This is a monster of a chapter. Enjoy.
Chapter 6
Brittany's POV
Camping, that's today's focus. I need to show Santana that camping can be fun. The plan is to take her camping on my boss, Mary's land, along the river. There's a fire pit and a large area for a tent. There's even a picnic table.
It will be a hot day though. Highs in the mid-eighties by day and lows in the low-seventies at night. We won't be cold that's for sure. And it won't be raining. So, that's good.
My goal right now is setting up the tent and getting everything ready for tonight. The tent is a little, two person tent, so Santana and I will be nice and cozy tonight- up close and personal. I need to put the air mattress in the tent and then blow it up. I have a battery operated pump to blow it up with. It will go much quicker than if I were to blow it up myself. After I have that done I need to roll out the sleeping bags on top of the air mattress. That's it as far as the tent goes.
After I have the tent all set up I need to get firewood for the campfire and find the cooking utensils. I think they are up in the building on the top of the hill.
Mary's property is unique. You drive in from the road down a long gravel driveway that cuts through the woods. You come down a hill and then there is a field that's about an acre in size. Mary had a building built there on the corner of the open field. It's like a mini-house and even has two levels. The bottom floor is like a garage and is mostly for storage and is divided into two rooms. There is a four-wheeler and a brush cutter in front room, as well as a pile of lumber, when you first walk in. Then there's a wall and behind the wall is a sitting area with a wood stove for when it's cold.
The upstairs is a living quarters with a bed and a balcony. But, I won't tell Santana about that. If she knows that there is a real life bed on the property she won't want to sleep in the tent.
The gravel driveway continues off of the field down another hill back into the woods. You go down the hill and at the bottom is a large clearing. That's where we plant trees, and shrubs, and vegetables, and whatever else.
At the south end of the clearing is a little more woods and then the river. It's a neat setup.
I have the snacks in my truck. I don't want to leave those outside while I go pick up Santana. Some critters would probably come by and snatch them. Snacks are important on a camping trip, I don't want them to go missing and us to have no snacks.
Once I have everything all set I look at the time on my phone. 7:33. Sufficient enough. I walk back to the truck and start it up for my trip to the restaurant to pick up Santana.
I walk in the door and Janet waves at me from the other side of the room.
I catch Santana as she is wiping down a booth for the next day. "Brittany, you can't wear that." Her eyes are as big as saucers.
I look down at my outfit. My bikini top and shorts and tennis shoes. "Well, I am." I smirk.
"Have you ever heard of no shirt, no shoes, no service?" She squawks. It's funny. She's funny.
"Yes. But, look around there's nobody here." I watch as she actually looks around the restaurant. "And I don't see Janet putting up a fuss." I point over to the woman sweeping in the corner. "I'll just sit down right here-" I point to the stool at the end of the counter. "-and if it makes you happy I won't even touch anything." I smirk at her.
She breaks her wide-eyes stare and frowns. "I didn't mean-"
I silence her. "Shh." I bring my finger to my lips. "Just work. You have a camping date to get to." She visibly flinches but gets back to work.
I listen to the catchy eighties tunes the radio is playing quietly in the background while I watch Santana and Janet cleanup and close the restaurant for the night.
"Ready?" I ask as Santana reappears from the kitchen with her bag. It's not quite dark yet and I'm hoping to get back to Mary's land before it gets totally dark. I want Santana to have any idea of where we are going and that's hard to do if it's dark outside.
"Yep. Just let me check to see if my car is locked and that I have everything." I nod and she scurries over to her car. I get in my truck and wait.
We drive down the long gravel driveway that leads down to the river. "This is kinda spooky." Santana comments.
"I think it's cool."
"Well, let's agree to disagree." She says to the passenger's side window as she looks out at the scenery. Trees, trees, and more trees.
I park the truck at the bottom of the hill near the path to the river.
"Wow. No wonder you didn't want me to drive my car down here with that big ass hill. That takes over the river and through the woods to a whole new level." She comments.
"But, we didn't go over the river." I scrunch up my face. "We're just camping next to it."
Santana chuckles.
"What?" I wonder what's so funny.
"Nothing." She catches her breath. I just watch her in all her beauty as she controls her chuckles. It makes me smile to know that I can make her smile and laugh. "So, where are we camping. I don't see any river." She looks around us.
"You'll see." I point out the front window. "You see that trail right there." I lean a little closer to her so she can look down the length of my arm to where I am pointing. "We go down there a little ways and- BAM, river."
She lifts an eyebrow. "Bam, river?" Santana questions.
"Yep." I nod once. I'm so close to her that I could lean over one more inch and press my lips to her cheek. And I so want to do just that but I also don't want anything to ruin our little camping trip. "Now grab your bag and follow me." I grab the marshmallows off the center seat and get out of the truck cab.
"Did you bring your swimsuit?" I ask as we walk side by side down the path.
"Yeah." She says cautiously. I bet she looks smoking in a swimsuit.
The path weaves through the words and then opens up to a grassy area with the river to the east. The tent is set up and the wood is in the fire pit all ready to be lit.
"Wow, Brittany. This is kinda cool. You were right."
"Told ya so." I brag. I can't help it.
"We are really secluded, aren't we?" She asks. And I can almost hear the thoughts going through her head. There's no one within a mile of here. Where am I suppose to change my clothes? There's no running water. Where am I suppose to wash my face and hands? And perhaps, mostly importantly, where am I suppose to go to the bathroom?
Some of those thoughts are correct but others are false. There is running water. I would just have to turn the generator on. There is no flushable toilet though.
"Yes and no. Ya know when we drove in, did you see lights to the north?"
"Which way is north?" She asks and I have to prevent myself from rolling my eyes. It's really hard not to do. That's such a 'city' thing to say.
"When we came down the hill north was to our left." I explain to her lightly.
"Okay. Yeah, no. I didn't see any lights."
Really? I take a deep breath. "There is a camp ground just north of here."
"Oh." She mumbles and looks like she is thinking it over. "Okay."
"So, we are not as secluded as you might think. But that camp ground wasn't always there. And I think that's why Mary bought the property."
"Wait, this isn't your property?" She sounds astonished that I don't own this piece of land.
"Don't worry. We have permission to be here. My boss doesn't mind. She uses the land mostly for plantings for work and for personal use. Did you see the vegetable garden on the way in?"
"That's what that was?" She asks.
"Yep. That big fenced in area is the vegetable garden. We grow just about every vegetable that there is." I sit down on the top of the picnic table.
"Why's it fenced in?" She asks and sits down next to me.
"So, the deer don't eat all the vegetables." I chuckle.
"Deer. There are deer out here." She asks with a little squeak in her voice.
"It's mostly woods around here. The other side of the river is all woods. Jerry and his sons use this land for hunting. Deer, turkeys, that sort of thing." I inform her and watch as she reacts.
"Oh." Santana whispers and looks around.
"I doubt you'll see any. Although, Randy ran into a big buck face to face a couple days ago."
Her eyebrow furrow. "Who's Randy?"
"One of Jerry's buddies. He gets wood out of these woods and makes tables and all sorts of things out of it. He's big into woodworking. That's how he ran into the deer. He was looking for the perfect specimen for his next woodworking project."
"Wow."
"But-" I pause and lick my suddenly dry lips. "-don't worry if any deers come by, I will protect you." I flex my biceps for her in the body builder pose.
"Okay." She bites down on her bottom lip. It looks like she wants to say more but doesn't.
"I'm gonna start the fire now." I wiggle the bag of marshmallows in front of her face. "You had supper right?" I want to make sure. I don't want to stuff Santana full of marshmallows if she didn't have a proper supper first.
She nods. "Yeah, at work."
"Good cuz I didn't bring any supper food. I brought breakfast food but not supper food." I go over to the fire pit with my box of matches.
"You're like a regular boy scout. Camping and fires and hunting." Santana comments.
I look back over my shoulder towards her. "I don't hunt. And you have to know how to start a fire if you are gonna work with Jerry." She nods and I go back to starting the fire. "It's so hot out here that we don't need a fire." I wipe the back of my hand across my forehead for dramatic effect. "But, we must have marshmallows and smores. It's like a rule of camping. So, we must have a fire."
"I won't argue with that."
I look back at her with a smile. "We could always eat them without roasting them."
She scrunches up her face. "What fun would that be?"
My smile grows. I can't pass up the opportunity to tease her. "So, are you having fun already?" I turn back to tending the fire, which is going pretty good now.
"I didn't say that."
"Fine." I glance back at her again and wait for her to catch my eyes. When she does she averts her eyes and shys away. So cute. If it weren't getting dark I bet I could see the hints of a blush on her cheeks.
We roast marshmallows and make smores as the sun sets. It's dark and the woods that stand to our west are whisper quite. The animals that live there either taking shelter for the night or hunting and scavenging in relative silence.
I feel a tapping on my knee and look down to it, my thoughts of the forest creatures forgotten for now. Santana's pointer finger taps gently at my knee. I smile and lift my gaze to see her face. "Yes?" I question and she stops tapping at my leg.
"You were off in la-la land. I asked what we do now that it's dark out."
I shrug. "Campfire stories and then bed." What I usually do when I'm camping.
"What about swimming?" Santana asks in a small little voice, like she doesn't want to say the wrong thing.
"Well-" It's really dark out. I think it would be dangerous to go swimming now. "-we can go swimming now but I don't think that's wise. I don't want you to get hurt or anything. That wouldn't be a fun camping trip."
Her face shifts. "Oh." Santana whispers.
"I suggest we swim in the morning when it's light out. I can wake you up at dawn." I tell her with a little teasing smile.
"Dawn? Isn't that like-"
I can see Santana searching her brain for the appropriate time. Thinking when it is that the sun rises. "Five am." I finish for her. "Yeah."
"That's really early." Santana sounds almost shocked.
"What time is your earliest shift at the restaurant?" I ask knowing the answer already.
"Five am."
"See. You get up for that. What's preventing you from getting up with the sun?" I point out for her.
"That's really early." Santana repeats. "I don't want to have to get up early on my day off."
I just laugh. "How 'bout we hit the hay then?" Santana gives me that scrunchy face, confused look of hers. "Go to bed." I clarify.
"I knew what you meant. I've just never heard anyone use that phrase in real life before." She stands up from her seat and starts for the tent.
I put out the fire and follow her.
It's hot and stuffy in the tent. I take off my shorts revealing my bikini bottoms. I don't hear Santana next to me making any noise or a move to change into sleepwear. I adjust my swimsuit bottoms and look up to see her staring at me. Her eyes don't move. They are fixed on one spot. It's almost as if she is looking straight through me. I look down at my body and then back to her unmoving face.
"Are you gonna change?" I ask and she flinches. Santana nods but doesn't move. I leave her be and sit down on my sleeping bag, which rests on the large air mattress. I like camping but I don't like sleeping on the ground and that's where the air mattress comes in handy. It's a small tent. A two person. There's not much room left after the air mattress is in place. A few feet of free space at the door to the tent and about a foot on either side of the air mattress before the side walls of the tent.
Seconds pass after I sit down before Santana moves. It's like her body is working in slow motion. I have a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with my attire, or lack there of. She slowly goes over to her bag in the corner, stooping under the short height of the tent. I watch her dig through the bag and pull out a pair of cotton shorts- that look suspiciously like boxer shorts- and tank top to sleep in. She looks around the tent before her eyes finally stop on mine. I smile my warmest, gentlest smile.
"Where am I suppose to change?" She asks. Her voice a little hoarse.
I shrug. "I would suggest in here. But, you can change outside if you want. There's no one in the immediate vicinity. Plus, it's dark if there were they wouldn't be able to see you." Santana just stares at me. Guess she isn't to keen on changes outside. "I promise I won't look." I tell her. I would very much like to look but I don't think she can handle that right now.
"O-okay." She stammers.
I roll over on my sleeping bag so that I am lying flat on my stomach and stuff my face in my pillow, even though it's hot as hell. All I can see is black behind my eyelids. I hear the ruffling of clothes being taken off and replaced.
"All done." She says after about a minute.
I flip back over and tuck my hands up, folded, behind my head and look up at Santana who is still standing at the door to the tent. I nod to my left of me where her sleeping bag is rolled out. She takes the hint and lays down on top of it.
"It's so stuffy in here." She comments.
The door flap is open and the opposite window but the two side windows are closed. "I could unzip the other windows, if you want." Santana nods and I shuffle around inside the little tent until all three windows and the door screen are open.
"There." I say as I lay down again. I slip my legs into my sleeping bag, I pull the flap back so that the sleeping bag is just covering the bottoms of my legs and isn't so hot. Santana copy my lead and does something similar with her sleeping bag. "So, tell me about your friends?" I ask, hoping to learn as much as I can about her tonight.
"My best friend is Quinn." Santana says softly. "We were in competition for everything when we were in high school but at some point during our senior year realized that none of that would matter in the real world and became friends." Her voice is soft and angelic and if she talks along enough I think I could fall asleep. "She goes to college at Ohio State. She is a really great and supportive friend."
"What does she look like?" I ask.
Santana smiles and side-glances over at me. At some point during her telling me about Quinn I must have switched from laying on my back to laying on my left side, facing her. Santana still lays on her back but looks over at me with a smile.
"She has blonde hair but not like yours. It's short. Shoulder length and not as bright. She has hazel eyes and a pretty face."
"Do you have a picture?" I ask. If she is best friends with Quinn, like Santana says she is, then she probably has a picture of the two of them on her phone.
"Yeah." She sits up and reaching for her bag. Santana pulls out her phone and flicks through it. She lays down again but this time on her side facing me, only a couple of inches separating us. She flips the phone away from her and shows me the picture. Santana was right Quinn is a very pretty girl indeed. "She's coming to visit in July. You should meet her." I wrinkle my forehead thinking ahead to the future and if I have anything planned in the month of July even though I don't know when this Quinn is coming. Santana must see it though and back tracks. "That is if you want to. You totally don't have to meet her. She's just a friend of mine. It's not important. Forget I mentioned it." She takes the phone back and stares at the screen as she rambles.
"Hey." I try to get her attention but it doesn't work. I reach out with my right hand and wrap it around her wrist. She snaps her eyes back to me. "I'll meet her. If it's important to you. I'll meet her." Santana nods. "When is she coming?"
"The week around July fourth." She whispers.
"Okay. I'll be there." I promise.
Santana ducks her chin to her chest. "Okay." She says seriously. "Thank you."
"For what?" I ask.
"Are we friends?" Santana changes the subject. I can hear that scared, timidness in her voice again, like she doesn't want to be embarrassed or say anything stupid. Although, I guess it's not too far from what we were just talking about. Her and her best friend. And now she wants to know if we are friends.
Everything stops and I think back to when I heard those words last. The bonfire. The trampoline. The star gazing. The almost kiss. I want to be her friend. And I think that we are friends but a part of me wants to be more than that. I have feelings for her that are more than friendly.
I nod. Words escaping me at the moment.
"Good. I really like you Brittany and I really enjoy spending time with you even if it's doing something I hate- like camping."
Silence falls around us. She stares into my eyes and I can't do anything but stare back. It's dark in the tent but I can still see everything about her face. The way the corners of her lips twitch upwards. The way her eyes pierce through the darkness and fix on mine. The steadiness in them even though the rest of her seem unsteady.
A tiny part of me registers what's happening but mostly I just run on impulse. I tug on her wrist, that I am still holding onto, pulling her closer to me as I move closer to her. Our eyes never break contact as I close the final inch of the gap between our faces.
I press my lips to hers with a softness and gentleness that I didn't know I possessed. I close my eyes and savor the feeling. I am surprised when I feel Santana kiss me back. Just a quick press of her lips into mine.
I break away from the short kiss and blink my eyes open slowly. Santana is across from me with a coy smile on her face. Her eyes search my face, her lips parted slightly. "What?" I ask nervously. Did she not like that? Why is she looking at me like she wants to say something?
Her smile only grows around her words. "My boyfriend isn't gonna like that?"
"What?" I snap back from her and nearly jump out of my sleeping bag, putting as much space between us as possible without falling off the air mattress onto the hard ground. "Boyfriend. You never mentioned you had a boyfriend. I thought- why didn't you tell me- I never would have. I'm so sorry." I hide my face in my hands in embarrassment. How did I not know? How could I be so stupid? "Oh God."
I flinch when I feel Santana's hand as she grabs onto my arm. "Calm down."
I remove my hands from my face. "How can you tell me to be calm when you have a boyfriend- and I just kissed you- and you have a boyfriend. I can't be calm right now. It's not possible. I don't cheat. And I don't want to be the cause of someone else cheating." I'm frantic. Gasping for air. If I wasn't positively overheated before, I sure am now. When did it get so hot in here?
"Shh." Santana whispers. "I have a boyfriend but I didn't want to tell you because I don't know where I stand with him anymore. You didn't do anything wrong. I kissed you back, remember?"
She did. I nod dumbly.
"Can I tell you a secret?" She asks and I nod again. "I wanted you to kiss me ever since that night on the trampoline. I wanted you to kiss me."
"But- what about- your boyfriend?" I ask. This is a problem.
"What about him?" She shrugs. I don't understand how she can be so casual about this. So calm.
"Won't he be mad- mad that- you kissed someone else?" I just stare at Santana searching for the answers. I'm desperately hoping that she holds the answers to all of my questions.
"He doesn't have to know." Santana says quietly.
"What if he finds out? Will he be mad then? Is he gonna come find me and beat me up?" I can't think of this situation ending in a good way. Either, I don't get to see Santana anymore or don't get to kiss her or she goes back to her boyfriend. Or he comes to town looking for me and tells me to stay away from her or worse wants to fight me. Or all of the above. There's no good outcome here.
"First, how would he find out? Only you and I know. So that's impossible." I want to tell her that nothing is impossible, but I keep my mouth shut. "He would be mad if he found out, but he won't hit a woman. Just guys."
Gee, sounds like such a stand up guy. I am picturing a big guy. Six-three, six-four with big muscles and a mean glare as her beats up any guy that looks at his girlfriend the wrong way.
"I don't understand." I mumble and slump back into my sleeping bag again. What does all of this mean? Sometimes I get confused easy but this doesn't seem easy in any way. This seems complicated and I'm confused.
"I don't either. But, I do know that I really like you, Brittany. I haven't even talked to Puck since I've been in Wisconsin. I-"
"Puck? What kind of name is that?" I blurt.
Santana completely ignores my questions and keeps talking. "-don't know what's gonna happen with me and him and part of me doesn't care anymore. I know- I know that I haven't ever felt the way I feel now. You make me feel different. You make me laugh and smile. You care about me and what happens to me. You want to show me places that are special to you and that you love. You make me feel sp-special." Santana takes a big shaky breath. It's dark and I'm not one-hundred percent positive but it sounds like she is about to cry.
"Puck doesn't do any of that for me anymore. He used to when we were first together. Now it's just- just-" She's crying now. I scoot closer to her again and rub my hand up and down her arm hoping to soothe her. "I- I-" She sobs.
It breaks my heart to see her like this. Even with my own confused thoughts and feelings I can't let her just be. I move so that I can wrap my arm around her body and pull her to my chest, her head tucked in under my chin. "Shh. It's okay." I don't know that it really is okay, but I don't have anything else to offer her right now. "It's okay." I hold her tight and rock gently back and forth trying to keep from crying myself.
Several minutes pass of Santana crying and me holding her while she cries. Eventually, her sobs turn into little whimpers and then hiccups. I give her a kiss on the top of the head when I feel the first hiccup vibrate through my chest where it presses to hers. If she weren't so sad right now I would tell her that her little hiccups are cute.
I hold her in my arms for a long, long time. Neither of us say anything. Her hiccups stops at some point and her breathing evens out. She's asleep.
I loosen my hold of her so in can lean back and get some sleep of my own but Santana whimpers in her sleep so I hold her tight again. It's absolutely too hot and humid to be pressed up this close to another human being but I'm willing to stay like this all night if I have to. I kiss her on the top of the head again and shut my eyes hoping to fall to sleep sometime soon.
I wake up the next morning after a fitful night of sleep. I don't know how much sleep I actually got, but I know it wasn't a lot. I laid awake for at least an hour after Santana fell asleep and held her the whole time.
When I finally did fall asleep it wasn't for long. I kept walking up during the night. I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that Santana has a boyfriend. I finally kissed her but now I can't anymore because of that fact. That's a deal breaker for me. I won't mess around with somebody who is in a committed relationship. I won't be the mistress. I won't be the affair. I won't do that to her - or him.
I still don't know how I feel about it. I know I have this huge crush on Santana and everything in me wants to spend time with her and be around her whenever I can. But, she has a boyfriend and I can't mess with that. Even if she said she doesn't know where her and her boyfriend stand, he is still her boyfriend.
As silently as I can, I slip out of the tent. Santana is still slumbering and I want to let her sleep as long as possible. She needs it after last night. I didn't expect the nights events to take such a dramatic turn, but they did and here I stand. A new day with a new realization.
I start on breakfast after I get the fire going. Bacon and eggs.
While the fire gets going I get out the bacon and eggs from the cooler. It's actually an easy breakfast to make on a campfire. I fry the bacon first and then work on the eggs.
A touch on my waist startles me but I quickly realize that it's Santana's touch. She slips her arms around my waist and fastens her hands together on my stomach, hugging me from behind. I sink into her hold. Santana nuzzles the side of her face against my back, between my shoulder blades, and I sigh at the feeling. This feels amazing. She feels amazing against me.
"Mornin'. How'd ya sleep?" I ask. I hope she slept good because I certainly didn't.
She hums. "Mmm. Good." She detaches herself from my back and stands beside me, in front of the fire.
"Good, I'm glad." I fiddle with the frying pan over the fire. "Breakfast is almost ready." I lift the pan from the fire when it's ready and slide the eggs onto two paper plates and hand one to Santana. "There's bacon under that plate." I made a plate of bacon earlier and covered it with another paper plate for safe keeping from flies.
"Thank you. This looks amazing. It's smells so good but is there anything to drink?" Santana asks and peers up at me through her eyelashes.
I smile cuz she's can be so damn cute sometimes. "Yeah. Over in the cooler. There are two bottles of orange juice that I got at the gas station. I hope that's okay?"
"It's great. I don't have orange juice often but I do like it." She tells me and then goes over to cooler. I sit down with my plate of eggs and bacon at the picnic table. A few seconds later Santana comes back. "I brought yours too." She sets the two bottles of orange juice on the picnic table and sits down.
"Thanks." I smile.
"You're very welcome." She smiles back. I start on my first few bites of food and nearly fall off the picnic table when Santana smacks me on the arm. I wasn't paying any attention to her, too busy watching my food as I ate it. "This is delicious, Brittany. Oh my god." She mumbles through a mouthful of eggs.
I shrug. "I used to work in the kitchen of a bar when I was a teenager. I know a few tricks when it comes to cooking." It's no big deal. It's just something that I learned. I know my way around a grill, so what?
After breakfast is finished and all the utensils and cooking instruments are cleaned up, I suggest swimming.
"You wanna take a dip in the river now." I give Santana a big, happy smile. I'm trying my hardest not to think about Santana's boyfriend but it plagues my mind. I just want to have a good morning and a good camping trip. That's the whole point, to show Santana that camping is fun. I try to focus on that and just have a good time.
"Yeah. I'll just go change." Santana looks over her shoulder at the tent and then looks back to me.
"Go ahead." I still have my swimsuit on from yesterday. I just covered it with clothes this morning. All I have to do is take my layer of clothes off and I'm ready to go. Santana is still wearing her sleep tank top and boxer shorts and needs to actually change out of them. "I'll wait right here." I point to the spot next to the picnic table.
She ducks inside the tent. I turn my back to the tent and take my shirt and shorts off and put them on top of the picnic table. Santana reemerges a few minutes later and when I see her I feel like my heart is in my throat and I can't swallow.
She's even more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. Her tan skin glistening in the hot morning sun. Her dark, nearly black, hair flowing down her back. Her legs seem longer than possible with just her swimsuit bottoms on. She's gorgeous from head to toe. Like a goddess.
"Wow." I mumble and luckily she doesn't hear me or if she doesn't she doesn't say anything about it.
Instead she grabs my hand. "Let's go." She whispers and leads a stunned me to the edge of the river. I follow behind her and I can't keep from appreciating her wonderful body from behind. But, there's something in the back of my head.
You can look but you can't touch. It taunts and teases. Life really isn't fair sometimes.
We get in the water up to our waists. It's cold. I shiver runs through me and all I can think is it's cold. I turn to see what Santana is doing. She is bent at the waist, her hands in the water, a devilish grin on her face. "Don't you dare." I warn her.
"Dare what?" She tries to say in an innocent voice, but I can hear the menace behind it.
"Spl-" I don't even finish my word before I am hit with a cold blast of water to the face. I wipe a hand over my face trying to wipe the water away. "Santana." I yell and take a step towards her.
She laughs and runs away from me.
I splash her and she splashes me. We run around chasing each other in the waist deep water. At the deepest part of the river it only comes up to my chest so we don't have any problems running around. Our feet push off the sandy bottom and propel us through the water.
The further into the summer the lower the water level gets. But, in the spring, the water comes up over the banks and floods the fire pit and the whole area where the tent is set up. My boss has to make sure that everything is picked up before the spring flood or the water washes it away. Even the picnic table gets lifted up and moved.
I turn my back to Santana and sink my left hand under the water preparing a wave to splash at her - surprise attack. I turn and sweep my arm through the water creating a wall of water to send in Santana's direction. But-
She isn't standing where she was a second ago. My wall of water splashes as it hits no one and nothing in particular, except for more water. Santana laughs off to my right side and I frown.
"You're sneaky." I mumble and duck my head, looking down at the water.
"Is that so?" She asks and her voice seems closer than I know she was standing a moment ago. I look up and she is right there. Next to me. I nod. She is very sneaky. Santana takes a step closer until she is directly in front of me. I scrunch my face up. What is she doing? She raises her right hand out of the water and points behind me. "What's that over there?"
I twist my body and look over my shoulder. I don't see anything. "Where?" I ask, still searching for whatever it is that she is trying to call my attention to.
"Over there. Between those trees." She whispers. It's a vague description and I squint to try and see what she is talking about.
The next thing I know, I have to take a step backwards to balance myself, otherwise, I'll fall over backwards in the water. Santana is suddenly so very close, like, her legs wrapped around my waist under the water, close. Holy crap.
I snap my head back to figure out what she is doing.
She kisses me as soon as I am facing her again.
It's a surprise, to say the least. Her lips caress my bottom one. Her hands wrap around my shoulders and hold tight to the back of my neck. On instinct and from fear of her falling I put my hands on her lower back and hold her to my body.
Santana switches the kiss. I kiss her back with as much gusto as a closed mouth kiss will allow. That nagging thought returns, though.
You can look but you can't touch.
And as great as this little kiss is, I have to pull back away from her lips. I lick my lips and search Santana's face. She looks at ease. A teeny-tiny smile tugs at the corners of her lips. Her eyes sparkle with something, but I'm not sure what that something is.
"What about your boyfriend?" I can't help but ask.
She shakes her head. "Forget about him."
Her fingers tickle at my hairline, and it's hella distracting, but I have to say what I'm thinking. "I can't." I duck my head in embarrassment. I don't want her to know this but she has to know. "I was up half the night thinking about him."
"Oh, Britt." Santana says and her hands slide from the back of my neck to each of my cheeks. She lifts my head until I am looking at her again. Her eyes say just how sorry she is. "I'm sorry." She voices and then pecks me on the lips. Then again and again and again. Until she kisses me more times than I can count. Gentle, little pecks that are meant to soothe me but in truth don't quite do the job. "We'll have to figure something out." She tells me after the last kiss and I nod dumbly.
I search her eyes and she does the same to mine. She nods and I nod. She unwraps her legs from around my waist and I drop my hands from her back. She starts for the banks of the river and I follow. We get out of the water and towel off. I put clothes on over my swimsuit and Santana returns to the tent. I assume she's taking off her suit and putting on clothes. I can't be sure though.
I start packing up all of our camping equipment while she is in the tent. After she comes out I go in and roll up the sleeping bags and deflate the air mattress. Santana helps me take down the tent.
We pack everything up and throw it in the bed on my truck. I open Santana's door for her and help her get in. She smiles in thanks. I nod and shut the door behind her and go to get in on my side. I start the truck up and drive back up the hill.
We get to the top and Santana breaks the weird silence we have been under. "What's that building there?" She asks in a light, cheery voice - part of me thinks it's fake.
"That's Mary's shed. It's not really a shed." I shrug. I don't know really how to describe it any better than a shed, though. "I'll show you it one day." I have my doubts about that happening, though. After today, I don't know if Santana will ever be back here again.
"Okay." I can see her nod out of the corner of my eye.
I just keep driving. I just want to get home. Everything was going so well last night, then Santana mentioned the fact that she had a boyfriend and everything changed. I felt weird about everything after that. I didn't know what to do or say. This morning things were going well. We were having fun. Breakfast was good and splashing around in the river was great fun but then she kissed me. That was great too. Better than great but there's this thing I can't get passed.
You can look but you can't touch. She's not yours.
"You know where I live, when am I gonna find out where you live?" Santana asks breaking me from my thoughts. She uses that light, happy, fake voice again. I hate it because I know it's not real. I hate it because I know she is trying to make me feel better.
Without any excitement or energy in my voice I tell her. "I live about twenty minutes from where you live. I live in a little apartment not too far from the nursery where I work. In Luxemburg. It's not much and I live by myself. I'm hardly ever there, actually. I just sleep there mostly." I tell her. I can hear the dullness in my own voice and I'm sure Santana can too.
"Oh, good to know." This time her voice is low, and quite. She's dropped the fake, light, happiness. It both makes me happy and sad. Happy that she stopped using it because it was fake, but sad because she's given up on trying to make me feel better already. She probably doesn't want to be around a sad sack like me any longer than she has to.
The rest of the ride to Santana's car is in silence. I drop her off at her car in the parking lot at the restaurant. I turn to her as she is getting out of the passengers side. "I hope you had a good time camping. I hope you had fun." I do mean it. I hope this whole weekend wasn't a total bust. I hope she had fun and will go camping again this summer.
Santana smiles big. "I did. Thank you for taking me. I really had fun." She sounds sincere.
"Your welcome. Now you know what to do when you go camping in the state park." I shift my eyes away from hers. I can't look at her anymore, it's too much. "I have to get home and unload all this stuff." I thumb behind me to the camping equipment in the bed of my truck. "Have a good afternoon and evening, Santana. Bye."
It seems so much like something else. Not just a simple goodbye, or see ya later. Like something more final. Something more difficult.
"Goodbye, Britt." Santana says quietly and shuts her door. I don't even look in her direction. I can't.
Unlike the last time I dropped her off, I don't wait for her to unlock her car, to get in, to start it up. I put the truck in drive and leave the empty parking lot immediately.