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I just wasn’t sure she would risk it all for me, too.
11
CELINE
Ifoundmysuitcasesin the storage room and carried them to the bedroom. What the hell was I supposed to pack? What did people wear when they went camping?
I opened my closet and pulled out the designer leggings I’d ordered online a few weeks ago. I added lace-up boots to the mix and crop tops. Yeah, that was cute. I could see myself wearing something like that out in nature.
The idea made me bristle. I didnotcamp but damned if I was going to let them win. I would prove them all wrong. Assholes.
Noah and Lorenzo were so determined that I would never go through with it that I didn’t have a choice. Even if Noah’s side of the bet was in my favor, there was no way he believed I would do it. Not even Ava believed it, she thought he was just pissing away his money.
Well, I would show them all.
I threw in my pajama shorts and tank tops I slept in, a beautiful coat I’d been dying to wear when it got colder again, and a few more pairs of shoes. No heels because it was camping, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t look good, right?
“Celine?” Ava called down the hallway. “Are you home?”
“I’m packing,” I called out.
Ava appeared in my doorway. “What? Are you leaving?”
Lexi appeared behind her.
“Hi,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going on that camping trip, remember?” I said to Ava.
My sister-in-law shook her head. “What?”
“What camping trip?” Lexi asked.
Ava filled Lexi in on what had happened. Lexi’s eyes widened when Ava told her I’d brought Lorenzo home, and she looked just as amused as everyone else had been about the part where they’d bet against me going.
I wasn’t amused.
“The trip sounds like so much fun,” Lexi said after I filled her in that apparently Lorenzo and his friends did it every year.
“Sure,” I said. “Somuch fun. We don’t need the mansions and fancy cars we earn with our hard work—”
“You don’t work for anything,” Ava snorted.
“—let’s stay in a tent in the bush.” I finished my sentence, glaring at Ava.
Lexi shook her head. “Being so connected to nature is incredible. I think you’re doing the right thing to go. Oh, I’m so jealous, I could die! I want to do something like that! Bas isn’t big on camping either, so we never go.”
“Bas sounds like a wise man.”
Lexi giggled, and she and Ava sat on my bed, making themselves comfortable.
“Where are the kids?” I asked.
“Oh, Bas’s mom asked if we wanted to send them along with the others, they’re doing a huge playdate with Emily’s and Holly’s kids. That’s why I’m here. I thought now would be a good time to see you and Ava for a wine afternoon.”
“She’s the sweetest thing,” Ava said to me. “Seriously, I wish my mother-in-law was like that.”
“Yeah, sorry, that won’t happen. My mom is very cold,” I said, thinking back to how Noah and I had grown up. Sometimes, I felt sorry for Ava that she’d married into such a cold family. My dad was all about tradition, no matter the cost, my mom was all about her looks and being the perfect wife in the Cavalier world and I was a bitch. Not to Ava anymore, but I’d made her life hell when she and Noah had gotten together.
