t h i r t y - s i x

*

Sam has been unusually quiet since we left our lunch spot. We ended up whiling away quite a bit of time there, languishing in a quiet spot of wooded land beside a river, and we've been on the road for two hours. If I could count, I'd be able to count on both hands the number of cars we've passed in that time. These roads are so quiet that it's eerie, and Sam's uncharacteristic silence only adds to that.

Ordinarily, like Arjun, he spends our driving time sharing anecdotes or cracking jokes, or educating us about every valley and river and lake we pass. He has stories for everything and everywhere, it seems, from places he's been with exes to rivers he's swum in on treks, but he has hardly said a word more than necessary for two full hours.

It's beginning to freak me out, now that I've latched onto it. It's getting late, after six o'clock, and my maps app tells me that we're still three hours from San Francisco. Something tells me that may not be right. If I was up in the front, I'd quiz him, but he has Klara as co-pilot and she is absorbed in queuing up music and spamming her Instagram feed.

Young-mi's back to her row now that we've eaten and she's dozing off against the window in a post-food daze, and I'm sitting sideways with one foot up on the seat next to me, the other foot stretched across Arjun. Between us is a stack of cards held in place by a makeshift clothes border, and we're on our fifth game of snap. I've won once, purely because there were no matches until I put down my second-to-last card and by some fluke, I noticed before Arjun.

It's not my favourite game, but it's better than I-spy, and it's more fruitful than what Sam calls the license plate game which, it turns out, is pretty hard to play when we have the road to ourselves. We did play a couple of rounds of twenty questions, but it turns out I know a lot less about famous people than I thought I did.

"Snap!" Arjun yells, slapping the pile a moment before I do, and he laughs dirtily when I have to pick up almost the entire deck. This game will be over soon too. Six cards later, it is.

The end of the game coincides with Sam pulling over on the side of the road, right next to the entrance for what looks like a rundown campsite near Tulloch Reservoir. He kills the engine and turns around.

"Right, folks. There's something iffy going on with the van right now and I'd rather be safe than sorry," he says. "Also, I'm not legally allowed to drive you guys if I have any reasonable doubt. So, we're gonna have to stay here for a bit while I try to figure it out and call my guy. Really sorry about this."

"Hey, you're just doing your job," Kristin says. "San Francisco will wait for us."

He gives her a grateful smile and meets everyone's eye, and we all nod along. As excited as I am to see the Golden Gate City, I'm quite happy for the trip to be delayed or drawn out, and to have a chance to get out and stretch my legs.

Sam pulls into the campsite and heads in to talk to the owner and explain our situation, and the eight of us gather around a picnic table on a patch of grass in need of a mow. The table's legs are one with the ground, weeds tangling up the wood, and it looks as though it might fall apart when we crowd onto it four-a-side but the slats hold.

Young-mi sits next to me and links arms, resting her head on my shoulder so her hair tickles my cheek. "Hi," she says. her hand finding mine and lacing our fingers together.

"Hey."

Arjun's sitting on my other side, perched on the very edge of the bench with his arm around my waist to anchor himself. He leans forward slightly to see Young-mi across me and he asks, "So what exactly are you doing once the trip's over?" He scans the table and opens the question up to everyone.

"My classes start in one week," Young-mi says. "After this, I stay in San Francisco for two days, then I fly back to Los Angeles for university orientation."

"That's so exciting," Kristin says, resting her chin in her hand and gazing at Young-mi. "I would love to study here, but I think I'm done with education. I don't really want to start another degree at twenty-four."

"What're you guys doing?" Carrie asks Kristin, leaning back against Ade with her arms folded.

"We're doing another trek," Klara says. "There's one that leaves from San Francisco in a few days, and it ends in Seattle. So, twelve more days camping, and then we fly to New York, and then we fly home in about three weeks. And you?"

Envy rears up in me. I want to do that, to slip straight into another trek and see more of this country. I want to explore every inch, off the beaten track.

"We switched our flights," Carrie says, nodding at Ade. "We're going to take the train cross-country to New York and fly back to London from there."

"Hey," I pipe up, meeting Carrie's eye and glancing at Ade, "how come all eyes are on Arjun and me when you guys have been hooking up since, like, day one?"

Arjun chuckles behind me; Ade gives me a wry smile; Carrie raises her eyebrows at me.

"Because we've been hooking up since, like, day one," she says, mimicking my accent with startling accuracy. "We gave into the chemistry rather than tortured everyone with ten days of clueless flirting. And it was day three, actually. I think."

I blush and Arjun tightens his arm around my waist, patting my thigh.

"We got there eventually," he jokes. "We just had to take the scenic route."

Carrie laughs, then glances at Brannan, who has been the quietest by far on this trip. He seems happy enough, and I think he and Sam have got pretty close. "How about you, Bran? What're your post-trip plans?"

"New York for me too," he says, pulling up one leg that he wraps his arm around. "My dads are flying out to meet me and we're going to stay there for a week, for a family holiday."

Ugh. I want to do what everyone's doing. Extra treks and long train trips and family holidays in the Big Apple.

Brannan nods at me. "What're you doing?"

I sigh and say, "I'm staying in San Francisco for a couple of days, then I'm flying home. Nothing quite as exciting as what all of you are doing."

"Same," Arjun says. "I'm beginning to think I should have made more of this trip." He lets out a quiet laugh. "I'm going away with my parents for a few days once I'm back, but that's all I've got planned. Maybe once we're home, we should do a road trip across Great Britain."

"So ... a ten hour drive," Carrie teases. "You should do what I did once, a few years ago – a couple of friends and I took my car on the Channel Tunnel train did a road trip. We just spent, like, a month driving across continental Europe. I highly recommend."

"That sounds amazing," Arjun says. "I love driving, though I'm not sure how well I'd cope with driving on the other side."

"That, I admit, was pretty hard. There were several near-misses," she says, "but it was totally worth it."

Arjun squeezes me and asks, "Want to drive around Europe?"

I know from his tone that he's joking, but I say, "As long as you're behind the wheel. I had to get medical clearance to even take my test, and I only just passed, on my third attempt. I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be on the road and I only drive routes that I know inside out."

"In that case, it's time for you to start studying a European road map," he says with a grin. I roll my eyes and lean against him, almost toppling both of us off the bench.

"If you want to die on a back road in Hungary then sure, let me drive you," I say. "If you want to witness my vehicle handling skills with a degree of relative safety, you can sit in the backseat while I drive five miles to take my sister to her piano lesson."

Young-mi pats my knee. "I am sure you are not so bad."

I hold her gaze for a moment and she grimaces.

"Ok, I am little surprised you are allowed to drive."

"Anyway," Arjun says, "how about some cards?" He shakes out the deck we've been playing with as Sam comes out of the campsite's reception, raking a hand through his hair.

"Bad news I'm afraid," he says when he reaches us. "It's gonna take my guy at least five hours or so to get out to us, and who knows how long to get the job done, and I'm not allowed to be out on the road past midnight. We're gonna have to spend the night here." He pulls a face; he looks absolutely distraught, and sinks his hip against the table.

"No worries," Adedayo says, taking the lead. "Are we good to camp here tonight?"

"Yup, got the go ahead from the owner. I'm really sorry about this, folks."

"It's fine, it's not your fault," Kristin says. "We'll get to San Francisco tomorrow, right?"

"Absolutely. We can get on the road early and be there for nine a.m.," he says, "but we'll have to miss our first night there, and we'll have to figure out something to do for dinner tonight."

"Brannan and I could head to the nearest store," Ade says, meeting Brannan's eye. Brannan nods and stands. "I think it's only a couple of miles from here..." He loads up his map and types and nods. "Yeah, there's a grocery store about a mile and a half away."

"We can go and get food," Brannan says. He ties his long hair into a loose bun at the back of his head.

"That'd be really helpful actually, guys, yeah. Thank you. Take the food kitty and walk safe, ok?"

We disperse once the guys have left, and Arjun helps me over to a spot Sam shows us. We're the only people here, the campsite absolutely silent. It looks like the kind of place that people avoid, with its weeds and its ramshackle outbuildings, but I trust Sam's judgment more than my own.

Young-mi carries a tent over each shoulder and while she and Arjun set to work putting them up – god knows where Carrie's disappeared off to, and I'm fairly sure she's never put up her tent – I lean against a tree and watch them work.

For some reason, the act of erecting the tent is a lot quicker when I'm not involved. I can't possibly put my finger on why that is, but within a few minutes, there are two tents side by side, separated by a couple of metres of dry, scorched grass. Arjun busies himself getting our stuff inside, and Young-mi comes over to me.

"You look very happy," she says.

"I am. Thanks, by the way. I don't think I've thanked you yet, for all your advice and your encouragement."

She puts her arm around me and smiles. "It is my pleasure," she says, her voice soft and quiet. "I told you, I knew. He like you a lot, and now you know too."

"Now I know too," I say.

"If you use my gift tonight, please be quiet. Our tents are very close."

"You're as bad as Klara," I say with a groan, shifting away from her and almost stumbling on a tree root that reaches out of the ground. "Speaking of Klara..."

Young-mi looks away from me, pointedly staring at the sky with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. "What you going to say?"

"I'm going to ask if you're going to take her up on her offer. You said you wanna kiss a girl; she's a very cute, if mischievous and tricky, girl. Well, woman. She likes girls too, and from what she says, it sounds like she has a fair amount of experience. And she literally offered to do you a favour."

Young-mi shakes her head to herself, her cheeks slowly turning darker and darker. I wouldn't be surprised if her glasses started fogging up from the heat. "I ... I don't know. I have never kissed anybody. It would be strange. I think I would need drink, or two."

"I'm pretty sure there are some beers left in the cooler," I say, and I drop my voice when I spot Klara heading this way. "I'm gonna head into my tent. You ... stay here."

Before she realises what's going on, I manage to hop over to my tent and awkwardly drop to my knees to crawl inside. My clumsy entrance makes Arjun jump, then laugh.

"Did Young-mi push you over?" he asks, plumping my pillow and then his, a strangely domestic gesture that makes my heart swell.

"Klara was coming over. I figured I'd give them some space," I whisper, collapsing onto my sleeping bag on top of my mat, which Arjun has laid out for me.

"Ooh. Reckon she'll go for it?" He packs a few things into his bag and shunts it to the end of his mat, and lies down next to me.

"Nope. I don't think so, anyway. She's a romantic. I reckon she'll have to really like someone to kiss them."

"Oh yeah? I wonder what that'd be like."

"Hmm. Maybe something kind of like this," I say, and I roll over and hook a leg over his waist. In a moment, I'm straddling him, my knees either side of his hips and my hands either side of his head, and I bend my elbows to lower myself until our mouths meet. He leans into the kiss, pushing up as I pin him down, and both of his hands snake around to the back of my neck.

When I pull away and sit straight, his hips firm beneath me, he's grinning so hard that I don't care how unflattering my angle is right now.

"What was that, sorry?" He fakes a frown. "I'm not sure I heard correctly."

I lean down close, bracing my hand on the floor to hover by his ear, and I whisper, "I think you heard just fine."

Arjun snags me and pulls me to his lips again, and I lie flat on top of him when my arms get tired. He laces his hands together over the small of my back and grins against my lips, pushing off his glasses when they get in the way, and immediately scrabbling for them again.

"I changed my mind," he says. "I don't like not being able to see you."

I find the glasses and put them on, and I hover right in front of his face. "How do I look?"

"With your eyes. Your flawless eyes, which serve you just perfectly without the need for an expensive and inconvenient prescription."

"You're so smooth."

"I can be rough."

I choke at his insinuation and try to cover it up but Arjun's already laughing, his chest shaking under me. He rolls me off carefully, his arms wrapped around my back as he lays me down beside him and puts his hand over my heart. He must be able to feel it thudding out of control.

I don't know how long we lie there like that. I'm flat on my back; he's on his side next to me with his hand on my chest, the other propping up his head. It's a soft moment. At least, in every sense but one. I don't have much control over how aroused I am right now, how much my body wants him, but for once, I don't have to hide it. He's in the same boat.

"How long d'you reckon it'll take the guys to get food?" I ask.

"At least an hour." Arjun checks his watch. "They've been gone twenty minutes."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I ask, half joking at the cliché. Arjun's eyes cut to my crotch and his hand moves down from my chest to my stomach. I stop breathing. He meets my gaze again, those dark eyes burning a hole in me.

"I think so."

I lean back. "Wait, no, you're gonna have to spell out exactly what you're thinking because I've spent over a week trying to figure out what's on your mind so clearly I'm not very good – I need to hear it from your mouth."

He laughs and sighs against my shoulder. "Well," he says, that word alone so deep and sexy, "there are several ways to deal with this ... situation"--he looks down at the strain in my shorts, and his--"and I don't particularly want to revert to my anti-spank bank when I'm here with a very cute guy I like a lot."

"Your anti-spank bank?" Incredulity laces my face; I can feel my features contort at his words. "What on earth is that?"

"You know, stuff you think about to turn yourself off," he says with a little shrug, as though that's a common expression. "But ... I don't want to turn myself off." He nudges my cheek with his nose and presses a kiss to my jaw. "I think I'd prefer the alternative, if that's ok?"

I shift my position so my hand can brush his cheek and his chest and slowly travel down to his waistband. He holds my gaze, until my hand grazes his zipper and he closes his eyes, swallowing hard. When he opens his eyes, I gently push his shoulder so he's flat on his back and I can't tear my eyes from his.

As I sit on his thighs and kiss him and unbutton his shorts, I beg myself not to overthink this. If I overthink it, someone will get hurt or I'll fuck it up, and I don't want to ruin something I've literally been dreaming about.

"Is this ok?" I ask, painfully aware that this is new to him.

He nods and takes a deep breath and curls his hand around my wrist, then cups the back of my head. "It's definitely ok."

*

One thing guaranteed to ruin the mood, I have just discovered, is a breathless, red-faced Young-mi ducking into the tent only to shriek and trip over backwards when she realises what she's interrupting.

It's pretty hard to disguise the fact that I'm straddling Arjun's lap with his dick in my hand as he arches his back to kiss me. I'm not sure how much she saw in that flash of a moment, but certainly enough to make a scene in her head.

Arjun throws his arm across his eyes and groans. "Hold that thought," he mutters. He was close, but something tells me the moment's over now. I'm paralysed on his lap, wide-eyed and silent, until he nods for me to dismount. I slip onto my side of the tent and pull my pillow over my lap and once Arjun has zipped up to his shorts, I call out to Young-mi.

"Are you ok?"

"Yes! I am so sorry!" she calls back. Arjun reaches out and pulls back the tent flap, and Young-mi is sitting on the other side looking a little dishevelled, clutching a skinned elbow.

"You're bleeding," Arjun says, sounding surprised. He holds out a hand to help her up and haul her into the tent, but she hesitates. After a strange second, he laughs. "My hands are clean."

Unfortunately. We hadn't got very far before her interruption.

"I am so sorry," she says again, shaking her head as she sits down between our rumpled sleeping bags.

Arjun passes her a tissue, which she holds to her elbow. It's just a scrape, barely any blood, and certainly nothing to alert Sam to – especially considering I'm at least partly to blame for her injury. I really don't want everyone knowing that she hurt herself from recoiling at the sight of me giving Arjun a handjob.

"It's ok," I say. As annoying as it is to be interrupted, I can't be mad at Young-mi. "We can finish up later."

Arjun snorts a laugh. Young-mi's cheeks turn an even deeper shade of red and she covers her face.

"Why were you rushing in here?" he asks, surreptitiously covering his lap as though Young-mi hasn't already seen it all.

"I, uh..."

"You have to tell us, considering what you've just seen," I say. "Tit for tat. An eye for an eye."

"Lex talionis," Arjun adds with a serious nod, as though either Young-mi or I know what the fuck that is. He reads our expressions and says, "It's Latin. The law of retaliation."

"Please don't tell me you studied Latin." My words come out with a grimace that he mirrors.

"Only for seven years."

"Fucking hell," I mutter, distracted for a moment by the horror of the thought alone of Latin. "Anyway. Young-mi. Spill the beans. You're looking very flushed."

Almost as flushed as I'm feeling, though I'm trying to suppress my humiliation.

"I..." She trails off again, her eyes shifting between us. "Um. Klara just left."

"She left?" Arjun asks, but he's cut off by my gasp when I realise what she's saying.

"Oh my god! You kissed her!" I cry out. Young-mi lunges at me and presses her finger to my lips, and once I'm silent, she nods.

"Just little bit," she says, holding her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "We talked a bit, I told her I never kissed anyone. She ask if I want to, I say yes, and she say she can teach me."

"Holy shit. And you did."

"We did." She nods, still looking a little wide-eyed and mortified.

"And? How was it?" I ask, unconsciously leaning towards her.

Young-mi rubs her cheeks as though she's trying to erase her blush, and she says, "I never knew before that a tongue is so soft."

"Look at you, frenching away! I never knew you were so wild," Arjun teases.

"No, I am not wild at all," she says. "It was just kiss. My first kiss, at last. It was nice; Klara is very nice. Very soft. You are the wild ones." She wiggles her fingers. "I know what I saw."

"Ok, time for you to go," Arjun says, and he makes like he's going to push her out of the tent. She squeaks and throws up her hands.

"I am not judging you! If I knew you were doing that, I would be far away. I am very sorry to ruin your moment."

"You can say that again," Arjun mutters. He's only joking, but Young-mi shuffles closer and puts her hands on his knees, and she looks deep into his eyes.

"I am very sorry to ruin your moment," she says. "Tonight, I will stay away. You can finish."

"Thanks for your permission," I say. She cracks a smile, her blush finally fading.

"You are welcome. You know this make me very happy." She points at us and then brings her hands together. "I will leave you now. I would hug you but..." She gives me a look, eyebrows raised, her lips slightly curled. "I know where your hands have been."

Once she has left, Arjun turns to me and lets out an almighty sigh.

"As much as I want to pick up where we left off," he says, stretching out a leg and poking my thigh with his toe, "I think we're best off waiting until nightfall."

"Agreed."

I start counting down the minutes to sunset. 

*

oh, these disastrous children, I love to write them. I hope you enjoyed this!