Page 94 of A Love Letter to Whiskey
Still, oddball bunch that we were, we were having a blast. We’d packed Jamie’s Jeep and Charlie’s truck with camping gear, way too much food and an obnoxious amount of booze and headed out to the springs. I’d never set up a tent before, and to be honest we all kind of sucked at it, but we figured it out eventually, with the help of Bud Light, of course. It was so low key and casual after that, just the five of us hanging around a fire drinking and eating and laughing. We set up a table and played drinking games, which I hadn’t played since college, and I found out that though my surfing skills hadn’t waned over the years, my ability to get a stupid white ping pong ball into a red plastic cup had.
It was an easy night, relaxed, and that’s just what Jamie wanted. I loved him even more for that, for not wanting strippers and gambling and cigars. No one in the group seemed to care that we weren’t out on the town, either. We were all content, and for a while, I relaxed. The weekend hadn’t been so bad after all.
But it wasn’t over yet.
“You know, most girls would have been annoying in this situation,” Charlie said to me later that night when we were all sitting around the fire. Jamie was in the middle of telling Andrew a story and Ryan had already passed out in his tent.
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged, still not smiling. He never smiled. “I don’t know. Some girls say they’re ‘one of the guys’, but really that just means they fake interest in sports or cars or something else to seem cool and secretly hope they’ll get pined after. I kind of expected you to be like that.”
“And did I surprise you?”
“Kind of.” He sniffed. “I mean, you clearly know nothing about sports, but you don’t pretend to. You’re just yourself. And it should be weird for you to be camping with a group of guys, but it’s not. You’re not flirting with any of us, you’re not saying stupid shit.” I thought he was going to continue, it sounded that way, but he just stopped talking, and I cracked a smile.
“So then why only kind of?”
Charlie drained the last of his beer, crushing the cup and tossing it into the bag we’d set aside for recycling. “You may not be a fake chick trying to be one of the guys, but you are in love with Jamie.” His hard eyes landed on me then and the smile fell from my lips. “You’re keeping your cool on the surface, but I see it. You and Jamie are both playing with fire, and I don’t want to be here when everything goes up in flames.”
My heart was racing, and as much as I wanted to be pissed at his accusatory tone, I didn’t blame him for it. “I wouldn’t… I would never…”
He stood. “I don’t doubt you. But you’re also not the one I’m worried about.” His eyes were on Jamie then, and Jamie’s were on me. I looked back up at Charlie, and he cocked a brow. “You wouldn’t make the first move, but what would you do if he did?”
I opened my mouth, but clamped it shut again because the question was rhetorical. Charlie didn’t even wait for an answer.
“See you guys in the morning,” he called over the fire, retreating into his tent before anyone responded.
“Yeah, I should probably turn in, too,” Andrew said.
Jamie threw his arms up, spilling a little beer out of his cup with the motion. “Oh come on! It’s not even one yet!”
“You get married tomorrow, remember champ?” Andrew said, smiling and clapping Jamie on the back as he stood. “We all have to be up and out of here pretty early.”
Jamie laughed. “Yeah yeah, fine. Pansies.”
Andrew flicked him off and I chuckled as he disappeared into his tent.
“What about you over there?” Jamie asked, eying me over the edge of his cup as he took a drink.
Charlie’s words were in my head, and I almost told Jamie I was going to turn in, too. But he was clearly nervous about the next day, that’s what I saw that the other guys had missed, and he wasn’t ready to sleep. Everyone else had bailed, but I wasn’t going to do that to him. Shaking off Charlie’s warning, I moved to sit in the chair next to Jamie.
“Sleep is overrated.”
He smiled, his glazed eyes holding mine. “You’re the best, B.”
“And don’t you forget it.” I cheers-ed his plastic cup with mine and we both drank, not needing to say anything else.
For a while we just talked, a little about the wedding and a lot about everything but. Somehow we ended up on our phones, taking turns showing each other stupid videos on YouTube and laughing until we cried. I’d just pulled up a video of a prank gone wrong that I knew Jamie would get a kick out of when nature called.
