And now kissing him is all I can think about.
My eyes flicker from his eyes down to his lips, then back up again. We’re already this close, and the moment feels like magic.
“I really, really want to kiss you right now,” I confess, barely a whisper.
He smiles. “I really, really want to kiss you right now, too.”
“Is it too risky out here?”
It’s extremely dark now that the fire’s out, and it’s quiet—most people, I think, are either watching the sky or have already fallen asleep. Without the tent for privacy, though, we’re just so…exposed.
I feel his chest rise and fall as he considers it, probably thinking the exact same thing I am: that as close as we are, wealreadylook like a couple.
We can explain it away—it’s cold out, he’s helping me warm up. It would be harder to explain the other things we both clearly want to do.
“Tomorrow,” he says like a promise. “At the waterfall.”
It would be so easy to steal a kiss right now.
He still wants to, too, I can tell—he hasn’t budged at all, and I can see the restraint it’s taking written all over his face even in almost pitch darkness.
“Tomorrow,” I agree.
We slip into our sleeping bags, mere inches away from each other. I miss his arm around me already, and I’m shivering within minutes.
“Here’s a trick I learned a long time ago for when it’s cold out,” Thorn says. “It’s going to sound weird—you’re going to have to trust me on this.”
“Let me guess,” I say, intrigued. “We both cram into a single sleeping bag and get so distracted by how cramped it is that we forget about being cold?”
He stifles a laugh, careful not to wake anyone up. “Not exactly. Okay. So it’s going to sound counterintuitive, but if you strip down to just your underwear, you can stuff your clothes at the bottom of your sleeping bag, by your feet—that will help block cold air from getting in, and your body heat will circulate better as a result.”
“Strip downto my underwear?” I whisper-hiss. “What is this, some sort of prank? Is a camera crew about to jump out from behind the waterfall?”
“I’m not pranking you, I swear—so that’s a no on the camera crew,” he says, laughing. “But I did warn you that it’d sound counterintuitive.”
I do as he says and shimmy out of my pajamas—discreetly, not because I’m ashamed for him to see anything (ifhe could even see anything in this darkness) but because I don’t want anyone else to get the wrong idea—then kick them into place at the bottom of my sleeping bag.
Thorn is making a huge effort to not look too interested, but the fact that he’s being so deliberate and obvious about it tells me he’s very, very aware of how little I’m wearing right now. I’m thankful I wore a sports bra—I’m not sure he and I could make it through an entire night of keeping our hands off each other with me beingthatnaked right next to him. It’s hard enough already.
“I hope this works,” I say, my teeth chattering.
“It’ll work,” he replies, eyes trained on the stars.
I look to the sky, too.
It’s a much-needed distraction—from the cold, from the sleeping bag fabric rubbing up against my skin, from Thorn himself. In my wildest imagination, I never guessed it could lookthisbeautiful. I count one tiny cluster of stars until my eyes cross, losing count somewhere around fifty. I take in the depths of the Milky Way, its explosive streak like a gash across the night sky.
I’m all too aware of Thorn, stretched out in his sleeping bag beside me, and I’m almost certain he’s not asleep.
“Thorn,” I whisper a while later, when I’m still wide awake and the constellations have shifted in the sky. “At what point should I start feeling warmer?”
But his breathing has finally evened out, and he doesn’t reply.
Eventually, I fall asleep too.
I wake up gasping and shivering.
It’s still dark out—dark and extremely cold. It is the absoluteworsttime for a steamy dream in more ways than one: not only am Inotdrenched in sweat from Thorn’s body being pressed up against mine, as I was just a split second ago in whatever subconscious haven my mindspun up while deeply asleep, but I am fully regretting my choices. What was Ithinking, putting my clothes at the bottom of the sleeping bag?
