Page 103 of Camp Bliss
As my girlfriend.
Dad doesn’t help matters when he lifts his glass. “To landing on your feet, sticking together, making your dreams come true—and a lifetime of bliss.”
“Cheers!” Mom clinks his glass wearing a smile.
Greta only hesitates for a second before touching her glass to mine.
* * *
An hour later,we’re on the second round of drinks. Mom’s cheeks are rosy from the gin but also from the laughter. It’s obvious my parents think Greta is as funny as I do. She’s told them about the day we realized the toilets weren’t connected to the septic tank. And the time she stopped me from yanking up a chute of poison oak with my bare hands—not a moment too soon. And the time she went to set a cooler in the back of the Polaris only to discover that an opossum with four babies on her back had decided to set up house there.
Her screaming and Russell’s baying had yanked me out of the fifth wheel, but by the time I’d sprinted down to the big shed, Mama Opossum had decided the neighborhood was too noisy and moved on.
Greta’s keeping my parents entertained with our little misadventures, deftly tiptoeing around the real disaster of Josh and his faithlessness. I can see questions in my parents’ eyes. They want to ask about it, but I know they won’t. At least, they won’t subject Greta to that. And for that, I’m grateful.
“And how is the vacation rental business going? Our cabin is just lovely, by the way,” Mom says to Greta. “Zach says you’re responsible for all of that.”
With her hair pulled up like that, Greta’s blush has nowhere to hide. I fucking love her hair down, but this look leaves her slender neck bare and her pink ears exposed. The skin of both looks creamy and naked, and my hands itch to touch. My mouth longs to taste.
Based on the strawberry sweetness of her kiss, I bet her blush would taste like nectarines.
I’m jerked out of this fantasy of fruit-flavored necking when Greta says my name.
“W-What?” I stammer, missing a foothold on the conversation.
She holds my gaze. “I was just saying that we’re going to have a lot more interest now that you’ve gotten the challenge course going. I got to try the dual catwalk right before y’all showed up.” Her smile is fathoms deep. “It was life-changing.”
She’s talking about the traverse. Not the kiss.
Right?
Isshe talking about the kiss?
My heart kicks against my ribs. I have to stop doing this to myself. Nothing good can come from letting myself imagine what isn’t there.
“Sounds exciting,” Mom says, bobbing her eyebrows. When she looks from Greta to me, I see a knowing smile there that makes me want to groan.
She knows. My all-seeing mom knows I have feelings for Greta.
Great.
I can only pray she says nothing. Nothing to make any of this worse, for God’s sake.
“Zach has always been a thrill-seeker,” she tells Greta. “And especially since he finished treatment—”
Oh crap.
“Mom—”
But I’m too late. Greta’s wearing her most adorable frown, her gaze darting around our little circle before settling on me. “T-Treatment?”
I’m shaking my head. “It was noth—.”
“For Hodgkin’s Disease,” Mom blurts at the same time. “Didn’t he tell you?”
My sigh is epic.
Did I tell Greta about the worst six months of my life? When my parents worried that I might die? When I had to undergo chemo and image-guided radiation? When I felt like so much crap that I could barely get out of bed for days on end?
