Page 24 of Only One Tent
“I should have known. All Drew said was drop it.”
“Sky…man...” I held my hands out, hoping he could put this aside. “I couldn’t keep hurting that guy. Not after knowing what they’d been through.”
“I didn’t know. That’s so not right. All this time, you let me think—” He pursed his lips and glared.
“Stop finding things to hate me for.”
“Finding? I thought my job was on the line. And if I got fired for this, no other firm was going to hire me. How do you not understand that?”
“Drew wasn’t going to fire you. He understood the situation. We couldn’t tell you. But you didn’t trust us. You didn’t trust me, but worse, you didn’t trust Drew. If your job was in jeopardy, it was because you didn’t trust your boss. Not what I did.” I hated throwing that in his face, but sometimes hard calls had to be made, and we had made them. Skyler had to find a way to deal with it. “You’re a great lawyer. No one is taking that from you.”
He stood there, water up to his shoulders, and stared at me like he was trying to figure me out. His eyes were bold, but that could have been the sun on the water reflecting in them, but I doubted it. Skyler was intense.
“I need to think about things.” He walked off, crawling up the steps out of the water and then over to the grassy walkway. He grabbed a towel and his phone out of our bag.Our bag. There wasn’t anourin any of this. Skyler was running again, and I wasn’t sure how it would end. I rubbed my aching chest, feeling like I was going to throw up. The conversation had not gone how I wanted it to. At all.
Chapter fifteen
Game Night
Since it was a free day for everyone, Walker and Morgan teamed up with Lee and Justin, Drew’s partner, to really put it out for us. Ribs, cornbread, baked beans, potato salad, grilled vegetable skewers, corn on the cob, and a few watermelons, some of which were spiked. I wanted to start with the boozymelon, personally. After that chat with Crow about why he sabotaged my case, I wanted to get drunk off my ass and forget we even had the conversation.
A part of me felt cheated. Another part of me felt relieved. Crow had good reasons, but I should have been brought in on it. And I did trust Drew. That didn’t mean I didn’t feel some kind of way about it all. I needed to leave the past in the past. Okay, I could do that. But. Could I move forward and have something—anything—with Crow?
I didn’t have an answer.
Dinner was fantastic, and while I ate with a few people I didn’t know, Danny and Lee came around, letting us all know there was a social hour behind the main office afterward. This time, with mixed drinks and the plugged watermelons. There would also be some games and our drag queen from karaoke would be back to lead the fun. As long as I didn’t have to sing again, I figured I could play along. We finished eating, cleaned up, and headed over.
A bar was set up on the covered porch where the karaoke had been set up last time. Someone had pushed the folding tables together to make it, but there was plenty of booze. I wondered how they pulled that off since we were in a state park, but with Drew sponsoring, I figured it was all about money.
The lawn no longer had tables and chairs; they’d left it a big open space, forcing everyone to stand around and talk. Before it became terribly awkward, our drag queen grabbed a mic and blew into it. “Testing, testing. Hello, people.” She waved her hand in the air. “Remember me? I’m the lovely Bella Donna, your hostess todiefor.” She flung her hips back and forth with each description. “And I’m going to get these games started.” This time, she wore a sequined jumpsuit, and her hair was a matching lilac, hanging down around her face in a sculpted fashion, and her makeup was again over the top.
Everyone clapped and hooted, and she preened overdramatically. “Now, now. Thank you. Thank you.” She bowed. “Okay, before we begin, we have a few rules. Are we ready for the rules?”
Everyone cheered, some people yelled, “Yes!”
“Good. Good. Rule number one. If you’re playing a game, set your drink down. Now we have these cute cups and markers here, so put your name on them so you don’t mix up drinks. Unless you want to.” She did an exaggerated eye roll that made her entire body move. “Get all mixed up, that is.”
The crowd laughed, but it wasn’t all that funny to me. I looked around to see who was there. I knew a few from work, and Levi and his daddy were lined up on the far side. He caught my gaze and waved, so I waved back. I didn’t see Crow, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t with us. It was crowded.
Bella Donna moved around the patio. “Okay. Next rule. If you can’t stand up in order to play the game, you need to go back to your campsite. In other words, if you fall down drunk, you’re out.” She pointed over her shoulder. “We all need to drink responsibly, or Mr. Drew will have big fines. Got it?” She eyed all of us and pointed at us as well. “Good. Now that we’ve got that straight.” She leaned to the side and did a loud fake stage whisper that we all heard because, yeah, she said it into the mic. “That’s the only thing I got that’s straight.”
That got a lot more laughs and a few catcalls. It didn’t offend Bella Donna, though. She was camping it up for us. “Now, now. Thank you. Yes. Let’s get the first game started. We all know how to play Simon Says, right?”
Everyone cheered again, though I wasn’t sure why. Who actually liked Simon Says? Well, her way may be better, though. Bella Donna’s Simon Says was a drinking game, and she called itBella Says. Any time someone was called out, the rest of us took a drink. “Okay, everyone needs a drink to play this version, it’sthekeep your drink with youexception.” That was probably why it was the first one. “Grab it and get back on the field.”
Once we were all back on the field, she had us head patting, turning in a circle, raising our glass, and then she said, “Stand on one foot.” And I did. But, yep, she didn’t sayBella Says, and I was out. Which was good because my drink was kind of strong, and maybe I’d drunk a little too fast.
I watched the game progress, spotting Crow toward the back. He was focused. His friend was beside him, and they laughed hard when they were eliminated. I wanted to be next to him, laughing along. Instead, I headed back to the makeshift bar and got a refill.
After Bella Says, a few corn hole boards were set up, but I wasn’t into that. I leaned against a pillar and watched. “Sky! Hey.” Danny bounced over. Literally bounced. “You aren’t drunk, are you? There’s another group game coming up after this one.” He waved at the corn-holers, corn-hole players, whatever.
“No, I’m fine. I don’t do well with all that.” I flitted my hand in the same direction as Danny had.
“Oh, no problem. But play the next one. Don’t drink too much.” He pointed at me, then bounced off again with a cheery laugh. I thought he should listen to his own advice, except he was always pretty energetic. We used to go dancing together a lot before he met Lee. That was always a good time.
Eventually, they wrapped up the corn hole. Crow, paired up with his buddy, made it to the final round, but then they lost to two of the top lawyers from Drew’s firm. They had all been very competitive.
“Okay, Campers.” Bella Donna was back on the mic. “New game. First, we need to separate into two equal teams. Mr. Danny and Mr. Lee are going to help. Number them off one, two, one, two.” She made a motion over her head signifying to getthings rolling. Danny started on one side and Lee on the other, and they had us all count off in order. I was a two. Then we lined up with one team on each side of the field. “Now, you should remember this game. We need a captain from each side.”
