Irresistible Compulsions

||Ch. Eleven|| "You dirty little shit!"

I spent the short walk back to camp feeling beyond awkward. My moment of weakness replaying in my head on a loop causing my reddened cheeks to burn hotter.                                                              Dylan on the other hand played it cool. Shit, if I wasn't one half of everything that went down I would've been none the wiser. He looked so utterly unfazed, his usual carefree persona a welcomed opposition to my embarrassed state.

He played it cool but the dirty jokes and sexual innuendos didn't falter, offering me to come sleep in his tent.

I debated getting back into the tent with Adam but quickly talked myself out of it.

Opting for the safest route, I nicked a blanket from his tent and went to sleep in Jake's car.

I laid there for hours, replaying everything over and over again as I tried to make sense of it all. My body remained hot, bothered by arousal. My brain scrambled to comb through every second of tonight, desperately trying to make sense of it.

I'm not sure what time it was when i finally fell asleep but it must have been fucking late because I've had a debilitating migraine since I woke up to the sun piercing through the windscreen about forty minutes ago.

Despite waking up, I stayed laying in Jake's ute with my eyes shut for about half an hour, praying that everyone would think I'm asleep and leave me be.

That didn't exactly go to plan though considering my friend is a stupid slag who thinks it's appropriate to bang on the car windows shouting at me to unlock the doors.

"God, I hate you." I say, massaging my temples in attempt to relieve my headache.

"Piss off! You love me!" She yells in my face.
"Besides. I bare gifts." She says proudly, handing over a piece of banana bread and chocolate milk from the esky.

Can't argue with that.

Munching away at the pitifully small piece of banana bread, I turn my attention towards the circle of tents in front of us.

Everyone's up and moving around. The three girls are sat by the fire pit, eating a similar breakfast to myself while chatting back and forth. The guys on the other hand have already cracked open the crate of alcohol, clearly embracing the whole 'it's five o'clock somewhere' attitude as Liam and and Danny race to see who can scull down their beer the quickest. Dylan cheers on from the side line as Jake and Nick are bent over, clutching their stomach while laughing uncontrollably at the site of Danny choking and coughing his lungs up.

"How was your night?" I ask mindlessly, watching on as the guys crack open another can, repeating the process.

"It was HOT." She gushes. "We went skinny dipping!" Her voice is full of childlike giddiness.

"Mhmm. And then what happened?" I ask through a laugh, knowing there'll be more to the story.

"We shagged in the grass like wild animals."

My stomach ties itself in knots, the memory of last night flooding my thoughts. Give us ten minutes longer, Dylan and I would've been doing exactly that.

"Enough about me. How was your night?"

All excitement in her voice has vanished, replaced by...suspicion?

Did she spot us?

For Christ sake, the bloody woman would never let me live it down, I'd never hear the end of it!

"Not gonna lie, it was pretty uneventful honestly." I say with a sigh, feigning boredom.

"Didn't Adam do it for ya?" She asks through a smirk. My eyes shoot over to stare daggers at her smug expression.

"What're you talking about?!" I yell through an awkward laugh, uncomfortable to say the least. It's not exactly like I can tell her my alibi now can I?

Her smugness grows as she takes in my reaction, proud of herself for getting the desired response. Rolling her eyes at my dumbfound expression, she leans forward and reaches behind her, pulling something out from her back pocket. I barely have a second to wonder before she's throwing my own shorts at me. The ones I'd abandoned last night.

My jaw drops at the sight of it, embarrassment flushing my cheeks as I grab them off her, shoving it in my own pocket.

"You dirty little shit! You could've at least told me!" She cackles away, telling me off.

Wait. 

She thinks I was messing around with Adam down by the river? Not Dylan.

Well that's something at least.

Deciding I'm better off running with this version of the story, I go along with it. "Don't mention it again please. It was a moment of weakness!" I'm not exactly lying, it was definitely a moment of weakness.

"Shit, it really must've been a lousy lay. You sound sound less enthusiastic than a chubby kid in gym class." She says, now somewhat cringing.

My face mirrors her's, cringing at the thought.
"What's new?" I ask sarcastically.

•••        •••        •••

Sarah's an annoying pain in my ass sometimes but she knows when not to pry. She let it go pretty quickly once I'd said I didn't want to go into things. 

It was Danny's idea to have lunch down by the water which pretty quickly led to playing footy. Naturally we all ended up sweaty and overheated, going for a swim to cool off.

The day flew by, morning quickly blending into mid afternoon which soon became early evening.

I'd say there's still a solid two hours of daylight left.

The boys are tossing each other around in the water, wrestling like cavemen. I'm sat with the rest of the girls, laying on a couple picnic blankets amongst the grass as we pick at a platter of cheese and crackers. None of us had bothered getting redressed, opting to bask in what's left of the sunlight by lounging around in our bikinis.

Against our better judgement, we'd obeyed Liam's insistence on leaving our phones in the tents. His rambles were something along the lines of 'kids these days. You all need to stop living life through your screens.' He had a point, aside from the fact it made him sound like a total boomer.

But girls will be girls and not only were we getting antsy without our phones, we'd also decided we couldn't let the opportunity for a decent photo shoot go to waste.

"I'll go grab mine! I need to get another bottle of water anyway." I announce, solving the issue for the rest of the group who mumble a thanks in my direction, preoccupied with the Swiss cheese and salami on crackers they were devouring.

My left leg takes a solid minute to wake up, the prickling sensation of pins and needles nawing away at it.

Considering there's no reception out here, I'm not surprised to find my phone exactly how I left it, no missed calls and no notifications. Reaching for the esky, I practically jump out of my skin at the sound of Adam's voice coming up behind me.

"Grab me a Pepsi will ya?"

"Grab it yourself." I brush him off, not interested in being in his company after the stunt he pulled last night.

An exasperated breath leaves his chest. "Look, I'm sorry about last night." He drags a hand over his face, gathering his thoughts. "I was a dick and I shouldn't have come onto you like that, I clearly got the wrong impression."

Taking in his words I maul them over, trying to decide whether they're sincere. 

"Can we just forget it ever happened?"

Forget? No probably not. Avoid talking about it? Sounds like a plan.

Ignoring his question, I instead throw him a can of soda before stuffing a few more into my arms.

"Let's just bring the whole cooler, you're going to fall on your ass if you try carrying all of them." Amusement laces his voice as he watches me juggle the cans and mobile phones before taking them from me and placing them back into the cooler, shutting it and picking it up with ease.

"Pleasure doing business with ya!" I say satisfactorily, glad I don't have to do any heavy lifting.