Page 64 of The Perfect Deal
The sickening feeling that had begun to consume me only a moment ago now traveled up my esophagus, the taste of bile in the back of my throat so strong, I truly thought I might vomit. What in the world was she talking about?
“That’s right,” Karrie said, sheer joy beaming off her face. “We are going on a date as soon as camp is over. I’m so excited. I keep trying to decide what I should wear.”
“Definitely go with red,” Tara suggested. “You look really good in red, Miss Karrie.”
“You think?” Karrie wrinkled her nose and tapped her chin with one finger, clearly loving all of the attention she was getting from the girls. I couldn’t speak. My eyes were starting to mist over as I contemplated what was going on. How had I missed this?
“See,” Karrie continued. “This is just a testimony to all of you to keep pursuing your dreams. Last year around this time, I mentioned how I thought Josh was the perfect man, and you asked me if I had a crush on him. It’s taken a full year for the two of us to realize we have feelings for one another, but it’s finally happened. All this time, I’ve been dreaming of him, and it turns out he likes me, too. He was just too shy to let me know until a few days ago. Now, we have our first date planned, and my life couldn’t be more perfect.”
“That’s great, Miss Karrie.” Something about Elizabeth’s tone seemed not as sincere as usual. “I’m happy for you.”
“Thank you, Lizzy,” she said, and I felt the girl next to me cringe. She hated it when people called her that. Karrie always abbreviated people’s names even though they didn’t like it. Like calling JoshuaJosh. It always bothered me when she did that since he didn’t really like it. At least, he’d always told me he didn’t like it. Maybe there was more about Joshua that I didn’t know. Was it possible Karrie was more of a Joshua expert than I was?
The conversation around me shifted as the girls started talking about cute boys at camp or boyfriends back home. I kept a smile plastered on my face and willed myself to nod along and be present, but in my mind, I was going over everything that had transpired between Joshua and me this summer, trying to figure out how the two of us had had sex twice, kissed several times, and talked about our future all while he was secretly dating Karrie.
Karrie had mentioned that they’d just decided to go on this date recently. I went over everything I knew about the two of them, and an image popped into my head. I almost made an audible noise as pieces of the puzzle fell together.
The day we’d gotten back from Florida, I’d seen Karrie leaving his office with that huge grin on her face, similar to the one she wore now. Was that because she’d been in there with him talking about their relationship? Perhaps being away from her in Florida was all Joshua needed to make him realize he had true feelings for her.
Gulping back a groan, I continued to go over everything, thinking about how he’d been treating me lately. We’d been spending so much time together here. I hadn’t seen him go out of his way to speak to Karrie or even smile at her. Was that because he didn’t want me to know? If he was trying to keep her a secret, he would do everything he could to hide their relationship from me while sneaking off with her behind my back.
There’d been a few times when Karrie had said she was going for a walk or down to the lake. Maybe she was secretly meeting him there. The two of us had met at the lake during the last camp session, so it could happen without anyone knowing.
I didn’t want to believe it, but it wasn’t as if I’d never been caught off guard by the way a man had treated me before. Grady’s face appeared in my mind’s eye. He had been awful to me, and it had completely blindsided me. I’d had no idea that he was capable of being such a colossal asshole until he admitted that he’d never been interested in anything but fucking me. Landon had wanted to pound him into the ground. I would’ve let him, too, but Grady slipped away. If Landon ever saw him again, even all these years later, he was bound to ram his fist down his throat.
“All right girls, it’s lights out.” Drill Sergeant Karrie was back, despite the nice conversation we’d been having. The moment the clock ticked over to ten, she was ready for everyone to hit the hay. “We have a busy day tomorrow, so let’s get to our own beds so we can rest.”
Reluctantly, the girls pulled themselves off our beds and headed to their bunks. I waited until all of them were settled before heading to the bathroom to get ready for bed.
In the mirror, I could see in my own expression that something was bothering me. I looked like I was about to cry. How had the girls missed that? Thank goodness Karrie hadn’t noticed. The last thing I needed was for her to think I was jealous of her.
But if what she said was true, I was, wasn’t I? It made no sense for her to lie about it, though. So why wouldn’t she be telling the truth?
Sighing, I finished up and headed to bed, glad that the next day was our last one here. If I had to pretend to be nice to Joshua for more than a few hours after what I’d just been told, I didn’t think I’d be able to do it.
I just couldn’t figure out why he would treat me this way. Didn’t he really like me? Hadn’t he always? I’d thought so, but then, the last time I’d been here, he’d mistreated me, too.
Maybe Karrie was simply a less complicated choice. Perhaps he knew Landon wasn’t serious when he said that the two of us could date, and Joshua simply wasn’t willing to take the chance.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, my earplugs in place to drown out the sound of Karrie’s snoring, but every breath she took felt like a jackhammer to my soul. Everything about this situation left my heart aching and my head hurting. I had found a way to overcome what had happened between Grady and me, but losing Joshua would be a million times worse.
I didn’t think I could ever recover.
39
JOSHUA
Waking up on the last day of summer camp was always bittersweet, especially when it was session two. And especially this year since that meant that Liberty and I would be going back home, back to our old life, back to tiptoeing around behind Landon’s back.
At least, we would be forced to do that for a little while as we tested out the waters to make sure that Landon was serious when he said he didn’t mind me dating his sister. As much as I wanted to leap in with both feet and embrace this newfound Landon, I’d known the guy long enough to realize there was a good chance he was going to change his mind once he actually saw the two of us together. That’s just how he was.
He had a picture in his head of what he thought our romance should look like, and if any of the lines got blurred or didn’t follow along exactly like he thought they should, he’d try to upend the whole thing, as if we could just amend our feelings based on what he’d like for us to do.
Sighing, I stretched and got out of bed, wishing I’d had the opportunity to bring Liberty back here at least once this camp session. But I’d avoided that situation because it hadn’t been a good idea to dive in so deep. We’d made out a little when she came over to show me her pictures, but that was it. Until the situation with Landon was a non-issue, we had to take it slow for sanity’s sake.
After a shower, I got dressed and headed to the cafeteria. Memories of making breakfast with Liberty for everyone early on in this session had me laughing. I couldn’t wait to see her smiling face as I entered the room.
Only, she wasn’t smiling. In fact, Liberty looked miserable. I stopped in my tracks, a few feet inside the entryway, listening to the hum of the kids talking to one another as they ate their final breakfast here this summer. My eyes were glued to that beautiful face. Her mouth was turned down in a frown as she marched her eggs around her plate with her fork but didn’t actually ever take a bite.