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He gets out to check us in—or whatever the hell you do when you spend the night on the ground. No one would consider me outdoorsy by any standard. One look at me and you’d guess I preferred video games and computer shit. Both would be true, and I don’t mind that I look like the stereotypical nerd.
Hell, Chase used to laugh any time I’d try to do anything handy around my house. He used to say I looked ridiculous carrying around a drill. It didn’t seem to matter how many things I was capable of fixing. He still acted surprised that I knew how to use power tools.
So, camping and hiking and whatnot just isn’t my cup of tea. I’m happy behind my computer. It’s what I know.
Sam comes back to the truck and sets some paperwork on the dash. He pulls out of the parking lot to drive further into the park. Then we’re parking at a bare camping area. There’s a wooden picnic table and a small circle of stones for a campfire. And that’s it.
We get out of the truck. The trees surrounding our campsite provide a great amount of shade and privacy. It’s as if we’re the only ones in the whole park right now.
Sam starts to pull supplies from the back of his truck. Each thing is placed in a certain area, and I stand there like an idiot because I have no idea what I should be doing right now.
I finally get tired of watching him work while I’m completely useless. “Do you need help with something? I feel ridiculous just standing here.”
“You wanna help me get the tent up? Since this isn’t really your scene, I don’t mind getting everything together.”
“No, I want to help. Where do you want me?” I fake my confidence, hoping he doesn’t see through me. Based on Sam’s grin, I’m not sure I’m doing a great job of convincing him.
He puts me to work, pulling out all the supplies for the tent. I lay everything out in careful order. With no idea how to put it together, I go through some of our other stuff. We’ve got a cooler, a few reusable grocery bags filled with food, a plastic tote of an odd assortment of things I can’t name, and a huge box filled with sleeping bags and things.
It seems like Sam brought everything we could need to camp. Is this something he does regularly? What if he wants to take me camping all the time? What if I hate it, and then he starts spending his weekends camping without me? And then he meets some sexy, outdoorsy guy on the trails and cheats on me with him ‘cause the hot camping guy knows how to do this and I don’t?
Dammit, stop spinning!
“Carter, do you mind giving me a hand?” Sam’s question makes me realize I’ve just been staring at the trees for who knows how long.
“Oh, sure. Sorry. What can I do?”
Sam directs me on what he needs me to hold while he gets the tent up. I mess it up about six times, and each time, he patiently waits for me to fix it. Once the tent is up, I blink at it. It’s like a whole building or something.
No, that’s stupid. It’s a tent, not a building.
But there’s like a covered porch area. And two sides branch out from the middle.
“It’s huge.”
“That’s what she said,” Sam murmurs, and I laugh.
“This can’t be a tent just for two people.”
He comes over to stand next to me while I continue to gawk at the tent. “Technically, it’s a tent for a family. I bought it years ago for a camping trip I was gonna take with some friends, but then the weather turned, and we never went. I thought it would be a better option than the one-person tent I own.”
“You sayin’ you don’t want to cuddle with me?” I joke.
“Oh, no. We’ll be cuddling. I just wanted to make sure you had plenty of space to spread out if you needed it. Plus, I bought a battery-operated air mattress so you wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground, and it wouldn’t have fit in my other tent.”
He walks off, leaving me standing there, speechless. He did all of this to make sure I was as comfortable as possible.
I turn to follow him. “Hey, wait. How fast can we blow up that air mattress?”
CHAPTER 18
Sam
Ilift my arm to wrap around Carter’s shoulders. He snuggles in deeper with his coffee cup nestled in his hands. This two-person folding chair was the best purchase I could’ve made. Besides the air mattress. That one earned me a brain-exploding blow job after we got the tent up.
The flames of our fire pop, adding to the nature sounds that surround us. We spent our morning setting up camp, and then I took Carter on a short hike. He complained almost the whole time, and it took everything I had not to laugh at him because I knew it would make things worse.
“I might be fit, but this is not the kind of exercise I enjoy doing, ya know,” he said. Then I’d hear a smack and a grumble. “Goddamn bugs.”
