Remarkably, the weekend gets better after that. They don’t have a chance to be alone again, but - maybe she loves camping after all? She of museums and nice hotels, she loves camping. Everything seems calmer here, lighter; the air is cleaner, the sun is warmer, and she can breathe. Maybe Lucas’s onto something.

Lemuel and Lucas build a fire, and they make steaks in the cast iron pan for dinner with some easy Caesar salad that she and Hamil make. Marcia and Jordan take care of the few dishes afterward, and as the sun starts to move lower in the sky, they all gravitate closer to the fire.

Lucas’s face glows like an oil painting with the refracted light from the fire. He’s laughing at something Jordan said, his eyes bright and his grin wide, and all Sarah can do is just look at him and wonder the hell somebody as happy and full of life and genuinely nice could want with someone like her. If she hadn’t been living with him for months now she’d probably think that he was too good to be true. She’s never met anyone quite like him in her life.

Sarah makes a s’more when the materials are dragged out. “If I’d have known, I’d have made homemade marshmallows to bring,” she says.

“Oh man, you haven’t lived until you’ve had a s’more with Sarah’s marshmallows,” Marcia says enthusiastically. “You truly haven’t.”

“Now you tell us!” Lemuel complains.

“I’ll definitely bring them next time,” Sarah promises. She slides her roasted marshmallow between the graham crackers, next to the chocolate. “It’s definitely been a long time since I’ve had one of these. Probably a year."

“Stick with us, buddy!” Lucas proclaims. “We like to head out to the woods a lot. Get all the s’mores in.”

“Hmm.” Sarah smiles at him; she can’t help it. “Did you guys have these last night?”

Hamil shakes his head. “No, we didn’t get here until around supper, then we had to set up everything and eat, and Lucas made us all go to bed early so we could be awake to see you before your race started.”

“Oh.” Sarah blushes and stares at the fire, suddenly glad for its hypnotic dance - no one will be looking at her. “Well, I really - thank you guys so much for coming. It means a lot to me.” And it does; with the exception of Lucas and Marcia, these are people that she’s only even met a few times. Sure, there’s the overlapping benefit of a camping trip, but even if it’d started with that, they’d chosen an entire destination specifically because of her. She’s never felt so loved.

Later, Jordan asks, “Anyone got any new ghost stories?”

“No,” Lucas begins, “but there are two people here who haven’t heard the Rat King story!”

Sarah winces. “Rat King?”

Lemuel reaches over and touches her arm. “It’s a great story.”

“Always worth hearing again,” Delaney agrees, stretching his feet out. They get a little close to the fire, and his ankle gets hit with a small ember. “Ouch!” he exclaims, rubbing it. “Hey guys, the fire is hot.”

Lucas grins at him. “Good tip, buddy!”

Sarah just shakes her head, then tugs her knees into her chest and settles in while Lucas starts telling them about a construction job he’d once had that happened to be at a Dunking Donuts location. Lucas’s not that great at telling stories, generally speaking - that much she could’ve guessed - so he meanders off into tangents for a little while until finally revealing the disgusting climax of the tale, which is about a petrified dead rat that they’d found underneath a pile of stale doughnuts.

Sarah is really, really glad she didn’t hear this story when she was still in her homemade doughnuts phase. That alone would’ve gotten her to switch to croissants.

“That’s absolutely vile,” Marcia marvels, laughing. “I can’t believe that. I’ll never have Dunking Donuts again.”

“I’m sure there aren’t rats in every location,” Lucas hedges. “But the food’s not that great so you’re not missing much.”

“Oh, you take that back,” Hamil says warningly.

“No, I stand by it,” Lucas proclaims. “You want to fight, buddy?”

Sarah rolls her eyes. “Oh my god, every time with you two.” She turns to Lemuel. “What’s wrong with them?”

Lemuel shrugs. “There’s a lot wrong with men. Where do you want me to start?”

∞∞∞

Sarah sleeps like a log.

It’s incredible. She’s usually a pretty poor sleeper. Changing that is on her list of self-care goals to accomplish - most of which are unchecked, save for ‘run a marathon’ now - but until she finds the magic elixir to sleeping well, she’s learned to deal with it. More or less, anyway. But not last night - Sarah’s not sure if it’s the twenty-six miles she ran or the fresh air all day or some combination of the two, but she’d gone to bed earlier than everyone else after nearly falling asleep by the fire and basically collapsed into the sleeping bag Marcia had lent her. She hadn’t even been bothered by the sounds of the rest of her friends talking by the fire into the night; as soon as her head hit the pillow, she’d been out.

But this morning, now that she’s awake, she needs to pee. Really badly. And brush her teeth - she’d skipped it last night, accidentally, and her mouth feels vile.

It’s fairly early still, and it seems like nobody else is awake when she steps out of the tent with her toothbrush and contacts case. She trudges down to the bathrooms, uses the facilities, and is heading back when she sees a tall, familiar figure just ahead of her on the path.

“Lucas?” she whispers, not wanting to wake anyone up around them.

The figure turns; it is indeed Lucas. “Sarah!” he says happily. “What are you doing up?”

“Shh,” she says, pointing to the nearest occupied campsite, which is one over from theirs. “Don’t want to wake them.”

“They went fishing early this morning already,” Lucas says. “I saw ‘em go.”

“Oh.” Sarah holds up her little overnight case. “Had to use the bathroom, figured I’d brush my teeth and put my contacts in while I was at it.”

“Same.” He points to the toothbrush holder sticking out of his shorts pocket. “Well, I’ve been up for a while, actually. You know me, Sarah, I’m an early riser. But especially when we’re camping, You start hearing the noises, the birds, and the air’s cold, and yeah. Makes you get up, you know?”

Sarah nods, steps forward, and slips her arms around his waist. “Yes, I know,” she whispers, rising on her toes to kiss him.

“Mmm.” He smiles into the kiss, running his hands along her back. “I’m never going to get used to this.”

“Get used to what?” she asks, touching her lips to his in between each word.

Lucas breaks the kiss and pulls back to look at her. “Kissing you.” His hands rub the sides of her hips, feeling the soft material of her flannel pyjama bottoms. “I love the flannel, Sarah, but I have to say I’m kind of partial to your little doughnut shorts.”

She giggles and leans into him, suddenly grateful for the early wakeup. Without it, they wouldn’t have the privacy for this, for him to smile at her so specifically with a cheeky glint in his eye as he slips his hands down and grips her ass affectionately. “I wonder why.”

“You know why, babe,” Lucas laughs. He ducks his head down to kiss her one more time. “You’re so pretty, Sarah,” he says against her lips, as softly as she’s ever heard him speak. “Like this, first thing in the morning, And anytime after that.”

Sarah blushes and presses her face into his chest. “Thanks, Lucas.” She breathes him in again, taking the time to savor the moment. “We should probably get back.”

Lucas takes her hand. It’s the first time he’s held it since she’d kissed him yesterday, and Sarah’s happy to report that it still makes her stomach flip. She tries to memorize how it feels, his palm big and warm and rough around hers. As she makes a mental note of how small her hand is compared to his, she wonders how other things will fit.

Mind out of the gutter, Sarah, she tells herself.

“Please tell me you brought coffee,” she says as they walk up to their campsite, hands dropping.

Lucas laughs as he lifts a cooler out of the back of the truck. “Obviously, Sarah. I don’t have a death wish.”