Everything happens for a reason

Everything happens for a reason 6

Chapter 6: Heading off

I was helping Shani pull down her tent and pack it away in her bag.

"How's things with you and Nate?" I asked, making small talk.

"It's good. Not the best it's been, but it's still good." She smiled at me.

Smiling back I watched as she tried to put the tent into its bag.

We had decided that I would pack away the poles and she would fold the tent up, but she hadn't done the best job of it.

Bits of tent were sticking out in every direction, it looked a bit like she started folding it up, got annoyed at it then gave up and screwed it up in frustration.

I laughed. "How about you let me do that. Can you go get the first aid kits and our coats? It looks like it might rain later on today."

"Ok, thanks so much, I have no idea how to do these tings. I'm not really the outdoors kind of girl. Don't get me wrong, I love all the nature, I just can't do all the stuff that goes with the sightseeing." She smiled sheepishly.

I smiled at her. "Don't worry, we're all bad at something."

She grinned back at me before running off to find the supplies tub.

I sighed. She really didn't know how to do this. I unraveled the mess of a tent and smoothed it down so I could fold it up properly.

I smiled to myself remembering a time when I had to help out a bunch of guys; they really had no clue how to do it either.

I had walked up to them seeing them having trouble and asked if they needed any help.

They just stood their looking at me as if they didn't think I would be able to do any better than they were doing.

I figured I wasn't going to get a yes, just a sarcastic comment, so I had walked up to the guys closest to me and took the tent out of his hands walking round the tent to the other end and folding it up in record time. Once I had finished they all just stood they gaping at me.

I remember laughing and just walking off.

Once everyone had their stuff ready, our packs on our backs. Bret called a meeting. It was all uphill today, and had lots of dense undergrowth.

Bret told us all to get into pairs and listen up. He was trying to sound all important; telling us to stay with our partner at all times, at no point are we allowed to leave their side, we must look out for them and... blah blah blah. I hadn't heard the rest, I knew he would go on about it for a few more minutes before someone stopped him, so I cut in.

"Right so, partners stay together, no running off and getting lost, and don't let them trip over. Does that sound about right to you Bret, did I get it all?" I asked in a bored tone. I really wanted to just get going.

He glared at me and nodded his head turning to Kay and pointing off in the direction of the trail. I rolled my eyes and followed Kay along the trail.

My partner was Josh, and in no time, he was standing right beside me his hand gripping my upper arm. I looked at it questioningly.

He just shrugged. "Safety precautions. Can't have you running off now can we, your kind of important."

"Is that so?" I raised my eyebrows at him a smile playing on the corners of my mouth.

"Well, yeah! Who else is going to cook our meals for us?" He said like it was a stupid thing to ask.

I crossed my arms over my chest and started walking, just catching the grin that had spread across his face. It was infectious and wasn't long before I was grinning too.

Ty and Rose were speaking quietly behind us. We had been walking for quite sometime now and I was begging to feel the strain in my thighs from walking for so long. I called ahead to say I was stopping. I heard a mumbled 'Thank god!' from up head. I couldn't take another step; I plopped down right where I was standing, which happened to be the middle of the path. Rose laughed when she caught up.

"She did the whole, stop and drop didn't she?" She questioned Josh.

"Yeah. She was there one second and then she was gone. I thought she'd fallen over or something." He shook his head at me.

I just grinned at the three surrounding me now. They sat next to me and we pulled out our sandwiches.

I'd made them this morning before helping people with their tents. They weren't the normal boring old Nutella, Jam, or Peanut butter.

I had put ham, cheese, mustard pickles, dip, almost anything they had wanted that we had brought, because we had to use up the cold stuff in the first few days because it would go off otherwise and we didn't have anywhere cool to store it during the day anyway.

I peeled the Glad wrap off my sandwich and took a bite. I'd put ham, cheese and mustard pickles in mine. I looked around our little circle watching them eat.

I noticed how we all sat. It wasn't obvious to anyone who wasn't really looking, but Josh sat next to me, his leg touching mine and when I looked over to Rose and Ty they sort of leaned in towards each other as they ate and talked. It looked really sweet. I pointed this out to Josh and he just smiled a knowing smile.

I wondered what was up with him. It looked like he knew something I didn't. Well two could play at that game; I was sure he didn't know that Rose like Ty.

She'd never told anyone but me before, and I was extremely careful when I spoke to her about it, even when there weren't people around us.

I didn't want anyone to find out from me. It wasn't my little secret to tell, plus I'd promised her that I wouldn't tell a soul and wasn't going to break a promise to my Best friend.