“Do you want something to drink?” Rosie asked. “We have these cute little wine boxes with tiny straws. They’re like juice boxes for adults.”
“Sure.” Laney didn’t think a little wine would hurt, and she’d pretty much given up on having any kind of professional boundaries with these people.
It went around the women a few times before they had enough of a word base to start having fun. And then it came time to lay her first dirty word, but Laney bought herself some time by staring at her row of tiles.
She didn’t have to say it out loud, she reminded herself. In fact, it was better for her game if she couldn’t. But even putting the tiles down on the board was something she couldn’t imagine herself doing.
But not too long ago, she wouldn’t have been able to imagine herself living in a camper in Maine, laughing and drinking wine out of a box and making dirty words with women she barely knew.
After taking a deep breath, she picked up the first letter tile and leaned forward to place it on the board, working backward from the existing letter Y.
S. S. U. P.
Then she clapped her hands over her eyes. Not only would she not say it out loud, but she couldn’t believe she’d just written the word out on the board.
The other women laughed, so she uncovered her eyes and laughed with them. “I had a pretty strict upbringing, language-wise. And my ex-husband had a stick up his...butt.”
That made them laugh harder, but they gave her the triple word score because Rosie and Mary both waved off saying it. Laney would have thought having them playing would give an advantage with regard to anybody balking, but they had no problem sayingblowjoborgang bang, so there went that theory.
An argument broke out over whethergang bangwas one word or two, which led to Lauren looking it up on her phone. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any safe search filters on and there was a lot of squealing and laughing before she wiped her search history and they decided to let the word stand. Whether it was one word or two, it was a good one, and it was hard to side against the very pregnant Paige.
So much for avoiding anything to do with sex in her entertainment for the night, Laney thought. Between occasionally hearing Ben’s laugh mixed in with the other men’s, and all kinds of naughty words that kept her mind tripping over provocative thoughts of him all night, she’d be lucky if she slept at all tonight.
It was more likely she’d spend the night tossing and turning, imagining his touch. His taste. His voice saying to her some of the words she’d read on the board tonight. If she did sleep, she’d probably hear him in her dreams.
“Hey, Rosie, can you toss me another wine box?”
* * *
Outside of his professional duties, Ben couldn’t remember a more grueling night. On the outside he probably looked like a guy who was chilling around a campfire, telling stories and laughing. But on the inside, he felt as if his body was a compass needle and Laney was his north.
Every time she laughed, his body tightened in his response. He wanted to turn in his chair, toward the sound, even though he knew he couldn’t see her. And he wanted to ask the others if they heard her the clearest, or if the laughter of the women they loved stood out to each of them.
Not that he loved Laney. It was too early for that. They’d kissed one time, and it would be stupid of him to fall in love with a woman who didn’t want to fall in love with anybody, never mind with him.
And if he asked these guys a question like that, he’d never hear the end of it. As it was, Sean knew how he felt about her, even though he hadn’t told him. And he couldn’t be the only one who’d noticed Ben always found Laney in a crowd.
But they’d told him what the women were doing behind Leo and Mary’s RV, and he’d never wanted to know anything as much as he wanted to know what dirty words Laney was spelling out with Scrabble tiles.
“Hey.”
Ben felt something slap his shoulder and he looked up to see Joe holding out a soda. “Thanks.”
He didn’t need the sugar, but once the kids had been put to bed—or had fallen asleep curled up in their chairs, like Gabe and Jackson—the fire had been fed until it was almost too freaking hot to sit near it. And the act of drinking seemed to go along with campfires, which was why there were several small coolers of beer and ice placed around the circle. But he wasn’t drinking beer tonight and Joe never did, so there was one cooler of sodas.
“I figured I’d distract you before you crept through the woods to see what Laney’s doing.”
“Funny,” he muttered as the others laughed.
Joe grinned and walked back to his chair. “You should go for it.”
“She doesn’t want a relationship right now.”
Mitch held up his beer can, as if it was some kind of talisman that made it his turn to talk. “Paige didn’t, either.”
A few of the other guys nodded, so Ben got the impression they were trying to tell him Laney mightthinkshe didn’t want a relationship, but that he could change her mind. The problem with that was thewhyshe didn’t want one. If he nudged her and got her to change her mind, would she resent him for it? She’d made it pretty clear she was only doing whatshewanted to do this summer.
It had to be her call.
