CAMILLE
It's been two weeks since I signed up for Mountain Mates, and I have a confession to make.
I am crushing hard over a stranger on the internet.
The butterflies are back and I’m a giddy mess.
Wild@Hearthas become the best part of my day. And yes, the bar is admittedly low, considering my day includes a crazed class of third graders and my kid who communicates primarily in grunts, huffs, and eye rolls. But still.
It started slowly…cautious messages back and forth, the way you'd test a bridge before crossing—a little weight here, a little there, ready to pull back if anything started to creak. He was funny from the jump, but not in that try-hard way where you can feel the guy might be rehearsing his material. More like the humor just falls out of him, and before I know it I'm laughing at my phone at 10 p.m. while a stack of ungraded worksheets judges me from the coffee table.
He asks thoughtful questions.What's the hardest part of your week? What's something you're proud of that nobody notices? If you could take one whole day just for yourself, what would you do with it?
And he listens. That's the part that makes me swoon.
I'll vent about Simon's attitude (being careful not to use my son’s name, of course) or a parent conference that made me want to crawl under my desk, and he doesn't try to offer solutions or give me advice unless I ask for it first.
He’ll say something to the effect ofthat sounds exhausting and you didn't deserve it, then crack a joke so perfectly timed it releases the pressure valve that was about to blow.
Last week I told him about a mother who came in for a conference and spent fifteen minutes telling me her son's behavioral issues were because my classroom "lacked structure." Ma'am, I have a color-coded behavior chart, a noise-level thermometer, and a chill-out corner with a stuffed sloth named Garth. There is structure. Your kid licked his markers just for the thrill of it.
Wildfire's response was:Please tell me Garth has tenure. That sloth is doing more emotional labor than most adults I know.
I laughed so hard I snorted. Alone in my bed…developing feelings for a faceless stranger whose screen name sounds like a candle from Bath & Body Works.
Then right after the joke, he added:Seriously though, you show up every single day for other people's kids, and then you go home and show up for your own. That's something to be proud of. I hope someone reminds you of that.
I stared at that message until my screen went dark.
And somewhere along the way, between the late-night laughing and the honest conversations and the feeling of beingseenfor the first time in years, the flirting started.
Not all at once. It crept in from the side door. A compliment tucked inside a joke. Agoodnight, gorgeousthat made me read it way more times than I should’ve. He called metroubleonenight after I teased him about something, and it ignited in my chest like a lit match.
None of it was explicit. That's the thing. He never crossed a line or said anything that would make me blush if someone read it over my shoulder. But there was an edge underneath everything—this low, steady hum ofyou turn me onwoven into the most innocent exchanges.
He'd describe a meal he was cooking and somehow the way he described the heat of the pan and the patience of a slow simmer made my skin prickle. I'd tell him about my day and he'd sayI wish I could've been thereand the sweetness of it would knock the air out of me.
It was as if I was standing too close to a fire on a cold night. You know you should step back, but the warmth feels so good you stay, and the heat keeps building so gradually that by the time you realize you're burning, you don't want it to stop.
I'd catch myself rereading his messages during the day…at my desk during lunch, in the pickup line at Simon's school, in the grocery store aisle.
The anticipation alone is intoxicating. That fizzy, breathless feeling of knowing a message is coming, knowing it will make me smile or make my stomach flip or make me press my phone to my chest and close my eyes.
I'd forgotten what desire felt like when it's still building. When it's all tension and no release and every word is a tease whether it means to be or not. It reminds me of the first chapters of a really good romance novel—before anything happens, when it's all loaded glances and almost-touches and the promise of more.
Except this isn’t fiction. This is real life…and the promise of more is starting to keep me up at night.
Saturday morning, Beth convinces me to go to the farmers market downtown.
"Fresh air, local crafts, and those little Swedish cinnamon buns you love from Falk’s Fikabröd," she says, as if she's assembling a bribery package. It works, because I'm easy and thosekanelbullarare incredible.
The market is crowded in that pleasant, small-town way, with everyone moving slowly, examining tomatoes as if they're choosing engagement rings, cute dogs in bandanas, and children weaving between people as they laugh.
Beth is on a mission for some specific goat cheese that Aiden wants for a recipe, and I'm trailing behind her with a coffee, content to be outside and not thinking about kids and multiplication tables. I let Simon stay home, since I’d only be gone for a couple hours and he wanted nothing to do with me anyway.
"Aiden's been experimenting with flatbreads," Beth explains, inspecting a log of chèvre like it's a diamond under a loupe. "He saw a video. There's rosemary involved. Hell, I was in after the word 'caramelized.'"
"You're dating a man who caramelizes things on purpose. I hope you know how lucky you are. The most ambitious thing in my kitchen is a microwave timer."
