Chapter 8
We leave early in the morning—too early. Too early for me, too early for Michael, too early for Janie, and too early for Tony.
I’m not all too sure that Tony wanted to come on this trip at all, but since Pepper couldn’t make it at my behest, she volunteered him for the job instead. A mediator of sorts, since he and I will be the only ones who know about my history with Loki.
Apart from that, Rita, Lalita, and the others were fine and ready to go by 5:30 AM. Andy especially—he and his boyfriend were just way too damn excited. Though I’d met George before, having them both running around the apartment like chihuahuas at such an early hour made it tempting to start throwing couch pillows. I restrained myself through those impulses, however—they’d be the first of many this weekend, and I’d need the practice.
We leave the house at six, after waiting for Tony and Loki to arrive from Stark tower. In the meantime, I’d taken the time to wash and my dry my newly-cut hair. It now reached just past my shoulders, and the only person that really complimented it was Michael… Not that I took that personally, I still really liked the new look.
By the time Loki and Tony get here, we’re already outside, ready to file into separate cars. I did notice them both give my hair a double take, but neither of them said anything as I walked by. Finally, I plopped into the front seat of Michael’s car—George, Rita, Loki, and Lalita ride in Andy’s car, while Tony, while Janie and Tony ride with us. Unfortunately, both cars end up spectacularly, remarkably, outrageously overpacked.
Never mind that, the conversation is particularly dry.
“So you’re like, trying to build stuff to fly longer and whatnot? That’s gotta be like, so much fun,” Janie muses to Stark in the back. I turn and look over the seat—stifling a laugh at the flat stare I’m met with across the giant packs of random crap in his lap.
“Uh huh,” he muses with a straight face—after spending nearly thirty minutes answering the same questions he’d lectured about beforehand.
I smirk quietly as I sit back against the seat, glancing at Michael, whose lips are also curled upward with amusement. I also have two backpacks in my lap, but thankfully, there’s just enough room for me to put my feet up on the seat, and lean my head against the back.
Over the next few hours, I drift in and out of sleep throughout the drive, listening to Michael’s music playing faintly over the speakers—not loudly enough to keep me from falling asleep. Until a gentle movement in the car jerks me awake, and I see that we’ve actually stopped in a Target parking lot.
“What’re we doing here?” I ask Michael, rubbing my eyes a bit.
“We’ve still gotta grab some food, remember?” he says.
My eyes widen as I scan all the shit piled up in the car. “You mean there’s no food in any of these things?”
“We needed a cooler, I think…” he mumbles as we dismantle our seatbelts.
“A cooler!?” I exclaim, stepping out of the car and squinting at the bright light. “Where the hell are we going to put a cooler in here?”
“In our car,” Andy says, sauntering over to us with the others following behind him.
I exchange glances with Loki briefly before turning away—too tired to deal with anything ‘excess.’ For now, I’ll just consider him a casual member of the group… As long as he behaves.
“If you have room in your car, why don’t you take some of our shit?” I say, practically feeling the weight of sleep deprivation weighing in my face.
He shrugs. “That’s all your guys’ stuff, but sure. We can figure something out.”
‘Figuring it out’ ends up taking the better part of an hour, wherein we all go our separate ways in buying whatever food we want to snack on for the weekend, and then get back to the car. We practically start fighting when it’s time to tetris the shit out of all our supplies, with some of us making sharp objections to the quantity of food we’re packing for just one night, but we eventually make it back on the road in one piece.
And if I had a penny for how many times we ended up stopping because Janie had decided that road tripping was an essential time to ‘stay hydrated,’ I’d be a rich woman. Pretty soon, I threaten to leave her behind at a gas station for the other car to pick her up, or otherwise walk to the campground. And thankfully, we reach the mountains before I reach the end of my rope with her continued—albeit lessened—hydration.
We do, however, stop at a small mart just before we go at the last stretch of of the drive to the campground. It’s just a simple, two lane road from here on out, and the pine trees surrounding the lot are tall and lush.
Not all of us get out to shop though—in our car, I’m the only one that actually goes inside, and my hiking boots scratch against the gravel as I approach the small shop. Michael and Tony instead go out to look at the piles of firewood laying just underneath the cashier’s window, and Andy’s car is somewhere behind us on the road, sure to catch up soon.
So, I take my time perusing the aisles a bit, until I hear the doorbell ring on the other side of the store, followed by Lalita and Rita’s voices murmuring as they saunter down one of the aisles.
It’s definitely a warm day, so I opt to look at some of the refrigerated beverages—Arizona Ice Tea being the first thing to catch my eye. Next comes the hunt for batteries, for the flashlight that I know I’ll be using a bunch when I run to the bathroom all night—which is the only true downside I can find to camping. I’m told it’s the result of being cold all night, and sharing a tent with the ladies will likely exacerbate it…
I pick up a pack of batteries—definitely cheaper than the ones I’d seen in Target. Everything in this store is.
“You might want to hurry,” comes a voice behind me—Loki’s voice. “We’re set to leave soon.”
I turn and see him standing beside me at the end of the small aisle, with his coat draped over his bent arm. I stare at him for a second, noting the casualness of his tone—sensing no ulterior motive than to let me know the others are waiting.
“What?” he asks.
I raise a brow and shake my head. “Nothing, I’ll be ready in a minute.”
I look back down at the shelf, still feeling his eyes on me.
“What’s that you have there?” he asks again, and I look over to see him gesture down at the Arizona in my hand.
“This?” I raise it up. “It’s just sweet tea. I mean, I don’t know if it’s actually tea. Like when people call their recipes a salad just because it’s green, but it’s actually got stuff that’s really terrible for you.”
“If it’s terrible for you, then why are you buying it?” he asks, meeting my eyes concernedly.
I merely peer at him, feeling unamused by it. “‘Cause it’s fine in small quantities,” I murmur as I look away. “I’m pretty much ready, you should maybe make sure Rita’s got everything she needs.”
“Why would I care about that?”
I look at him, keeping my expression calm and voice quiet. “Seems like the kind of thing you would want to know…”
He furrows his brows. “Why would I want to know that?”
Shit. May have tread into the wrong territory here. I press my lips together—realizing that I really don’t want to have this conversation with him.
So, I make myself plain.“Never mind, I really don’t want to have this conversation with you.”
He pauses for a moment, gandering at the shelve that’s eye-level to him, and lifting something off of it. “No conversation to be had about it,” he murmurs, and I resist the urge to look at him. However dumb it might make me look, I continue staring at the same three battery brands I’ve been perusing for the past five minutes. “Rita and I are just friends.”
I raise a brow. “Hm. Does she know that?” I say quietly.
“Yes,” he answers matter-of-factly. “We’ve made no explicit effort to be more.”
You went on a date. I think inwardly to myself, but say nothing. Instead, I offer a subtle ‘mhm’ and continue on down the aisle, in the opposite direction.
“Cerys,” he calls to me, and I turn and look at him. His eyes flicker over me. “Your hair looks nice,” he says, and sways lightly as he walks back around the corner—likely joining Rita and Lalita, who sound like they’re already at the cash register.
I sigh, grateful for the momentary silence. From what I hear next, I figure it’s Loki walking back out of the mart, when the doorbell rings with his footsteps.
When I finally pick out what I need, Lalita and Rita are already gone, and I’m alone at the cash register. The computer takes forever to process the payment, and it allows ample time to watch Loki, Tony, and Michael still discussing the firewood outside the window. In this kind of situation, I imagined I’d grimace, but their interaction seems quite civil—with Tony standing between them. Finally, the guys walk in here with a couple of firewood logs, Loki trailing after them.
“We really gonna need that?” I ask them, as I pull out my credit card from the scanner. “Can’t we just find some in the woods?”
“This is easier,” says Tony.
“I got it,” Michael says, gesturing for the others to set the logs down on the counter.
Loki brushes past me before I can step back, and a vaguely sweet aroma blows past my face with the movement.
“Is that the firewood?” I ask.
“Is what the firewood?” Tony answers.
“That smell—it’s sweet,” I say, gesturing to Loki. “Or is that you?”
“It’s me,” he says.
“Oh, cool,” I nod nonchalantly. “Nice cologne.”
He eyes me for a second, his brow flickering confusedly.
Which is fine, he ought to get used to more causal interactions like that if he wants to stick around, because that’s all he’s going to get. The aggressive route clearly didn’t take, nor did the conversational one, and I’ve given the alternative a lot of thought—it might take him some time to unravel my master plan, but I’m sure he’ll understand fully when he does.
“I’ll be waiting in the car,” I say to them over my shoulder, and the bell dings as I walk back out to the road.
For a moment, I smile a bit—the weather is glowing, the trees are green… It might just be warm enough for me to not have to get up in the middle of the night, but we’ll see. I crack open the Arizona tea and saunter over to the other car, with Andy and George still in there. George rolls down the front seat window, and I bend over slightly, resting my elbows on the windowsill.
“How you guys doin’ in here?” I grin.
“We’re good,” George smiles back at me. “How’s your car?”
I look over my shoulder to make sure no one hears me. “Janie stopped ‘hydrating,’ so we’re good.” They chuckle. “How much longer ’til we get there?”
“About thirty minutes,” Andy answers, glancing down at his GPS.
“Okay, cool,” I nod. “That’s actually great, so we’re gonna be pretty close to this shop.”
“Yeah, we can come back here whenever we need to.”
“Awesome.”
George’s eyes flicker behind me, and I suddenly process the sound of footsteps on the gravel. I straighten up as I look back, catching the others walking toward us—more specifically, Loki’s eyes jumping away from lower down my backside. I huff lightly, raising a brow at the way he acts so adeptly like he hadn’t just been staring at my ass. In fact, he doesn’t look at me as he crawls into the backseat with the girls, and I vaguely note Lalita taking the seat between him and Rita, before walking back to my car.
Strange…
***
Loki was dumbfounded by the amount of talking that the two women beside him were doing—and about such senseless topics. There were absolutely no limits to their conversation, as one train of thought led to another, and another, and another. Not a moment of peace. So when they finally arrived at the campground, he all but jumped out of the car.
He was told that there would be two arduous parts of the trip: unpacking the cars, and then packing them up again. He would’ve said that the drive itself was the worst part, especially with all the things they’d had to carry in their hands. Cerys’ car was supposedly worse in that regard, but he’d have rather dealt with the constricted air supply.
Now that they were out in the open, Loki’s mood began to improve. Their campsite was spacious and situated beside a tranquil creek, and there was a table and fire pit available for their usage.
He hadn’t realized how hungry he’d gotten until the table had been covered with food, though the weather was quite nice—the sun was just above their heads by the time they arrived, though the treetops over their heads filtered the rays of light streaming down onto them.
He waited as Stark and Michael set up the firewood, and began throwing matches into it. Pretty soon, tiny plumes of smoke were rising up from a small fire, and a slab of meat was thrown on a small net just on top of the wood.
“Are you guys sure it’s supposed to be right on top of it like that?” Cerys asked as she strolled over, holding a cold beer in her hands. The ends of her hair were slightly lifted by the hood of the jacket she wore, and truly, whoever cut it for her did the frame of her face justice. Such a lovely creature.
Warmth weighed down in his chest as he stood a ways away from them, near the table. From that distance, his eyes were free to trail along her length—her curves pushing just slightly on the inside of her jacket, her long, slender legs and boots that slightly added to her height. A wave of desire bolted through him briefly, and he blinked away as he got up from the edge of the table—allowing Lalita to move some of the bottled water over, to make room for her plate at the corner.
He sauntered over to them, noting how frustratedly Michael stared down at the fire. “Well it’s just not gonna cook like this—you sure you didn’t grab any more matches?”
“Better question is why no one thought to bring a lighter,” Stark rolled his eyes.
“I’ve got something better,” Loki said, motioning for them to step away from the pit.
With a swift gesture toward the pit, sparks of light erupted about the firewood—resulting in a respectably-sized collection of flames.
“Awesome!” Cerys exclaimed, and Loki looked at her.
She gave him a friendly grin and nodded, taking a sip of her beer. It was the same, bland look she’d given him in the shop. True, it confused Loki at first, but it became more clear the second time she did it. Yes, perhaps he was beginning to understand—perhaps she sought to solidify his membership in their group? Or reassure him of the base relationship they still shared, as they had done long before anything had ever happened between them?
If preserving their interactions was the goal, this tactic could be effective—or it could not. She may have been steadfast in her efforts to avoid him, but she couldn’t hide every last impulse from him. He saw the glimmer of satisfaction in her eyes when she knew she’d made him jealous, the night that his invitation on this trip was formally extended.
True, there was no point denying that he still cared for her—desired her to an extent—though he knew that he was masterful in covering it up. Perhaps he could be masterful in squandering it as well…
Love—such a childish impulse. And that’s exactly how it made him feel, like a child that couldn’t control its own emotions. Perhaps Cerys had the right idea, perhaps forcing themselves back into an easy camaraderie would make things easier, and then they wouldn’t have to part ways.
The conversation went on, but Loki watched curiously as Cerys walked back to the table and lifted a long, forked prong off the top. One of many laying in a pile over the white, plastic cover. He furrowed a brow as he watched her stick a sausage onto it, and saunter back toward the fire.
“This is already taking too long, I’m so hungry,” she said pointedly as she squatted beside the fire, and stuck the sausage down beside the embers.
“You know that’s cooked, right?” Michael laughed, and she narrowed her gaze at him.
“Does it look tasty to you yet, though? Don’t think so,” she answered laughingly. “Can you get me a hotdog bun?”
Michael and Stark exchanged glances. “Did we grab hotdog buns?” Stark asked.
Cerys’ eyes widened as she laughed. “You better have—did we get ketchup and mustard??”
“Yes,” Michael answered her. Meanwhile, Loki’s eyes jumped from person to person as they spoke.
She laughed again. “How could you remember to get ketchup and mustard but not hot dog buns!? Are you a heathen, eating just the sausage without the bun?”
Michael chuckled, walking back toward the table. “We might’ve gotten them, I’ll check.”
In the silence that ensued, Stark looked between them awkwardly and sipped his beer.
Meanwhile, Loki looked down at Cerys, who kept her eyes fixed firmly on the fire. “Would you show me how to do that?” he asked, and her eyes jumped up to his.
“What?”
“That,” he motioned to the sausage. “It looks interesting, would you show me?”
Her lower eyelids flickered suspiciously, but the expression passed quickly as she nodded. “Yeah, sure,” she twisted backward slightly, throwing an arm back to motion to the table. “Go grab some prongs and a sausage.”
He followed her instructions precisely, noting that Michael was distracted from his task by some conversation with George. When he came back, he made sure to keep a respectable distance as he kneeled beside the fire.
“Keep it close to the bottom, don’t put it straight into the fire.”
“Right,” Loki nodded, positioning his prongs in the embers before looking back up at Cerys.
Her eyes quickly jumped away from his chest.
“I shoulda brought my mini portable grill for you,” Stark said to Cerys, before looking between them. “More power, less… weirdness.”
For once, Cerys and Loki united in leveling a flat stare at the man, who responded by walking back toward the table. Loki parted his lips to say something to Cerys, but she stood briskly and followed after Stark—clearly intent on not being alone with him.
What would he have said, anyway? Even Loki wasn’t sure. Perhaps some effort to clarify the nature of their relationship, or his intent on following her example?
Unfortunately, Cerys seemed rather intent on disallowing room for conversation for the duration of the day. Someone had mentioned a trip out to a nearby waterfall, but by the time the camp was settled, no one had the energy to collectively walk eight miles through the woods. And when nightfall approached, the company had set up a makeshift lamp at the end of the table, and brought out some cards to enjoy as lazily as they had been the rest of the day. ‘Cards Against Humanity,’ the game was called, though Loki didn’t understand many of the references made throughout the rounds. His own jokes were rather dry, though they seemed to rouse a lip quirk from Cerys across the table.
The creek continued trickling beside them, and at some point well into the evening, some of the others decided to venture out to a nearby lake—which was just along the edge of the campground. Loki opted to join them, not knowing whether Cerys intended to come, and there was a bit of satisfaction when he saw her pick up after them down the dirt road.
Janie had been leading the way, flashing her obnoxiously broad flashlight all along the tops of the trees every now and again. Fortunately enough, Michael had opted to stay behind in the camp, and it was just him, Cerys, Andy, George, and Janie walking out to the lake.
“Hey Janie? I actually can’t really see,” Cerys said to her roommate, as the woman flashed the light back up to the treetops.
“Oh sorry, my bad,” the girl mused as she brought it back down to the ground.
“There it is,” Andy pointed off into the darkness.
“Past the rocks?” Cerys asked.
“Yeah, it’s right over there.”
There was a long mound of rocks lining the edge of the beach, and they would have to climb over it. Loki frowned as he watched the others struggle to get over it.
“Shit, I really can’t see anything…” Cerys said as she attempted to navigate the rocks.
Janie and the two men were already on the other side, and it was just himself and Cerys left. Cerys was especially struggling to see, and she padded the surrounding rocks slowly with her hands as she made her way over them—slipping at some point, and huffing lightly.
The tang of blood was immediately in the air, and Loki realized that she had cut herself. Not that he needed the sense of smell, he could see quite easily in the dark, and the cut on the scrape of her hand was shallow. He made a move toward her, but stopped—squinting when Janie’s light flashed over his face.
“You okay?” Janie called out to her, swaying back and forth to get a better look.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Cerys answered, slowly crawling over.
With his hands in his pockets, Loki took a few light steps over the rocks, and leaped to the other side. The others were murmuring about the cut on her hand, while she assured them that it was alright. Slowly they made their way closer to the water, and when Janie turned off her flashlight, the entire night sky reflected beautifully in the surface of the water—setting a bit of a contrast against the pitch blackness of the rest of their surroundings.
The group had dispersed by that point, though Andy and George had made their way over to some rocks by the water. It was clear enough to Loki that they were having a private moment, and he looked away—back over to Cerys, who was a ways away from him. Janie had made her way over to the edge of the water.
Instead of enjoying the view, Loki frowned when he saw that Cerys was occupied with her hand. Slowly, he sauntered toward her. She hardly looked up at him when he got close, and extended his hand.
“Let me.”
She shook her head slightly. “It’s alright, it’s not bad.”
“I know, but you should still let me,” he said, maintaining a steady, sincere tone. “Friends do help each other, don’t they?”
Cerys gave him a pointed look through the darkness, and nodded slightly. “Yeah—yeah okay,” she murmured, and held her hand out to the side.
Her skin was cold, as she’d been obviously reluctant to rub her hands together, but it was still soft against his callused palm. Loki ran his fingers along the back of her hand, covering the frontside with his own. She must’ve felt the warmth of his power by that point, though she didn’t let on. She didn’t say anything at all, even when he was finished—nor did she pull away her hand for a bit, as she stared solemnly at his fingers brushing over her skin. He heard her inhale lightly—sharply—before looking up at him.
If Janie hadn’t turned back around with that ridiculous lamp, he wasn’t sure what he might have attempted in that moment. Though surely enough, Cerys immediately retracted her hand, and turned to head back as the others approached.
Once back at the campsite, Cerys’ demeanor shifted immediately. “Alright guys, you ready to cuddle?” she announced.
“Cuddle?” Lalita said laughingly, raising a brow at her roommate.
“Oh I just get really cold,” Cerys nodded earnestly. “Cuddling helps—I’m just kidding though.”
Lalita’s only answer was a thumbs up.
The tents that they’d established were relatively sizable, and there was room for everyone to walk into the first “half” of the space, to change behind zipped doors. Of all the members of their trip, Loki dressed most lightly for the weather. His usual grey shirt and plaid pants, while everyone else had worn multiple layers.
They reassembled beside the table for a few minutes to clean up the food, and it took a group effort to begin hanging the food up in a tree.
While all of this was happening, Loki noticed that Cerys had wondered into the mens’ tent—likely to say goodnight to her male companion. When someone had shrieked his name, Loki took the opportunity of having the man leave the tent, to make his way inside. Cerys was sitting amidst the sleeping bags they had set up, looking at something on her phone, when Loki came and laid down beside her.
She barely managed to give him a sidelong glance before Stark pointedly wandered into the tent after him, and rolled his eyes when he noticed their proximity.
“‘scuse me,” Stark muttered sarcastically, as he demonstrably stepped between them. Cerys smirked a little as Stark forced Loki off to the side, and settled between them in the sleeping bag.
The air was brisk and light, but the atmosphere became tense with silence.
Cerys looked up at the tent entrance a few times from her phone, otherwise saying nothing. Michael seemed to be taking his time returning to her tent, and the others were turning off their lights already. Finally she stood, and walked out to meet him instead.
Loki seethed inwardly a bit, only slightly distracted by the quiet, timely snores that started to rise from Stark’s mouth. Surely, with his hearing, it would be one of many bottled annoyances keeping him awake this night.
***
The night was goddamn freezing, and the super thermal leggings, shirt, sweatshirt and sleeping bag evidently weren’t enough to keep it at bay. I was joking with the others about needing to cuddle, but it really would’ve helped—and it was becoming seriously tempting to crawl into Michael’s tent. Hours and hours of drifting in and out of shallow sleep was just no fun.
I start getting really tired on my third or fourth time getting up to pee. Put on the hiking boots, grab the toilet paper, grab the flashlight…. Thank God the bathrooms have plumbing, at least.
People in my tent begin to shift, sighing purposefully at the noise—which I already feel guilty about. This was why I was against spending two nights, though. I couldn’t handle two nights of sleeplessness—I’d just have to sleep with Michael at some point, but that sure as hell was not going to happen with Loki in the same tent.
As much as it might send a message, it would just be hurtful and unfair… Which I should’ve considered weeks ago, when I pointedly made an attempt at Loki’s jealousy, and got nothing out of it. Today, after seeing the effort he seemed to be putting into just being friends, I wasn’t sure that doing something like that again would help.
So I crawl out of the tent, zipping it back up behind me, and flicker on the light. I head up the hill to the bathrooms, cutting across patches of pine trees to get there. The sink water, of course, is just as icy as it was before, and wakes me up pretty thoroughly.I leave the toilet roll behind this time, since I’m probably the only one who’s going to use it.
On my way back down, movement at the bottom of the hill stops me dead in my tracks. Somewhere across the patch of moonlight shining down at the trees, I flash my light toward a sizably large shadow sifting through the dark. My breath hitches when I realize that a bear’s wandered into our camp, and my eyes widen as I freeze.
“Shit…” I whisper.
What to do, what to do, what to do… My thoughts cycle through bits and pieces of any article or conversation I might’ve had in my life, that would tell me what to do in this situation.
Nothing comes to mind.
Shit shit shit…
“Go away,” I murmur, invoking the voice—not that I’ve ever tried it on animals, but it’s worth a shot. “Go away….”
The bear merely looks back at me with each attempt, and continues its business around our camp.
Most likely, it’ll go to the site next ours next, and I just have to wait it out. However, panic bolts through me when I see the guys’ tent ruffle around a bit, and I can’t quite make out who’s about to walk out of the tent. I’m tempted to flash my light indicatively over the fabric, but I have no idea if it would draw attention to them.
I don’t have long to think about it anyway, as someone finally steps out into the night air. A few bits of moonlight streaming in from the treetops pour over their head, and I realize by the long, black curls that it’s Loki. He looks around a bit, pausing over the bear like it’s nothing, and strolls out into the campsite casually—while my jaw drops, as I watch the scene from above.
“Loki!” I hiss—purposefully not invoking the voice—and hearing the sound in the space in front of me. No way it traveled all the way down there. “Loki!!”
He gives me a look anyway, before turning back to the bear. Slowly, they begin pacing about each other in a circle. And for a moment, I half-expect one of them to charge at the other. Instead, the bear hangs its head over as Loki steps into the faint moonlight and nods in the opposite direction. The bear immediately makes its exit from the camp, heading where Loki had pointed.
I let out a heavy sigh—a temporary relief, since Loki turns toward me suddenly. I fumble my fingers together as he stands there relaxedly, staring up at me. Unsure of what he’s expecting me to do or say, I go ahead and saunter down the hill anyway—slowing when Loki suddenly starts walking toward me.
He moves at a quicker pace than I am, and even as I turn to the right or left, his movements pull him in the same direction slightly—indicating that he won’t let me pass. Moonlight streams down on him in the opening between the trees, casting a shadow over his dark features as he stares at me neutrally.
My heart races wildly as he gets closer, and I stick my hands into my sweatshirt pockets—trying to maintain a casual composure as I step over some tree roots.
“What on earth are you doing out here alone in the middle of the night?” he whispers sternly.
I furrow a brow at him. “Bathroom,” I murmur, knowing that there’s absolutely nothing confrontational in my tone.
“Can’t you hold it until morning?”
“No, I can’t,” I practically wine. “Nothing usually happens, I’ve got it covered…”
“Oh yes, clearly,” he says, gesturing back to the camp. “That was obvious.”
“Well… I can,” I say sternly. “But… thanks for helping that time.”
“Thanks for helping?” he hisses. “How about you stop endangering yourself!?”
I swallow thickly—realizing that this is my chance. The chance to thwart this whole thing before it goes any further.
“Come on, that was barely endangering… I’m grateful your help, but you don’t need to worry about me,” I say assertively as I step to his side. “Or even just… think about me in general.”
He steps in front of me, blocking my path as he contorts his face. “What-”
“Let me by,” I say as I look up at him. “Good night.”
“We’re not done here.”
Annoyance flickers in my chest. “Yes,” I say—this time invoking the voice. “We are.”
Loki’s eyes suddenly widen as he blinks away—swaying a bit as he leans his hand against the bark, making some room for me to pass. Something of a faint, amused grin touches his expression as he looks at me, while I try step by over some more tree roots. “You might not want to do that… it doesn’t have the effect you think it does.”
Well… I’m suddenly grateful to have had this conversation at night, or he might’ve seen the red tint in my cheeks as I look back—annoyed by the implication.
“Whatever,” I huff annoyedly and turn to head back to the camp.
Before I can take a single step toward it, Loki’s shoes scrape heavily against the ground as he pivots. A hand suddenly appears on my left elbow, gripping me tightly as a powerful tug pulls me back, and I barely manage to squeak before Loki steps toward me—following the momentum, and grabbing my shoulder to lessening my speed. He pushes me against the tree, and a moment goes by where I see his brows knitted slightly over heavy, ice-colored eyes that drop to my lips, just before he slits his mouth over mine.
Warmth envelopes me, and shock stifles my thoughts as he tangles his hand through my shortened hair—gripping it slightly as he situates his hand between the back of my head and the rough tree bark. A quiet, surprised moan slips out from my throat as his tongue smoothly invades my mouth, brushing softly against my own with a terrible need, and his lips caress mine sensually—creating the only sound amidst the utter silence around us.
I lift my hands up limply, sliding them against his sides—readying to push him away. Instead, I stifle a gasp when he suddenly presses his frontside against me entirely—pinning me to the tree as his lips press, smack, and slit against mine passionately. All the while, his hardness makes itself known against me…
My eyelids slide shut as his heavy breath fans my cheeks, and my brain cells work vigorously to counteract the intoxicating effect. His torso is warm under my hands, and the instant I give him the slightest push, he pulls away sharply—stepping back and glaring at me with slitted eyes, and a subtle grin.
“Now I’ll sleep,” he mumbles, wiping his mouth as he pivots back in the direction of the camp.
I watch him leave, still feeling the phantom movements of his lips.
Michael—Michael… I suddenly panic at the thought of him finding out in the worst ways possible, and before thinking, I stalk after Loki, grabbing his shoulder and turning him back toward me. Only I can tell him—if it comes to it, if I have to, if I need to, I don’t know—only I can tell him…
I grip his shoulder tightly, and he furrows a brow as he looks down at my hand. “You won’t remember this,” I say, locking my gaze on him as I invoke the voice. He looks back at me. “None of this happened, do you understand?”
Loki stares blankly, lips parted and eyes slightly widened under the moonlight. I slide my hand down from his shoulder slowly as my pulse calms a bit.
A glimmer of hurt flickers in his expression, and his voice rolls out with a terrible softness, “Did you seriously think that would work? Onme?” A moment goes by where all the heat rushes out of my face, and I stare up at him. He studies me carefully in the darkness, parting and closing his lips—like he can’t find the words to say. “Can’t believe you tried…” he murmurs, and his voice trails off.
I stand there motionless as he steps away, and turns back toward the hill. I wait and watch as he walks back to his tent, though even after reaching it, I continue standing there for a while, just listening to the quiet noises of the night… Unsure of any step to take from here.