Page 53 of The Ripple Effect

We’ll see each other during evening chores, and at the wash station, and in the tent, but I know what he means.

A year ago we had sex and both of us woke up alone.

He’ll see me in the morning because this time, we have no choice but to wake up together.

Chapter Fifteen

I wake up too warm, legs broiling, arms cool where I must’ve unzipped my sleeping bag in the night. Dawn is considering its options, trickling through the western wall of the tent enough to illuminate Lyle sprawled out on his stomach, limbs draped over the sides of his cot.

His body is intensely relaxed, somehow boneless in the way of small children who’ve passed out harder than an adult is capable of anymore. Or maybe harder thanI’mcapable of anymore, after a decade of night shifts where the best I could hope for was a few minutes to be horizontal, rest my tight, aching hips and knees, and try not to feel so old before my time.

Before last night, I’d never had to dread the uncomfortable first conversation after someone turned me down. But Lyle, being himself, made sure nobody went to bed angry. When I came into the tent, braced for awkward pleasantries, he was in bed. Eyes at half-mast, he watched as I silently zipped the front flap closed and tucked my toiletry bag away.

“Waiting up for me, Dad?” I sniped, as if I’d ever had someone do that for me.

He answered seriously. “We all need someone to watch our backs. Even someone as strong as you.”

I thought about all the times he’d had my back out here. If I’d had a disagreement with a bear on the way back from the wash station, he’d have realized I was taking too long, gone out after me, and made himself the bear’s problem, too.

We were just two people bears should not mess with, especially if they found us together.

Together.The idea wrenched my heart with the fierce relief of a dislocated joint sliding back into place. I climbed into my sleeping bag so I could press my hand secretly to my ribs, checking if my heartbeat felt as changed on the outside as it did on the inside.

He looks different this morning. Familiar in a way that seems… well, the word that comes to mind is “dear.” It’s sweet and old-fashioned, like I’m Anne Shirley standing at the garden gate after three books of insults and rivalry, looking up into Gilbert Blythe’s face, and seeing something that was always there. There in herself, there in him, waiting to be discovered.

I let my gaze drift over his body, the hills and valleys of him softened by gray morning light. When I get to his face—his somehow verydearface framed by messy auburn curls that have sneaked out of his ponytail—his eyes are open.

“Oh! Sorry,” I whisper, feeling a bit like a creeper. I could mistake the darkness in his eyes for desire, if I wasn’t careful.

He shifts his hips a little, but doesn’t roll onto his back. I know what that move means. I recognize the quiet, bitten-off sound he makes, too.

Boundaries. Whatever he’s hiding, it’s not for me. I have no right to his body or his soul. They’re a package deal, the only thing he doesn’t give away for the asking.

“What do you want to do today?” he says softly.

The dawn chorus of birdsong is loud enough to give us some cover, and we’re far enough away from the other tents that he doesn’t need to whisper. But he does, like he wants us to share secrets. I want to open my mouth and let him lay soft words right on my tongue, so they can strike a sweet, tingly path down to my stomach. Which is right behind the heart, anatomically speaking. Close enough to touch, which he and I have been careful to not do since we got out of the water.

“Slip & Slide,” I say, naming a popular rapid about thirty-five minutes north. “We need a confidence builder after yesterday. Lower level of difficulty, same paddling configurations. Let them learn a failure isn’t a permanent mark. Fun, easy play, low stakes. Show them what they’ve learned. I Get You.”

He nods softly, not quite fully awake. “Yes. Slip & Slide,” he says, a little bit of morning roughness taking his voice down to a pitch that makes my whole body hum along with it. “I’ll add it to my notes. We can work the lesson into the morning meditation.”

He shifts his hips again and I have to get out of here, even after lingering in the shower long enough for some self-care last night. Maybe he’d like some privacy, too. It couldn’t take him long—well, that’s projecting. It wouldn’t take me long, in this tent that smells like him, where I can think of his darkened eyes and that catch of breath in his throat that could have been a waking-up sound and wasn’t.

Damn it.

I have work to do. Things that aren’t torturing myself over Lyle McHugh.

“Look away. I’m getting up.” I’ll leave the tent so he doesn’t have to show me anything he’d rather keep safe. And if sadness squeezes my throat at the thought, I kind of deserve it.

An hour later chores are finished, Lyle’s setting up for yoga,and I’m out for my run. The moment in the tent is safely banked, like money. Or maybe like fire.

I want this run to settle me down, but the farther I go, the more restless I feel. Most days I’m kicking into a higher gear by now, my stride unlocking from a tight jog to a strong, comfortable run, fully transitioned from knowing Ishoulddo it intowantingto do it.

Five more minutes, I tell myself, but already my feet are slowing, dust kicking up in front of my toes as my footfalls change fromgotostop.

I stand head down, hands on hips, trying not to listen to the yearning tug between my shoulder blades. Lyle said he didn’t want impulse to be what brought us together. Impulses lead to consequences, and I don’t need more of those. The Love Boat needs us both to be rational and consider every move.

Lyle wants his feelings to mean something, and I don’t know what this homesick longing means, or who we are to each other at this moment.

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