Head Over Heels

by Serena Bell

  The guy is keying stuff into a note on his phone as fast as Chase can talk.

  “If you want to bring your rod by beforehand, we can take a look and make sure everything’s shipshape.”

  “Gosh, thanks,” the guy says. “It’s been a while, so that would be incredibly helpful.”

  “Feel free to text me, too, if you’re out on the water and have questions.” He gives the guy his cell number.

  The guy thanks him profusely, they exchange a manly handshake, and the guy strides off.

  “Nice boots,” Chase says, nodding down at the box in my hand. “I bet those’ll make you look like you like camping. They’re magic boots.”

  I can’t help my snort of laughter.

  He takes the box from my hands and I follow him to the cash register, where he rings them up.

  I hold out my credit card.

  “Nope,” he says.

  “Oh, come on.”

  “I’m making you go camping. Supplies are on me.”

  There’s a certain logic to that, and I don’t fight him. I accept the box back from him. “If I take a look around, think a little bit about marketing stuff, will Katie be okay?”

  “Is she playing fairies?”

  I nod.

  “She’ll be good for hours.”

  “You know what I’m thinking?” I ask him. “I think we should stake out Big Win. Pretend to be customers, go in looking to buy stuff. It’s always a good idea, when you’re trying to come up with marketing ideas, to really understand the competition.”

  His face brightens. “Okay.”

  “We’ve even got a legit excuse. We’re going on a camping trip and we need some help about what kind of backpack would be good for me—”

  “I’ve got a rental pack here you can use—”

  “No, I know; we’ll be pretending. But legit pretending.”

  “How is legit pretending different from real pretending?”

  “Legit pretending is when it’s real underneath even though it’s pretend on the surface.”

  He rolls his eyes. “That’s not a thing.”

  “Whatever. You get the gist.”

  “I get the gist. When should we go?”

  “Whenever you can get away.”

  He hesitates, surveys the store, then says, “How about as soon as you finish your research here?”

  Chapter 28

  Chase

  Just being in Big Win depresses me. It’s so huge and impersonal, like an outdoor store warehouse. The lighting is bad, so the whole place gives an impression of gray even though there are plenty of bright-colored jackets and sleeping bags and other items.

  Liv doesn’t seem affected. She strolls through the store, Katie’s hand in hers, fingering items, looking around with curiosity on her face, as if she’s absorbing it all, making sense out of it. And her calm, her lack of despair, makes me feel better right away. We haven’t lost this battle yet. We’ve gotta have at least a few things under our hats that Big Win can’t lay claim to.

  But another half hour of scoping out Big Win disabuses me of that notion. Big Win stocks literally everything we have at Mike’s, and a bunch more—and their prices are lower. Shop at Mike’s! Find less, pay more! is hardly the slogan that’s going to win the day.

  I don’t say that out loud, though. I follow Liv around, trying to see things the way she’s seeing them.

  “Ask some questions,” she whispers, as we approach fishing. “I don’t know enough about fishing to know what to ask, but you do.”

  There’s a guy—maybe college age?—biting his fingernails, leaning against a column, and when we approach he pushes himself off the column and comes toward us. “Can I help you?” he asks.

  “Um, I…”

  God, I suck at this.

  I suddenly remember the Boy Scout dad up at Baker Lake. “Um, my line breaks almost every time I get a bite.”

  “Yeah?” he says. “Uh, I don’t know. Um, maybe a thicker line would help?”

  It might. But it might not, if the drag’s too tight. I wait for him to say that, but he just leads me to where all the lines are displayed. “Here you go,” he says.

  Katie begins counting the spools. It’s kind of amazing how easily she can amuse herself.

  “I don’t know what kind of line I’m using now,” I say.

  I wouldn’t be caught dead in real life being this much of a noob, but Liv shoots me a gratifying glance of approval, so I keep it up.

  “What’s a good one that’s thick enough not to break but still good for trolling?”

  “Uh…”

  Now he’s casting his eyes in all directions and looking a little desperate. He grabs something off the display. “This,” he says.

  I take it out of his hand. It’s braid. I never suggest braid for trolling. It’s fine for bottom fishing, but the fish won’t bite on braid when you’re trolling.

  If anything, I feel more depressed. If Mike’s goes under because of these guys, there won’t be anyone left in the area to give good fishing advice.

  But Liv is smiling. She snatches the line out of my hand and says, brightly, “Thanks!”

  As we leave that aisle, I murmur, “It’s the wrong kind.”

  “I figured,” she says. “He looked like he was grasping at straws.”

  “He was.” I sigh, heavily.

  “Let’s see if it’s any better in camping.”

  In camping, Liv takes the lead. She outright fesses up to being a camping beginner and asks for help choosing a backpack. While she’s trying on packs, she chitters away about how she needs a really good place to go on her first camping trip, and was hoping they might have some suggestions.

  Climbing into the car, I am thoroughly demoralized, but Liv says—from the backseat, where she’s buckling Katie into her car seat—“That was great!”

  “It was awful,” I say darkly.

  “It was awful,” she admits, “but that’s great for Mike’s. And for you. Chase, don’t you see? You guys have so much going for you, and you don’t even see it. You have so much knowledge and expertise! You can bring so many people into the store with that. You can do workshops and maybe even some short ‘learning trips.’ You can have pamphlets to hand out with advice about equipment and where to go. You can put coupons and discounts in some of those pamphlets, so when people pick them up, they’ll want to come back into the store to make use of the coupons and discounts. And you can put way more stuff up on Facebook than you have now! Tips and tricks and places to go, and sandwich shops to buy from…Chase, this is good news. I swear it!”

  Hope cautiously bubbles in my chest.

  “That’s a lot of work,” I say carefully, as she comes around the front of the car and gets into the passenger seat.

  “It is, but it’s work you love. Sharing your knowledge.”

  She’s right. There’s nothing I love more than helping people figure out their equipment, their trips—

  “And I’ll help you. Leaflet and pamphlet designs, social media templates and ideas. We can get a ton done before I leave.”

  The hope bubble pops. Abruptly. Because this, all of it—the stakeout, Liv’s great ideas, the way Liv’s calm soothed me in Big Win, and most of all Liv herself and the way she makes me feel—it’s temporary. I had somehow allowed myself to forget that.

  But now…

  I look over at her. She’s lit up with excitement about her ideas, her plan. Her hair is straight today, smooth and so glossy it gleams like the penny it echoes. Her cheeks are pink, her eyes sparkle, and—

  I don’t want it to be temporary. I want her to stay. I want to convince her that whatever Denver offers, she’ll be happier here. Taking care of Katie. Helping me make Mike’s a success.

  Being with me.

  “Chase?”<
br />
  I’ve been staring at her, and I know what I’m feeling is in my eyes. She’s caught me at it, and for a moment, I see it there in her eyes, mirrored.

  Maybe this won’t be a hard sell, after all.

  Then it’s gone—that longing in her eyes—and I’m not sure if I imagined it or not.

  Chapter 29

  Liv

  “Okay. So for the fishing locations—there’s a master list, right, and then there’s a single sheet for each of the locations with directions, sandwich shop, supplies, and so on. Do you want me to do that the same way for the camping ones?”

  “Yeah.”

  He’s sprawled on the floor on his stomach like a little kid, writing furiously on a piece of paper. Every time he fills a sheet, he hands it to me and I enter it into the growing collection of handouts and tip sheets and other materials we’ve created. The living room looks like it was hit by a blizzard of 8.5x11 sheets.

  His handwriting is borderline illegible and his spelling is atrocious—I completely understand now how he was a near-disaster in school as a kid. But he thinks fast and even if 90 percent of the population might not be able to make any sense of his shorthand, we’re somehow perfectly in tune tonight, him dashing stuff down as fast as it comes to him and me translating it into more readable form.

  It’s fun, too, working with him like this. I’ve been away from marketing too long, away from the pleasures of working on a team, the way two minds combined add up to more than the sum of their parts. It’ll be good to get to Denver, where this will be my daily routine.

  It’ll be good to get to Denver.

  If I tell myself that enough times, I’ll believe it, for sure.

  Chase makes a humming noise that draws my gaze. A lock of hair has fallen over his forehead and there are lines of concentration etched deep. He scribbles, rests the end of his pencil against his lips, scribbles again. Smiles, so that the lines vanish from his brow. Something expands and contracts in my chest, generous and then sharp.

  He looks up, then, and catches my eye, and time freezes. He sets the pencil aside, crawls across the floor to where I’m sitting on the couch, takes the laptop off my lap, and sets it down on the coffee table.

  “All work and no play…” he says, his voice rough. He kneels up between my legs and I twine my arms around his neck. I can smell his skin, so clean and specific it makes my mouth water and my fingers curl. It takes forever for his mouth to meet mine.

  “Chase,” I murmur. There are things I want to ask him, but I don’t know what they are. There are things I want to tell him, but I don’t know what they are, either. I feel languid and urgent at the same time, like honey and buzzing bees.

  He only touches his mouth to mine. “Mmm,” he says. “I love the way you taste.”

  “I love the way you taste, too.”

  He kisses me again, this kiss a little longer, a little more complete. I want his tongue in my mouth. I want his hands on my breasts. I want—

  “I like kissing you more than I’ve ever liked kissing anyone,” he says.

  My heart pauses.

  “Me too,” I manage. But I feel such a mix of things. Such a rush of lust I can barely keep it inside my skin. So much impatience. And also the feeling of teetering, like I’m balanced somewhere precarious and might fall at any moment.

  He kisses me again. Slowly. Closing off that kiss, beginning another one, long sweet kisses with no tongue that make me hungry and jittery. My fingers sift through his hair and clutch at his clothes and go on long journeys I didn’t plan, from the nape of his neck to the bare skin between his T-shirt and his jeans, into his pocket and out again, my thumb tracing the waistband of his jeans and finding the button. I unbutton his jeans and slide my hand in, under his boxer briefs. I groan. He grunts.

  “We should go upstairs.”

  We pile the blizzard of paper in one stack and then race up the stairs. As soon as we’re in his room with the door shut, he pulls his shirt over his head. “Take your shirt off,” he commands. “I want to feel your skin next to mine.”

  I take my shirt off, and glory in the look on his face when he sees me in my lacy bra. Chase all fired up with lust. My new favorite drug.

  “Bra, too,” he says.

  We stand in the middle of his bedroom, hot skin slipping and sliding against hot skin, kissing and kissing. Every kiss is different. Some end decisively, some go on forever and won’t end. There are chains of little mini kisses and long, hot licks. And the whole time, there is his skin and my skin, the roughness of his chest hair, the texture of his tight abs against my belly, and lower, his arousal between us, urging us on.

  It feels like hours before we are naked and in bed together, under his covers, and he rolls a condom down and eases into me.

  “So wet,” he gasps. “So tight.”

  He moves slowly, still kissing me. Kissing and kissing, his tongue aggressive now. Wild. Like his tongue is telling me what he wants to do, even as his cock is so, so careful. Gentle. And that contrast makes me crazy. I claw at his back, grab his butt, trying to get him to fuck me like his tongue is telling me he wants to, but he keeps that slow pace up, and it does something to me. It dissolves me. The whole lower half of my body is melting, turning buttery and soft, and he makes a broken sound like he feels it, too.

  I’m a tiger but he won’t break the pace, and the more he kisses like a predator and fucks like I’m fragile, the more the heat rises and the tension twists, the contrast winding me up and up and up. “Chase—” Now I’m the one who sounds broken, because I’m breaking, and he is, too, his rhythm going jerky, his hips suddenly pumping, pistoning, and I’m coming so hard I can’t breathe.

  Now it’s his kisses that have gone so unbelievably tender until he breaks them off completely and rests his cheek against mine and bellows his release.

  Chapter 30

  Chase

  “I think we should have a party,” I tell her, when both of us are able to speak again, which is probably fifteen minutes later.

  “We just did.”

  I stick my tongue out. “A real party. Invite a few of my friends, a few of yours.”

  “Like a going-away party?”

  Here’s my chance to say, On that subject: I’ve been thinking. I don’t want you to go away. I want you to think about staying.

  The problem is, every time I think about asking her to stay, I flash back on when I asked Thea to stay.

  Don’t go. I love you. And I know, if you give me the chance, I can make you happy.

  It was hard to get the words out; it felt like they were being forced through a too-small tube; it hurt my chest. But it felt good, too; they came out on a wave of hope that lasted about as long as it took for Thea’s expression to change. Her face—even her body language—went very still.

  Thea said, I’ve thought about this a lot, Chase. We’re too different. I know they say opposites attract, but that’s bullshit people comfort themselves with. Even if I told myself I wouldn’t, I’d always be wanting you to be different. I’d be waiting for you to catch up. To polish up, clean up, to be smoother and suaver. We’d go to parties and I’d feel you next to me, rough around the edges, and I wouldn’t think we complement each other so well; I’d want to buff the roughness off. Make you someone you aren’t. And—it wouldn’t be fair to you, and it wouldn’t be fun for me.

  “Chase?”

  Liv is peering at me, concerned.

  “Sorry. Thinking of something else.”

  Fuck Thea, right? I mean, fuck her. Fuck her moral superiority and her judgment and her smooth is better than rough. The world is full of beautiful rough things—the Grand Canyon, studded snow tires, tree bark, the Cascade range, all jagged and uncivilized.

  I realize something. I didn’t ask Liv to go camping with me to help me with Katie or to tease or torture her. I asked her to g
o because if I can make her fall in love with camping, maybe I can make her fall in love with me.

  That’s all I’ve got; that’s the whole of my plan.

  “Yes,” I say. “A going-away party.”

  I haven’t decided not to ask Liv to stay. I’m just going to give us both a little more time to figure out how it all fits together.

  I’m going to take her into the woods and show her all the things I love the most so she can learn to love things she thought she couldn’t.

  Chapter 31

  Liv

  Chase and I can’t agree on anything about “our” barbecue.

  Obviously, there are certain things we can agree about. Burgers. Dogs. Buns. Relish, ketchup, mustard. Corn.

  Where we differ is on, well, everything else.

  Like salads.

  “Potato salad. And maybe coleslaw.”

  I push a recipe across the table to him.

  He makes a face. “How do you even say that word?”

  “Nee-swaz.”

  “What is that, French?”

  I show him a couple of others.

  “Tortellini with ham, red onion, and pesto? Whatever happened to classic macaroni salad, you know, with carrots, drowning in mayo?”

  “If I’m doing the cooking, what do you care?”

  “I care if you serve food whose name I can’t pronounce.”

  Tablecloths turn out, also, to be an issue.

  “It’s a picnic table, Liv.”

  “It would look really nice with something bright colored draped over it, and a few tea lights in glass bowls or squares.”

  “My friends will laugh their asses off.”

  “Sandra will not laugh her ass off. Rodro’s girlfriend will not laugh her ass off. Eve will not laugh her ass off.”

  He rolls his eyes.

  We fight about drinks.

  “Beer. Beer is all you need.”

  He sings a few bars of it to the tune of Love is all you need…