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“Trust me, it’s easier to keep warm in here than in a big tent. Besides, it’s just to deter wild animals and bugs.”
“Bugs?” Celine asked in a small voice.
“The active verb here isdeter,” I said.
Celine nodded. “Right.”
“Look, if you don’t want to do this, it’s not too late to—”
“Who said I didn’t want to do this?” Celine asked.
I smiled at her. “Okay.”
“I need something to drink,” she said.
“Good thing Gino lugged wine up here.”
“God, I could just kiss your brother for that,” Celine breathed.
A pang of pure jealousy shot into my chest. If my brother so much as touched her, I would deck him without thinking twice. Of course, he wouldn’t do that, and it was just a figure of speech from her side…
Still, my strong emotional reaction pulled me up short. I was a lot more invested in Celine than I was willing to admit, even to myself.
The rest of the day was spent around the campfire. Gino and Scott had put up fishing gear and tried to pull something out of the lake. They didn’t have much luck, but they drank more than they fished. Anna and Nicole talked like they hadn’t seen each other in ages.
“What do you do?” Morgan asked Celine.
“What do I do where?” Celine asked.
“I mean for a job,” Morgan said. “How do you support yourself?”
“Oh.” Celine glanced at me. “I don’t really work. I do a bit here and there, but nothing serious. I got involved with a couple of charity events, and that takes up a lot of time.”
“You don’t work?” Morgan asked.
“Does it look like I need to?” Celine asked. “Like I said, the charities do take up a lot of my time, and there are people out there who need people to take that time.”
“I guess that’s true. Someone’s got to do it, right?”
Celine nodded. She wasn’t as sure of herself as she usually was. Out here, she looked smaller and not as confident.
“What about you?” she asked Morgan.
“I’m a pediatrician,” Morgan said. “Well, studying to be a pediatric neurologist. It’s a process to specialize.”
“That does seem very specialized,” Celine said. “What made you want to do that?”
“There are a lot of people out there who need people to take the time,” Morgan said with a shrug, throwing Celine’s words back to her.
For a moment, I wondered if Celine was going to say something snarky. She was always on top of her game, dishing it out, making sure other people knew just how indifferent she was about what they thought of her.
“That’s very noble,” she said. It wasn’t a Celine-type answer at all.
“My dad thinks it’s a waste of time to specialize,” Morgan said. “He says pediatrics is already specialized enough, but something about the way he always tells me that makes me want to prove him wrong.”
“And you should,” Celine said. “If that’s what you want to do, who’s he to tell you who you should be?”
“That’s what I said,” Morgan cried out.
