Page 80 of Charlie and Her Sweet Escape
He backed away from me, and I almost whimpered. I wanted him back. It was less efficient to have two of us do the same task, but so much more fun.
I struggled the first couple of times, but then finally, the ax slid down and took off a chunk of bark, smooth as could be.
“I did it!” I said to him as I did another slice, and then another. He grinned.
The work was exhausting, and it would have been a better use of our time for one of us to rest while the other worked, and then trade off, but I didn’t want to give up this time with him.
Time sped by, and the shadows in the grove of birch trees began to lengthen as the sun went down. Bennett put his shirtand sweater back on when the wind picked back up. “This should be our last one tonight,” Bennett said. “Then we can shelter down.”
“I can’t wait.” I loved our nightly ritual of chatting in front of the fire about everything from what animal we’d be if we could shape-shift, to what our greatest fear was. I didn’t quite know what to do with the info that Ben would be a quokka, but I understood his fear of losing his family. He’d lost so much already. Tonight, I wanted to ask him about his most embarrassing moment. Since he’d been present for most of mine, I felt like it was only fair I be given this information as well.
“I think I can carry this one on my own,” Bennett said after we finished scraping it clean.
“Bennett Hunter Forrester. You will let me help you carry this,” I said firmly.
He bit back a smile. “Oh, so we’re at the point in our relationship where you’re weaponizing my middle name.”
“It’s better than being called buddy.” Which, come to think of it, I hadn’t heard him say in a while. Good riddance to that nickname.
“I’d forgotten about that. Thanks for the reminder.”
“If you call me that …”
“I was thinking something more along the lines of baby.” He stepped toward me. “Sweetheart.” Another step closer. “Honey.” Right in front of me, his chest close enough to touch mine, his eyes ablaze. “Irresistible.”
I gulped and forced myself not to step back. To not let my fear overtake me. “All good options.”
“What would you call me?” His voice was gravelly as he slipped his hand against mine and interlocked our fingers.
Did he have any idea how vulnerable I was feeling?
“Sexy.” I brought our clasped hands up between us and kissed his knuckles. “Tempting.” My heart nearly jumped out of my chest at the action. “Mine.”
His eyes were alight with a heat that blazed all the way through me. “Charlie,” he rasped as if coming up for air, before he lowered his mouth, a breath from kissing me. And this time, this time, I was going to lean into him, open up, take a risk?—
Crash!
Something loudly clattered in the distance, and we sprang apart, my heart racing for a different reason. A loud sound like that out here never meant anything good.
“Did that come from our camp?” I asked.
“It sounded like it,” he said grimly.
I followed closely on Bennett’s heels as we raced to camp, still trying to recalibrate my brain from our almost kiss to whatever this was. Our energy was so low from not eating enough that our run was more of a springy walk.
We came around a thick copse of birch trees. I skidded to a stop and reached out to grab the back of Bennett’s sweater when he went to barge forward.
The walls of our shelter vibrated as something bounced against them, testing their solidity. We heard a snuffing sound, and then the clatter of things being tossed around.
“It sounds like a bear,” Bennett said.
“What are we going to do?” We weren’t allowed to kill or hurt the bears. They were protected out here, which meant we had to find a way to get it out of our campsite without getting hurt, and without hurting it.
“See what kind of bear it is and go from there.”
“And how are we going to do that?” My grip tightened on his sweater, as if I could hold him in place.
“If that bear ruins our shelter, I don’t think we could recover fast enough to stay. We don’t have the energy to build a new one.”
