No tour-guide commentary followed. No rehearsed explanations about the terrain or the lodge’s sustainability metrics. Silence suited him. One hand stayed steady on thewheel while the other rested loose and ready, like he trusted his reflexes more than conversation.
My shoulders dropped, and my breath evened. My fingers settled in my lap.
At least no one expected me to clap at the wildlife. Small mercies.
We stopped near a shallow waterhole and the engine cut, allowing a thick, alert silence to settle over us. Something moved at the edge of the clearing—a shape, a flick of motion—and Nick raised a hand. I went still, holding my breath until his hand finally dropped.
A pair of antelope stepped into view. Then more. They drank without relaxing their ears or the taut line of their muscles. They were alive in a way that sharpened the air, making the stillness feel earned.
I recognized the current. I’d been wound that tight since the tarmac. The difference was they were scanning for leopards, and I was scanning for a Wi-Fi signal.
At least they wouldn’t be asked to justify their existence in a twelve-slide PowerPoint presentation before being eaten.
Nick watched the antelope like someone counting, not like a tourist. His gaze moved across the herd in slow increments, marking position, spacing, distance to the tree line. Mine dropped to the useless signal bars on my phone for the fourth time in two minutes.
Minutes passed before he spoke, his voice quiet and steady. “You’re still working.”
I glanced at him. “So are you. You’ve counted the herd twice, checked the tree line every few seconds, and adjusted your grip on the wheel every time one of them moves.”
He looked at me then, not casually. Not politely. Directly.
“I’m still on the clock.”
“What makes you think I’m not?”
His attention returned to the antelope, but the corner of his mouth shifted. Not a smile. Barely an acknowledgment. More like a private note filed beside the things he hadn’t expected from me.
“Fair enough,” he said.
Irritatingly, he wasn’t wrong. Worse, he hadn’t been careless about it.
I looked out at the scrub, feeling the weight of the observation. “I’m here to learn.”
“About safaris?”
“No. About why everyone thinks I need this retreat.”
He shifted his weight, glancing back at me. “People usually have reasons for sending someone this far from home,” he said. “Doesn’t mean the bush is here to accommodate them.”
“Everything flexes,” I said. “Even when it pretends not to.”
His mouth twitched in the closest thing to a laugh I expected to see before sunset.
We drove on.
The suite came into view slowly, tucked into the hillside like the reserve had grown it there on purpose. A private tented pavilion stood on a raised wooden deck, all peaked canvas, dark timber posts, and warm lamplight spilling through open panels. The walls had been rolled back in places, exposing just enough polished wood and soft interior glow to feel indecently inviting without giving everything away.
The deck stretched toward the scrub and distant trees, wide enough for a pair of chairs, a low table, and an uninterrupted view of the savanna breathing beyond the railing. Lanterns hung from the beams. Canvas shifted faintly in the evening air. Nothing about it shouted luxury, which somehow made it more expensive.
It was too elegant to be called a tent and too exposed to let me pretend the wilderness stayed outside.
Two other tented suites sat farther along the ridge, each tucked into its own pocket of scrub and shadow, close enough to suggest civilization and far enough away to preserve the fantasy of solitude.
Nick cut the engine. The silence returned, broken only by the distant pulse of insects and the faint crackle of a fire somewhere below.
“Thank you, Nick.”
He didn't move to open my door, and I didn't wait for him to try. “Dinner is at the main site at eight. I’ll collect you at seven-forty. Do not leave the perimeter until then.”
