I’m sure I look completely ridiculous in his oversized clothes, but I’ve never felt so comfortable.
I shove the clothes I took off into his duffel. I find my cell phone and turn on the camera, horrified at what I see. I don’t wear a lot of makeup, but what I do wear is exactly as I expected. It’s smudged beneath my eyes, and without a make-up wipe or water, there’s no way for me to remove it. I try, however, retrieving the sleeve of my shirt and gently rubbing beneath my eyes to eliminate as much as I can. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than it was before, which’ll have to do for now.
Then, I grab my coffee and exit the tent.
It’s much cooler outside, and I’m certainly grateful to have the sweatshirt. Wyatt, Cade, and Alex are standing at a table, working, and a handful of bag chairs are set up around the fire. Camden is sitting in one of the chairs, tapping away on his phone, and his friend Quinn is walking from the house, making his way to the fire with a carafe of what I assume is coffee.
“Morning, sunshine,” Wyatt greets, wearing a big smile as he scrambles eggs in a large bowl. We’re talking three cartons of eggs sitting there, and he’s expertly cracking each one and adding it to the bowl.
“Hi,” I reply shyly, taking a seat beside Camden and crossing my legs in the chair.
“Sleep well?” Camden asks, putting his phone down and giving me his complete attention.
“I did,” I answer, knowing that’s because of the man I snuggled against. It didn’t even bother me to sleep on a bedroll, which is basically a glorified piece of padding. I still slept like a baby.
“Charli and Sommer should be up soon. They’ll be cranky until they get coffee and breakfast, just to warn you. They were up half the night, sitting around the fire and telling lies about everyone.” The way he grins lets me know they weren’t lies at all. They were probably sharing embarrassing or wild stories, which seems to be a common occurrence with this bunch.
“Is the princess up yet? I brought her coffee,” Quinn says when he reaches the spot we’re all at.
“Not yet. I’ll let you do the honors and wake the bear,” Camden states with a grin.
Quinn pours coffee into two Styrofoam cups before moving to the cooler by the table and retrieving a bottle of creamer. He pours some into both cups, a little extra into the one on the right, as if he knows exactly how they take their coffee. I suppose, if they do this often, he most likely does. Then, he takes off toward Camden’s tent to wake up the ladies.
“This’ll be fun,” Camden says, getting up to pour himself a cup of coffee. He doesn’t add any of the fancy creamer to his though.
About thirty-seconds later, noise erupts from the tent. The voice is loud, and clearly a woman. It’s just far enough away I can’t hear what they’re saying, but a man’s voice joins in quickly before Quinn stomps out of the tent, rubbing his head.
“That went well,” Camden deduces, smiling over the rim of his coffee.
“Charli hit me.”
I can’t help but grin, though I do try to hide it.
“The claws came out before I was even all the way inside the tent. She whacked me, causing me to spill some of the coffee on my hand before I could hand it to either one of them. She’s a menace.”
Camden barks out a laugh. “That she is.”
“I heard that!” erupts from the tent moments before Charli and Sommer come staggering out. “Why are we up so early?”
“It’s after eight,” Cade replies, having moved to the fire to begin cooking the French toast.
“Too damn early,” she grumbles before walking over to the chair beside me and plopping down in it. That’s when she notices my coffee. “Hey! Who brought you that?”
I feel my cheeks blush. “Umm, your brother?” I answer sheepishly.
“What the fuck? You didn’t think to bring me some? All I got was this cheap shit Quinn brought me.”
Cade smiles, flipping his first batch of French toast in the large cast iron pan. “She’s way prettier than you. You were hatched on a fence post, remember?”
Charli flips her brother off, sipping her coffee as she throws daggers at him.
A bubble of jealousy sweeps through me. Not at them, per se, but at the close relationship they all clearly have. I didn’t have siblings, so this type of teasing is foreign to me, and even though they’re joking and harassing each other, you can tell it’s done with love. That’s where my jealousy stems from. I’ve never had that type of bond, nor will I ever.
“Good morning,” she finally says, turning to face me. “You look…well rested.” She waggles her eyebrows.
I shrug. “I’ve never slept in a tent before. It was actually pretty comfortable.”
Charli nods. “I do agree, except when you’re rooming with your brother and his dumb best friend.”
