Page 38 of Into the Mountains
“Alright,” Sky calls. “The first team building exercise is working together to put up your tent.”
That’s a weird one to start with considering I’ll be putting up my own tent and Charlotte will be putting up hers. Clearly Sky didn’t think about that part of the team building exercise.
Or she did.
Because when I get to the bed of the truck, it’s empty besides the coolers packed with food. I know it’s food because one of them I was in charge of.
I catch Sky’s eyes and see a smirk on her face. “There’s no other tent in here, Sky.”
“There’s not?” she asks with a faux innocence that no one is fooled by. “I could have sworn I packed enough for all of us. I guess you’ll have to bunk with Charlotte.”
I look over at my roomie for the weekend to see she’s so focused on getting the tent unstuck that she clearly didn’t hear what Sky just said. So now I get to be the one to tell her that she doesn’t get a whole tent to herself. Which I know is going to be disappointing because I was also looking forward to the space.
The closer I get, the faster my heart beats. With the way she’s tugging at the tent and cursing at it, I don’t think it’s the best time to tell her that she’s bunking with one of the few people she hates. Or sort of hates at this point? Hates as a friend?
“You need some help, red?”
“Red, because I have red hair. So original,” she grunts, continuing to struggle with the tent. The outside of the pack has a pictured label that says it sleeps four people, making me feel a little bit better about being in the same tent as her. One side for me, one side for her, two imaginary people in between us. It’ll be fine.
“Better than Charlie.”
“Sure.” Her body is scrunched together as she bends and keeps trying to free the tent. While she does that, I take my time inspecting it to see where it’s stuck. It doesn’t take me long to see that it’s snagged on the zipper and her tugging on it has only managed to get it more embedded into it.
“It’s stuck.”
She drops the tent with a thud and places a hand on her hip, the other coming to her hairline to brush away the sweaty strands that fell into her face during her effort. “Seriously? It’s stuck?” She repeats.
I point to the zipper. “Your pulling got it tangled up with the zipper.”
Her shoulders fall and she kneels down to start working on getting it unstuck. Once she frees it, she’s finally able to pull it out with ease. Spreading it out like the other two tents, I get to work on the tent poles.
“Why don’t you go work on your own tent?”
Right, that little piece of information I hadn’t quite gotten to. “I am.”
“You’re what?”
“Working on my own tent?”
“I don’t know if you hit your head on a branch on the way over here, but you’re working onmytent.”
“Ourtent,” I correct her.
“Excuse me? Our what now?” I haphazardly toss the poles down and they land with a rustle on top of our tent.
“Because our little meddler over there,” I start, pointing my thumb over my shoulder toward Sky. “Didn’t pack enough tents. She only brought three instead of four. So we have to share this one apparently, but I think it’s big enough that you can take one side and I’ll take the other without any issues.”
“No.”
“No?”
“There’s enough sleeping bags, right?”
“If Hudson packed them we’re probably short,” Avery calls over to us. Hudson grabs her around the waist and they disappear into the tent they already have set up. The makeshift walls do nothing to silence her giggles.
Stubbornly, Charlotte crosses her arms. I imagine her stomping her foot on the ground for emphasis and by the little crinkle between her eyebrows, it looks like that’s exactly what she wants to do.
“I’ll just sleep by the fire.”
