wash of warm emotions had come over me, and I’d choked back tears as I replied.
Me: Oh.
Blaise: Talk later. Have fun camping, now I won’t worry so much.
Damn.
Damn!
Damn. That was nice of him.
I’d flicked away a tear.
Me: Okay. You too.
I hadn’t asked what he was doing that night, and I hadn’t asked all day long today. He’d sent a couple texts checking in, asking how my night was, if I was cold, what did I actually do when I camped… And because I didn’t want to go deep and potentially depressing, I’d told him the surface stuff.
I read. I relaxed. I enjoyed the water.
But mostly, I felt close to my brother out here. Except on this trip. For some reason, on this trip, Owen wasn’t being all Owen-y, and I wasn’t feeling him with me. Instead, I was thinking about Blaise, remembering Blaise.
Blaise distracted me.
What was Blaise doing?
Was he partying?
Was he drunk?
Had he kissed Mara Daniels?
Had he done more than that with Mara?
I shouldn’t have been thinking like that. We’d kissed. Once. We’d hooked up. Once. One time. There’d be no repeats, not for wallflower girls like me. We didn’t get guys like that interested in us. But every time I thought that, I’d pull up our text messages.
If he didn’t care, why was he texting me?
Blaise DeVroe was not a good guy. I mean, he was being a good guy to me, but he wasn’t normally known to be nice, caring, or sweet. He was known to be blunt and a dick, and I’d seen enough to know that was accurate.
My head swam, all confused. What did this mean?
As if he knew I was thinking about him, my phone buzzed.
Blaise: I’m coming to hang out with you.
I jerked upright.
Me: What? No.
Blaise: Then you come back. Shit. Did you have to go camping so far away? That’s over an hour drive.
My heart beat fast. My palms were sweaty.
Me: Don’t come here. I camp alone. It’s what I do. Alone.
Blaise: I’m tired of my friends and I want to hang out with you. Either you pack up and come here or I’m coming there.
I was going to have a heart attack. I felt my chest tightening.
Blaise: I don’t have to stay the whole time, just for the night.
Blaise: Please.
Okay. Heart-melting moment here. I smiled before I realized I was smiling.
Me: Fine.
I frowned.
Me: That app really leads you to me?
Blaise: Yep. I’m only thirty minutes away. Buckle up, be there soon. I’m bringing booze.
Oh great. I didn’t drink, like ever. He was violating my camping-alone policy, and if he brought alcohol, I’d probably succumb and have one, so there went my no-drinking policy too.
Me: You’re a bad influence already.
Blaise: Tough shit.
Of course. Typical badass response. This shouldn’t have sent me even deeper into my crush, but it did because I was just another stupid girl.
I couldn’t wait for him to get here.
13
Blaise
I was armed with food and booze. That’s all you really needed when you went camping, right? Made sense to me.
I had gifts, and I wanted to get away from my life, at least for a night. I guess that was my theme, huh? Maybe Aspen and I were the same. I’d not seen another car in the last thirty minutes—this girl could define a new meaning of running away. Well, maybe not running because I knew where she was, but hiding? That was better.
Whatever the case, I wanted to make sure she was safe. That shit would eat me alive if it turned out she wasn’t, not to mention that my brother’s girlfriend would stab me. Literally. So besides the fact that I thought Aspen was chill in an odd way, I was coming out to make sure she was alive.
See? Good guy. Me.
I laughed to myself as I pulled up—my headlights finally hitting a tent and a campfire right before I turned the Wagon off—because no one could call me a good guy. No. One. Like, ever.
And that was enough thinking for me.
Time to get wasted. I hoped she was okay with that.
She moved toward me, and I could see her silhouette from the fire. Fuck.
She looked good.
She’d been hot before, but she was hotter, if that was possible.
And my dick was hard. Like, instant hard-on. That was going to be annoying.
“Yo.” I groaned, stuffing that shit way way down. “I brought presents.”
She was hesitant, but then came closer. “What presents?”
“You like sandwiches?” I tossed her the bag I’d gotten from a shop in Roussou, and she caught it,