Instead of taking her anger out on Sierra, who didn’t deserve it, she made a hasty excuse that she’d forgotten something back at camp and abandoned the hike. She felt like one of the worms: soft, exposed, and in danger of being crushed.
Alice wanted to talk to Briar about it, like two mature adults. She did. But every time she saw Briar in the following few days, one or both of them was in a terrible mood. And what Alice didn’t want was a confrontation. If she’d wanted to fight with Briar, she’d have stuck around ten years ago.
Alice was hiding in the office, going over the next day’s activities with Sierra and Freddie, when there was a sudden bang from the bedroom.
‘That didn’t sound good,’ Sierra said. Alice crumpled onto the desk.
‘It can’t be too bad,’ she said, pulling herself back up and forcing cheer into her voice for the sake of her employees. ‘Surely it’s something we can fix?’
When they went into the bedroom, the AC unit that Alice had half-expected to have smoke rising from it looked harmless. She pressed a furiously blinking button, and the unit stuttered to life again. Ice cold air washed over her face and Alice smiled.
‘See, that’s—’ Alice started, but was interrupted by another terrible clanking noise. Harsh air shot out, covering her with dust. She coughed out a mouthful, turning back to Freddie and Sierra.
They wore twin looks of disgust.
‘Er, maybe Cook can help?’ Freddie tried. ‘I’ll fetch him, shall I?’
‘Typical man,’ Sierra said, watching him rush out the door. Alice stood there, blinking and holding her arms out, trying not to get dust everywhere. The urge to scream nearly overwhelmed her. ‘Let me get you a towel.’
Alice was able to wipe most of the mess from her clothes and the floor. Her hair, however, was a different matter.
‘Shit,’ she heard Briar call over the rushing water of her second shower, ‘I thought Sierra was just messing with me. The AC is seriously out?’
Alice stepped out, wrapping a towel around herself and padding into the bedroom. ‘Yes. I had a go at fixing it. Let’s just say I have a newfound appreciation for circuitry.’
Briar snickered. ‘Of course you thought you could fix it.’
‘I was willing to try,’ Alice said crossly, grabbing her old, puff-paint-laden camp shirt out of her bag. Maybe it would serve as a signal to Briar of where her priorities should be. ‘I wasn’t just going to give up,’ she continued, while Briar stared at the shirt.
‘Are you actually going to wear that?’ Briar said disbelievingly. ‘It’s ripped.’
‘I’m going to wear it,’ Alice said, with as much dignity as she could muster while fishing a pair of Soffe shorts out of her bag, ‘because Ilovecamp.’
She thought she heard Briar mutter, ‘The lady doth protest too much,’ as she headed to the bathroom.
‘I’m having an amazing time,’ she continued loudly. The shirt did, in fact, gape at the armpit so significantly that it was a bit indecent, but there was no way she was admitting defeat at this point. She marched out into the bedroom, her head held high.
‘You are?’ Briar asked, raising her eyebrows as she spotted the armpit tear and then glancing away. It was the first time Alice had fully caught Briar noticing her body, and she flushed. She remembered suddenly that this was the shirt she’d been wearing when they’d kissed, when Briar’s hands had traced up her sides to where the hole was, had made it even bigger in her eagerness to get closer. ‘Could’ve fooled me. After we taught theater together, I could have sworn you asked Sierra about the criteria for joining witness protection.’
‘And then I went on a walk to see the worms, and I remembered what’s so sacred about this place.’
Thinking about the walk immediately soured Alice’s mood even further, reminding her how thoroughly she and Briar were at odds over the place she loved the most.
‘God.’ Briar rolled her eyes before collapsing onto her bed dramatically. Her legs were on full display, and it was impossible for Alice to not look. ‘Not the fucking worms. Not again, Alice. I won’t be subjected to another lecture on decomposition.’
‘It’s a very important biological process!’ Alice insisted, perching on the edge of her bed and refusing to relax. Even though she was annoyed, she couldn’t stop herself from staring while she knew Briar couldn’t see her. Her eyes traced up Briar’s calves, taking in the smooth tanned skin of her thighs. Her shirt had ridden up, and Alice could see the soft plane of her stomach, the dip of her belly button, and just the barest strip of lace from Briar’s underwear. She had the strangest urge to touch Briar and see if her skin was still as smooth as it had been the last time.
Maybe she had been fooling herself by thinking that her attraction to Briar had disappeared with time. But attraction, she reasoned, was fine – she knew where she stood with Briar, and she would never allow herself to feel anything truly dangerous for the girl who was selling her favorite place in the world. She’d become adept at avoiding developing feelings towards women she was attracted to; she could practically boast a DPhil in that subject too. Briar had been the one person she’d ever allowed herself to have feelings for, and she remembered how that had ended.
‘You are the only person in the world who will go to bat for the worms.’ Briar sighed, putting her hands behind her head. Alice could have been imagining it, but Briar almost sounded… wistful? Maybe she’d been approaching this incorrectly. Briar had never caved to a bully, but she did have a sentimental side Alice could exploit.
‘You’d help me, though,’ she tried, prodding Briar more than she had so far in this disaster of a week. ‘When I went out in the rain to move them off the trails so no one would step on them.’
Briar nodded, still looking at the ceiling. ‘Of course I’d help you. There was no saying no to you when you had an idea. You could’ve rallied anyone, with that glint in your eyes.’ She paused. ‘You were annoying as hell,’ she clarified, her voice soft.
‘Oh really?’ Alice asked, trying not to feel flattered when she knew Briar hadn’t meant it as a compliment. ‘Was I annoying when I won our team the 2012 Capture the Flag game by shooting an arrow with the flag attached over the boundary?’
‘No, that wasn’t annoying,’ Briar said, still not looking at her. ‘But itwasreckless. You could’ve hurt someone.’
