“Here’s a lesson you’re going to learn sooner or later, Lake, so it might as well be sooner. Men’s brains turn to mush with a little physical contact.”
My chest rattled with each breath, caving in on itself. I didn’t even know enough about men to understand if getting physical could mean just a kiss or if it was always more. What I wouldn’t give for a dinner date with Manning. And then to be alone with him afterward, to have our first kiss in the quiet dark under pine trees.
“I’m starting to like this place,” she said. “It’s romantic.”
I didn’t get a chance to ask for details. The boy who’d been pacing around like a predator finally pounced. “Tiffany, right?” he asked. “We went—”
“High school?” she asked.
His face lit up as he wrung his hands. He was definitely more prey than predator. “Yeah! You remember. Armando Diaz.”
If Manning wasn’t coming, I didn’t want to be here. “You can sit here, Armando,” I said, standing.
He took my spot without a glance in my direction. “Thanks.”
After saying goodnight to Hannah, I left the hall. My tennis shoes barely made a sound on the forest floor on the way to my cabin. Bushes I couldn’t even see rustled. There were no lights, just the sliver of a crescent moon, but even it was blocked by trees. Frogs burped a chorus by the lake.
I heard footsteps before I saw anyone. It unnerved me, not being able to see who was there, which direction they were coming from. I turned around. “Hello . . .?”
“You’re not making a very good case for walking alone in the woods,” Manning said.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to his big frame a few feet in front of me, shadowed, but undeniably his.
“Haven’t you ever seen Friday the 13th?” he asked.
“No.”
“Is everyone in your family this stubborn?”
I wanted to make some remark about his family and how he’d betrayed me by telling Tiffany something it would’ve made more sense to tell me, someone who cared. But if it was true about his sister, a snarky comment didn’t seem right. “I’m not trying to be,” I said. “I didn’t want to stay in there by myself.”
“You have your sister. Your friends are in there. You have Hannah.”
I don’t have you. Before him, I would’ve loved having Tiffany treat me like a friend instead of a pest. Now, I didn’t care to be anywhere Manning wasn’t. I glanced at the ground. “Why didn’t you come tonight?”
“I’m on patrol. Supposed to be walking the site, checking on cabins.”
I exhaled softly, quietly relieved. He hadn’t purposely been avoiding me. “Can I walk with you?”
He hesitated. “It’s not really a two-person job.”
“I’m not ready to go to sleep. Please?”
Silhouetted against the trees, he ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll walk you back to your bunk, but we can take the long way.”
He passed me, and I turned to follow him in the opposite direction of my cabin. “Did you have a good day?”
“We have to be quiet. Don’t want to wake up the kids.”
“Did you have a good day?” I whispered.
His sigh ended in a light laugh. “It was hectic. Yours?”
“I got a bullseye during archery.”
“Yeah?” He sounded impressed. “None of my boys managed that. Me, neither.”
“I practiced a lot last year.” I shrugged. “This was my first bullseye, though.”
“Wish I’d seen it.”
It was a pretty cool thing on its own, but knowing Manning thought so, too, made me proud.
We walked a little longer in silence, me sneaking glances at him. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed a paperback in his pocket. “Are you still reading that same book as before?”
“Nah. I grabbed something new from the cafeteria. You see they have a book exchange?”
“Yes, but I haven’t had time to read at all.”
“Started your dad’s list yet?”
I’d imagined him asking me this a few times since my last visit to the library. I wasn’t sure I’d be brave enough to say what I wanted, but it helped that he couldn’t see me blushing. “Not yet. I decided to take your advice and check out a book not on the list. One about something that . . . interested me.”
“Oh yeah? Which one?”
Despite the cool mountain air, my body warmed, because once I said what I’d chosen, it’d be obvious why. “Lolita.”
Manning didn’t respond.
My heart beat in my throat, getting louder as the silence stretched between us. “You know of it?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s about—”
“I know what it’s about. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
I could almost understand why Manning shut down so many of our conversations when people were around, but we were alone now, away from everyone. I kicked a rock. Manning must’ve thought I tripped, because he reached out to take my arm. “What a surprise,” I said, pulling away. “Something you don’t want to talk about.”
I felt his eyes on me, but I refused to look up. “I talk to you about a lot of things, Lake. More than anyone else.”
“Liar.”
“Excuse me?”