“Bears.” Shit. I glanced into the forest, hoping there was nothing big and scary lurking nearby.
“Not necessarily. There are lots of critters around here who would love a free meal.” His voice was quiet and soothing. He was trying to keep me calm.
It was working. Mostly.
“How long will this take?” I sounded cranky again. “Sorry, I just really need to pee.”
“If that’s the only problem, you can step behind those trees.”
It seemed like a good time to bring up the factoid about me not being a pee-in-the-woods kind of girl, but then I remembered that the bathroom facilities were a ten-minute walk away. I glanced at the tree line. “What about the potential bears?”
“None nearby,” he assured me, “but just in case...” He picked up a spray can and threw it to me.
I caught it in two hands and read the label. “Maximum-strength pepper spray. Is this what you use on bears?”
“And other threats.”
I didn’t ask a follow-up question about that.
“You’ll also need this.” He tossed me a baggie with a packof tissues in it. “We’ll carry everything out with us when we leave.”
I blushed, and in the brightening dawn, I was sure he saw it that time. But my bladder wasn’t getting more cooperative with the passing minutes, so with bear spray in one hand and wipes in the other, I trudged off into the trees. And just like that, I became a girl who pees in the woods.
Back at the picnic table, I washed my hands with sanitizer, splashed my face with cold water from a gallon jug, and sat down to enjoy a powdered egg and shelf-stable bacon breakfast. After the first bite, I sighed appreciatively.
Ben, still standing by the stove, asked, “You know what would go great with this breakfast?”
I could only speak for myself. “A hot cup of—”
He held out a steaming mug to me.
“Mocha?” I asked, but I already knew the answer from the coffee-and-chocolate smell.
“Field mocha,” he said.
“What’s that?” I cupped the mug in my palms, warming my hands and inhaling the life-giving scent.
“Instant coffee, instant cocoa, and powdered milk.”
I hesitated, but what the hell? This was probably the closest I’d get to a real cup of coffee for the day. I sipped carefully, then blew on the liquid and took a bigger sip. “That’s good.”
“I aim to please.”
“I remember.” The words were out of my mouth before my brain could engage.
Ben’s back stiffened, but he didn’t turn toward me or, thankfully, make a suggestive comment in response to mine.
I cleared my throat, which seemed to be my new go-to move for trying to take back whatever stupid thing I’d said. It wasn’t working. “I mean...the coffee...” My mind rummaged around for some innocuous anecdote and latched on to the first thing it found. “Mai got me into drinking coffee duringour senior year of high school, and when I’d stay over Friday nights, we’d wake up to a full pot of coffee Saturday morning that you’d set up before leaving for football or cross-country or tennis practice. I know it was for your mom, but it benefitted us, too.”
He still had his back to me as he packed up the camp stove. “It wasn’t just for my mom.”
Thanks a lot, brain.So much for innocuous. It would have helped to remember sooner that my senior year—Ben’s sophomore one—had been when we’d suddenly noticed each other as more than Mai’s friend or brother. Or at least the first time I’d let my conscious mind go there. We’d exchanged smoldering glances more than once when no one else had been watching.
Something inside his backpack, which was propped on the picnic table, chirped. He pulled out an iPad. “Speaking of Mai.” He sat down beside me, close enough to share the device but not to touch me, and tapped the screen to receive the call.
“Hi, guys.” Mai’s voice came through loud and clear, but the screen remained black. “I can’t give you a visual right now, but I’m here with a friend, Pasco.”
“Morning, Mai,” Ben said. “Good of you to help, Pasco.” He looked totally comfortable speaking into an abyss.
