Love In The Jungle: 2

by Ann Walker

  Grant had become something of a local hero for all the work he did—and it wasn’t only in their eyes either. To me, he was a one-of-a-kind man, the ones I’d so rarely seen in the past that I thought they didn’t exist. Kind. Patient. Caring. Driven. Focused. He was still my opposite in many respects, not just in our opposing looks. As his popularity grew, he seemed to retreat in on himself, as if unnerved by all the friendly attention. I, on the other hand, was by no means a hero. Once I left, a new volunteer would come to pick up the lessons where I left off. But unlike Grant, I tried damn hard to immerse myself in village life.

  I cooked with the women. I watched the young boys set traps for small game, even encouraging them to teach me their tactics. I’d picked up a bit of French since arriving, and made the locals laugh at my butchered attempts at conversation. I no longer felt alone here. Even if I retired to a single-roomed hut at the end of each day, alone with my thoughts and growing feelings, I was no longer lonely—I felt less like a stranger in a strange place at last.

  Scratching at my thin dirty-blonde hair, which had grown a few inches since my arrival, I went for my outfit of the day: a black t-shirt and a pair of tight jean shorts that fell to the knee. My running shoes, which were permanently dyed the color of the dirt here, were probably going to fall apart sometime in the new few months, and I made a note to ask if there was anywhere I could go to buy new ones.

  Probably nowhere nearby, though I wouldn’t mind checking out Togolese towns.

  Throwing my hair up in a high ponytail, I grabbed my backpack and went for the door, sidestepping the mess of dirty clothes I’d yet to deal with for almost a month. No one seemed to notice—or care—when I wore something I’d sweated through the day before, so what was the point rushing laundry day?

  I squinted as I threw open the door, then ducked back in to my cool, dark sleeping quarters to grab my sunglasses. Couldn’t forget those.

  The men waiting for Grant were scattered along the crop field that sat between the volunteer huts and the village. Some stood, while others sat cross-legged by the steadily rising vegetation. It grew all summer, the plants, and they’d harvest it in the fall. No one had told me what kind of crop was just outside my door, and I hadn’t turned into the horticulturalist I’d anticipated becoming just yet.

  Most of the well workers I knew by name now, just as they knew mine. We exchanged friendly smiles as I passed, with me giving the occasional “Bonjour” in a horrible enough French accent that they laughed.

  I found just the man I wanted to see, however, when I reached his private hut. Grant stepped out to face the morning, his skin tanned and his arms thicker from all the labor intensive work he’d been putting in these past two months. The hard work agreed with him, however; my eyes danced alone his toned arms and his broad chest, then down to the defined calf muscles that would make any woman weak in the knees.

  Plus his hair always looked tousled, and I liked to tease him about hoarding hair product somewhere. There was no way he could keep those dark locks looking so stunning without it.

  “Morning Clara,” he said as I approached, my skin prickling as it always did whenever he rumbled my name. “Aren’t you going to breakfast?”

  I shrugged, my hands shoved in my pockets, and then nodded in the general direction of his work site.

  “I thought, maybe,” I began, wishing I could see his eyes through his sunglasses to gauge an immediate response, “I could come with you today. You know… See how everything works over there?”

  His eyebrows shot up quickly, though he seemed to recover just as fast.

  “Well, it’s not very glamourous over there,” he told me. I noticed the way the corners of his mouth twitched upward, like he was trying to hold back a huge smile. The butterflies in my stomach fluttered happily. “I mean, I just think… You can come, sure, but it’ll be pretty boring.”

  “I doubt that,” I fired back, reaching up to shift my backpack’s strap on my shoulder. “I think it’ll be fun. I want to help, even if it’s just digging a hole.”

  “We’re sort of beyond that point,” he chuckled, and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a few of the men getting to their feet. “Aren’t you teaching today?”

  I shook my head. “Math and science day. I’m totally free… all yours, if you’ll have me.”

  Even with that glorious tan, I caught the flush of color in his cheeks. He cleared his throat, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “Ah, a very appealing offer.”

  “Isn’t it though?” I waited, staring up at him through my sunglasses and smirking. We’d been playing this game for a while now, this flirting and suggestive game. Even though I’d sworn I was here for a reason that did not—and could not—involve a man, I’d let that go after about a month. There was nothing wrong with flirting. In fact, I recalled a study somewhere that said workplace flirting, if innocent, was actually good for productivity.

  So, really, our banter would make things run smoother. It was good for the village.

  I caught a few of the guys studying us, and when I glanced back, one of the older, more grizzled villagers raised an eyebrow at me. I bit my lip. Unfortunately, our game probably wasn’t as subtle as we liked to think.

  “So, are we going or what?” I asked, springing forth and walking backwards. Some of the men started moving, and Grant jogged to catch up with me. Once we were a little more separated from the herd, I dropped my voice. “There’s food at the site, right?”

  My plan was to skip my usual breakfast with Gloria and the ladies I’d grown to like and stow away with the men for a day, if only to increase my time with Grant by just a little. I hadn’t considered what I’d do for my morning meal.

  “Yes,” Grant laughed, nudging me with his elbow. “We usually eat once we get there. Everyone brings a little something.”

  “Perfect,” I sighed, my stomach giving a little contented rumble. “What’d you pack?”

  “Hey now…” Grant darted out of the way, as if I’d steal the food right from his backpack. “I said we all brought a little something… and you have nothing to contribute. You don’t get a share then,”

  “What?!”

  My eyes narrowed at him, but as soon as he started chuckling again, I took a swipe at his arm. He managed to catch my hand just before it struck him, and he tugged me closer, grinning. However, I quickly realized we were putting on a show for all the men following behind us, and pulled my hand from his grasp.

  We stayed next to one another, as close as two people could be in our situation, until we reached the worksite, where I only left his side because he needed to help get breakfast ready.

  And for some reason, I felt uncomfortable alone. The feeling was only fleeting, passing in a few moments, but as I watched him pull loaves of bread wrapped in fabric and ceramic plates from his bag, I wanted him back beside me—where he belonged.

  Shaking my head, I turned away and took a crack at a very basic conversation in French with one of the villagers, failing miserably after only a few words.

  ****

  I’m not sure what I’d been expecting when I made my plan to spend the day with Grant and his worker bees, but I was absolutely wrecked—and we hadn’t been out at the site for more than four hours tops. Coated in sweat, I sat down on a pile of mud bricks that a few of the guys had worked on earlier in the morning, wanting nothing more than to sit in front of the fan in my little hut and fall asleep.

  Because I had no experience in any of the trade’s necessary to actually build wells and other structures, I wasn’t given anything too taxing to do. In fact, I’d spent a lot of my day moving bricks and rubble to allocated storage points, and then I’d taken an hour after lunch to work on a hole that was going to eventually birth an indoor communal washroom. Almost like an outhouse, it would eventually serve the people who ventured out here to manage and work on the well system Grant was in the process of creating.

  I assumed that the other buildings would have actual bathrooms
in them, but given the village was lacking in some of the more basic amenities, I figured I shouldn’t have been surprised if this would actually be the only bathroom for all the upcoming establishments too.

  Everyone around me worked in perfect harmony: two months of this made all of Grant’s workers proficient in their tasks. In fact, I hadn’t seen him delegate anything once—everyone sort of just knew what they needed to do. That was how a team worked. My students were in a similar boat now. They knew we started each lesson with a reading, followed by a grammar lesson, more reading, and then they were given time to work on their short stories. The little ones, meanwhile, got more reading time in pairs, taking the time to help one another learn.

  “Uh, I don’t think it’s time for a break yet…”

  I shielded my eyes from the sun as I looked up, squinting even behind my sunglasses as Grant loomed over me. I might have been a sweaty mess, but he was probably worse off than I was with a shirt so stained I could practically see the ridges and dips of his toned abdomen. I licked my lips.

  “Hey, that hole was only as deep as my ankles when I started,” I argued, slowly clambering to my feet. He caught me when I swayed, my legs ready to give out after all they’d been through today. We both looked down at his large hand wrapped around my arm, both our skins coated in a very thin layer of dirt.

  “Oh yeah?” he mused, his arm falling back to his side. I stayed close as if he was still holding me beside him. “And where’s the hole at now?”

  “My knees.”

  I spotted his eyebrows shoot up, and he laughed. “In only an hour?”

  “I’m a speedy worker,” I told him, tilting my head up and smirking. We were so close, the closest we’d been since breakfast, and my heart raced. By now, I think we both knew there was something… extra with our friendship. There was a flirtatiousness that neither of us could ignore for much longer. I just couldn’t help myself when I was around him these days, and he wasn’t exactly rebuffing my attempts.

  “I think you’re stretching the truth,” he told me, and I planted my hands on my hips, lips pursed. However, before I could say anything back, he grabbed me and hoisted me up over his shoulder. I squealed in surprise, my hands clutching the back of his damp shirt, and then laughed as he carried me over to the hole I’d been working on. My discarded shovel lay a few feet away.

  Grant carried me like I weighed next to nothing, and he set me down in the hole so gently that there was barely a hair out of place. He then stepped back and looked down, shaking his head.

  “That’s mid-calf at best,” he insisted, and I scoffed.

  “Well, maybe on this part,” I fired back, pointing to the rest of the 4x6 hole I’d been working on, “but maybe over there it’s better.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Hey, you’re working me like a dog here,” I laughed, hands up as I took a step back. “I’m just a casual volunteer… I should be sitting in the shade with someone fanning me while I sort rocks into different size categories.”

  He snorted. “Or forking out an astronomical amount to donate your time for six months.”

  “Oh, snap,” I laughed, rolling my eyes. “A stab at the volunteer organization itself… look at you.”

  “I’ve been known to be sort of witty on occasion.”

  “Just not this occasion, right?” I asked, my hand over my eyes as I looked up at him. He pointed at me.

  “That was a little hurtful, Clara. I may have to send you home early for bad behavior.”

  I reached out at grabbed his hand, then dragged him into the hole. It wasn’t so much me dragging than it was him willingly stepping in, but I could ignore that for now.

  “Spacious,” he said, surveying my hard work by my side. Our arms touched, both ridiculously warm from the afternoon sun.

  “You should see what I’m going to do with the kitchen,” I retorted, and he nudged me with his elbow—which prompted me to push him. He caught my hands quickly, holding them for a moment, but they soon found a more appropriate spot on my hips. Licking my lips again, my tongue flicking over the dry skin, I surveyed the rest of the building site. “So, what are all these buildings going to be?”

  “That’ll be a bakery,” he told me, stepping in close so that I could follow his line of sight more accurately. Despite the heat, my skin erupted in excited little bumps as if I’d suddenly caught a chill. “We’ll make that one a shoe repair shop, and the one beside it is up to the village… I just suggested the first two and they went with it.”

  “And that one?” I asked, pointing to the foundations of a decent-sized building. It was closest to the village, certainly within a comfortable walking distance. No one had been working on it today. Grant shrugged.

  “That’s a surprise.”

  “What?!” I laughed, poking his side. “No, that’s not fair.”

  “I think it’s perfectly fair… Newbie volunteers aren’t privy to all our plans.”

  I moved in closer, my hips tilted toward his, and murmured, “Maybe I can persuade those lips to loosen up a little?”

  He smirked, turning to face me. “I’d definitely be open to some persuasion… maybe a bribe or two.”

  I gave a fake, scandalized gasp as his smirk grew into a grin. However, before we could take our little game to somewhere less appropriate, one of Grant’s fellow well workers called his name. We both leapt apart like the other was on fire, and Grant shot me an apologetic look before climbing out of the hole.

  “We’ll probably be heading back to the village in an hour,” he told me, marching backwards as I watched him go. “Walk back with me?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  We exchanged smiles before he jogged off to see to whatever problem required his attention. I watched him go with a sigh, then set down in my hole, too exhausted to do much else for the next hour.

  Chapter Five

  I wasn’t completely sure what was in this drink, but whatever it was, it was doing one hell of a job at both cooling me off and warming me up. Clutching my ceramic cup between both hands, I leaned onto Grant’s shoulders, smiling as I watched some of my students play a game similar to chess in front of us. Behind them, a fire blazed, even in the uncomfortable summer heat, and yet I wasn’t coated in a gross layer of sweat. Neither was he, my dinner companion, my volunteer cohort—the object of my steadily growing affections. Grant was warm to the touch, sure, but in a way that made me want to curl up against his chest and nuzzle my head under his chin.

  The drink was a local brew, cooled by ice and laden with just enough alcohol to relax me after a strenuous teaching day. We’d critiqued stories written by the older students—something I’d done in a college English class eons ago. Unfortunately, some feelings were hurt, words were exchanged, tears were shed, and I struggled to maintain control of the situation.

  So, when I was offered an alcoholic beverage with dinner—a treat to celebrate an older villager’s birthday—you beat your ass I was guzzling it down before I’d even made up my first plate of food. It was a tart drink, one that made my throat tingle and my belly warm. Refreshing and crisp, it took the sting out of the summer humidity. It made me comfortable—comfortable enough to cuddle up next to Grant as soon as I saw him.

  And he let me without a word, occasionally resting his chin atop my head amidst the hustle and bustle of the late evening meal.

  As much as I enjoyed my drink, I nursed it over the course of the dinner hour and the bonfire after. A few of my fellow volunteers—well, all of my fellow volunteers—seemed to have a different scheme in mind, and were definitely drunk at this point.

  “Is Gloria singing?” Grant murmured, and we both dissolved into a fit of giggles watching the older woman drunkenly bleat out a tune as a few of our local friends accompanied her on some drums. Everyone, volunteer and villager alike, was probably going to be nursing some serious hangovers tomorrow—Grant and myself excluded, thankfully. There was no way I was going to let myself get intoxicated out here. One drunken
idea to go for a midnight hike in the savannah grasses could be my last idea.

  I wasn’t sure what Grant’s excuse was, but he made a puckered face after each sip—it seemed I liked the concoction far more than the engineer did.

  We sat in front of the fire for what felt like hours, chatting, drinking, and playing games with some of the children. Since my watch had run out of battery about a week ago, I had no idea what time it was, but I knew I was ready to hit the sack when I couldn't stop yawning.

  "Tired?" Grant asked softly, his hand on my back as I sat up and pushed my hair behind my shoulders. I nodded, my eyes suddenly feeling heavy, and went to stand. He helped, lending me his hand so that I could push myself to my feet without struggling. Across the circle, which was patchy now that many others had drifted off to bed, I noticed Gloria and her husband asleep, the pair leaning on one another in the firelight.

  I stepped back as Grant stood too, dusting himself off and nodding in the general direction of our huts.

  "I'll walk you back," he offered, to which I nodded again. It wasn't that I needed someone to escort me to my quarters I'd walked that path every day, multiple times a day, with no problems. However, the thought of getting some real alone time with Grant, as fleeting as it might be, appealed to me.

  We walked side-by-side through the darkness, the summer night turning chilly the more we withdrew from the fire. I rubbed my arms in the breeze, and then tried to hide my smile as Grant wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled my closer. His body heat was much appreciated, and I tried not to savor his scent: that rich, manly scent always made me imagine him in an expensive suit rather than khakis and a t-shirt. It reminded me of home, surrounded by businessmen who wore pricey colognes on a daily basis—and in a way, I found that comforting.

  Grant was comforting. He was both familiar and foreign, a risk and a safe haven.

  We reached my hut first, his was the farthest one from mine located at the end of the row, we paused at my door. Suddenly I wasn't tired anymore. Staring at one another, bathed in starlight, I tilted my head up to meet his gaze. Then, like we were the only two people in the world, he reached forward and brushed my loose hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear. His touch was tentative, as if testing the waters, and I tried not to shiver at the way he smiled.