Chapter Twenty-Two
Kim
Eventually, of course, they go to bed. It’s eleven. The wine is drunk. The moon has risen, and the stars are glowing in brilliance. All is quiet from Bella and Cami’s tent. One torch is on, a dim glow under the nylon. Kim will have to charge it tomorrow.
She and Danika take it in turns to walk to the toilet block, so that one of them is there if the girls wake up.
Danika is in bed first. Kim watches her shape through the tent walls, her silhouette moving around as she changes into pyjamas. Torchlight wavers on the walls and then settles.
Kim gives Danika a few minutes longer. She doesn’t want it to appear she’s deliberately giving her privacy, nor does she want Danika to be uneasy if she comes in when she’s changing. She wouldn’t worry with any of her other friends, but with Danika it’s different.
Danika ispossible.
She clears her throat and unzips the tent flaps. “I’m coming in.”
Danika shines the torch at the flaps, and Kim is momentarily blinded. She raises a hand to shield her eyes.
“Sorry,” Danika says and drops the beam. It plays across her feet and lower legs.
She’s wearing not pyjamas, but an oversized t-shirt. Grey, with a picture of Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the front and the words,The Notorious RBG. Below Ruth, Danika’s legs are bare from the tops of her thighs down to her fine, arched feet.
Kim swallows. Danika’s slender legs are making her stomach swirl around in nervous anticipation. Crazy, because there’s no promise for tonight. No promise at all, if she’s honest. There’s just the hope of a promise in the future. A whisper of a future time.
Danika is still underweight, although not alarmingly so. Her legs have a curve to them that was lacking at their earliest meetings. Even in the torchlight, she can see where Danika’s tan line ends on her legs.
“Can you see okay?” Danika asks.
Kim snaps out of her spellbound torpor.
“Yes, thanks.” She finds her sleepwear—a singlet that leaves her arms bare, and a pair of cotton boxer shorts.
She turns away from Danika, pulls off her shirt and bra, and puts on the singlet. The boxers are more of a problem.
She gropes for them, using it as an excuse to glance at Danika, who lies on her side, facing away from Kim.
So, not desperate to see her then. Disappointment twinges, although really, what did she expect?
Quickly, she changes into the boxers and pushes her dirty clothes down to the bottom of the tent, underneath her sleeping bag.
She lies on her back; the bag pushed to her waist, one leg out, one leg in.
“Comfortable?” Danika asks.
“Yes.” She wriggles a little, aware of a stone underneath her, and the hard ground. It’s always the same, first time camping ina while. Her hips will be sore tomorrow, but the next night they’ll be fine. Amazing what you can get used to.
“I am too,” Danika says.
The sleeping bag rustles, and when Kim next looks, Danika’s on her side, facing toward Kim. There’s a decent amount of space between them. It’s lucky they have the large tent.
“This feels like a teenage sleepover,” Danika says. “Like I’m fifteen again.”
“I didn’t have many of them.” Kim folds her arms behind her head. “We moved around a lot as kids, and often I joined a class in the middle of the school year. Friendships were pretty much set in stone then. Oh, I had friends, but not the best-friends, sleepover, secret-telling kind.”
Danika snorts. “Believe me, it wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Not everything that happens at sleepovers stays at sleepovers.”
Kim wonders which of Danika’s secrets were retold in daylight. “What secrets would you tell me?” The words are out before she can rethink them.
Danika’s eyes crinkle in the torchlight. “Are you asking for a game of truth or dare?”
