Page 48 of Lady and the Camp
I grinned. “See? Wasn’t this fun?”
“So we meet again,” a voice reached to us through the night. A male voice, elevated, standing over us at the top of the stairs.
My eyes fell shut. Lucas would never forgive me for this.
Chapter 15
Lucas
IspentSaturdaymorningholed up in my apartment trying to forget everything from the past twenty-four hours. The TV blared, but I ignored it. I could be doing half a dozen things—laundry, dishes, purchasing one-way tickets to a town where no one knew me.
Brycen’s haughty tone cut through my thoughts for the millionth time. “Never figured you for one to sneak onto our grounds,” he’d said to me. “If you wanted back in, you could have asked.”
Wild dogs couldn’t drag a request out of me that had anything to do with him or that camp.
And yet, there I’d been, crouched in the shadows in the one place I’d sworn I’d never step foot in.
Total humiliation.
I knew Hudson felt bad because she’d grown quiet. Real quiet. Before she could come up with some terrible excuse for our trespassing, I’d blurted out we were leaving. And then we did.
We headed back to the trail, when Brycen called after us, suggesting we leave through the front entrance. He even offered us a ride to our camp. Hudson, whether to save her pride or her hide, kept mum and kept on walking.
I looked like an idiot. I’d already felt like one for taking on this camp director job. Now I’d sealed the deal by making a fool of myself in front of the single person I cared to impress. It was stupid to care, but clearly, I did.
My phone buzzed. I grabbed it from the coffee table next to me on the couch. Number unknown. Nope.
I switched over to an app on my phone for a local outdoors meet-up group. Maybe they were up to something this afternoon. My cousins joked about me having a flip phone, but I had a smart phone. Older model, but it connected online. Jerks.
A call came in again. This time a known number. A known number I couldn’t ignore. I answered. “Marcy.”
“Hey, stranger,” she said brightly. “Thanks for picking up.”
“Mmhmm.”
She sighed. “Is that all I get? How are you? How is Hudson? I can’t believe you’re leaving me hanging with no updates.”
“There’s nothing to update. Your friend is still employed. Despite all odds.”
“What does that mean?”
Where did I begin? “You don’t want to know.”
“Now I definitelyneedto know.”
I could practically hear her smile over the line. “No.”
“You can’t tell me no,” she said. “Maybe you can get away with that with other people, but not me. Look, Hudson is dealing with a lot right now. Is she okay? It’s driving me wild that she can’t use her phone.”
“I caught her talking on her phone. Toyou.” And they’d been talking about me. Embarrassing.
“Well yeah, but it’s only for emergencies.”
Why did this conversation seem like crucial details were being left out? “Why does she have to stay off the internet?”
“She told you that?”
“Look, something bigger is afoot and I don’t like not knowing.”
