Page 50 of Past Tents

When he scooted back and zipped the tent closed, the tension in the small space ratcheted up a million or so degrees. Pressing my back so hard against the tent wall that I risked tearing the fabric, I still couldn’t bring myself to look at Clay. His presence was so strong I felt overwhelmed.

Clay placed his flashlight under a white shirt, giving the light a muted glow. What had I been thinking, saying we should share a tent? I’d slept in these tents at Clay’s house, and I knew they were barely big enough for one person, let alone two.

Maybe you want to be in close quarters with him.

Well, sure. Who wouldn’t want to be in close quarters with this hunk of Clay? But could I handle the swarm of butterflies in my stomach and the raging libido he unleashed? Doubtful.

“Alexandra.” We were only a couple feet apart. Clay wasn’t speaking loudly. But the tent had an echo chamber effect, which meant his voice came at me from all sides, the lilt of his Tennessee drawl coating me like a pour of warm pancake syrup. I shuddered unconsciously.

“Yes?” I asked, looking anywhere in the tent but at his face. I busied myself smoothing out my sleeping bag and maneuvering it so my head would be as far away as possible from Clay’s while we slept. As if I’d be able to sleep with him so close by.

“Look at me.”

Tipping my head up only enough so I could see him through my eyelashes, I told myself I had complete control over my reaction to him. I could look at him without feeling a lurch in my gut, right?

Wrong, wrong, and triple wrong.

His chiseled features had dissolved into a look of concern that creased his forehead and removed all traces of his smile. And somehow he appeared even more beautiful. No one had ever gazed at me like that, even my parents, and I knew empirically that they loved me. This was something different, and my body responded to its magnetic pull. I was powerless to resist him, and as much as it thrilled my senses, it annoyed my brain.

He’s just a guy, a colleague, I told myself in what was becoming a truly useless refrain.

Reaching with a steady hand, Clay tipped my chin up with the knuckle of his index finger. Chills raced over my skin. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing. All good,” I said, my voice crackling like the fire we’d just extinguished. And now the damn hottie was lighting a new one. I forced a yawn. “I’m just super tired. Probably should get some sleep.”

He let his hand drop to his lap, and I felt suddenly cold. But that was a good thing. Keeping my distance, I shoved my feet into my sleeping bag without taking off my socks, and shimmied into the warm cocoon until I could barely see Clay. I heard him rustling around at the opposite corner of the tent, and I assumed he was loading himself into his own sleeping bag.

More rustling. And a few jerky movements. He wasn’t settling down, and after another minute, I became curious enough to peek over the edge of my purple sleeping bag, only to find Clay sitting cross-legged, rummaging through several small nylon sacks he’d taken from his backpack.

Cue tiny orgasm from organizational porn. The man had everything sorted in small bundles, and I couldn’t help but stare as he opened one and removed a long-sleeved tee. He then reached for the neck of his fleece and pulled it off, along with the shirt beneath it. My jaw went slack at the sight of his naked torso, all carved into muscular bas-relief like a granite sculpture. His abs flexed as he folded—folded!—his fleece and packed it into the small sack.

When he pulled on the long-sleeved shirt, I let out an exhale of thanks for taking mercy on me. Apparently, it was a loud exhale. Clay looked up, so I quickly buried myself again under the top of the bag.

“Alexandra,” he said.

“Yes?” My voice was muffled by three inches of down and nylon.

“Is this going to make you uncomfortable?”

“This?” I sounded like a squeaky bird.

“Sharing a tent. I really don’t mind sleeping on the ground. You can have the tent to yourself.” He gestured around as though he was highlighting the spaciousness of a villa instead of a tent spanning four square feet.

His words hit me like a shovel to the back of the head. I was being ridiculous. It was just a few butterflies, and I was the strong, capable sort of person who could talk them down. Mind over matter.

“No, no. You don’t need to do that. Head to feet, we’re all good.”

But we weren’t all good because he didn’t slide his feet into the sleeping bag for another ten minutes, during which time I snuck more looks at his flexing biceps while he organized more small sacks of camping items. He changed out of the socks he’d been wearing all day and put on a fresh pair, reminding me I’d shoved my dusty, socked feet into my bag and now I’d have the pleasure of sleeping that way.

Unfurling a pair of sweatpants that he’d rolled into a tidy bundle, Clay glanced in my direction. I hunkered down in my bag, wondering if he was about to take his pants off in the tent. Instead, he opened the tent, tossed a thin camping towel onto the ground outside, and stepped out. I could only see him from mid-thigh downward, but when he dropped his hiking pants, I caught a shadowy view of some very muscular runner’s legsbefore he stepped into the dark blue sweatpants and crawled back into the tent.

My heart clenched the moment he zipped the tent closed and I realized how small the space felt. I began to rethink my insistence that this would be fine. Was it me, or was there suddenly less air in here?

Finally—finally—he slipped his feet into the sleeping bag and stretched them out toward my head. His own head was about as far away from me as it could be without sticking out of the tent.

Clay fished the flashlight out from the corner and flicked it off. The darkness provided its own kind of relief because I could no longer worry about catching sight of Clay. But then I had a different problem—hyperawareness of his every shift and movement, which I could feel because our sleeping bags had no distance between them.

It was so quiet for such a long time that I assumed Clay had fallen asleep instantly.

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