I stumble-trip but right myself swiftly. This is a family-friendly game. I cannot take her words out of context. Except now she’s unbuckling my belt and dragging my pants down my legs.
Well, shit. I did not consider this scenario at all when I asked her to play.
“Put them on. Hurry up,” I shout while tearing the shirt over my head.
The pants are way too big for her around the waist, so she tucks the waistband under the elastic of her athletic shorts. Maybe she figures this is quicker than dealing with the belt buckle. My adrenaline is pumping too wildly to allow me to put much thought into it.
My competitive heart takes off at a gallop as I survey the teams on either side of us. I think we might win this one. It may not be good form as the owner of the camp to win, but I refuse to let my team down. This is not like when I let Bea win at Candyland. (Sometimes.)
Claire raises her arms and I go to slide the shirt over her head, only she yells, “Ouch, wait. It’s stuck in my hair.”
Sure enough, because it’s still inside out, one of the buttons has gotten caught on her bun.
“Hold still,” I urge, but she’s squirming around too much. “Claire. Lemme… Hold still.”
“Greer, just rip my shirt off.”
Oh boy. That was hot.
By some miracle, I ignore the heathen inside me and release the button that’s snagged on her hair, yanking the shirt down and sacrificing a few strands in the process. She dons the remainder of the clothes and accessories with help from our team, and then she’s taking off. In my excitement, I race across the field with her, cheering the whole way.
“You’ve got this. Come on. Faster. Faster, Doc. You can do it.”
As Claire crosses the line, Brenner brings the megaphone up and says, “And we have a winner!”
Claire launches herself into my arms, and I spin her around. My nose is buried in her neck, making it impossible not to inhale her scent. She smells like vanilla and sweat. Her breasts arepressed against me, and despite the extra layer of clothing between us, the proximity stirs desire to life inside me.
It isn’t until I set her down that we notice that her pants have fallen off. The oversized ones, that is. And—for fuck’s sake—now I’m imagining Claire wearing nothing but a man’s dress shirt. No. Not just any man’s shirt. My shirt.
She’s out of breath when she says, “We did it.”
We hug our team members and make an obnoxious scene out of winning before cheering for the second- and third-place teams. In the end, our team receives certificates to the gift shop as our prize, which Claire and I pass along to the other campers.
After our team has posed for a few pictures, I invite Claire to join me for lunch.
Bea is at the childcare center today, but I promised her I’d take her swimming later this afternoon. First, I could use a meal.
“It’s a nice day,” Claire says once we’ve located a picnic table in the shade and away from the lunch crowd.
“We’re lucky too. Brenner would have made us play in the rain so long as it wasn’t thundering, and I can’t imagine how hard it would be to take off wet clothes.”
She stares at me a beat, then blinks rapidly and ducks, opening her bag of potato chips and dumping them onto her plate.
“Did you go to camp as a kid?” I ask in an attempt to move the conversation to drier land.
“Every summer. My parents sent Cam and me to whatever popular camp was happening that year. Name a type, and we went. Anything from French camp to culinary camp to space camp.”
“Impressive,” I say around a bite of sandwich. “Which was your favorite?”
A tiny sparrow lands on the table, and Claire shoos it away. “I loved musical theater camp,” she says. “Not because I was anygood—because I wasn’t—but because it was the only one I attended where I didn’t feel like I was being graded or recruited.”
“Really? From everything you’ve told me, and from knowing your brother, I’m surprised your parents let you go to something like that, then.”
“Me too.” She pops a chip into her mouth. “But I think one of their friends convinced them it would look good on our college applications. You know, to be well-rounded. Competitive, even.”
“Oh, so this was in high school?”
“No! We were still in elementary school.” She laughs sardonically.
