Page 105 of Bloom

“Caroline,” Hunter teases, stooped low so I bear the full force of his smirk. “Stop lookin’ at me like that.”

My nose wrinkles with embarrassment as I swat his bicep. “Get out of here.”

With a lingering, too-heated-for-the-light-of-day kiss, he does. He doesn’t make any promises to see me later as he gets into his truck and drives away, and that’s fine by me. A night alone is probably what I need. Some time to detach. To remind myself of the casualness of this all.

A long whistle echoes through the air, making me cringe even before I spot the woman puckering her lips and making obscene noises. Skipping down the porch steps of the next cabin overwith a laundry basket propped on her hip, Lux is the epitome of mischief. “Well, well, well. Late start today?”

I almost make an excuse. I almost blab a blatant lie about spending my morning at the store—y’know, doing my actual job rather than playing house on Serenity—instead of admitting what I was really doing. Protective instincts, I guess. Pointless instincts, considering I’ve been caught red-handed.

I scuttle after Lux as she dumps the laundry basket in the bed of the truck I didn’t even notice until now and starts towards another cabin. “Need help?”

“No.” Lux bumps her hip against mine, dark eyes glinting. “I need details. Many, many details.”

Yeah,no. Not quite sure I’m there yet. “Don’t you have work to do? A child to raise?”

“I have people for that,” she jokes with a playful roll of her eyes—never mind the fact she’s here, cleaning guest cabins right before my very eyes. Ushering me inside one, she wastes no time putting me to work helping her to strip beds. “C’mon. Fill me in. I feel like I haven’t seen you all week.”

The comment makes me falter, a dirty pillowcase slipping from my fingers and onto the floor, which in turns makes Lux frown at me. I hesitate before letting the retort on the tip of my tongue spill free—surely, I didn’t use up all my bravery in the bedroom.

God, I can’t believe I just thought that.

“Yeah.” Eyes downcast, I slowly stoop to retrieve the dropped linen, needlessly folding it simply to give my hands something to do. “You’ve kinda been avoiding me.”

“What?” Lux scoffs, but it’s stilted. She waves me off, but it’s shaky. “No, I haven’t.”

I lift my gaze, even though the effort makes me itch. “You’ve been weird since Everett James was here.”

It’s Lux’s turn to avoid eye contact. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You know him.” I push a little harder. “Right? Likeknowhim?”

A sharp snap echoes through the air as Lux airs out new sheets a touch too rigorously. “Don’t.”

It’s a clear warning, but apparently, I’m feeling rebellious today. “I know something’s going on.”

Tan cheeks turn russet, and I can’t tell if it’s that temper of hers flaring, or the stain of embarrassment. “You don’t know anything.”

“Because you won’t talk to me.” Reaching across the bed separating us, I still her fiddling hands, wrapping my fingers around her wrist and squeezing gently. “You can, you know. Whatever’s going on, you can talk to me about it.”

Lux rolls her bottom lip into her mouth, hesitating. I hold my breath, convinced she’s about to tell me, convinced shewantsto tell me. And then, like a flash of clarity smacks her across the face, she abruptly snatches her hand away. “I don’t want to, okay? Drop it.”

31

He wakes before dawn feeling oddly bereft.

He gets out of bed and does what he should have done the day before.

“My,my, my. That is a guilty face.”

With my phone cradled between my ear and my shoulder, I carefully glance around what I thought was an empty street. Whatisan empty street, no spying friend to be found—no one to be seen, what with it being only a handful of minutes past sunrise and all. Rolling my eyes, I hoist a weekend’s worth of camping supplies into the bed of my truck before shifting my phone to my hand. “You can’t see my face.”

In my mind’s eyes, I picture Aldo waving me off dismissively. “I can sense it. What’s wrong with you?”

Wrenching open the driver’s side door, I chew on my bottom lip, nervously contemplating how to word the latest development in my life before deciding to just rip off the bandaid. “I’m seeing Hunter,” I cough out the very reason Icalled Aldo in the first place. “Casually. Not, like dating or anything but, uh…something.”

There’s a pause. Some more pausing. Then, a snicker. “Am I supposed to be surprised?”

Well. Not quite the reaction I expected. “You’re not mad at me?”

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