I snapped my head away from him and resisted the urge to smack that smug look off his face. Jerk. Big vampiric jerk.
When the car stopped at our campsite, I immediately got out and huffed over to our tent. Noisily pulling the zipper, I ducked inside. I re-zipped it on the inside and silently cursed that I didn't have a heavy door to slam...that would have been much more satisfying.
"You are such a freaking a**hole! Your vampire ass better stay far away from me," I sullenly muttered, knowing full well he could hear me. Sure enough, a heavy sigh answered me from the other side of the tent.
I paced the inside, while I listened to Hot Ben and Teren gathering their supplies. Tracey giggled at something that Ben was doing to her. I suddenly hated how easy their relationship was, especially since Teren and I were smack-dab in the middle of a secret fight. I could see Teren's body blocking the light, just on the other side of the fabric separating us, and I had a sudden moment of sadness sweep over me. That thin barrier between us suddenly felt metaphoric in the worst possible way. In that instant, I wanted him in here with me, more than I wanted to continue the fight...but he'd injured my pride. I couldn't cave that easily.
I watched his shadow bend down to pick up his fishing pole near the tent, then straighten back up. His shadow paused, and for a moment we stared at each other, without really seeing each other. I knew he knew exactly where I was in the small tent though; he'd be able to hear my heartbeat, even all the way outside.
"Ready, Teren?" I heard Ben calling, from over by the vehicles.
His shadow never moving, Teren softly said, "Yeah...I'm ready."
His shadow narrowed to a thinner sliver as he turned away from me. I couldn't handle that. "Wait," I whispered. His shadow immediately hesitated and the shape of his head turned towards me. "Please come back before dark. Please be careful."
It was as close to "I'm sorry and I'm hopelessly in love with you, so please don't let anything happen to you" that I could say, without conceding defeat.
I watched his head drop as he absorbed my plea. He nodded, and I felt that he truly understood everything I was silently saying to him. Stepping closer to the tent, he raised a hand up to the fabric. I raised my hand as well and our fingers touched through the thin material. I had to hold in the tears at that insignificant, but so powerful connection.
I swallowed and his shadow fully turned away from me. Then I heard his car hum to life and crunch over the small twigs along the road as they slowly drove away. I curled into a ball on our sleeping bags and desperately tried to stop the sudden panic that flew into my throat. What if something happened while he was gone?
I was in that fetal position when I heard our tent being unzipped. I looked up to the door, right as Tracey poked her blonde head in. "What'cha doing in here?" She looked around the small space before returning to my eyes. I prayed they weren't glistening. Apparently they weren't, for she cheerily stepped inside, re-zipped the tent, and plopped down on the bag beside me. Lying back with her arms above her head, her long hair fanning out around her, she sighed, "Isn't Ben dreamy...?"
She then began a fifteen minute soliloquy on the perfection that was Hot Ben, while I tried to force down the fears and insecurities I had about my relationship with Teren. I tried to be the good friend that listened, encouraged, asked the right questions, and probed for all the right secrets. The secrets that she acted like she didn't want to talk about, but really, she did, she just wanted to be asked.
I tried...it was difficult at first. I still felt like sobbing, and even though Tracey was oblivious to my bad mood, I was sure waterworks would clue her in. And I couldn't talk about it with her. I couldn't tell her that my soon-to-be-dead boyfriend had just jokingly faked his death, and it had made me realize how terrifying that day was actually going to be for me. I couldn't ask her what I should do about it. I couldn't ask for opinions on how to change the stubborn man's mind. I couldn't tell her that the stress was giving me an ulcer. I couldn't talk with her about any of that...because she couldn't know his secret. Unlike my sister, Tracey would not handle it well.
But eventually, talking with Tracey about her mundane relationship eased my mind, and as we were laughing over Hot Ben's toe-sucking fetish, my heart finally started to lift. I silently thanked Tracey, for the unknowing support that she was giving me.
After a while we emerged from the cave-tent I'd been hiding in, and we attempted to do something adventurous while the men were gone-we tried to make a fire. We walked back to where you could buy bundles of firewood and picked up a couple each. Feeling like quite the do-it-yourselfers, we giggled all the way back to our campsite. We got an offer of help from a friendly, older man, playing with his two grandkids a couple of spots away, but we politely refused his offer, since we were feeling pretty good about ourselves.
We felt less good about ourselves when we struggled with the actual making a fire part. Neither one of us had ever done it before. It didn't seem like it should be rocket science though. We made a little tepee with wood, shoved some newspapers that we'd found inside Ben's car underneath it, and then lit those papers with a match I'd found among Teren's things. The paper lit immediately, curled, blackened and then drifted away on the wind, leaving just barely scorched wood above it. We lowered the tepee and tried again. After the third attempt, we finally had a nice little blaze going and we did a little girl-power jig, right there by the fire pit.
That was when the boys showed back up. The headlights flashed along our gyrating bodies and laughing, we both looked over as the car shut off. Tracey squealed and ran to Hot Ben's side, throwing herself into his arms and showering him with kisses. My reaction was much more restrained...Teren and I weren't exactly on the best terms right now, after all.
Teren slowly opened his door and got out; his eyes never left mine. My heartbeat suddenly shifted into triple time, and I focused on maintaining an even breath. He cocked his head to the side, like he was listening to my reaction, and then biting his lip, he walked over to where I was standing beside the fire.
"I'm back," he said softly.
I nodded, tears filling my eyes. "I can see that." My arms slipped around his neck and my head buried into the crook of his warm skin. I inhaled the scent of pine, water and pure man that came off him, and squeezed him tight as he lifted me a good foot into the air.
He exhaled a long breath and nearly squeezed the life from me as he held me in that position. It wasn't exactly an end to our argument, but it was an acknowledgement that we were still in this together. We were still hopelessly in love.
I brushed a couple of tears off my cheeks as he finally set me down. His pale eyes locked on my tears, concerned, and he seemed about ready to speak, when Ben and Tracey came up to us. "Did you tell her about the rainbow?"
Ben clapped Teren's shoulder, while Teren muttered, "No, I hadn't gotten to that yet."
Ben looked at me, his expression animated as he held his hands out, indicating a size. "Yeah, we caught this rainbow trout that was at least this big. Right, Teren?" Teren glanced over at the distance between Ben's palms and feebly nodded. Ben swished his hands. "We had to release it, 'cause you can't keep rainbows...but it was cool." He pointed over to a bucket beside Tracey. "We got a couple of browns for you guys to cook up." He gave Tracey a loving look. "Nice fire, babe." She giggled, and they proceeded to make out for a couple minutes.
I sighed and met eyes with Teren again. He sighed, too, then pointed to the fire. "It is very nice." His eyes flicked around the forest that would be darkening within a half hour. "I think I'll have a seat." I nodded and sighed again as he went to sit down. We may have acknowledged the love between us, but we needed to have some words, too, and we couldn't do that with Tracey and Ben right beside us.
Tracey and I went about figuring out how to fillet and prepare fish for frying. Ben had to come over to help us at one point, which led to more inappropriately graphic displays of affection, but eventually we started cooking them, and our campsite filled with the smell of oil, fish and spices. We dished up our meals with the food the boys had caught, and then we all sat around the campfire and ate the fish with some rolls, a green salad and a bottle of wine.
The sky darkened as we ate, and the absence of light made me even more aware of sound. I heard the snap-crackle of the fire, the light laughter of our neighbors in the campground, the skittering of small animals in the underbrush, and the larger creatures, rustling among the trees. I hoped none of the noises were bears. As we cleaned up all evidence of dinner, Tracey seemed to feel the same.
"You don't think any bears are around, do you?" she nervously asked Ben.
He gave her an award-winning smile, making her flush, but Teren answered before Ben could, "There aren't any bears in the area tonight."
They both stopped flirting with each other to look over at him, and I shut my eyes for a moment. I knew he knew that because of his extra abilities; he could probably distinguish an animal's heartbeat from a human one, and a bear would have a pretty big heartbeat. Perhaps he could even smell if any bears were nearby. But Tracey and Ben wouldn't know why Teren seemed to know that with such certainty.
With everyone looking at him, Teren shrugged his shoulders. "I talked to a ranger while we were fishing. He said there hadn't been any bears around the campsites for a while, they're all higher up the mountains." He nodded his head over his other shoulder, indicating where the bears supposedly were.
I narrowed my eyes, wondering if any of that was the truth or not. Ben nodded. "Is that who you were talking to?"
Teren met my eyes and nodded. "Yeah."
I held his gaze for a long time but I couldn't read him. I didn't know if he was being honest or not. I hated that I didn't know for sure. I hated how good he was at lying and yet, at the same time, I understood why he was. I searched his eyes while he searched mine, and I decided to just let this one go. We had enough issues between us tonight. Before I looked away, I noted that he was right about his eyes; there was a distinct enhancement that I could easily see, but a normal human would write it off as an odd play of light from the fire. His eyes were fine. His eyes were no longer the problem.
After cleaning up, Tracey sat in Hot Ben's lap, and before long, their fun flirting turned much more serious. Giggling, they hastily said goodnight and darted off to their massive tent. They never even looked twice at Teren's eyes-they only had eyes for each other.
Teren and I sat on opposite sides of the fire, staring at each other. His eyes bored into mine, reflecting the firelight back to me-orange irises in a sea of startling white. Our stare down was interrupted by a ranger walking down the road.
"Ten o'clock, fires out." He told us, politely, but firmly, as he walked by.
Knowing that all Californians took fire safety pretty seriously, we stood and immediately doused the flames. Teren's eyes obviously glowed as the last of the orange flames died out.
"I'll be in the tent," he muttered.
"I'll be there in a minute," I replied.
I watched his form in the darkness, his glowing eyes turning to regard me once before ducking into the safety of the tent and disappearing. I sighed and grabbed a flashlight, making my way to the bathrooms before bed-I had no desire to pee outside.