Page 63 of The Outpost (Jamison Valley 4)
“Yeah. The fucking dickhead was lucky your brother has extreme self-control. If it’d been me, I would have leveled Dylan,” Short Cousin a
dded.
My eyes scanned the crowd, searching for Dylan, but he was nowhere to be seen. Michael and the guys changed subjects but the back of my neck prickled. Even though I couldn’t see him, I felt Dylan’s creepy stare. I turned around, squinting through the dim evening light, until I caught him in the distance near the tree line.
“Oh, no,” I muttered. My turn had sent the wrong message. Dylan pushed off the tree he’d been leaning against and started walking my way. A half-empty bottle of some dark liquor dangled from one of his hands.
Dylan’s swaying steps crossed the distance between us surprisingly fast. The closer he got, the closer I inched to Michael. Where was Beau? He’d disappeared a few minutes ago behind one of the hotshot trucks.
“Hey, Sabrina,” Dylan slurred as he stepped next to my side.
“Hi,” I muttered, leaning back when he bent too close to my face and I got a whiff of his drunk breath.
“Dylan, back off,” Michael warned.
I was practically hanging off Michael’s hip now. I couldn’t explain it, Dylan hadn’t done anything other than just talk to me and invade my personal bubble but something was off. Maybe it was woman’s intuition but I knew Dylan wasn’t just a Creepy Carl. His interest in me went well beyond an ill-placed crush.
Dylan grumbled at Michael’s order but took a step away, then tipped the bottle to his mouth. Bubbles burst inside the glass as the alcohol was sucked into Dylan’s already drunk body. “Back off? She wants me, guys.” Dylan wiped a dribble of liquid from his chin. “You know how it is. She’s just playing hard to get.”
“The fuck she is,” Michael said, pulling me farther behind him.
“You’ll see, Holt. You’ll all see.” His strange threat sent an icy wave of chills down my spine. The men in our circle all stared at Dylan in disgust until, finally, Red broke away and pushed Dylan toward one of the rigs.
I stared, unable to look away, as Red set up Dylan’s bedroll, then forcefully shoved Dylan’s ass onto his blanket. A slew of curse words were volleyed back and forth until Red threw his hands in the air and left Dylan to stew alone, slurping down more of his almost-empty bottle of booze.
“That guy’s going to get his ass handed to him one of these days,” Michael said. “He’s just lucky Beau wasn’t here.”
“Hmm,” I hummed my agreement, though I had a feeling it was because Beau hadn’t been here that Dylan had approached in the first place.
“Talk about a mood killer,” Michael said.
“Let’s get something to eat,” Tall Cousin said. “I’m starving.”
I followed all of them over to one of the vehicles where Short Cousin rifled through a box filled with silver packets. Ripping one open, he held it out to me first. “Ice cream?”
“What?” I stepped closer and saw the inside was filled with freeze-dried ice cream. “This is what you guys are eating?”
He shrugged. “MREs aren’t so bad.”
I broke off a piece of the cardboard-white square and sniffed it before popping it into my mouth. “That is not good. Not at all,” I said, swallowing my bite. “Come on, Michael, let’s raid my stash and bring these guys some decent snacks.”
An hour later, most of the alcohol had been consumed, my food tubs had been decimated, and we were all having an awesome time.
Beau had returned to my side not long after Michael and I had brought out the food. I’d let out a huge sigh of relief when I’d looked over at Dylan’s cot and seen that he had finally passed out.
With Dylan no longer staring at me, I was finally able to relax and enjoy my first campfire party. As the lingering sunbeams vanished and stars appeared, we all settled around the fire for an evening spent telling stories.
Me, the Holts and the hotshots.
“Having fun?” Beau asked softly as Short Cousin told the group a joke.
I was perched on one of my food tubs while he was sitting on the ground at my side. I looked down at him and smiled. “Yeah. I am.”
“Hey, Holt. Tell us about your first fire.”
It wasn’t the first request the young men had asked of Beau. He’d told just as many stories tonight as he’d listened to. Everyone around the fire, including me, wanted to soak up as much Beau as they could before morning.
“It was a small fire,” Beau answered. “Kind of like this one. I had just finished training and was the new guy on my crew.”
