Page 37 of Past Tents

I needed to stop. It was all just the mountain air getting to my head. The air was thinner up here, wasn’t it? Less oxygen. That did a number on a person’s brain.

It certainly wasn’t because I had actual feelings for Clay. All these years of being colleagues and sort-of friends, I certainly wasn’t smitten with Clay Meadows. I was just...completely smitten with Clay Meadows.

Well, shit.

There it was.

If I wasn’t already standing here fully overcome by justhowsmitten I was, the view before me pushed me right over the top—Clay in a pair of navy-blue hip-hugging joggers and a plaid flannel jacket standing next to the flames of a roaring campfire. Poking at it with a stick, he made the logs pop and crackle while he stared into a metal cup of some sort of steaming beverage.

With the bright yellow rays of early morning sun dancing across his cheekbones, Clay looked more at home than I’d ever seen him on campus. Instead of the greyhound I always saw dashing from place to place and running laps around the track, Clay exhibited a stillness that looked so beautiful it hurt.

I approached him slowly, not wanting to disturb his peacefulness, but the light crunch of pine needles beneath my feet gave me away. Clay turned and smiled, and with the way the sun hit his face, he glowed in the soft amber light.

“Thanks,” I said, still a bit overwhelmed by how well the wilderness treated him. Looking down at my baggy sweats and patting the sloppy waterfall of hair, I had no doubt I looked a mess.

“How’d you sleep?” he asked.

“Like a rock. Oh my God, Clay, I had no idea how hypnotic it is to sleep on the ground. What is that about?”

A low chuckle warmed me from head to toe. “Do I detect a wilderness convert?” he asked, his smile morphing into a smirk.

“Hold your horses, buddy. I just said I slept well. Now, what is that delicious-smelling brew?”

He gestured to a French press sitting on one of the stones surrounding the campfire. “Bandit Lake’s finest.”

“Is the French press an officially sanctioned piece of camping equipment?” I teased as he picked up a second cup and pouredcoffee for me. Our hands brushed when he handed me the cup, and the jolt of electricity against my skin startled me, confirming that what I felt last night in the tent was no fluke.

I yanked my hand back so quickly that the coffee sloshed over the rim of the cup. Clay’s radiant morning glow slowly faded into a look of concern. “You okay?”

Shaking myself out of my spiral of confusion, I blinked away the images of Clay as the fairy-tale prince he’d all but sworn he would never be. So the heat creeping across my skin needed to stop and the romantic in me needed to calm herself. “Um, yeah. Great.”

“You sure?” He looked unconvinced.

“Yeah. I, um, just realized I don’t need a fairy-tale prince.” My eyes went wide at the unintentional admission. “I mean...I need to get back. Tell me what I can do to pack up the camping equipment. I want to help.”

Clay looked down at his hand where it had brushed mine. His jaw dropped open, then he shook his head. “No worries. I’ve got this. If you have somewhere you need to be, it’s fine.”

Pushing the still-full coffee cup against Clay’s chest, I stammered, “Okay...I do. This was great. Thank you, but it’s late and I should go.”

Then I pulled the cup back and took a long, satisfying swig of the coffee. Because...coffee. “French press. I’m a convert.”

I returned the cup to Clay’s outstretched hand and jogged out of his yard before I did something stupid. Like reach over to kiss a greyhound who’d only break my heart.

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

CLAY

Normally, I loved Sundays. Not being much of a churchgoer, I had ample time in the mornings to hike or go out for a run when fewer people were out on the roads.

But yesterday, despite running a cleansing ten-miler, I had loved Sunday a bit less. I wanted it to be Monday. I wanted to go back to school. I told myself I was eager for the typical Monday morning gossip and chitchat in the teachers’ lounge, but I just wanted to see Ally and make sure we were good.

I’d almost kissed her, for fuck’s sake, and I couldn’t decide if I’d ruined a perfectly good work relationship or opened a potentially dangerous door, because I didn’t know what lay on the other side.

Certainly, hearing about her date and seeing the lengths she went to ensure we weren’t alone together sent a message. It felt like an emotional gut punch, but it told my brain what it needed to hear. We were friends. Nothing more.

That night, I’d stood outside Ally’s tent for a long time, listening for any sign she was awake. I’d intended to apologize right thenand there, but the last thing I wanted to do was wake her to do it. Eventually, I cleaned up the campsite, making sure there were no food scraps around to attract animals, and crawled into my own tent. It felt really goddamn cold.

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