Page 65 of Past Tents

I didn’t bother taking her upstairs to my bedroom, not when I had a perfectly good couch right here. “Ah, okay. Understood. Have your way with me, greyhound.”

I loved how easy things were with her. We functioned like a singular being, and it both delighted and scared the shit out of me. The better things felt, the harder I fell for her. The harder I fell, the more I worried about what would happen if things ended.

I knew it was the wrong thing to be thinking about, but the worry never left the back of my mind.

Well, that’s not entirely true. She did have the ability to make me forget everything, if only for a few hours. And those were the best hours of my day.

As my eyes roamed the milky skin of her naked body splayed on the couch beneath me, I stayed in the present. “You are so goddamn gorgeous, I’m about to lose my mind,” I growled.

And then I slid inside her. Heaven found. Mind lost.

After I’d ravished her body, I reluctantly let Ally get dressed, but only because of how much I enjoyed seeing her in those jeans. Then I guided her outside to a trail behind my house, where I’d promised her a fun date.

“I’m not feeling the fun yet,” she panted as we crested a hill.

“No?” I laughed, stopping so we could catch our breaths and enjoy the view. Bandit Lake lay below us and to our right was a lush green meadow. Our destination.

“It is pretty though.”

“That it is,” I said, enjoying my view of her. When she turned and caught me staring, she blushed. I loved that I could make her do that simply by telling her the truth.

The sun was high overhead, so I guided us to a shady spot in the meadow, where a winding trail cut through the greenery and led to a mossy flat area.

“Okay, here’s where we take your survival skills up a notch,” I said, kicking over a rotting log and revealing a colony of half the varieties of bugs that lived in the state of Tennessee.

Ally took a step back but observed the bugs, which crawled every which way, now that I’d moved their shelter. I rolled the log back with my foot, but a few escapees roamed on the moss around it.

“Um, what do you have in mind?” she asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

“I know how much you want to be self-sufficient, and I figured you might like to have some wilderness survival skills to go along with the first aid.”

I didn’t know what I was expecting. A laugh? An eye-roll? But the look on Ally’s face was pure gratitude. “You want to help me be more self-sufficient?” She brought a hand to her chest and cocked her head. Her eyes may have even been moist, but I couldn’t really tell behind the sunglasses.

“I—”

She wrapped her arms so tightly around me I almost lost my breath. Then again, I felt breathless around her most of the time anyway.

Moving the log again, I set the bugs free and watched them splay out across the ground. I searched for the one I wanted andsaw it on the desiccated log. “Here, this is a good one.” Picking it up, I held the small brown insect out for Ally to inspect. Still standing a few feet away, Ally leaned slightly toward it but mostly observed it from afar.

“Why is that a good one?” she asked.

“Bark beetle. They’re plentiful around here, and they have a lot of protein. So if you ever run out of food, these are a good option. What you want to do is bite the heads off and spit them out, then eat the crunchy body.”

“I absolutely donotwant to do that.”

I handed her the bark beetle, which she accepted in her palm, observing it. I watched her watch the bug. Then I saw her make a decision. Closing her eyes, she brought the beetle to her mouth and hesitated, screwing up her face in disgust.

“Wait!” Her eyes popped open when I took the beetle out of her hand. “I didn’t bring you here to eat bugs.”

The look on her face was priceless. Part relieved, part murderous. “I almost ate that bug.”

“I wouldn’t have let you.”

“You can’t stop me. Here, hand it over.” Was she serious? She nodded at me and held out her hand. I put the beetle back in her palm and watched her steel herself. “This is really safe to eat?” she asked.

“A hundred percent.”

“Okay...” She brought the beetle to her lips, and I prepared myself to fall hopelessly in love with this woman who had beenscared of the wilderness a few weeks ago and was now willing to eat a bug.

---