Her face is pale. “How do you know?”
“I could hear it rattling things. Breaking branches.” Three. Two. One. “Breathing.”
“You could hear it breathing?”
I nod. “I stayed up all night listening, just in case.”
“Just in case what?”
“In case I had to defend us.”
She eventually stops beleaguering the discussion and moves to give me space; the incredulous expression never leaving her face. I rise from the stiff and rickety makeshift bed—I know it’s an actual bed that actual people sleep on, but it’s definitely not made for men my size.
I can literally hear my body cracking when I move and Juliet hears it, too, if the cringe on her face is any indication.
I feel her watching me as I move about the cabin, ransacking my duffle to find fresh clothes; I hadn’t packed a ton and planned on re-wearing stuff, but hadn’t planned on nightly bonfires that left me smelling like a wood burning pit and probably a little barf, too.
None got on me, but it also might have.
“Random question,” Juliet’s timid voice follows me as I make for the tiny bathroom. “Um, by any chance, did anyone oversee my, um, incident?”
“Incident?”
Her hands wave dramatically about the air.
“You know, the incident.” She lowers her voice. “Me throwing up outside.”
Ah.
I grin. “That wasn’t throwing up. That was drunk puking.”
“Can we not call it that?”
“You don’t want to call it throwing up or puking?”
“I’d rather not.”
Women are so weird sometimes.
“But that’s what you were doing,” I argue. “Why do you want to pretty it up with different words?”
“Yes please.” She laughs and I think it’s the first time I’ve heard it ,so my head snaps around and I stare, trying to get a glimpse of her naturally smiling face and watching her from the doorway.
Wow.
Just…wow. Juliet is really something when she’s smiling and I try not to gawk, but damn.
Color me surprised; she is so damn adorable.
Granted, I’ve seen her smile plenty in the past twenty-four hours, but there seems to be a huge difference in her fake smiling to be polite and this natural grinning at me while she’s joking.
Her teeth aren’t perfectly straight and white, and her lips aren’t as full as most women want their lips these days, but everything about her face is perfect anyway.
Wait.
That was sort of a backhanded compliment, wasn’t it?
Yikes.
Thank God I didn’t say any of that out loud; she’d probably smack me in the balls.
“No one saw you ralphing in the bushes, I promise you. Maybe a deer or two or a possum, but no actual human beings.”
At least not that I’m aware of—for all I know Steve and Paul could’ve been watching out their camper window, or Erik and Cookie could’ve been canvassing the forest for fuck buddies.
Not likely, but possible.
Juliet’s face falls. “I’m so embarrassed.” Her cheeks puff out a breath of air. “I can’t remember the last time I got drunk and I’m so sorry you had to see me like that.”
“You apologized last night…” My voice is gloating. “…as I was holding back your hair, so you didn’t puke on it.”
Her embarrassed face turns to one of anger. “You’re the worst!”
“I’m the best for holding your hair back and putting you to bed.”
I laugh, ducking as she tosses a sweatshirt in my direction. Luckily it’s flimsy and never makes it the entire way, falling instead on the fake hardwood floor in the camper.
“How am I the worst because I’m telling the truth? Enlighten me.”
“No one wants to be reminded that they did something stupid.”
“Especially you?”
“I do my best not to make an ass of myself in public if I can help it.” She blushes, ducking to hide her face.
“Don’t worry—you didn’t make an ass of yourself in front of anyone—you just couldn’t hold your liquor and honestly, I had a hard time not throwing up myself. That shit was strong.” I have no idea what Lionel put in that moonshine, but it most likely contains gasoline and gunpowder.
Woo wee, it was some strong shit.
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” she pouts, bending to pick up the sweatshirt she’d just thrown. Juliet folds it in her arms, hugging it to her body as if it were a blanket.
“Trust me, I wouldn’t just say that to make you feel better. It was a little odd that you kept eating s’mores, but other than that, everyone else was drunk too and didn’t notice—that I’m aware of.” Mostly.
Buzzed at the very least?
“Really? Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”
One hundred percent.
“Each and every last one of them was sauced.”
“For real?”
I hold up a hand and cross my fingers. “Scout’s Honor.”
Juliet sighs. “You’re probably lying about being a Boy Scout, too.”
“I never said I was a Boy Scout—all I said was Scout’s Honor,” I laugh. “I didn’t have time for clubs, I was too obsessed with football.”