Page 26 of Clean Slade
We set off, and just like he promised, we arrived at a campground with four large yurts hidden in the forest no more than twenty minutes later.
“What do you think?” Slade asked Mac and me once we found our yurt and carried everything inside.
It was spacious, with a double bed on one side, a stove heater, a little kitchen unit with a mini-fridge, and a little sofa bed on the other. A fluffy white rug covered most of the hardwood flooring. The shower and bathroom were in an outhouse next to the tent.
“It’s soooo cute!” Mac exclaimed, jumping on the bed.
Slade high-fived her and turned to me.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“Just okay?” he asked on the cusp of a smirk.
“It’s still in the middle of bug central, so yeah. Just okay.”
Maybe I was being rude. After all, he had gone to all this trouble for us. He’d stayed up all night, waking people up to arrange everything and bring us here safely.
“But it’s great. Thank you,” I added before I second-guessed myself again and made a mess of everything.
He stared at me for a few moments as if he wanted to say something. Or maybe he simply wanted to tell me to go fuck myself for being an ungrateful bastard. But whatever it was, he didn’t say it. Instead, he picked up one of the bags and put it on the sofa bed.
“You guys take the double bed, and I’ll take this,” he said.
“You can’t be serious. That’s tiny. It won’t fit you.” God, why did I care?
What was the alternative? Him sleeping in the same bed as me? Or him sleeping with Mac while I took the small sofa bed?
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
“I’ll be okay. I’ve slept in worse places,” he said, and I didn’t humor him further. There was no need to make this weirder than it was already.
“Thank you.”
I was sure his statement was true, and hopefully, he wouldn’t have to do it for long.
“Wow. I should ask Autumn to do my grocery shopping more often,” he said a few minutes later, emptying the contents of one of the bags into the fridge. “Who wants lunch?”
Mac raised her hand, and Slade asked her to help. Before long, we were eating a nice cheese and prosciutto sandwich with tomato and pesto.
“I want more,” Mac said when she finished hers, looking at Slade with puppy-dog eyes.
Slade turned to me for approval, and I pursed my lips.
“Well, what can I say. I want more too.”
He laughed and obliged us by making another one, which he split in two and offered to Mac and me.
“Now, who’s going to beat me in a game of Connect 4?”
“What is that?”
Slade put his hand to his chest and gasped.
“You don’t know what Connect 4 is? I’m insulted.” He glanced at me and grimaced. “I feel old.”
I laughed.
“Welcome to my life. I feel older every time she asks me one of these questions. I swear I’m something like sixty in her eyes.”
