“Or we can get in the hot tub,” Tina says.
“Fine,” I shout down to them. “I’m doing this.”
I strip, dropping my clothes at my feet. Tina laughs down below, while Oliver watches, arms crossed, with a smile on his face. Once I’m completely nude, I do my best attempt at yodeling: I cup my hands around my mouth and call out, “Yodel-aye-yodel-aye-hee-hoo!”
The sound echoes around the valley, followed by Oliver and Tina’s laughter, and then my own. I grab my clothes and dress as fast as I can. Then I get on my hands and knees and I crawl back to the edge and find the trellis.
Once I’m safely on the ground, Oliver pulls me close to him and kisses me. I can feel him smiling against my lips. “I think you might be my favorite person,” he says.
“Might be?” I repeat. “How much competition do I have?”
He smirks. “Let’s get you inside.”
Even though I ask the question as a joke, I don’t like that he doesn’t answer it. I think about what I thought I heard him say a few minutes ago. He’s made no indication that he’s talking to anyone else, but I can’t help but think of all the girls he’s brought around in the past. I wonder if he still talks to any of them or if there’s a new one he hasn’t told me about. I wonder what he would tell her about me. Am I just some obsessive girl who’s forcing him to go along with this silly ruse for another week, and then she’ll have him all to herself? The thought makes me feel a little sick. It’s not like he’s promised me anything. I knew this when I got into the shower with him earlier. All we agreed to was a fake relationship. I don’t think either of us anticipated the physical aspect of it turning real. I hate the thought that there might have been someone he was talking to before this whole thing started with me.
I hate all of this second guessing, this doubt. I wonder briefly if I’ve fallen back into the same pattern as before. Maybe I’ve become so obsessed with the idea of being with Oliver that I didn’t stop to think about any of this until now. But then it occurs to me that maybetheseare the obsessive thoughts that I need to put a stop to. Oliver hasn’t given me any reason to not trust him. I don’t even know what he said to Tina. My shoulders begin to relax.
“Did you hear her?” Tina asks Ryan when we reach him.
“I think every lumberjack and mountain man in the valley heard her,” Ryan says. “She kind of sounded like a dying coyote.”
“Hey. It wasn’t that bad.” I sit back down on the rug next to Oliver. “Was it?”
Oliver shakes his head. “I thought it was beautiful.”
I laugh and push his arm. “You did not.”
“Oh, did you think I meant the yodeling? Because that’s not the part I was talking about.”
“Get a room, you two,” Tina says.
“If I remember correctly, we were rudely interrupted when we were in our room,” Oliver says.
My cheeks flush. I hand him the dice because it’s his turn and I don’t want the conversation to continue in the direction it’s headed—at least not until I have him alone. He lands on another flag space.
“Why is everyone but Ryan landing on these spaces?” he asks. “It’s not fair.”
Ryan shrugs. “I’m just really good at this game.”
“Bullshit,” Oliver says with a laugh. “It’s pure luck. You can’t be good at rolling dice.”
He picks up a red card to find out who he needs to answer a question about. It’s purple.
Tina cheers. “This better be juicy, and you better not choose to stare,” she warns him.
He picks up the next card. “What do you like most about this person?” he reads. He looks at me. “This is easy.”
I smile. “Okay, let’s hear it,” I taunt him.
“I really like how spontaneous and adventurous Priscilla is,” he says. “And how she’s always ready to do something no one else would do, like climb up on a roof and yodel in the nude.” He pinches his lips together, like he’s thinking. “But, if I had to choose what I like best about her, I think it would be how determined she is to succeed.”
I smile. I’m not expecting how much thought he puts into his answer. He makes eye contact with me before he looks back at Tina and Ryan.
“I guess that’s why I’m in…” He pauses, then restarts. “That’s why I’m so obsessed with her,” he continues.
Tina and Ryan frown at him. I’m too caught off guard to say anything.
“Oh, that’s… interesting,” Tina says.
