Chaos Theory (Nerds of Paradise #2)(67)

The thought of the coming storm turned Will’s stomach. The more the daylight around him faded, the worse his mood got.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stop?” Melody asked before too long.

“Why, do you need to stop?” He glanced to her as she walked beside him, but kept moving.

She met his glance with a curious look. “It bothers you, doesn’t it?”

His first instinct was to play dumb. They’d come too far for him to try that on her. “My dad.” He nodded.

“Weird that he suddenly showed up, isn’t it?”

“Nope. Not at all.” He sighed, looking forward.

There was a long silence, then Melody said, “You know, we could always just go rogue, live in the forest, eating fish and wild plants. We wouldn’t even have to wear clothes.”

In spite of the weight pressing down on him, Will laughed. “Yeah, okay. Let’s do that.”

Melody giggled, moving closer to him and taking his hand. “Awesome. Just you and me and the gifts God gave us.”

The image was a pretty good one, all things considered. Will stopped where he was and brushed a hand up Melody’s arm, across her shoulder, and along her cheek. He figured he should say something, but no, words wouldn’t be enough. Instead, he leaned in and kissed her. Not a short, polite kiss either. Definitely not a kiss that former Will would have engaged in. This kiss was deep and wet, and the emotion behind it swirled up from places in him he hadn’t even known were there. It was definitely a Clementine kiss.

“We should keep going,” Will whispered when he finally came up for air. “A half hour more might give us the edge tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Melody blinked at him, pink and grinning and awestruck. “I’m all for it. Unless you’d rather stop here for some wild, forest sex.”

Will chuckled and kissed her again before taking her hand and leading her on. “Tempting, but I’m holding out for the big, soft bed at the finish line.” That was far better to focus on than his dad’s sanctimonious frown and orders that he leave PSF for NASA.

They hiked for another hour, until it was almost completely dark, before stopping. Even then, they didn’t bother to set up a proper camp. They huddled down in the most sheltered spot they could find. Dinner was water and energy bars. Where every other night of the competition they had gone to great lengths to put together a passable bed and to focus on getting as much sleep as possible, that night they threw the sleeping bags down and lay awake, listening for sounds of Ed and Katrina through the mutterings of the forest. The only mutterings Will heard were the imagined lectures from his dad that he knew he’d have to slog through at the finish line.

At least the rain stopped. And Will did eventually fall asleep. He woke to a damp dawn. Melody was already up and had managed to get a fire going. His first, waking sight was of her biting her lip as she poked at the flames with a stick, hints of sunlight sparkling off the wet needles of the pine trees behind her. As much as that image of her made him happy, it also brought with it a heap of guilt.

“You shouldn’t have to do that,” he mumbled, rubbing the last of the sleep out of his eyes. He dragged his aching body to sit, then pushed out of the sleeping bag and over to the fire.

“Do what?” She blinked at him. “I’m just boiling some water for tea.”

Will’s brow rose at the thought of tea. He hadn’t seen any in the supplies that had been transferred to their backpacks, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any, or that Melody wasn’t making tea out of pine needles and mushrooms.

“I should have gotten up earlier and made the fire,” he said, picking through the selection of energy bars she’s laid out.

Melody snorted. “Why? Is there some weird, male code I don’t know about that says guys have to do all the important jobs? Because if there is, it’s lame.”

He let out a weak laugh and shook his head. “Sorry. Old habits die hard.”

She put down her stick and shifted to sit next to him. Her lips pursed into a firm line and her brows knit. Will found himself wanting to kiss the smile back to her face, but she didn’t look like she’d let him until she said whatever it was he could see she wanted to blurt out.

“You don’t have to face your dad alone, you know.”

He smiled. That was exactly what he had come to expect her to say. “I wasn’t even thinking about facing my dad.” It was stretching the truth, but not too badly. Right then, he didn’t want to think about his dad. He didn’t want to think about anything but how sexy Melody was when she was in a take-charge mood.

“He can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do,” she continued. “Job-wise or any-wise.”

“I know.” He did know. It wasn’t the fear of caving in that made him feel like he’d drunk battery acid. It was the inevitable confrontation.

Melody relaxed into a smile. “I’d remind you that my offer to run away with you and live naked in the forest stands, but I have this weird feeling like you might actually be okay.”

“As long as I’ve got you with me, I’m pretty sure I’ll survive anything.”

“Aww, Clementine.” She leaned into him, and their lips met.

It wasn’t going to be much of a kiss. His morning breath was bad in the worst of times, but after being out in the middle of nowhere with only a rudimentary toothbrush and no running water, he was likely to kill her if he kissed her hard now. Tea would probably be enough to wash everything nasty away, even if it was homemade tea. He reached for the metal teapot sitting in the fire—