“You can do both, Frey.”
Fair point. I spear a marshmallow onto the end of the stick and hold it carefully over the flames. The marshmallow begins to brown slowly, the surface turning golden and glossy.
“Turn it,” Rory says quietly beside me.
“I know how marshmallows work.” I say with an eye roll.
When it’s finally toasted I sandwich it between two biscuits with a square of chocolate and bite into the gooey treat. The marshmallow stretches as I pull it away and a small blob drops straight onto my chin.
“Oh for…”
Before I can wipe it away Rory reaches out instinctively. His thumb brushes lightly on my chin as he swipes the melted sugar away. The contact is brief, barely a second, but it sends a ridiculous, electric shiver straight down my spine.
“There,” he says quietly.
My brain forgets how words work. “Th…Thanks.”
Theo appears beside us at exactly the wrong moment. “Mum,” he says suspiciously, “why did Rory just wipe your face?”
Rory coughs slightly.
“She had marshmallow on her chin,” Isla announces helpfully from the other side.
“Oh.” Theo says.
I feel my cheeks go warm.
“It was an emergency,” Rory says gravely.
Theo considers this. “Okay,” he decides. “That makes sense.”
He runs off again. I exhale slowly. We stand there for a moment longer beside the fire while the children demolish their s’mores. The flames crackle softly in the growing darkness. And somewhere under the noise of the kids and the smell of smoke and chocolate, there is that same quiet tension humming between us. The kind that reminds me this is only the first evening. And there are still three days left. Which is… concerning. For several reasons. Mostly the fact that my heart is already doing things it absolutely should not be doing. And the even more concerning fact that Rory seems to know it.
Chapter thirty-eight
Freya
The children fall asleep in stages. First the shouting stops, which is a relief for everyone within a fifty mile radius. Then the whispering fades into the occasional giggle, followed by the thin beam of torches flicking across the inside of tents like trapped fireflies until even those go dark one by one. It is a strange thing, the quiet of sleeping children in the countryside. At school the silence is sharp and contained, but here it feels softer somehow, the canvas tents breathing gently in the cool air, the forest beyond the clearing still swaying in the breeze. By the time the final teacher finishes the last headcount, the fire has burned down to a low circle of embers. Someone reminds us to keep an eye on it before drifting off toward the tents, shoulders hunched against the cold, boots crunching softly through the grass.
“Night.”
“Night.”
The clearing empties gradually, adults peeling away in pairs or small groups, voices dropping to quiet murmurs as they disappear into the dark. I stay where I am. Partly because the fire still needs watching. Mostly because moving would mean admitting that I am suddenly aware of the fact that Rory is still here too. He’s standing a few feet away from the fire pit, handswrapped around a metal mug, staring down into the glowing coals like they’re telling him something important. The flames are gone now, replaced by that steady red glow that pulses gently when the wind moves through the clearing. I rub my hands together and pull the thick blanket a little tighter around my shoulders. It was handed to me earlier by one of the instructors who clearly took pity on the way I was shivering, and it smells faintly of smoke, laundry powder and damp grass.
“You’re still up,” Rory says after a moment, his voice quieter than it was earlier, like the night has softened it.
“So are you.”
He shrugs slightly. “Fire duty.”
“Very noble.”
“I’m basically the hero of this trip.”
I breathe a quiet laugh and shift on the wooden bench so the warmth from the embers reaches my legs.
The clearing feels different now the children are asleep. The big oak tree that towered over their games earlier is just a dark silhouette against the sky. The tents are small mounds of canvas scattered across the grass; their shapes barely visible in the starlight. And above us the sky is enormous. I tilt my head back instinctively.
