Page 11 of Yours and Mine (Friends with Benefits)

Chapter 3

Three years later

“Hey, Jo.” Carter’s voice echoed through the forest as he jogged toward me. “Wanna go get more wood for tonight?”

There it was: that signatureI wanna show you I like youlook on his face. I scanned the forest clearing for Nick, who usually managed to save me from Carter’s advances, but he was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Carter; he was not only a good friend but also a very handsome and buff young man, and all the girls squealed when he walked into the room. I just wasn’t interested. He’d always be just a friend.

“Ahm, sure, I guess.”

I took one of the handles of the basket he’d brought while he gripped the other. We’d been waiting for our end-of-year high school trip ever since we found out that it existed, back in elementary school. Our class would stay away from home for three nights and four days. We had set up our tents about an hour before, girls on one side of the clearing and boys on the other, and now everyone was taking a break. There were only eighteen of us, for a total of four tents, plus two teachers: Mr. Simmons and Ms. Goodfield, who happened to be a married couple and would occupy the last two tents, smack in the middle.

We headed out into the woods, picking up dry sticks and twigs that would make perfect kindling for tonight and tossing them into the basket. As the sounds behind us quieted, shivers prickled up my arms. It was one thing to be out in the woods with a large group, and another to be just a pair, walking further and further out — especially with bears inhabiting these forests. We weren’t supposed to venture further than earshot, and I was beginning to have trouble hearing our classmates’ voices.

I stopped and asked, “Have you seen Nick?”

“I think Daisy was showing him a bird’s nest she found.” Carter pulled on the handle to continue, and I followed him.

Of course she was!

I liked Daisy. She was a good friend – one of my best friends, in fact – but she was just not right for Nick. I knew them both so well that I couldn’t see them as a couple. They wouldn’t mesh. I mean, she was a vegetarian, and Nick was a meat man. There. And that was just a pit stop on the No Way José highway.

Why wouldn’t she just stop trying? What bugged me even more was that he seemed to be enjoying all the attention she was giving him and didn’t even try to ignore her. Why was he leading her on, when I knew that he’d never actually go out with her?

“So, what’s up with you and Nick?” Carter brought me out of my daze, and I stopped.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you two gonna date? Because everyone thinks you are.”

“Why would we date?” I shook my head. “No, that’d be weird. We’re just friends.”

Had I thought about dating? Yes, of course I had. But dating Nick? No! He was like a brother to me; though truthfully, I wasn’t interested in anyone else, either. I was too young and having way too much fun to be dating.

“So you’re saying that if Daisy asked him out, you’d be okay with it?”

“Why? Do you think she will?”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“Daisy can do whatever she wants.” I looked around the darkening forest. “I think we’ve gone too far.”

Carter stopped. Which way had we come from? It took one circular turn for me to get lost. The trees and shrubs all looked the same.

“Oh my—”

“Shh!”

“Can you hear them?” I asked.

“Barely. You need to stay quiet. That way.” He pointed in a direction I would have definitely not chosen. After a moment of walking, our classmates’ voices became clearer, and I let go of the breath I’d been holding.

“What if someone asked you out?” Carter asked.

“Like who?”

“Me.”

“Are you asking me out?”

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