Days In (Parrish&Darius #2)

Day 17

Parrish Interlude II

I knew that I could find an empty jar in the arts and crafts cabin. Darius said that in his introduction. He seemed stoked to have free reign over the tour, and talked non stop about the camp and its history.

And because I couldn't help but love his enthusiasm I listened to every word. He said that technically, the camp is in national park grounds. The owners are a couple of lovely betas, or at least they looked lovely on the website's pictures. The camp had been in their family way before the park came to be.

The couple got some fancy lawyers that declared it a historical place and that's why it was still running. They take good care of this place. Over the summer the regular staff comes and organizes the camp. The school makes the trip right at the end of spring before the real haze begins, and everything is fully stocked for the kids. Including the arts and crafts cabin.

I was closing the doors of the cabin when I saw Darius walking towards us.

"Hey." He waved at me.

"Mom, look! I got it in a jar!" Kody announced proudly, lifting the jar in his hand for Darius to see.

For a moment there, I saw a glimpse of Darius himself when he was Kody's age. His mom once told me that he was quite the wild kid, taking walks alone into the woods and grabbing whatever bug came across his way.

I bet he was adorable.

It was a shame that she couldn't show me any pictures because Darius hid them.

"I can see that, now you need to put a little stick on some dirt to make it feel like a home," Darius leaned down to take a look at the jar, "we can do that later, why don't you go back to your group?"

Like the obedient little boy he was, Kody did as he said and walked away. Darius turned to me as soon as he was out of ear shot, he fidgeted with the end of his shirt.

"Can we talk?"

With all honesty, talking with him was the last thing I wanted to do, but seeing him act nervous made me want to mess with him a little.

"You send my son to terrorize me with a bug, I get the message."

"No, that's not it," he shook his head, and his voice went a little higher, "I just needed a minute with you. I'm sorry it bothered you, I swear I just wanted to talk. I'll tell Kody not to do that again."

"I'm just messing with you." I flashed him a grin, making him calm down visibly.

"Oh," he chuckled and looked down, "okay, so, I'm really sorry about that night, and the morning after... The way I behaved wasn't ideal, it's not that I didn't want to and I didn't mean to say that it was a mistake. I mean, the way we did it wasn't how I wanted it to go down, but-" his cheeks were flushed red.

His rambling reminded me of the first time he asked me to sleep with him. He kept going on and on about nonsense, just like that.

Is that what he's asking now?

What did I think of him that night? That he was weird probably, but also kind of cute. If I say that I never looked at him that way before that night I would be lying. There wasn't much to do about it anyway. He was dating Vero and I was still hung up on Lewis. But when we both were alone in the booth I thought 'why not?'

I was thinking the same thing at the moment. When I saw him blushing and fidgeting with his shirt. He said the way we did it wasn't how he wanted it to happen, maybe he didn't mean to tell me loved me, maybe he just wanted to have sex.

In that case I could get behind that.

It would probably end in disaster but I just wanted him to want me, in any way.