By evening, the camp finds its rhythm again.
I sit just beyond the edge of the firelight, letting my body finish catching up to itself. Sunburned. Scraped. Wrung out. Nothing that won’t pass.
Sitting still near her is a different kind of endurance test.
She moves through my peripheral vision, and my body tracks her without permission—the sway of her braid against her back, the efficient grace when she crouches to inspect the fish, firelight tracing the line of her jaw. I’ve spent months training myself not to reach for her. The restraint feels like being underwater, manageable until it isn’t.
I shift my weight. Plant my heels. Keep my hands loose at my sides. Breathe through the want that’s been building since this afternoon—since she stood close enough that my skin remembered her, since she ran a towel down my chest and shoulders, slow and thorough, fingers pressing into muscle like she trusted me not to move. Like she trusted herself not to notice what it did to me.
I almost leaned into her then.
Not enough to be obvious. Just enough to ruin everything. One breath taken wrong, one inch crossed, and I would’ve pulled her in, broken the careful distance she’d drawn for us. It took everything I had to stay where I was. To let her touch me without taking more.
The cost of that restraint sits low and constant, a dull ache under the skin.
Tonight, she doesn’t look my way often. But when she does, it lands heavy. Her gaze catches, lips parting before she remembers herself—a hitch of breath, the same one she gave this afternoon when the towel paused for half a second too long. Then she looks away, sharp and controlled, like she’s caught herself doing something private.
I don’t chase it.
I stay where I am and let the want stretch between us. Let her feel it too. Let the decision be hers.
It’s the only way she’ll let me back in.
I’m still here. Still holding. Willing to stay that way as long as it takes.
Later, when the kids are zipped into tents and the radios fall silent, the night loosens. The Delta exhales. Crickets take over. Firelight settles into a low, steady glow.
Wren rinses her hands at the shoreline, stacks the last of the dishes. I watch without staring. Give her the space.
When she is finished, she sits beside me but leaves a careful inch between us. Close enough that I feel her pull. Far enough to pretend it’s nothing.
I turn my head slowly.
“Hey,” I say.
She meets my eyes. “Hey.”
Silence stretches. The firelight flickers between us, painting her skin in gold and shadow. I notice the details—the way she’s worrying her bottom lip, the pulse visible at her throat, how her fingers keep flexing as if itching to touch me again.
My shoulder adjusts instinctively toward her. She mirrors it—a small shift, barely there—closing the space between us by an inch.
Her breathing has changed. Shallower. Faster.
Mine too.
I’m painfully aware of how close she is. Close enough that I could trace the line of her jaw with my finger, press my lips to the frantic pulse jumping in her throat. I can smell the river on her skin, threaded with her scent, the one I’ve been trying to forget for months.
It would be easy to move. Easier than it was this afternoon. Easier than being still while her hands were on me and pretending I didn’t want more.
Her eyes drop to my mouth.
When they lift again, her pupils are wide and dark.
“Kieran—” she starts.
I wait. Let her finish.
She doesn’t. Her gaze flicks down, takes in my hands at my sides, the way they haven’t moved. The deliberate stillness. The choice.
