by Penny Wylder
My dad breaks into a coughing fit, which makes me tense with nervousness. He doesn’t sound good. I’m definitely going to visit him when I have to make a run into town where my parents live. “That’s great, son. I don’t want to keep you from your day, so I’ll keep you posted.”
“Okay.”
He hangs up without saying goodbye. His voice was tight, and I have no doubt that he was holding back more coughing until the connection ended.
“Who was that?” Seph asks.
“My dad,” I say, avoiding her eyes. Not very many people know that my dad is sick. Not anyone here at the camp—they think that he’s taking a year off to travel with my mom—not my manager or team, and now not Seph.
If he would let me tell people, it would be easier. I doubt that my team would be so confused about the two-month hiatus if they knew. But my dad doesn’t want anyone to know. It’s who he’s always been, and I can’t change him. But I can’t ignore the feeling that my music dream is drifting out of reach by the second.
It’s not anyone’s fault. You can’t blame cancer for being an asshole. It just is.
Seph clears her throat, and I realize that I’ve been quiet for a couple of minutes. “Is he okay?”
“Yeah, he’s doing okay. Just checking in to see how I’m doing on my first day.”
“I was wondering how you ended up here. Your dad loves this place.”
I swallow and force another smile. “Yeah, he just needed a year off, so he roped me into it. So far it hasn’t been that bad.”
She grins. “No, it hasn’t.” Sliding off the bed, she saunters over to where her clothes are still on the floor, and I get a stunning view of her ass. God, I could watch her walk around naked all day. She slips into her panties. And then her shorts, and I sigh as her body disappears from view. Seph shoots me a sassy grin over her shoulder at the sound. “Thank you for not tearing my clothes off by the way. That would have been hard to explain walking across camp.”
I smirk. “You’re giving me ideas for next time.”
She looks troubled for a moment, and I bite my tongue from asking her what is wrong. I know what’s wrong. The ghost of Leena is between us, and right now with her on her way out the door we don’t have enough time for the conversation. Finally, she smiles. “Yeah.”
My chest eases. At least for now, there will be a next time. That’s something, at least. “See you at dinner?”
She nods, staring at me for a moment and blushing before unlocking the door and slipping out. I lean back on the bed, taking a deep breath. Holy fuck. This day has been a whirlwind and it’s not over.
I need to make a time to go into town, I can pick up a replacement tire for the bus and I’ll check with the kitchen staff if they need anything for meals and the bonfire this Friday. I need to put my clothes on and check on everybody and make sure everything is going smoothly. But the only thought that’s filling my mind right now is the way that Seph tastes and how I want to bury myself in her again and again until we’re both so exhausted that we can’t move from the bed.
Ducking into the bathroom, I take a quick shower. It’s a decently large shower, and it might be fun to bring Seph in here and…fuck why is this so complicated?
I’m not even sure where we fell apart. When we were here that summer, we were so in love. And we were those teenagers that I have to keep an eye out for, sneaking off to have sex whenever possible. And then later, when by some miracle Seph and I ended up at the same high school, it was like the summer had never happened. No spark at all. Thinking about that still hurts, and I fucked up. I rebounded with the worst person possible for Seph.
Maybe if I hadn’t, things would be different now. But Leena was bright and shining and at the time she was a balm for how much I was hurting. And as stupid as it was, we continued to be that for each other over the years.
But we were never meant to be, and now that we’re not together I can only hope that I can repair the damage that the two of us did, and find out what really happened between Seph and me. Why did she give up so suddenly? What did I do?
Even after everything we just did, the thoughts of her in this shower with me have me hard and stroking my cock hard enough that I see stars when I pour my orgasm down the drain. I need her again. Always.
I dry myself off and try to untangle the thoughts still in my head, though it doesn’t seem like that’s going to be possible.
I pull on my pants and try to shove the unanswered questions from my mind so that I’m able to function and do my job. But it’s still an echo.
What did I do? What can I do now? How can I make her mine?
11
Persephone
Six Years Ago
“Boo.”
I startle at his voice, wrapped up in the writing as I was. Eric presses a kiss to my cheek as he bends over my shoulder, a secret, hidden kiss. We’ve had to be careful, and yet not too careful. Because ever since we kissed at the waterfall it’s like a match was lit to waiting gasoline. That was both of our first kiss, and we weren’t great. But over the past few weeks we’ve gotten better.
And Even though we’ve been trying not to be too obvious, I think it would be clear to anyone who sees us together. The same way that Leena and I were last year, Eric and I are inseparable. And she might not forgive me for saying it, but hanging out with someone you can make out with is a lot more fun.
“Hi,” I say. “You got me.”
“Whatcha doing?” he asks, sitting down on the bench beside me. “Oh wait, I know.” He’s grinning though. I know he doesn’t care that I’m writing. More often than not he asks me to let him read it, and more often than not I let him. I blush anyway, though. It’s a reaction that I can’t seem to control when I’m around him.
“You know.”
“I do.” He looks around to make sure that no one’s watching before leaning in for a real kiss. I love his kisses. Soft and sweet that somehow morph into hot and hungry at a moment’s notice. I’ve never felt like this about anyone.
And it’s not just the physical stuff, though that’s been amazing so far. I’ve done stuff in the last weeks that I never would have considered doing before. Sneaking out so I can kiss Eric until I’m breathless, his hands and my hands roaming until we’re both gasping and wanting more, but not quite ready for it. But I’ve felt the way he’s hard beneath his clothes, and he’s felt the way my breasts swell and the heat at the seam of my pants, and I know we’ll get there. It’s inevitable.
But we’ve also been talking. About anything and everything. Eric has told me how much he loves music and how that’s what he wants to do. I’ve told him the list of places that I want to travel and that I want to be both a novelist and a travel writer. Writing about places and times in a unique way. I feel like I know everything about him now, from his favorite color to his birthday and his favorite foods.
This summer has been way better than I ever hoped, and I don’t want it to end. I consider myself lucky that he tackled me that first day. If he hadn’t, maybe we would have gone the whole summer without really talking. But now…well…this is better.
“How was basketball?”
“Good. About to go swimming and wanted to see if you’d join me.”
I make a face. “I have archery in a few minutes.”
“Cool. That’s okay. I have a plan.” He waggles his eyebrows at me, trying to make me laugh.
And I do. “What’s your plan?”
“Sneak out and meet me.”
I roll my eyes. “I do that almost every night.”
“True. But this time meet me at the waterfall. Or rather, meet me at the lake and we’ll go to the waterfall together.”
Something about the way he says it makes my stomach flip. “Why are we going there?” We’ve been back quite a bit, sneaking past the closed off path to have privacy. But we’ve never ventured out there in the dark. It somehow seems vaguely alluring and dangerous.
“It’s a surprise.”
I sta
re at him, trying to figure it out, but he gives nothing away. Just smiles like he has no other cares in the world. “Okay.”
“Okay.” He kisses me quickly again. “Shoot straight.”
“I’ll try.”
Nerves jump in my gut. Anticipation and curiosity and a touch of anxiety. This seems different. I could be ready for different. When it comes to Eric, I’m ready for it all. I’m ready for everything. Not a huge chance that I’ll be able to shoot straight now, not when I’ll be thinking about what he has planned. But I’m going to try anyway.
I don’t know for sure what will happen when I leave my cabin tonight, but I have a hope. And it’s that hope that makes me put on the only set of matching underwear that I brought to camp. I do what I’ve done every night I’ve snuck out. Worn clothes under my robe and hide under the covers until everyone is asleep, and then leave.
This time, I don’t quite make it out. “Where do you go every night?” Lisa says quietly. She’s one of my roommates, and a nice girl. I don’t think I have to worry about her reporting me to the counsellors.
“Oh, you know,” I whisper. “I just like to look at the stars.”
There’s a snicker from the other bed in the room, and Anna sits up. We’re the only three in here. Might as well stop pretending. There are still people in the other rooms, and we need to be quiet, but I relax. “Please,” Anna says. “She’s going out to meet Eric.”
I swallow. “How do you know that?”
“You’re not subtle.” I can almost hear her roll her eyes.
“Are you going to stop me.”
Anna laughs again. “Girl, no. If I had an option here that was that attractive, I’d be sneaking out too.”
I’m glad that it’s dark and that they can’t see me blushing. “Thanks.”
“You have to tell us how it goes, though,” Lisa says.
“What?”
“You took about three times as long in the bathroom as you normally do,” she says. “Something is obviously happening.”
I push open the window and begin my climb out that I’ve gotten very good at. “You guys pay way too much attention.”
“Good luck!” Anna whispers as I drop to the ground and head toward the lake.
I wonder what Leena would say if she could see me now. Our entire friendship I’ve been the goody-two-shoes. She snuck out of our cabin plenty last summer but I never wanted to go. If she knew just how much time I’d spent out of my bed so far, she’d laugh her ass off.
The moon is nearly full, and the empty campground is bright with the light, even as clouds pass over it now and again. It’s bright off the surface of the lake, and I can see Eric leaning against the trunk of the tree long before I get there. He’s staring out over the water—I’ve never met anyone who loves being around water as much as he does—and he doesn’t notice me walking up.
“Boo,” I whisper, and he’s the one that jumps this time.
“Geeze,” he says, recovering and immediately pressing me back into the trunk of the tree and kissing me. “I guess I deserved that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Ready to go?” he asks.
I weave my fingers in-between his and let him guide me toward the waterfall path. “I’m ready, but I’m still not sure what you’re up to.”
“No?” His voice pretends innocence I know that he doesn’t have.
“I mean, I have a guess,” I say as he lifts the barrier tape and we walk down the now familiar path.
He squeezes my hand. “Tell me.”
“Nope.”
“Come on, I want to know.”
I press my lips together and shake my head. “Not yet. Later.”
He laughs. “Fine.”
When we come around the corner, all the breath I have leaves my body. The moon is shining down on the waterfall making it sparkle like diamonds in the night, and on top of the giant rock is a blanket, a picnic basket, and a lantern. Eric’s backpack is sitting there too. “Holy shit this is beautiful,” I say.
“I hoped you would say that.”
He helps me up onto the rock, and I settle onto the blanket. It’s never cold in Georgia in the summer, not even at night. But the mist from the waterfall provides a welcome coolness when the breeze pushes it far enough to hit my skin.
“What did you bring us?”
He grins. “Just what I could raid as far as snacks from the kitchen and a few from my parents’ cabin. Popcorn, some chocolate. And…” he pulls an old-fashioned camping thermos out of the picnic basket. “Hot chocolate.”
“Oh my god that’s perfect.” I don’t care that it’s warm, I love hot chocolate. Eric knows that too. It’s one of the things that I told him—that one of my favorite things to do in the wintertime is snuggle up with hot chocolate and a book while watching the snow fall. If we’re lucky enough to get snow. “Thank you,” I say, leaning in to kiss him.
“You’re welcome.” In the dim light of the lantern I think that I can see him blushing.
“So why did you bring me here?”
He grins. “The picnic.”
My heart starts to pound, and my stomach does that flip of nervous anticipation. “Is that the only reason?”
Eric is definitely blushing now. “I’m not expecting anything from you, Seph.”
I move a little closer. “I’m glad.”
“But?”
“But,” I whisper, “I would be okay if there was another reason.”
I watch him swallow. “Only if you’re ready.”
“More than ready.”
Just like our kiss a few weeks ago, this would be a first for both of us. And maybe it is soon, but we’ve spent every day together. It’s how camp works. You get to know people hard and fast and what counts as a day at camp might as well be a week in the normal world.
I take a sip of the hot chocolate, and it’s delicious. Thick and gorgeous and rich. “I’m going to have to have you make hot chocolate for me more often,” I say.
“Secret family recipe.”
“Is that recipe a packet?” I ask, smiling.
He laughs, reaching for his backpack. “It’s actually not.”
“You’re telling me you actually snuck into the kitchen and made hot chocolate from scratch?”
“There are benefits to being friends with the kitchen staff.” He takes the thermos from me and takes a sip of his own. He looks down, not meeting my eyes, and then grabs my hand. “I don’t know how to do this.”
I laugh. “I mean, neither do I. We’ll figure it out.” From his backpack, he pulls out another blanket. “You came prepared.”
When he meets my eyes this time, he’s dead serious. “I’m very prepared. Because I wasn’t joking, I wasn’t expecting anything. But like hell was I going to get you out here and not have everything we needed.”
That’s true. “That would have been disappointing.”
He screws the cap on the thermos and puts it back in the basket, and then puts the basket out of the way near his backpack. And then he scoots closer. I’m so nervous, but I’m ready. I don’t have any hesitation as he leans in to kiss me.
This kiss starts the way that they always do, soft and sweet and slow. But already it feels different, because we both know that we don’t have to stop. I lean back on the blanket, and he follows, kissing me harder. There it is, that heat that appears out of nothing, suddenly consuming me and making me kiss him harder, wrap my arms around his shoulders and pull him closer.
“If you need to stop,” he says, pulling back, “tell me to stop.”
“I will.” I grab the hem of my shirt and pull it over my head, placing it beside me so that I’m in my bra. This isn’t anything that he hasn’t seen before. I’ve been in my bikini with him, and our roaming hands have made sure that he’s touched every inch of me through my clothing. But this will be new.
I take off my bra quickly, and settle back down on the blanket, blushing. I have the urge to cover myself, but I don’t. This is Eric. I wa
nt this. I want him to see me. He’s looking down at me with awe. He swallows again. “Can I touch you?”
Reaching for his hand, I bring it to my skin, directly on my breast, and I close my eyes because it feels like so much and not nearly enough. Eric is gentle, but eager. My nipples harden under his fingers, and I want to feel more than that. “I—” I stop, not knowing how to ask the question I’m about to ask.
His head whips back. “Is that okay.”
I laugh, breaking the tension. “Yes. I just—” I swallow. “I don’t know how to ask.”
“Ask me anything, Persephone.” He never uses my full name, and the way he says it now hits home. This is different. “I want to know what you feel and how to make you feel good. And I want you to explore me if that’s what you want. Nothing is off the table right now.”
I blow out a breath. He’s right. We know so much about each other. This is just one more thing to know. We have a chance to learn about this together. There can’t be any mistakes since neither of us have a clue about what we’re doing. I take a breath before I meet his eyes. “I want your mouth on me. On them.”
Eric smiles a slow smile. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I can do that.” He moves his hands across my skin again, and my nipples are harder than ever now, tingling when he touches them. And when he leans down and touches one nipple with his tongue, I gasp in a breath. It’s everything I thought that it would feel like and so much more. The sensations from his mouth sink through my skin and lower down, rolling into a need that I can’t explain and can’t shake.
And that was before he flicked his tongue, and I’m arching into him. “Fuck,” I say, though it’s more breath than an actual word. Eric moves to my other nipple, teasing it in the exactly same way, and I realize that I’m wet. Between my legs I’m soaking as if I were touching myself, and we’ve barely gotten to the good part.
