Page 126 of More For Me

Hikingand our tent activities make us ravenous, and we barely manage to speak as we shovel down our dinner of fire-grilled burger. Night has fully fallen over the forest by the time we’re finished eating, and Everly starts to rub her arms.

“Cold?”

“A little,” she admits.

“Let’s go get you a sweatshirt.”

Back in the tent, she pulls on a sweatshirt while I rummage around in my duffle bag.

“Since you’ve been such a good sport today, I brought you a present.”

She pauses in pulling the sweatshirt over head to beam at me. “I love presents!”

I roll my eyes as I hand her the computer. “I’m definitely aware.”

Her forehead furrows in confusion as she takes it from me. “You bought me a laptop?”

I laugh. “No. Your present is what’s on the laptop.” I rummage in the bag again. After a moment I straighten, holding a small whiteboard in my hands. I show her the words I scrawled on the top: The Great Rom-Com Movie Match-up, Camping Edition. “I downloaded the next two films.”

She stares at me. “Bodhi! You don’t want to watch movies tonight. You want to look at the stars and sit by the fire and all that boring camping stuff.”

“It’s not boring.” Then I shrug. “I do like to do that stuff, but I can do it any time I go camping. This weekend is about us.”

She closes her eyes. “This man,” she murmurs. After a moment, she opens them again, pinning me with their blue gaze. “You know, star-gazing and campfires don’t sound so boring when they’re with you.” She pushes the laptop and white board away so she can climb into my lap. “Besides, I like our love story better than any rom-com.”

I feel a grin stretching across my face, and bring my hands to her hips, giving her a good squeeze. “Let’s just stay in here.”

“You can’t see the stars in here, Bodhi.”

I let my fingers slip under her shirt. “No, but I’m sure I’ll find something interesting to keep me occupied in here.”

She smacks my hands away. “No way, mister. You promised me the full camping experience.”

“Sex in a tent is definitely a big part of the camping experience.”

She presses laughing lips to my neck. “We already did that.”

“Let’s do it again.”

“Later. Now I want you to show me this great outdoors you like so much.”

So I do. I build up the fire again and set up two camp chairs—though one goes unused since I insist on keeping her in my lap. As the darkness deepens around us, she snuggles into me and we watch the flames crackle and dance in the fire. And we talk. We talk about everything. My job. Her hopes for the line and the new store. Her worries about Fox working with the people we met today and how sick she feels about Santana leaving home.

We talk about my family, too. Light-hearted stuff about Nisha and how annoying she was as a teenager. How happy I am that she married Dev, and how much guilt I feel sometimes when I realize that I look up to the guy as a brother.

I hold her closer as I tell her things I remember about Ari. The games he used to invent. The way we teamed up to tease Nisha when she was being an annoying girl. The time I fell off my bike, breaking my two front teeth, and how he carried me piggyback all the way home from the park with blood pouring from my mouth, telling me the stupidest jokes to keep me from crying.

“He sounds like such a good big brother,” she murmurs, pulling my arms tighter around her middle.

My heart twists. “I really miss him, Everly.”

She joins our hands together and brings them to her mouth, pressing my fingers against her lips. “I know you do.”

“I wish…” I wish he could have met her. I wish he could have met Nisha’s boys. Wish I could have known what he would be like as a man. God, I wish so many things.

“I know,” she says again, not needing me to put these thoughts into words. I press my face into her hair, taking strength from her presence, from her warm weight in my lap, from the soft lips she keeps pressed against my knuckles. We sit like that for a long moment, the only sound the crackling of the fire and the nighttime sound of insects in the woods.

Eventually her hesitant voice breaks the silence. “Can I ask you a question?”