“I’d be more afraid of Mike over there,” I said. Both of us looked over at Mike, who’d already packed up their lunch things and was raring to go again. He wanted us to reach the evening camp site before it was too late. The seven minutes we’d wasted at the gas station would bug him all day.
“God, he really is a Nazi!” Rhonda said and I giggled.
The afternoon hike was better even though the climb was steep, and we had to take frequent breaks. The path went up the mountain and in parts, we had to scramble over rocks and climb up sheer rock faces. Our group had been to Sugarloaf Mountain before, but this trail was a new one.
We reached our camping spot in the late afternoon. I could see Mike finally relaxing as we put up our tents and unpacked our gear. I walked over to Debbie, who was cleaning a scratch on her leg.
“What happened?”
“I slipped earlier.”
“That looks bad.”
There was a deep gash on her calf, and she put ointment on it.
“It’s okay,” she said, wincing a bit as she sat back.
Isaac came over to us. “Do you want to share tents?” he asked me.
“Does that mean I can get out of putting up mine?” I joked.
He smiled. “Mine is big enough for two.”
“Sure!”
I watched him go off.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Debbie asked me. Her blue eyes were watching me carefully.
“What do you mean?”
Debbie lifted her eyebrows and laughed, shaking her head, like I was a fool for not seeing what was in front of me
“Isaac?”
“You know Mike’s rules.”
“About fraternizing in the group?”
She laughed. “Yeah.”
But later that evening, after we’d had our dinner and washed up and were sitting around the fire, I noticed that Isaac was watching me. Lamar had his arms around Rhonda and Debbie was pouring all of us some wine. Mike added wood to the fire and stoked it, flames reaching into the sky and warming us up. We sat around talking but we were tired and there wasn’t much conversation. Mike told us he and Debbie were planning a big hike in the summer in the Adirondacks and for a while, the conversation was around nuts and a new kind of plant protein that tasted much more like meat. Then the conversation turned to another favorite topic, survival. Stories were told of hikers who found dead bodies on trails or joined a group with a serial killer.
“Come on, that didn’t really happen! That was a book by some author, I forget the name!” Rhonda protested and we all laughed.
We had more wine and Lamar and Rhonda got up and went to bed. The others got up and got ready for the night. At our tent, Isaac touched my arm and whispered, “What happens in the tent stays in the tent, right?” his voice was heavy with innuendo.
“Nothing is going to happen in the tent, Isaac,” I said sternly.
“Sure, right, yeah!” he elbowed me and laughed. My heart sank. I wasn’t going to cheat on Will with Isaac, or anyone else for that matter.
I went into the tent, got my sleeping bag, and went back to the fire.
To my surprise, I found Mike there, staring into the flames.
“I thought you’d gone to bed,” I said.
“I’ll go in a minute. Love it out here,” he said. “You going to sleep here?”