Beth Hyland - Fall Into Forever

I can’t say I didn’t try, though. Last week when she told me Cassidy wasn’t going to use her Sasquatch tickets and would sell them to us cheap, I said no. I’d seen the line-up. I had zero interest in going.

Ivy looked at me as if I’d sprouted horns. A big group was road-tripping over here and she really wanted to go. James was no help either. I think his exact words were, “There’s no fucking way I’ll miss it again this year.” Way to support your friend, bro.

Ivy kept pressing. God, she was relentless. Listed off a bunch of the bands as if I didn’t already know who was playing. Shit. I’d given away two tickets the last time I was on the air.

But that was last week, and here I am.

I glance over at Ivy in the passenger seat. With her mismatched sock feet on the dash, she’s keeping time to the music while braiding her hair.

“Looks like you’re ready to get down to business,” I tell her.

“I can’t wait!” Excitement lights up her eyes, making me glad I’m here. With her. I can endure anything if it makes her happy. “Do you think the tent will take long to set up?” she asks. “I can’t wait to check out everything.”

“Stella said it’s easy, but obviously, she hasn’t used it in years.”

“You checked it, right? All the stakes and poles are there?”

“Yep. Laid it all out in her backyard and—”

“Ahhhh.” She points to a car trying to squeeze in front of us. “Don’t let him cut between us and the others. We need to go in as a group to get camping spots next to each other.”

Too late. He’s already too far over. I ease up on the gas so I’m not riding his bumper. “That’s okay. We’ll figure it out.” The guy ends up turning into the RV section, so we’re right behind Kelly and Reece again.

The check-in process goes smoothly and soon, with music blaring around us, we’re all setting up our tents. Ivy wastes no time laying out our sleeping bags and zipping them together. This weekend is going to be fun in more ways than one.

Except for Sunday afternoon.

When O-Twist is playing.

Hopefully, I can talk Ivy into heading out before they take the stage. We’ll be tired, right? Besides, a lot of people leave early on Sunday anyway, so it’s not like we’d be the only ones. If not, though, I’ve already got it figured out. I’ll stay back at the campsite. Pretend I’m hungover. Or too tired. Or that I have a stomachache.

One thing’s for sure. I refuse to see my father in person, even from a distance.

As I pull the cooler out of the trunk and dump in one of the bags of ice we bought at the gas station in Vantage, I hear someone coming up behind me.

“Jon!” a female voice shrieks.

Tina?

Before I can turn around, she jumps onto my back, piggyback-style, and wraps her legs around my waist. Even though it can’t be more than sixty degrees and the weather forecast calls for rain tonight, she’s wearing shorts with cowboy boots. Untangling myself from her bare legs, I push her knees down so she has to stand, then I turn to face her. She adjusts her cowboy hat and flashes me a broad smile. Two other girls are with her, including Sara.

“Hello, ladies.”

“I didn’t think you were coming.” Tina puts her hands on her hips. “Why did you change your mind?”

Before I can answer, I hear the tent zipper and Ivy steps out. With her skinny jeans, short boots and a PSU hoodie under her jean jacket, she’s looking pretty damn hot. “Because I twisted his arm,” she says.

“Yeah, it hurt.”

She comes over to us with a funny little smile on her face. At first, it seems like she’s going to rub up against me, staking her claim for Tina and Sara’s benefit, but no. She slides her arm around my waist and then, when my guard is down, she pokes me right in the ribs. Where I’m really ticklish.

“Aaaaah.” I grab her hands, pull them away and lock them behind her.

She laughs. “Baby.”

Tina has a curious expression on her face as she looks Ivy up and down. “Is it just the two of you at this campsite?”

“The White House guys are there,” I say, letting go of Ivy and pointing to two army-sized tents next door. “Kelly and Reece are on the other side of them.”

“And beyond them,” Ivy says, “are some people from my floor.”

“Can we put up our tent next to yours, then?” Tina asks. “The camp host says each site can sleep up to six people.”

I glance at Ivy to see what she thinks, but I can’t read her expression. Is she indifferent about it or pissed?

Since we’re all packed tightly together, it wouldn’t be much different than if they were in an adjacent campsite, so I tell Tina okay. Most likely, we’ll all be hanging out in one big group anyway, eating and partying.

A few hours later, with the campsite as situated as it’s going to get and our alcohol locked in the trunk of Ivy’s car, we’re sitting on our blanket on the grassy hillside overlooking the stage and sharing an outrageously expensive bottle of water that we bought inside, because they wouldn’t let us bring in our own.

“Having your groupies right next to us better not screw things up,” Ivy says.

Screw what things up? I want to ask, although I have a pretty damn good idea what she means. I take a drink and hand the bottle to her. “They’re not my groupies.”

“Ex-girlfriends, then.”

“Girlfriend,” I say, enunciating the d . “Singular. Uno . Besides, Tina and I never dated, so you can’t really classify her as an ex-girlfriend.”

“Ex-fuck-buddy, then?”

I give her a sheepish smile. “I guess you could say that.”

Something mischievous glints in her eye and she comes closer. “You guess? Does that mean you don’t know?”

“Guys can be pretty fucking clueless,” I say, playing along with her.

She climbs onto my lap, facing me, her arms around my neck. I put my hands on her butt and scoot her closer, growing hard as she slides over me.

“Really?” Then she kisses me, slipping her tongue in my mouth.

She tastes like the wine cooler she had back at the campsite. Only a few thin layers of fabric are preventing me from being inside her right now. I grab her hips and— Fuuuuck. She grinds against me. I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t turn me on to be doing this around all these people. This weekend is already shaping up to be better than I expected.

She pulls away from me slightly. “So. Are we just fuck buddies, too?”

“I can’t believe you’d even say that.” A surge of emotion rushes through me. I know she’s just teasing, but I don’t want her to even joke about it.

As I open my mouth to tell her what she means to me, something behind us draws her attention. She lets out a little scream and jumps up. “Dani!”

I crank my head around to see a group of people approaching. I recognize a few of them from her dorm. “Hey,” I say, getting up and moving our blanket over to make room for theirs.

After Ivy hugs them and returns to my side, I pull her close and entwine my fingers in hers. “We’re not fuck buddies, Ives,” I whisper in her ear. “You mean so much more to me than that.”

She squeezes my hands. “I know. I was just kidding.”

The opening band starts playing, and soon we’re clapping along with the lead singer as the bright orange sun sets behind the stage.

Ivy has managed to soften my heart, daring me to dream again.

And it scares the shit out of me.

Ivy

Jon and I are pretty wasted by the time we stumble to our tent. After the last band finished up, we followed everyone along the trail back to the campground and continued partying at the White House campsite. I don’t know what it is, but the biggest parties always seem to begin and end with them.