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I pick up a marshmallow from the plate on my other side that I’ve had sitting on the ground by my feet for a solid fifteen minutes. I’ve also squirreled away one of the longer forks the kids tend to have sword fights with, but I plan on using it for its intended purpose. At least until it gets stolen the moment the kids realize I have it and my back is turned.
“So.” I lean forward on my seat, resting my weight on the balls of my feet so I can get the marshmallow close enough to the fire to get melty on the inside and golden brown on the outside, instead of charring it to a crisp the way most of the kids do.
Hell, most of the other counselors don’t have the patience to toast a marshmallow the way my mom taught me how so many years ago when she and I went camping at the lake in a small tent and no electricity.
Fuck, I miss those days.
“Have you ever gone tent camping?” It’s not what I mean to ask. But still I glance sidelong at Kayde, who looks bemused by the question. “Sorry, I just…” I bite my lip, and then continue. “I don’t know. I was thinking about it, and?—”
“A few times,” Kayde interrupts smoothly, cutting off my apologetic ramble. “What about you?”
“All the time when I was a kid,” I admit. “Things were really great after—When it was just me and mom,” I amend, really not wanting to even bring up my dad tonight. “She would take me to the lake and we had this little tent that barely fit our sleeping bags and my dog. His name was Jake,” I add, knowing Kayde really doesn’t give a damn. I let out a breath, turning the marshmallow over in the fire once I can see one side bubbling and toasted to perfection. “I loved it.”
“But you don’t go anymore?”
My only answer is a shrug. “Mom doesn’t have time. I don’t think she really wants to anymore, actually. Plus, I come here every year for way too many weeks out of the summer to babysit kids whose parents want them to do something in the great outdoors. And, well. Then there’s you. Maybe I’ll be soured on camping after this year, too.” I’m mostly joking, though for the first time, I’m actively looking forward to the week being over.
At least, I think I am.
Kayde’s quiet, and his lack of an answer is unnerving. Though when I glance his way again, he’s just watching the fire and marshmallow mildly, his eyes half-closed like he’s on the verge of falling asleep.
“Do you like s’mores?” I don’t know why I ask. Hell, I don’t know why I don’t just take the win of Kayde being silent and move on, but here I am.
He blinks, turning just a little so he can look at me as he says, “Yeah…I guess? Yes. I don’t really make them, though.”
“Because you’re too cool?” I assume, mostly joking. The marshmallow is done and I pull the long fork back to rest the cool side against my legs, while I ease off the marshmallow from the end of it and onto one of my prepared s’mores bases.
“Because I don’t have your patience or skill with a fork, apparently.” There’s a chuckle in his words as he watches my small movements, and when I look his way, he’s grinning in spite of himself. “I mostly just char marshmallows, and the taste of burning got old about ten years ago. My dad certainly wasn’t going to make me one, and I just never learned how to sit down and do it right. So…” he trails off with a shrug. “I don’t have them much.”
“Sucks to be you,” I snort, before picking up my perfectly made, five star s’more. But I don’t take a bite of it. I’ve known for the past minute or so what I’m going to do, and before I can really think about it, I grab his wrist, tugging for him to let me have his hand.
With a small sound of surprise, he does. I turn his hand over, tapping his fingers until he opens them and exposes his palm to me. Then, before he can ask why, I carefully set the s’more in his hand and give as much of a flourishing bow as I can, given that I’m sitting down. “Your perfect s’more,” I announce, a slightly self-conscious smile curling over my lips.
But when I look up, Kayde is just…staring at me. He barely holds the s’more, and only enough to make sure it doesn’t fall to the dirt between us. That, more than anything, causes a spike of doubt to stab through me, and suddenly, this feels like an awful idea.
I totally should’ve asked first, at least.
“It’s just—” I feel like I’m backpedaling, and embarrassment heats my face. “I should’ve asked if you wanted it. I just thought…” I suck in a breath, then go on in a rush, “All day I’ve been wanting to thank you for this morning. Kins brought me food, and I really thought she’d put it together, since it was all the things I eat and literally nothing I don’t like. But she told me you made it. And, okay, I’m wondering if maybe you’re a bit of a stalker, actually. Seems like you might be.”
“Uh huh.” Kayde sounds amused, at least, and as I keep going, more and more flustered with every word, he reaches his hand up and takes a bite from the s’more.
“Yeah. Yes. So this is me thanking you. And gifting you the most perfect s’more you’re ever going to eat before?—”
He cuts me off the moment he swallows by leaning toward me and pressing his sticky-sweet lips to mine. It isn’t demanding, or particularly inappropriate. It’s just…sweet. In every sense of the word.
Shocked, I can’t do anything but sit there, my brain helpfully supplying that I could be a pal and lick off the marshmallow from his lips.
Not gonna happen, I tell that part of myself, beating her off with a proverbial stick.
“Stalker, huh?” Kayde comments, after he’s polished off his s’more and I’m roasting two marshmallows on my fork. Somehow it’s still in my possession, but I can see the girls of Redtail eyeing it up once in a while. And frankly, I think Melody could take me if she really wants it. “Not usually what I’m called.”
“Only because people aren’t dumb enough to say it out loud, I’m sure,” I remark offhandedly, spinning the fork slowly like a rotisserie.
“Well, I don’t think so.” He leans over, bumping his shoulder against mine to whisper in my ear, “Normally people don’t see me before I do what I’m there for. Or if they do see me, it’s as someone completely innocent, with a perfectly believable alibi.”
Oh.
Well, it makes sense, since he hasn’t been caught.
