Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute(72)

“Want to break it?”

I remember I am still going, inch by torturous inch, through the arduous trial of acknowledging and expressing my true feelings. “Yes.”

He beams. “Good. I’ll wait here. Wear your gloves.”

I roll my eyes, zip up the tent, and ignore Aurora and Sophie’s sniggering while I hurriedly throw on a tracksuit. And a coat. And a scarf. And gloves, because wearing all that without them would be weird, not because he told me to. When I crawl out of the tent and zip it up behind me, the campsite is still and quiet, except for the haunting hoot of a nearby owl, the ominous howl of wind blowing through the forest to the north, and the resonant snore of That One Guy.

Brad is waiting with his hands in his pockets, but as soon as I stand up, he hooks our arms together like he’s escorting me around a ballroom and we head slowly, cautiously, toward the park. “How is it this dark?” he asks.

“Well, at night, the sun goes away—”

He elbows my ribs. “The sun does not go away.”

“You’re such a pedant.”

“We would fly out into space and die.”

I tut. “You don’t know that.”

“Celine,” he says seriously, “if you tell me you’ve been swayed by a conspiracy theory against the existence of gravity, I will be forced to reconsider our—”

I think he’s going to say relationship—which would be a problem, obviously, because we’re not in a relationship. And that’s a good thing, a safe and sensible thing, so I’m relieved when he says, “reconsider our friendship.” I am. I am.

If I fall quiet, it’s because I have to concentrate. The park is on the other side of the campsite and when clouds blow in front of the moon, which they do every few seconds, we might as well be stumbling around with clay pasted over our eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Brad asks.

“I’m trying not to smack into the side of someone’s caravan.”

“I mean lately. With you. You seemed off today.”

There he goes again, noticing things. “It’s nothing.”

The moon reappears, and we’re here at the park, which is a convenient distraction. Brad slooowwwly eases the gate open but it still squeaks. We both freeze.

Neither Holly, Rebecca, nor Zion pop out of their tents and start waving red flags of Disqualification and Doom in our direction, so we slip into the park. I thought we’d head for the swings, but instead, Brad tugs me toward a little castle on wooden stilts.

“Why are we even doing this?” I grumble. “Breaking curfew. I must’ve lost my mind.”

“We did it before, remember?”

“Yes, and almost got caught, and clearly failed to learn our lesson.”

“I guess you can’t resist me.” He winks, and, God, the truth rips right through my heart. We clamber into this tiny starlit fairy-tale castle, and I ache. The wood floor is hard and freezing cold under my bum, but Brad pulls me backward until I’m leaning against his chest and this is more than worth it. His thighs bracket mine. He breathes in deep and I feel his lungs expand, feel the heat of his breath rush past my neck as he wraps his arms around me and laces his fingers together over my stomach.

“Well, this is cozy,” I say dryly, because it’s either that or I faint with happiness.

“Shut up,” he replies, and noses my hair out of the way to kiss a spot just beneath my left ear.

Okay, my options have been exhausted: fainting is all I have now.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he murmurs.

I love you. “Nothing.”

“You seem distracted.”

“I’m always distracted. It’s an unfortunate side effect of being intelligent. You wouldn’t know.”

He laughs and I feel warm and fuzzy inside. I even let myself enjoy it. Then he softly quiets down, and there’s a long pause before he murmurs, sounding only a little sad: “I wish you’d trust me, Celine. I really, really do.”

The thing is, I trust Brad an impossible amount. Like, if the world was ending—if the aliens came or an asteroid hit or a hungry god burst out of the earth and demanded retribution—and I couldn’t save the day because I happened to be in a coma or, like, waiting for my pedicure to dry, I think Brad could save the world instead. I would trust him to do it without a second thought.

So tell him.

But I can’t. Because what I really want is to spill all my feelings, to say I trust you, yeah, but also I love you and I think I always will, even if one day you leave me behind. And when it comes down to it, I’m still not brave enough for that. I’m still not brave enough to risk being left.

But maybe one day I could be? If I tried really hard? That’s not impossible, right?

For now, I tell him a truth, if not the truth. “We finish the expedition in two more days. Then we have a day or so to rest, and then…”

He follows my drift, because when doesn’t he? “Then it’s time for the Explorers’ Ball.”

My heart is heavy like a stone at the thought. “I bet he’ll be there.”

Brad doesn’t ask who.

“You were right,” I admit. “I need to tell my mum.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

I exhale all my frustration (don’t worry, it regrows like mold) and let my head fall back against his shoulder. He kisses my cheek, almost absentmindedly, and in that moment, I want want want so bad I could eat the world.