Alice made eye contact with Briar, knowing exactly what was going through her head. That Cook hadcompletelygone soft if he was leaving doors unlocked now.
‘We’ll let this go, as long as you go back to bed now without any fuss,’ Alice said.
The boys shrugged. ‘Okay.’
‘But we’ll be confiscating that,’ Alice said, taking the s’more out of Robin’s hand as he walked out the door.
‘You’re not going to make sure we go to our bunk?’ Sam asked, turning back.
‘We have to secure the entry points,’ Briar said.
‘And we’ll know,’ Alice said, pulling her face into a frown, ‘if you don’t go back to your bunk. We have eyeseverywhere.’
Sam nodded gravely, and the two of them disappeared out the door of the mess hall. Alice and Briar dissolved into laughter as soon as they were out of earshot, falling to the floor with heaving breaths.
‘Stop—’ Alice got out. ‘Stop making me—’
‘I’m not…’ Briar wheezed.
‘I just want to eat my s’more.’ Alice pouted, and Briar managed to collect herself, her eyes on the ceiling.
Alice ate in silence, relishing every bite. ‘I’m just so happy he made a friend,’ she said, trying to explain the feeling of lightness, of absolute freedom, that she was experiencing for the first time in years. ‘And he makes a perfect s’more. There’s nothing left for me to teach him.’
Briar grabbed Alice’s sticky hand, squeezing it. ‘I know,’ she said, and Alice was sure she understood every unsaid word.
‘I wish we could stay here forever,’ Alice said. ‘Live in this exact moment and never wake up in the morning.’
‘We can’t,’ Briar said, turning to face her, their noses touching. ‘But we can watch the sunrise, if you want.’
So they did.
With the campers no longer there to distract her, Briar finally caught Alice, Cook and Noah sneaking off.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes at them and then at the car they had been about to get into. ‘Alice, aren’t you meant to be clearing some trails? For the fourth time this week?’
‘I got Lee to cover for me,’ Alice said smoothly, naming a British counselor who was, in fact, covering for her. ‘An emergency came up.’
‘What emergency?’ Briar asked, hands on her hips.
‘Those eejit raccoons got into me oven,’ Cook supplied quickly.
‘It’s unusable now,’ Noah said, employing his best wide-eyed innocent expression.
‘There’s a store a couple of hours away,’ Alice said.
‘There’s a Home Depot in Frederick,’ Briar said, her eyes on Alice. ‘You should go there, you’ll be back sooner.’
It took everything in her to continue the farce. She knew that Briar needed the party, the house fixed and off her mind, much more than a few more hours of Alice’s company. She was doing the right thing, it just felt wrong when Briar was looking at her like that. Like she was depending on her.
Alice swallowed, her whole body constricted by the expectations that Briar had seemed to develop for her. When Alice hadn’t been paying attention, they had slipped into a relationship she would miss terribly in the coming months. She just had to hope Briar didn’t feel the same way, that at least one of them would come away from this unscathed.
‘Cook wants a specific one, and they only have it in Alexandria,’ Alice finally managed, her voice coming out uneven. ‘We’ll be back as soon as we can.’ Briar nodded reluctantly.
When they pulled onto the highway, Alice cleared her throat. ‘I hope she’s not onto us.’
‘I don’t think she is,’ Noah said, glancing at Alice in the rearview mirror.
Alice closed her eyes for a second. She wouldn’t have minded Noah knowing about her and Briar, but now that they were this far in, it felt impossible to come clean. If Briar wanted her dalliance with Alice to be kept a secret, Alice could only follow that directive and try not to think about why Briar was so insistent on it.
