“I am.”
Humor lit up those gray eyes, the faint curve of a smile appearing on her lips. “You do know there’s a crazy amount of scorpions out here, right? They’re very real, not props on a movie set or whatever you’re used to back wherever you’re from.”
“You think I’m from LA?” I laughed. “Chicago, actually, and I’ve never been on a movie set in my life. It’s just not really my industry.”
On the other hand, I had been on TV plenty of times. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been scripted or planned. Just my life—or my family’s—playing out for the world to see.
She nodded slowly, strands of black hair resting across her cheek in the breeze. I was itching to push them back, but I didn’t touch her. If I started, I probably wouldn’t stop at just tucking hair behind her ear.
“Chicago,” she said finally, those lips quirking into another smile that drew my attention solidly to her mouth. So far, I’d been proud of my restraint—mostly—when I was around her, but it really was becoming exhausting. “That’s not what I was expecting, actually, but okay. Chicago it is. Do you even have scorpions there?”
In a mansion overlooking Lake Michigan? Nope.
“I’ve never seen one,” I said. “At least I didn’t rent a cabin just because I fear nature, though.”
She scoffed. “I don’t fear nature, but I do respect climate control.”
“Right, because nothing saysmechaniclike AC and being unwilling to share your bed with a scorpion or two.”
“Laugh it up, City Boy. You don’t even have a bed. You have an air mattress. If you’re lucky. I, however, will have a real bed, a clean shower, and no unwanted visitors between my sheets in the middle of the night.”
Unwanted visitors. I wonder if I’d be a wanted?—
No. Keep it clean, Theo.
While this conversation was a little flirtier than I was used to with her, I had just a bit of tact. “You know, you didn’t strike me as high maintenance.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m not.”
“You don’t want to camp because you need air-conditioning and a proper bed.”
“I also shower regularly and believe in indoor plumbing, and the bed in that cabin will have a lumpy mattress you won’t hear me complaining about, thank you very much.”
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling now too, fully and completely, and once again, that smile had snuck up on me. Beautiful didn’t even begin to cover her when she was like this, relaxed and unguarded.
She grabbed a camping chair and expertly flipped it open, then lowered herself into it with the grace of a princess. If princesses had grease stains on their hands, wore minimal makeup, and would be caught dead in a cut-off, oversized T-shirt that had been torn up out of necessity.
I was pretty sure that had beenAvery’sshirt last week, and that it was the same one I’d seen them cut up when Raquel had yelled at him for stealing her rag.Fun times.
Her denim shorts had ridden up when she’d sat down, but just as my gaze dropped to the newly exposed swath of tannedthigh, Avery appeared beside us and my eyes very quickly found something else to look at. He was carrying a bundle of inner tubes over one shoulder, the wide grin on his face suggesting he hadn’t noticed where I’d been looking a second ago.
“We’re driving a few miles up the Pass to ride these down,” he said, then glanced at me. “The creek that feeds the lake is running nice and strong after the last storm. Are you in?”
“We’re going tubing?” I asked.
His grin widened. “Hell yeah.”
“I’m in,” I said, catching one of the inner tubes when he tossed it at me. Then we both turned to Raquel. “You?”
“Why not?” she said. “It’s just unsafe enough that we’ll be able to see what the city boy is really made of.”
I widened my eyes and shook my head. “Hey, the fact that it might be a little unsafe is how you know it’s going to be fun.”
Avery laughed. “I knew you would have a good time out here.”
A moment later, he was gone again, jogging over to some of his friends to start organizing coolers and who would be tied to who. Other people were scattering toward tents and trucks to change and I turned back to Raquel to ask if she wanted me to walk her to her cabin to do the same, but she was already reaching for the hem of her shirt.
Before I could say a single word or even form another thought, she pulled it casually over her head. All I could do was watch, transfixed as the cotton slid up, exposing her flat stomach and her ribs. For just a second, I wondered if I was about to see it all.
