tug her closer.“Don’t worry.I’ve talked to Olly about us.”
“You did?What did you say?”
“The truth.That we’re more than friends—we always have been—and that we’re spending time together while you’re here.He knows you might leave for more adventures, and he understands.”
She relaxes in my arms.“I don’t know what to say.”
“No need to say anything.”My forehead rests against hers.“I had to tell him something.I can’t go a whole campout without touching you.”
Her cheeks turn adorably pink.“I think I want to stay.”She blurts her declaration so quickly that it sounds like one word with syllables tumbling over each other.
“That’s… We’d love that.I’d love that.”Relief spreads through me like an ocean breeze on a sweltering day, and I try to hold it in.But my lips magnetize to hers, and overjoyed in our embrace, I lift her off her feet.
She laughs, her hair dangling around us.
“Dad!”Olly rushes from the house with Buster, leashed and tied to his waist.“Buster wants to help set up camp.”
Buster barks as if to say,“Yep.”
I set her down, but my hands stay fixed on her sides like I can’t let go.“Sounds good.Grab whatever you can carry.”
Venus leads us to the outskirts of her father’s garden, where tall pines and scraggly live oaks take over, and she’s outlined a path into the woods with solar lights wedged into the ground to see at night.
When we can no longer see the fairy house, she stops beneath a familiar live oak tree, sprawled and imposing with its thick, low branches and drapes of Spanish moss.She stands in front of it with her hands on her hips.
“Look familiar?”she asks.
“Absolutely.Olly, this is the tree Venus fell out of the day we met.”
“It’s also where we built the lean-to that sheltered us in that storm.Do you know that story, Olly?”she asks.
He nods with a wide-eyed expression before he pushes his glasses up further on his nose.“Oh, yeah.Dad said he was terrified.”
“Notterrified,” I correct as Venus gives me an amused look.“Concerned.”
“I was also veryconcerned,” she admits, “but we got through it together.”
Olly drops his backpack and runs around the tree with Buster.
Venus has already prepped the area.A wheelbarrow of bricks, sand, and firewood sits away from the tree to build a fire pit.The ground has been raked free of rocks and sticks to make way for our tent.She’s even slung her hammock between two smaller trees nearby.
We set up the tent first—a six-person, domed mega-tent.It has windows, a ventilated peaked ceiling, a shaded porch with banners, and I can stand up in it.
“Wow, that’s a tent,” she says.“Are you expecting guests?”
