With This Heart(12)

That’s where Beck was standing when I walked in. He was just behind the fake fire with his arms crossed over his chest and a lazy grin dotting his features. Unlike last time, he wasn’t wearing a baseball hat, so there was nothing to hide every ounce of his grade-A hotness. His hair was scruffy and perfectly tousled. His muscles stood out and his skin was tan and healthy, so different than mine.

Seeing him like that was easily the highlight of my week until I saw that he was talking to an equally gorgeous girl. She was wearing a pocketed vest and hiking boots. She was almost as tall as Beck, which was practically a foot taller than me. Damnit. I straightened my shoulders instinctively and took a few steps closer. That’s when I saw Pretty Girl’s employee name tag. It read: Bekah. As in Rebecca shortened to Becca then morphed to Bekah. Who did she think she was having a cool, quirky name like that?


“ Abby!” Beck called, and my eyes shifted toward him again.

I sort of half-waved and muttered a “hi” as I reached them. Bekah offered me a smile, and then we all stood there awkwardly for a moment because in reality we were all pretty much strangers.

Beck was the one to finally break the silence. “Bekah here was just laughing about our names.”

I scrunched my brows and then finally got it. Beck and Bekah. They were freaking meant to be.

“ Wow. That’s a neat coincidence,” I nodded, and then fiddled with the strap on my purse. Beck gave me the widest grin I’ve ever seen and then placed an arm around my shoulders. His grip was warm on my bare skin and I felt a tingle run down my spine.

“ Well, it was nice talking to you, Bekah,” he said, already pushing us away from the campsite. I had to take twice as many steps as he did in order to keep up.

“ Oh yeah sure, let me know if you need my help or anything!” she offered desperately, but she was pretty enough to where it just came off as being friendly. Damn girls like that.

The moment we walked out of earshot, Beck let go of my shoulders and turned to face me. His hazel eyes bore right into my green ones. I had to remind myself to breathe. “You should know that you have one of the most expressive faces I’ve ever seen. You’re like an open book.”

“ What? What do you mean?” I asked, realizing my eyebrows were scrunched together and I was wearing a tight frown. I instantly relaxed my features. Okay, maybe he was right.

“ You have to work on your poker face,” he laughed. “‘A neat coincidence?’ You might as well have said ‘that’s the least interesting thing I’ve ever heard’.”

I gaped up at him. “Excuse me! It was a cool coincidence. What are the odds ? You guys should get married.” Sarcasm was dripping from my mouth.

He replied instantaneously. “Nah, she probably stopped watching The Walking Dead because of the ‘medical inaccuracies’. We would never work out.”

He was teasing me with a confident smirk across his face. I did everything I could to meet his hazel eyes, but in the end I just couldn’t do it. I could feel how red my face had become and I busied myself with a display of water filters.

“ Ha-Ha. Alright, you win. Now help me pick out a sleeping bag,” I said, turning away from him and trying to regain an ounce of composure.



“ So we’re camping during this road trip?” Beck asked as we tested out various sleeping bags. There was a row of them hanging on a rack, new and plush. Each of the various models boasted of keeping humans warm at impossible temperatures or being capable of withstanding a bear attack. I’m not sure about the last part; I might have been too preoccupied pretending not to watch Beck to actually read the labels properly.

“ I wasn’t planning on it at first because I was going to be alone, but now I think we should camp at least a few nights.”

“ I agree. I love camping and I have a tent,” he said, grabbing a thick, navy blue sleeping bag from the rack. With confidence, he turned and laid it out on the ground in the middle of the aisle. My mouth opened to protest, but no sound came out. Without a moment’s hesitation, he bent down and snuggled into it like it was a completely normal thing to do. I’d never seen anyone do that in the store before. A sales assistant saw him from afar and started to head over, but the moment Beck smiled up at her, she suddenly didn’t mind so much. Hot guy perks .

He was still laying there when he offered, “We should take my grandfather’s car. It’s an old VW Camper, but he used it to surf so there’s no back seat. It’s just a flat surface— so we could sleep there if we didn’t want to stay in a hotel or camp.”

I was planning on taking my car, but his idea did sound pretty good. I didn’t want to be tied down to hotels or camp sites.

“ It’s big enough for two people?” I asked, not turning to face him. My face was bright red at the idea of sleeping in the back of a car with him. Please don’t let him be a crazy person. Please . I turned at the sound of his voice.

“ Oh, I just thought you’d be sleeping outside,” he answered with a perfectly straight face.

I gave him a pointed stare and then pretended like I was going to step on him beneath the sleeping bag.

He barked out a laugh and then rolled to a sitting position. “Yes, there’s enough room for two people. Try this bag out, I think it’s a good one.”

I did as he said. He held the top so I could slip my Keds through the opening. I had to hold my dress down so he wouldn’t get a peak at my polka dot underwear.