She groaned, and we talked about the unpleasantness of late pregnancy for a while.
“What do you keep looking at?”
“Sorry.” I hadn’t realized it, but I was looking out the window. “Just distracted by the trees—my cabin has a killer forest view,” I said, realizing that I’d never told her about being lost in the woods. It was weird that I hadn’t, and I wasn’t opposed to doing so, but I wasn’t going to do it now.
When we hung up, I turned off the phone, stashed it in my empty suitcase, and considered the concept of context. Teddy had remarked that we didn’t know each other in context—meaning in the real world. That was why it had been so easy for me to have sex with him—to have sex with him in a way that allowed me to really get into it. Really let go. I hadn’t caredabout how I was being perceived, either physically or emotionally. And why was that? Because this place had an end date. It was outside of reality. There had been no stakes, was what it boiled down to.
As a thought experiment, I considered whether sleeping with Teddy once at Wild Arts and calling it my last hurrah would be any different from sleeping with him for the duration of my time at Wild Arts and calling it my last hurrah. What was different about today versus yesterday in this place that was already outside of time and reality?
Nothing.
I burst out of the door before I could talk myself out of it, but came to a dead stop on my porch when I realized we still had the condom problem.
The camp store had closed at five, and how likely was it that a store at a camp for kids would have condoms to begin with? I might be able to get one from one of the other artists, but who? Maiv would be my obvious first choice, but she wasn’t getting it on with anyone here. At least as far as I knew—I did entertain the idea that if I was having secret rendezvous, other people could be, too. Still, I thought Maiv was a long shot when it came to condom procurement, and I wasn’t sure it was worth outing myself for those odds.
Jack, I decided. He was exactly the kind of guy who would pack condoms for his writing retreat. And he would be less likely than anyone else to interrogate me about why I wanted one.
He answered my knock with his eyebrows raised. I had probably interrupted the writing of a Pulitzer-worthy sentence.
“Do you have a condom I could borrow?” I asked, deciding to cut to the chase.
I’d expected a reaction of some sort, but he merely nodded and disappeared back into his cabin.
“I don’t think ‘borrow’ is the correct word, though,” he said when he returned with a little square packet. “I don’t think I want it back.”
There was the reaction. “Ha ha.” I glanced down at it. “‘Ribbed for her pleasure.’ Wow, I wouldn’t have thought you were the type to care about her pleasure.”
“Maybe insulting the person who’s lending—giving—you a condom isn’t the best course of action here.”
He was right. “Yeah, yeah. OK, thanks, Jack. I appreciate it.”
I went back to my cabin after that, in case he was watching me. I needed to put on a hoodie, anyway. I made myself wait five minutes before heading out again.
“Hi,” I said as Teddy swung open his door and looked me up and down. He was still wearing his swim trunks from before—they had dried—and he’d added his own hoodie on top. He was barefoot. I bit my lip. There was something about his feet, casually bare on the scuffed wood floor of the cabin, that seemed almost painfully intimate. Like I was getting a glimpse of Teddy Knight at rest, a rare thing most people never got to do. My stomach lurched with a mixture of lust and fear. “I know I said that there was only going to be one occurrence of horizontal hugging, but—eep!”
If I’d been unsure how Teddy was going to react to being propositioned again, I needn’t have been: he literally picked me up and hauled me over the threshold, kicking the door shut behind us. I emitted yet another unflattering squeak when it became clear that he wasn’t going to set me down, that he was, in fact, transporting us directly to bed. A shiver of anticipation radiated through me as I hitched my legs around his waist.
“Do you have a condom?” he asked as he walked backward toward the bed.
“I do!”
“This is better than when you brought me breakfast.” His voice was low and a little bit growly. And a lot sexy. I was excited for this solo album of his—Concrete Temple had been wasting all that vocal talent relegating it to the background.
At the bed, I thought he’d turn and set me down, but he backed himself up against it and fell back, taking me with him.
I stared at him. He stared back.
I couldn’t read his expression until he suddenly started laughing.
“What?” I told myself there was no reason to be offended. The man had literally carried me to bed.
“This.” He grabbed the tie of my hoodie. “This very alluring getup you have now worn twice in your wily attempts to seduce me. I’m beginning to think this is a covert operation.”
“Of course it’s a covert operation! I don’t want people to get the wrong idea.”
His expression grew quizzical. “Which is what?”
Was he an idiot? “That we’re together! Romantically, I mean!”
