Be Rude but Love Me | ✔

CHAPTER 37

Despite having slept late last night, I'm the first on my feet the next morning. I peek out through the unzipped opening of the tent and let the bright sunlight illuminate my face. I breathe in the fresh morning air and smile: nature.

Quick, I wash myself and come back to wake up everyone. "Wake up! Get up! Stop sleeping, you lazy butts! Woohoo!" Both hands at the sides of my face, I start shouting their names. "Will!" I receive a shut up! "Ellie!"

"If Lucy wasn't there I'd say fuck you!" I want to tell her it doesn't make much difference now that she's said it but I realize that is exactly what she had in mind all along.

So I move on. "Yann!" I don't expect an answer and I don't get one. "Yann! Yann! Ya–"

"Fuck you, Graham!" There, more forthright than Ellie, I like that.

"Lucy!" She's the nicest one so far and replies with an I'm up! "James, get up James!"

He as well is nice enough to say he's up instead of using expletives like the others did.

"Waking us up like that, someone would think you would have at least cooked breakfast." That's Will grumbling as he crawls out of his tent.

I place both hands on my hips and glare at him. "I'm not your maid. Get your breakfast yourself."

He rolls his eyes and disappears again in the tent. My eyes skid away to Yann who's sitting at the opening of his own little private tent and is staring at me.

Surprise seizes me as I see him smiling at me; I've been expecting a different attitude from him considering last night but I am glad to see he is the Yann from last night, the Yann I've grown to love – as a friend, of course.

"Where's breakfast?" Ellie whines, soon backed up by a half-sleeping Lucy who mumbles about breakfast as well.

I roll my eyes in defeat and move away to go fetch a frying pan and our camping stove.

Once everyone has gone to get washed, Yann comes out of his tent with clothes in his hand. I smile to myself as I see him holding a toothbrush and a toothpaste like a little boy. I try to calm down my racing heart and turn my back to him as I light our stove, placing the frying pan on the burning flame. I break the eggs, watching as the yolks and whites glide down into a bowl.

When I stand back up, I sense a presence behind me. I don't need to turn around to know that it's him. I take in a deep breath when I suddenly find it hard to breathe. He's standing right behind me and I feel his breath on my neck. Then all of the sudden, one of his hands comes resting on my waist. Again, I suck in a deep breath and try to get my heart to beat at a more reasonable pace. My attempts are futile. If anything, my heart seems to beat even faster.

And the most unexpected thing happens. Yann plants a soft kiss on the back of my neck. It's featherlike, fleeting but I feel it nonetheless. I shiver at the light touch, closing my eyes involuntarily as I relish in the warm feeling that takes over my whole body. His hand squeezes my waist gently as his lips remove from my skin, still brushing ever so slightly, eliciting goosebumps over my flesh.

I feel his breath at my nape as he says, "You're an amazing woman, Graham."

Then he's gone.

***

Today, our little excursion consists in going to a secret place, very beautiful and magic according to what Ellie says. But as Ellie has very poor taste, I know not to expect much of that magic place.

To my surprise, Lucy has decided to walk with me today. Will has replaced James and keeps company to Ellie, and James and Yann are left behind. I keep glancing back to make sure they aren't at each other's throats like two animals but Yann seems to be in another world with a pensive but not worried frown on his face.

"So, what were you and Yann discussing yesterday about me?"

Lucy gives me her best innocent yet guilty face. "Why do you think that?"

She knows by the glare I give her that there is no use in trying to deny. "It was obvious. So, spill the beans."

She shakes her small head at me. "I'm not supposed to tell. I promised him I wouldn't tell."

Mustering up the most conniving and trustworthy face I can, I tell her, "You can trust me, he won't know you told me."

But the little brat shakes her head. "I promised."

I keep giving her the look, the face, but she doesn't give in. "Since when do you keep promises?" I shout in exasperation.

Lucy is the last person I would tell – or should I say the only person I wouldn't tell – my secrets to. It would go from mouth to ear endlessly and it would all be out in the open, no longer a secret.

"Since I know stuff."

And she grabs my hands as she gambols, pointing to what she thinks nature has to offer as beautiful. A bird here, a caterpillar there, an unknown mushroom to her. She forgets my insistence from before and speaks to me as if nothing had happened.

My eyes steal a glance at the guys behind me once more, and I notice that James has left Yann far behind, or that Yann has left James far ahead, I cannot tell. I wonder if they'll ever get over that feud between them.

We soon take a pause after three hours, drinking some water and resting our legs. Lucy eats a little bit of everyone's food, careful not to give any of hers when I ask. She says I've already had mine. As Ellie announces that our march resumes, I reach out for Lucy's hand but she escapes and prefers to go bother Yann again.

"Abandoned?" I turn back to Ellie who's noticed Lucy's betrayal. She smiles at me, "That kid is impossible. You can walk with me if you want."

I gladly accept her offer, looking ahead of me to see Will on the phone. I don't know whether his body is tense from the exertion the climbing requires or from some sort of irritation he feels with his interlocutor. And as this second thought occurs to me, I tell myself it must be Yann's brother, Keven.

"You know Keven as well, don't you?"

I give her a look that says, don't give me any bullshit right now and she knows not to lie to me. "Yes, why?"

I shrug. "Just wanted to know if you knew him."