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Stevie looks all wide-eyed again, like she’s not sure if their night in the wilderness is a secret, considering they should have beaten him back to camp. If he hadn’t shown up early.

“Karen’s not here,” Stevie says, finally but doesn’t even bring up Jordan or answer his question.

Whatever. I’ll be the devil tonight. “They’re camping.”

He frowns. “Both of them.”

“Yep.”

“Alone?”

“Yep.”

His face returns to that game-face I saw in the gym earlier. “Okay, thanks.” Before walking away again, he looks at me. “I’ll be in the gym in the morning if you change your mind about what I said.”

“Uh… okay.” I don’t know what else to say. I basically told him to go screw himself earlier and it’s like that side of the conversation never happened.

We watch him walk out the door and then Stevie sags against the wall, closing her eyes. “Jordan is in so much trouble.”

“Jordan? Why? For taking Campbell away? Think she’ll get hurt hiking or something?” Why hadn’t that crossed my mind until now? Nina would have probably had a heart attack if she knew where they went.

“More like for spending the night alone with her.” Stevie pushes off the wall and heads for the exit. I follow her. “Bentley’s gotta play the concerned father on both sides now.”

I’ve met the fists of a few concerned fathers with daughters so I get what she’s saying.

Stevie stumbles a little on the steps and I instinctively reach out a hand to steady her. She grins at me. “TJ the hero. Always diving to the rescue of falling girls. How’s Liberty, by the way? I’ve heard from a few others that she’s got some special
talents
.”

Thank God for condoms.

“And you’re polite, too,” Stevie says after my obvious silence regarding the Liberty issue. “What a great combination.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I’m every mother’s dream.”

She laughs, but the dark secretive kind. “Well, I can’t vouch for all the mothers out there, but I will say, mine wouldn’t be fazed by your bad-boy self at all.”

My heart speeds up. “Don’t tell me your mom’s dead, too, like Campbell’s?”

“Not dead.” She slams the door on that subject and shifts to something else. “What is it with you and Karen? Everything you say is Campbell this and Campbell that.”

She’s got the drunken act down now. Must be a delayed reaction to that last drink. And what is it with me and Karen? I have no fucking clue. I feel like every time I go near her, I get another reason to tug at my shirt collar. And then I have to fix whatever I screwed up. That’s all it is.

I think that’s all it is.

If Coach Bentley can take her in and then turn all concerned father, could something like that happen to me? Like without my choosing.

Stevie walks up the steps to her cabin slowly, then turns around, pressing her back against the door. “You and your triple backs and your hot sex with Liberty.”

I never called it hot sex out loud, did I? “What’s your point, Davis?”

“My point is…” She closes her eyes, blowing air out of her cheeks like she’s trying to speak clearly.
Feeling that last beer now, Stevie?
“You get to be adventurous, throwing your triple flips and experimenting with dozens of girls, and I get to be a sheltered prude who’s only about ninety percent of her world champion self.”

I open my mouth to argue but she shakes her head. She’s not finished. We haven’t gotten to the insulting me part. “We both know how wrong that assumption is. You throw triples because you’re too cocky to let someone help you learn how to twist your double flips. I did watered-down routines at an international competition because I knew…” Her eyes fly open and she’s pissed. “I
knew
it would pay off later on because my fundamentals needed work.”

I was 100 percent right earlier. Screwing is better than talking. “Fundamentals are for when you’re too scared or weak to throw the big skills.”

“Right, totally right.” A look of satisfaction fills her face. “For years, I had a coach who let me get away with decent form because I had flashy skills. It got me injured, kept me out of the Olympics, and pretty much ruined my entire life. But you don’t need to hear any of this, TJ. You know everything about me already. I’m sure you know what it feels like to be the favorite and then the second you get hurt, all these people who told you you’re freaking amazing, suddenly look at you like you have leprosy. That’s what’s gonna happen. You’ll be the kid with the triple until you break your ankle and then no one can even look you in the eye.”

My stomach twists into knots. I don’t know what to say. I can barely think past the layers of confusion. “Your drunk ass needs to get to bed,” I say lamely.

She nods her agreement but doesn’t move. “People never ask me what I think. Except for Coach Bentley, no one asks for my opinion. And I know things. I freakin’ know things!”

I charge up the steps and reach around her, opening the door and guiding her through it. She knows things. Message delivered.

“You and Liberty…” she laughs again, shaking her head. I steer her toward her and Karen’s room. “That’s not even a real name, is it? And you know what that’s all about, right?”

“Sex?” I suggest. “Being horny?”

“Well, yeah.” She enters her room and then reaches behind me to shut the door. I feel trapped all of a sudden. “You like Jordan.”

I snort. “Trust me, he’s not my type.”

She turns around and begins making the climb up to her top bunk. “But he’s your friend and you’re subconsciously trying to sabotage it. That’s why you hooked up with his ex. There’re a lot of girls here. Why her?”

Drunk Stevie is pissing me off. I give her a wave good night. “Don’t fall off the bed.”

“Why don’t you come up here and protect me then, Mr. Hero.”

I can’t tell if she’s kidding or not.

“I’m kidding,” she says eventually. “I don’t know how you do the one-time thing with girls. I’ve tried it. You probably don’t believe me, but I have. And it’s just so… less. You know? I want more. That’s my motto now. I want the real thing. No faking it, no getting by with flash. That’s the old Stevie.”

I flip the light off and head out the door before she can say anything else. My limbs feel numb, but my heart is racing. I hate being transparent. I hate this confusion, like I don’t know what I’m doing or feeling.

I fucking hate Stevie Davis for doing this to me. What is her deal? I hope she wakes up with one hell of a hangover tomorrow.

It takes me until it’s nearly dark out to get up the nerve to hike back to our campsite. My apprehension only grows with Jordan’s lack of need to come and make up with me or whatever. Is he really mad or just scared to talk about his problems?

Fear is building inside me, twisting around in my stomach and gaining ground. The jittery stomach only gets worse when I spot him sitting on a log in front of the fire. He looked so into everything earlier and now his expression is grim and stiff, not open and excited.

I take it back, Jordan. I take it all back.

“I’m sorry,” I say right away, standing in front of him.

“Me, too.” His gaze is locked on the fire.

I take a seat beside him. “Explain to me what you’re afraid of. I can’t wrap my head around it.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t explain it. It’s irrational. I know that just as well as you do. The whole being put to sleep thing freaks me out. It always has. Call me whatever names you want, but I can’t get past it.”

Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. What would Jackie say about this? I need to channel her. “When I had surgery on my shoulder last year, the anesthesia part freaked me out, too. But you just show up when you’re scheduled and then they don’t give you the chance to back out. It’s like you’re answering basic questions, they’re putting in an IV, and then bam, you’re waking up and it’s over.”

“Assuming you wake up,” he says. “It’s stupid, I know. Trivial compared to what some people go through, but what the hell am I supposed to tell you besides the fact that I’m scared shitless?”

Those last few words strike a chord with me and suddenly my breathing is labored, several different emotions tumbling out of me at once. “What are you gonna do? Just let it go and then what? Leave for school and wait to get sick again? Wait until everything is more urgent?”

He snaps around to face me, maybe after hearing the struggle to breathe in my voice. “It’s gonna be okay, Karen.”

“How do you know?” He reaches a hand toward my cheek but I push it away. “You have an abscess that could be a tumor, I looked it up. What if you have cancer? What if your throat swells up in your sleep and you suffocate to death?”

He scoots closer but I slide back away from him. “You’re making this sound like it’s life or death and it’s not.”

“How do you know?” I demand again, raising my voice. My hands are shaking. I’ve been shoving these feelings down for way too many days. “What if your strep infection travels to your kidneys because you become resistant to all the antibiotics and then you have kidney failure? And who knows if your dad is a match to be a donor.”

Fear and panic are crawling around inside my chest, trying to claw their way out.

“Karen, calm down.” Jordan’s face wrinkles with worry, but I can’t calm down.

I stare at him, hard and intense. “Promise me you’ll be okay. Promise me you know what you’re doing.”

His brown eyes widen. “I can’t—”

“I know you can’t!” I stand up and back away from him. “And I need you to be okay. I
need you
.” I swallow the lump in my throat and swipe away the loose tears making tracks down my cheeks.

“Karen…” He jumps to his feet and manages to get his hands on my shoulders, holding me firmly in place. “Relax, okay. Take a breath.”

I pull away, backing up toward the tent. “I would do it for you. I would never make you feel this afraid for me. I’d never make you worry about losing me, not after everything—”

“That’s not gonna happen.”

“
How do you know that?
People die, Jordan! They crash their cars or get blown up or…” I suppress a sob and shake my head. “I need you to be okay. Please, just do this for me. Please.”

I cover my face, unable to hold back the sobs any longer.

“Okay.
Okay
.” He grabs me up in his arms and I just want to hold on as tight as possible. He buries his face in my hair and repeats the words again, his own voice shaky. “Okay, I’ll do it. I promise I’ll do it.”

The constricting feeling in my chest begins to loosen and I can finally breathe again. “Thank you,” I whisper into his T-shirt.

“You’re right,” he mumbles, tightening his grip on me. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

I pull back, examining his face to make sure he means it. The second our eyes meet, we’re both leaning in, our mouths coming together in less than a second. I’m so relieved, so emotionally overloaded that it all transfers into this kiss and I can’t get close enough. When Jordan reaches down and unzips the tent, I don’t even hesitate before climbing inside. The entire floor of the tent is covered with two self-inflating air mattresses and our unrolled sleeping bags.

He tosses his shirt into a corner and then pulls me down beside him, eventually throwing my top beside his. And then before I have time to get nervous all over again, I reach down and slide my bikini bottoms off.

“Okay, then,” Jordan says, laughing.

My cheeks flush, but I hold his gaze steady. “What? They were cold and wet from the lake.”

“In that case…”

I should have known that was coming. I suppress a giggle and immediately shift my gaze upward. I’m okay with him taking off his suit, but I’m not quite ready to look yet.

Jordan catches my hand and kisses the inside of it. “Okay?”

My eyes fail me and drift down for a split second and back up again. “That wasn’t so hard.”
Oh boy… bad choice of words.
“I mean, I’m all right with this but maybe not like
everything
.”

He laughs again. “I’m not prepared for everything and besides, I promised my dad I wouldn’t go there. Well, that
we
wouldn’t go there.”

“What!” I prop myself up on one elbow, almost completely forgetting our nakedness. “Tell me you’re not serious? I will die of humiliation knowing that conversation took place.”

“I’m serious, unfortunately.” He turns on his side to face me. “But if it helps any, I did my best to make him as uncomfortable as possible, so I doubt he’ll want to have a repeat of that conversation. Like ever.”

I lace my fingers through his, still keeping my eyes up. “Have I mentioned that you’re my very favorite person?”

He smiles and places a hand over my eyes. “You trust me, right?”

“You should never open with that line.” My heart picks up again, my hands shaking. “What are you doing?”

“Looking…”

“Looking for what… ?” Oh…
looking
.

His lips touch mine, kissing me quickly. “Relax. I’m just making this easier on you.”

Easier? I give him a few seconds to… um…
look
and I pull his hand from my eyes. “Jordan, that whole deal thing earlier… I was just trying to help, but—”

He kisses me again, stopping me. “I know, it’s okay. I promise to keep my promise no matter what.”

This isn’t going right. I’m gonna have to be more direct. More honest. “I want to do this. Even before the whole ‘let’s make a deal’ plan, I wanted to do whatever is next. For me.”

Tension I hadn’t even noticed a few seconds ago dissolves from his face. “Really?”

“I have no clothes on,” I remind him.

He rests a hand on my cheek, studying me. “Then why are your hands shaking and why do you look like you’re going to cry again?”

As if to prove his point, a single tear slips down my cheek. It’s hard to explain the crying part. I think it’s a combination of things I just said outside of this tent and the emotion behind it. I need him. I really need him. And that’s difficult for someone like me to admit and at the same time, it’s a blessing. Loving someone that hard means I’m not alone.

But I don’t want to say all these things right now. I’m not sure the words would come out right. So I wipe the tear from my cheek and say, “I’m a girl, Jordan. Crying at random times is pretty common. And I spend so many hours doing something I’m good at. Not knowing what I’m doing throws me off my game.”