Page 51 of Past Tents

I was making a mental note to ask him in the morning how he managed that, when he shifted in his sleeping bag and started talking.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You comfortable?”

Was I...what? In a list of words to describe my state of being, “comfortable” would round out the very bottom.

I’d been lying there for fifteen minutes, stiff as a wooden plank, trying to breathe quietly and stay on my side of the tent. Mymuscles were so tense and tight that I’d make an excellent soldier, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Not to mention that there was a rock or a pinecone underneath the tent, and no matter how I positioned myself, it kept jabbing me in the back.

I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh. “Um, not really. I was afraid to move because I thought I might wake you.”

His laugh joined mine. “Oh, thank God. Me too. I’ve been waiting for you to fall asleep so I can exhale.”

“Impressed that you can hold your breath for fifteen minutes.”

“I am a runner, you know.”

I heard some shuffling in the dark, and a moment later, the flashlight popped back on, muted by the same white shirt. It gave the tent a warm glow under the low green ceiling.

“What are we gonna do?” His voice was a low grumble. Sleepy and deep. Almost intimate.

“I don’t know. Tell each other ghost stories?”

Still inside the sleeping bag, I sat up, finally relieved of the pesky rock. I rubbed my back. “I was so busy telling all the kids to check the ground for rocks, I somehow neglected to do it myself.”

“There’s a rock under you?”

“More like a shard.”

He sat up. Now we were facing each other, only a foot of space between us. Then he started scooting toward me. “Here, switch places with me.”

“No, I’m not making you sleep on a rock.”

He was already moving toward me like an inchworm, but in the cramped tent, there was no way for him to get past me without contact. Before I knew it, he’d picked up the bottom half of me, still in the bag, and propped my legs on his lap. Then he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and swung us both around until he was sitting in my former half of the tent, and I was in his.

But he didn’t let my legs go.

Acutely aware of his legs beneath mine, I stopped breathing momentarily.

When I glanced up, his gaze was bearing down on me. In the dim light, I was close enough to see gold flecks dance in the hazel of his irises. His muscled arm wrapped me up in heat. I let out a shaky exhale and felt him do the same.

Unconsciously, I leaned forward, drawn in by him. I wanted to memorize the details of his face in case I never got this close again. He tipped his head down slightly. Now we were mere inches apart, and it would take only the slightest movement for one of us to close the gap.

Clay’s lips looked soft, and I fixed my gaze on the corner of his mouth that crooked to the side the way I always liked, as though he was fighting a smile.

I felt his exhale as though it were my own. When he rolled to the side, I wanted to roll with him. Instead, I lay frozen in the dark, afraid of moving a muscle lest I inadvertently climb on top of him.

Finally, Clay settled down and seemed to find a comfortable sleeping position because he stopped moving and I could hear his even breathing.

I started to shiver. It made no sense because my sleeping bag was plenty warm, but I knew it had nothing to do with being cold. The proximity to Clay was making me tremble with anticipation that something was about to happen. We could ignite ten campfires with the sparks shooting between us.

Then Clay turned abruptly, and my eyes locked on his. I watched them heat, irises turning a deeper color, pupils dilating.

“What’s happening right now?” he asked.

“I guess I’m a little nervous.”

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