“This is the last time I let you drag me hiking with you!” I declared to my brother while struggling to assemble the last few parts of the tent I was going to sleep in tonight. “Was this thing designed by IKEA? There are too many extra parts, for God’s sake!”
“Andrew will help you with it; we have to go so that we can go back before dark.”
My brother and the rest of his college friends were going to attack the mountain peak and I was more than happy to stay behind. The group was okay, but I didn’t quite think I fit – the girls were tall, where I was small; skinny, where I was more than curvy, and it brought back insecurities I thought I had already left behind. Some of the boys did catch my eye but their rude jokes and crude behavior weren’t to my liking. So, I spent the whole morning dragging behind everyone else and counting the minutes towards reaching the camping place.
“I am not sure Andrew can even help himself,” I pointed toward the slow-eyed giant of a boy, who was looking at his own tent like it has just grown two heads and offered him a drink. Quiet and somehow lazy in his movements, he was almost as happy to be here as me, so with a sigh I went through the tent instructions one more time and got my hands on it.
Two hours later we were sitting inside the slightly unstable tent. Andrew had hardly said two words to me the whole time, but managed to trip over his own feet multiple times. He was so helpless, it was endearing.
“I am officially bored! Let’s play a game,” I said, pulling out the deck of cards from the side pocket of my backpack. “Poker?”
“Sure,” Andrew replied. “We don’t have any money, though. What are we playing for? I only have some water and a granola bar we will very soon need, if we will have to stay the night here. You must be starving after a whole day of mountain climbing; here.”
He hastily pushed the bar in my hand and pulled away.
This was the longest sentence I had heard him speak so far, no wonder it left him a little breathless and me slightly stunned.
“This is so nice of you, Andrew! You don’t have to do that, you know! I am perfectly fine.”
“It’s okay,” he murmured.
“There aren’t many of your kind left, you know,” I wondered out loud - the dying species of the gentleman, spare in his words, but taking his coat off in the freezing cold to offer protection for the woman on his hand.
In this line of thought, it was getting chilly in the tent as well, and I pulled a sweater over my head, grateful I was not stubborn enough to refuse to put it in my luggage when my mom insisted.
The static of the artificial material immediately charged my short hair and it flew around my head like a dandelion.
Stifling the burst of laughter in my throat, I waited for Andrew to laugh, too. He didn’t.
“Like an angel”, he whispered and twisted his hands in his lap.
“You are so sweet.”
The words have barely left my mouth, when he snorted under his breath, “Yeah, because that’s what the girls are really looking for, right…”
“Of course they are!” I contradicted.
“Yeah, you can really tell that by the dozens of them, struggling for my attention.” the laugh was bitter-sweet in his throat and my heart hurt.
I took him in for a second – the gentle giant, bothering his lip and picking on his nails in frustration and I rose on my knees. Not breaking eye contact even for a second, I took his large hand and very deliberately pushed it inside my yoga pants, placing it firmly between my legs.
“This is how wet I am for you, sweet, sweet boy,” I said, and offered my lips for a kiss.
When our mouths touched and his breath hissed, I ran my tongue over his lips and whispered, “I want to feel you doing the same thing between my legs,” tugging the hoody over his head.
Aside of the very few sighs and gasps he was quiet, very quiet and for a moment I thought I went too far, pushed too hard for something he was not actually interested in.
“Is this okay?” I searched his eyes for an answer and he nodded.
“I just don’t want to hurt you, that’s all.” He tried to drop his gaze down but I pulled his chin up with my finger.
“I am huge, Kate. Everywhere. And you are… not."
“Sweet, sweet boy," I repeated my sentiment from before and pulled the hoody and tank top over my head in one move.
Left in my sports bra only, I was acutely aware of what the cold has done to my nipples, already hard from the exposure. I might have looked small in comparison in Andrew’s eyes, but I wasn’t exactly a tiny girl. I had curves, too much here and there, and I knew it.
Yet, I have learned long ago to accept and use what I had and was not going to cover myself. One shy person here was enough, so I pushed the straps down my arms and exposed my nipples. Cupping one breast, I teased the nipple and ran my finger over the other. His gaze darkened and he shifted, stretching his legs in front of him.