Yours and Mine (Friends with Benefits)

by Lacey Silks

  Somewhere along the way, Nick had grabbed another basket. I took hold of the other handle and we walked a few steps into the woods, picking up more sticks for the fire.

  “You know, I’m disappointed that you think I couldn’t handle myself,” I said.

  Okay, maybe I was pushing this, but I had backed away when Carter kissed me. And I’d given him a good dose of Jo’s medicine, I was sure, which included a stern warning about how to treat women.

  “I know you can handle yourself. But you never know with guys.”

  “What do you mean, you never know with guys?”

  “They always have a hidden agenda.”

  “Do you?” I asked.

  “No, of course not.”

  Why did I get the feeling that he wasn’t being truthful?

  “So, see any birds’ nests today?” I picked up a handful of twigs.

  “One. It had fledglings. Daisy was really excited about it. She said being here made her feel alive.”

  I was excited to be here as well, yet Nick didn’t seem to care.

  “You know she has the hots for you, right?” I bit my lip, wondering to myself what kind of answer I wanted to hear from him.

  “She does? So, what do you think I should do?”

  Not that one. “Nothing. Ignore her.” I shrugged

  “Why?” He bent over and grabbed a few of the larger pieces of dried wood.

  “Because she’s not right for you. She’s been trying to get your attention for years, but you don’t like clingy girls.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just do. She’s not your type.”

  “Who is my type, then?”

  “I think someone witty and smart would be better. Not school smart, although that’s a bonus, but life smart. Someone who can survive anything and will have your back, no matter what.” I paused, thinking for a moment. “And someone who can definitely bake.”

  “Someone like you?” he asked.

  I stopped, surprised at his question. A patch of light shone through the canopy above, lighting his face. He looked handsome today and in his element. Nick had a few good layers of summer tan, and the humidity not only made him sweat like a pig, but also curled his hair into frizzy waves. They looked kind of nice. Maybe even a little sexy. He reached for the elastic around his wrist and tied it up.

  Yes, that was definitely one of his sexier looks.

  “I can’t bake.”

  “Sure you can. I’ve seen you.”

  “Yeah, but not like you.”

  “That’s because my mom’s a pastry chef and your dad’s a bread baker. I bet if she gave you instructions on how to bake a cake you’d be awesome.”

  “Maybe, but I could never decorate it the way you do.”

  He was lost in deep thought for a moment, and I wondered what he was thinking.

  “What if I showed you how?”

  “To decorate?”

  “Yes. It’d take some practice, but it’d be fun.” His smile stretched so wide that it forced my mouth to curve as well.

  “I think I’d like that.”

  “When we get back home, then?”

  “It’s a date. Well, not a date. You know what I mean. Just knock on my window, and I’ll be there. You know where I live.” I winked.

  Why did I just wink at him? And what was it with my heart beating so fast that I could barely catch a full breath of air?

  He stopped, yanking at the basket, forcing me to look back at him.

  “Do you hear anything?”

  I listened to the sounds of the forest. The only noise I could catch was the one of ruffling leaves above us.

  “No.”

  “Exactly.”

  Wait, what?

  I looked around the forest… and all the trees, shrubs, and brushes appeared the same.

  “Please tell me that you know the way back,” I said.

  “I thought you said you’d never get lost.”

  “That was before you distracted me.”

  Nick’s shoulders stiffened, and he was looking at something behind me.

  “Jo, I think finding our way back is the least of our problems.” He brought his finger to his lips, indicating that I shouldn’t talk, and then pointed in the direction I thought we’d come from.

  I strained my eyes, trying to see what he was looking at, but the dense trees were pretty much it. That was, until something crunched in the distance, and I concentrated harder. My gaze flew from Nick’s wide eyes and shocked face back toward where he was looking, and then I saw it: a black bear, about a hundred feet from us.

  Chapter 4

  We slowly lowered the basket of wood. Nick took my hand and we started backing away, toward the clearing we saw. I prayed inside that it led to a road, so we could wave someone down, or maybe it signaled a house in the forest we could hide out in. Anything other than the bear’s habitat would be welcome. Why hadn’t I taken my bear spray? Why hadn’t Nick?

  So far, the bear was oblivious to our presence; that is, until I stepped on a larger branch and it snapped, and the bear’s attention turned our way.

  “Whatever you do, don’t run, Jo.”

  “Easy to say, hard to do,” I whispered, but kept backing away, a bit more quickly than before. The bear stood on its hinds, stretching his full length up to the sky. That thing looked like it had undergone some sort of a growth mutation. “Holy shit. I think it thinks it’s found dinner.”

  “Don’t say that. Keep walking and make noise, lots of noise. If it gets closer, curl into a ball! Cover your head and neck with your arms!”

  “I don’t think it wants to play ball.” I heard the vibrations in my voice, clearly remembering the same instructions we’d been given by our teachers and the park guide. My legs were trembling and my heart — was it even there? It was beating so quickly I couldn’t even count the thumps in my chest.

  “It’s for your safety.”

  The bear growled, inspiring the hairs on my arms to stand tall. Now with my whole body on high alert, I was afraid I’d have no control over my legs if it turned out that they wanted to run. I could already picture the bear’s teeth sinking into my skin like a hot knife through butter.

  “Nick, if you get us out of here alive, I will kiss you.”

  “Well, that gives me all the reason I need to make sure we get safely back to camp, then.”

  Was he saying that he wanted to kiss me? It didn’t matter now, and I had no mind to think about what he’d said, because the bear set its front feet down on the ground and stomped in the same spot a few times, challenging our invasion.

  “Get out of here!” Nick yelled.

  “I’m not tasty!” I screamed.

  “Tasty?”

  “Yes, I don’t taste good. You wouldn’t want us for dinner!”

  “I don’t think he can understand, Jo!”

  We both kept yelling out our conversation, but the bear didn’t appear to be fazed; in fact, it seemed more interested than before.

  “It doesn’t matter what we do, Nick! I think he’s getting ready to charge!”

  The bear let out another growl and headed straight for us.

  ‘Don’t run,’ they said? Well, whoever said that wasn’t being chased by a bear. Fortunately the clearing we’d seen earlier was just behind a stretch of bushes a few feet away. We pushed through the mesh of leaves and branches. Thorns scraped the sides of my arms and my legs, but I didn’t stop until I got through to the other side where our situation became even more daunting than before. Couldn’t a girl ever get a break?

  We were standing at the edge of a cliff. Below, it looked like there was nothing but space. Strike that. There was a river far, far, far, far away; barely visible. Or maybe it was the sweat that was blurring my vision. The sound I thought I’d heard earlier, of passing cars, was actually raging whitewater. I turned to see Nick’s reaction, asking with my eyes what we should do next. He had a cut just above his left brow, which was bleeding down his cheek, staini
ng his shirt red. The way the blood was streaming down, you’d think someone had slit his throat.

  Get that image out of your mind, Jo!

  The bear’s roar behind us shook the trembles out of my body.

  Holy shit! If there was one thing I was certain of, it was that the bear was now closer than before.

  “Come on, climb down.”

  “Where?”

  “Doesn’t matter, just down.”

  “He won’t get through the shrubs, will he?”

  “Wanna take the chance that he will?”

  Nick lowered his body and took a few calculated steps down, slowly making his way to a thin ledge. He reached up, saying, “Come on, Jo. You can do it. Quick.”

  I followed the steps he’d taken to get down, but my foot slipped. I felt my body grind against the rock, until it was free falling. This was it. This was how I’d die. Not exactly the best way to go. I had pictured myself as an old woman when I died, hopefully with someone like Nick at my side, not as a sixteen-year-old girl who only got kissed for the first time earlier in the day. Was that all I’d experience? A kiss that I pushed away from?

  Then I stopped falling and dangled in the air as Nick held my hand. I looked up. “Don’t let go!”

  “I’ll never let you go. I promise.” He must have used all the strength he had to pull me up. His face was red, his jaw was tense, and sweat poured down his face in streams, falling right on me. But if there was anything that I didn’t mind, it was Nick sweating when he was saving my life. Halfway up, he grabbed me by my torso, right under the ribcage, then by my ass, to make sure I was secure, and brought me close, flat against his body. We pressed against each other on the narrow ledge above the water. I was now wedged between him and the cliff. A quarter of his feet dangled over the ledge.

  “Here, put one of your legs between mine and the other on the side.”

  He shifted, firming his stance. It was only moments later that the bear found a way around the shrubs and started pacing back and forth along the cliff’s edge, looking down at us and growling.

  “Holy shit, that was close.” I leaned my head back against the rock.

  “Way too close.”

  My arms and legs were shaking; in fact, my whole body was shaking.

  “Jo, you’re okay. Calm down.”

  “I… I don’t think I can. I think I saw my life flash before my eyes.”

  Actually, I hadn’t, because there’d been no time for it to flash, but that was what people said when they faced certain death, wasn’t it?

  “Everything’s going to be fine, Joelle. I’ll take care of you.”

  On a normal day, I would have told him that I could take care of myself, but today, I really wanted to rely on Nick, because I had no clue how we’d get out of here if the bear didn’t leave. Even if it did, I was afraid I couldn’t climb back up.

  I looked up, almost straight into the bear’s open jaw. Saliva dripped off its teeth and I could smell its nasty breath. That, and wet fur. Gross. If the stupid bear was going to keep this up, my gag reflex would definitely be tested today. Thankfully we were low enough that he couldn’t reach us.

  “He’s not giving up, Nick.”

  “Let’s give it some time, okay?” He smoothed my cheek with the back of his hand, which felt very comforting. I couldn’t stop looking in his eyes. They were not only calming, but mesmerizing, with their green depth lightened by the perfectly sunny day.

  “Yeah, okay. So, what’s up?” I asked.

  “A bear.”

  I burst out laughing, spitting right in his face.

  “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t hold it in.”

  “It’s okay. Now I can officially say that we swapped spit.”

  “But you haven’t spat at me.”

  “Not yet. You should be grateful. I had garlic bread for lunch.”

  “Is that what that smell is?” I teased.

  Nick only smiled, keeping my attention on him instead of the bear.

  “Technically, we swapped spit when you stole my pacifier,” I accused.

  “Anything I can’t remember, I won’t admit to, so you could be making this up.”

  “It’s a story my father told me.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I’ve heard that one from my mother as well.”

  I took a deep breath in and felt my heart rate slowly begin to settle.

  “Well, at least the view from up here is nice.” The scenery past the forest of rolling hills and little towns in between was postcard-worthy. It stretched for miles beyond us, and despite the bear above, I couldn’t wait to tell my father about the scenic landscape. Although if we got out of here alive, I was pretty sure I’d get an earful about how we’d gone out into the forest without bear spray.

  I heard a deep sigh from Nick and lifted my head. He had apparently been looking at me this entire time. “You’re a beautiful girl, Joelle. You deserve someone better than Carter.”

  I felt my cheeks heat. “Thank you. I mean that.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “How long do you think he’ll keep this up?” Did the bear think we would climb up and introduce ourselves? It didn’t look like he was anywhere near giving up.

  “Until we come back up and serve him dinner?” Nick shrugged, his wide shoulders rising. Standing so close to him, I noticed for the first time just how wide they were. Lifting those bags of flour at his mom’s bakery had definitely paid off. His body was composed of muscles on top of muscles. I’d seen him work out in his room in the mornings sometimes, but I didn’t tell him that.

  “That’s not very encouraging.”

  “Or we could leave this place right now.”

  “The only other way is down.”

  “Exactly.”

  I looked into the frothing waters below. “Nick, that’s gotta be more than twenty feet down. Broken bones guaranteed.”

  We’d jumped off rocks into a lake plenty of times before, but never from this height. Both of us knew how much it hurt when you hit the water, pancake style.

  “Not if we jump the right way. There,” he said, pointing, “see that black spot? It’s gotta be deep there. It’s our best shot.”

  I hunched over just a bit and felt the world spin. Then I pressed myself harder against Nick, who grasped me by my waist and held me close to his body.

  “I’m not sure I can do this.”

  “Jo, you can do anything you put your mind to. I know that. I believe in you.”

  I looked up and down again, and then back at Nick. His eyes held enough confidence for the both of us.

  “Are we really going to do this?” I asked.

  Nick looked up again. The bear’s muzzle shrank back, his expression as fierce as before.

  “I don’t think we have a choice, Jo.” He took another look below, determination rolling through his body. “Okay, you’re going to cross your legs and keep your arms over your chest. Point your toes to go straight in. Just slice through that water. Got it?”

  I nodded. I still couldn’t believe this was happening, but once Nick made a decision, I knew he’d go through with it. He was as brave as his father. Nick carefully shifted so that his back was against the cliff beside me, and took my hand.

  “Wait, what are we going to do after we jump?”

  “Swim.”

  “No, I mean, swim where?”

  “There’s a town down the river. But I’m not sure how far down.”

  I took three deep breaths, trying to control the sudden rush of nerves running through my body. If there was anyone I trusted, it was Nick.

  “Okay, I think I’m ready.”

  “On three?”

  I nodded.

  “One, two—”

  “Wait! Nick, if I die, I just want you to know that you’re the best friend I’ve ever had. And you’re hot and you deserve someone much better than Daisy, so please, don’t go out with her.”

  “First of all, don’t talk like that. You’re not going to die. And second�
� did you just say I’m hot?” He looked at me with a perplexed expression as if he’d just discovered a new galaxy.

  “That’s what you got out of that?”

  “Well, yeah. And by the way, Jo, Daisy’s got nothing on you.”

  I smiled. At least if I died, I knew now that Nick liked me more than he liked Daisy, and while I’d deny that little fact was important to me, it gave me that much more will to survive this jump.

  “Ready?” he asked again.

  “You get me out of this alive and I promise to kiss you. Please grab my arm once we’re in the water.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way. One, two, three!”

  We pushed off the cliff together. I crossed my legs and arms, pointed my toes, and took a deep breath. Perpendicular to the river, I went in like a sword, cutting through the water.

  I did it!

  Well, not quite. There was still the task of getting back up to the surface. I kicked my feet as hard as I could, moving my arms in large circles, looking up, but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get closer. A strong current pulled me sideways, and I panicked, opening my mouth. My lungs burned instantly as I took in the water and seconds later, I lost consciousness.

  Chapter 5

  Water fountained out of my lungs, and my body was forced to the side so I could spit it out. My lower half was still in the water as I braced myself on my elbows against a rock.

  “Thank God,” I heard from beside me, where Nick was holding me by my hips, making sure that I didn’t flip back over, smoothing his hand over my arm. I heaved fresh air in and out, desperate for it to replace the fluids in my lungs, but that only catapulted more water out. I braced my body on my hands, crawling out of the river and slowly got up on my knees, my lungs and veins still desperate for oxygen. After a couple of minutes, my pulse somewhat steadied as I regained control of my breathing.

  Nick sat on a rock beside me and wiped what looked like worry off his forehead.

  “What happened?”

  “You took water on like the Titanic. I had to dive to get you.”