Sunkissed, Kasie West [best authors to read TXT] 📗

“Nope. No secret internet.” Brooks held out his hand.

“What?” I asked, confused.

“Let me see your phone.”

“Are you going to throw it into the fire?”

“Does that happen to you often?”

My lips twitched but I held back a smile. “Well, no, I just don’t know how extreme you all are about the camp media restrictions.”

“I’ll suggest that option at the next staff meeting.” He continued to hold out his hand, and for whatever reason—maybe because it was mostly useless to me right now anyway—I gave it to him.

With my phone in his possession, I tried to think of every app I had ever downloaded. There were all my social media ones, of course, but then I had games, and a friend finder and an e-reader, and others I couldn’t remember. It felt like he was seeing everything I ever valued all in one place, and I was sure that my life summed up in apps was very unimpressive.

He opened my music app and scrolled through a few playlists. I was distracted for a moment watching someone add a log to the dying fire. Sparks flew and the smoke thickened.

“You have a playlist called Now I Don’t Hate You?” Brooks asked.

I looked back at him. “You don’t? You should. It might help you with anger management.”

“Funny.”

“What’s on your phone?” I asked, still feeling stupid that mine held nothing of real interest.

“I’ll show you in three months when I get out of this place.” He handed back my phone and his eyes were on the fire again.

I let my gaze drift there as well. The flames danced and leaned in the breeze. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Shut yourself away with no contact to the outside world for three months? Don’t you worry that people back home will…” Forget about you? Move on? Think you didn’t answer their apology text because you never want to speak to them again?

“Will what?” he asked.

I shrugged, the fire heating up my cheeks.

His voice was low when he said, “Need more than you can give?” His tense expression let me know without a shadow of a doubt that he’d left behind some drama too.

“Yeah,” I said in nearly a whisper.

“You just try not to think about it.” His gaze went from the fire to me and it was just as intense as the first night I met him. “But why are you worried? You’ll be home in, what, a week? Two?”

“No, we’re here for two months.”

“Two months?” His eyes narrowed. “Two months?” he asked again.

“Do most people not stay that long?”

“No, they don’t.” His words were short, almost angry, and just like that his walls were back up.

What had I said? That we were staying a long time? He didn’t want me here that long? Or did this new information confirm all his theories about me? I wanted to yell, We don’t normally do anything this big. Last year we slept in a tent for three weeks. But I wasn’t going to yell that at him because it shouldn’t have mattered. I stood abruptly. As I rounded the fire and passed Maricela, I said, “Guess we needed a mediator after all.”

“Where were you last night?” Lauren asked through a mouthful of toothpaste when I joined her the next morning in the bathroom we shared. We shared a bathroom at home, too, so it didn’t feel much different. Well, aside from the rustic cabin decor. The wall behind the mirror and the shower were tiled with rough stones, and the sink looked like it was carved into a large polished rock.

The rest of the cabin, a cozy two-bedroom with a living room and kitchen, matched the bathroom style with reclaimed wood and stone dominating the space. There was also a cute potbelly stove and several antler-inspired light fixtures. It was exactly how I would expect a cabin in the woods to look if an interior designer was in charge of making something look like a cabin in the woods.

I picked up my toothbrush from the counter and added a bead of green gel. “I was just walking around.”

“How come our whole room smells like campfire, then?”

“I don’t know. Because there are campfires here.” I wasn’t a good liar, but I also didn’t think my sister needed to know about my “employees only” trespassing session, especially with my parents within earshot. I could hear my mom banging around in the kitchen.

“Well, your little walk got you out of the motivational speaker I was dragged to after dinner.”

“And? What did he motivate you to do?”

“He motivated me to avoid all future motivational speakers.”

I laughed.

“That was funny, right?” she said. “Mom didn’t find it funny.”

“Yes. It was funny.” Brooks hadn’t found me funny the night before either. He was too busy putting me in a box. “What apps are on your phone?”

“On my phone?” she asked, but before waiting for my answer, she tucked the head of her toothbrush in the side of her cheek and picked up her phone. “My video editing stuff, of course, and I have this song-splicing one that’s really cool.” She turned her phone toward me like I would know exactly what app she was talking about. I didn’t. “Do you have this picture design one on yours?”

“No.”

“You should get it. Hmm…what else? Games, I guess, and social media. Why?”

“I was just wondering what apps people have.”

“Wouldn’t it depend on their interests?” she said.

“True.” My interests. Old books? Music? Instagram? “You’re drooling.” I pointed to the toothpaste that was dripping onto her pajama top.

She set down her phone and leaned toward me.

I straight-armed her. “Ew. Gross. Get away.”

She laughed, spit into the sink, and rinsed off her mouth and toothbrush.

“Anyway,” Lauren said, grabbing the hand towel and dabbing at her shirt. “Guess what I found out?”

“What?”

“That the dinner band is practicing tonight in the lodge theater.”

I swallowed hard, my loaded toothbrush still waiting in my hand. “Who told you that?”

She hung the drool towel