I Shouldn't Love Him
I Shouldn’t Love Him (Book 2) – Chapter 64

Manning

Lake carried a bucket of water half his height. She placed it in front of Betsy and, with a hesitant hand, stroked the horse’s nose. We were only halfway there and she was already overcoming her fear. It was what I wanted, except when Betsy whinnied and Lake jumped back and looked at me, part of me liked it. I craved that feeling of being needed again, of being held when she was afraid. A hint of fear was good. It would keep her alert.

The air here was crisp. I could practically feel it moving in my lungs. I wished my fears were so easily overcome, but I was f****d every time I filmed. Lake was important to me in a way she shouldn’t be. His naivety about certain things made me overprotective. Then, every once in a while, her girlish mannerisms or expressions would remind me of things Maddy had done that I’d forgotten, like the way she blinked a lot when processing something new. This attracted me. On a primal level, I wanted to prevent bad things from happening to him.

Was it more than that? I didn’t want to know the answer. In some ways, she was always gentle and open. In others, Lake was more mature than people my age. She wanted to understand things rather than accept them as they were. She took an interest in me that no one else had in a long time, talked to me about smoking, asked me why I wanted to be a cop. Trusting me when she had no reason to. Lake came back to my side. She had barely spent time with Hannah or her daughters since we left the stables. She was here to experience camp, not me. But I was greedy. When she looked up at me with her big eyes, waiting for my direction, I knew peripherally that I was in too deep. I needed to step back. But that look reminded me that someone might depend on me again someday, and if things had been different, Lake could have been that someone.

She was still standing there. Even if I dug my heels into my eye sockets and forced her image away, she would still be there. Looking at me. To wait for.

“Why don’t you go see the girls?” I asked.

“I did it. The boys did too. After giving the horse some water.

Time passed in a funny way around her. Maybe she talked to the campers. Maybe she “she had spent time with Hannah. I was the one standing in the same place, watching her. Time could be slow like that with her, and then sometimes it passed in flashes. Sometimes I just wanted it to stop and others I wished it would pass faster.

“We should go back,” she said. “There’s a group after us.”

I didn’t know if it was the altitude or what. My head wasn’t clear. All I could think was that I had spent twenty-four hours on a lake, under a clear, endless sky, and yet I had still never seen a blue shadow of his eyes. I was sure that the image of her looking at me that way would be burned into my brain for as long as I walked this Earth.

“Manning?” »

“Yeah.” I looked away. “To go up.”

“I want to drive.”Half an hour ago, she could barely bring herself to approach the horse. Maybe she didn’t need me after all. “On your own?”

“No, with you.”

I nodded. “You go up first.”

“Are you going to help?”

“You can do it,” I said.

“I know. I want your help.”

I ran a hand through my hair. The other instructors helped the campers on the horses. How was it different? I had no reason to feel weird. Lake was Tiffany’s little sister.

She put her foot in the stirrup and looked at me expectantly.

As I picked Lake up by the waist and put her in the saddle, I tried not to notice how her shirt was riding up. ” Everything is ready ? » I asked one of the managers.

“Do you have your back?” he has answered.

“Yeah.”

One by one, the group lined up to return to the campsite. I grabbed the knob at the front of the saddle, right between Lake’s legs, and pulled myself up behind her. She slid into the “V” formed by my thighs, the two of us fitting together like puzzle pieces. I took the reins and waited until everyone had passed us. I could have rested my chin on Lake’s head, or closed my arms around her and engulfed her completely. Her hair smelled like sweet summer strawberries, like she’d washed it in the produce section of a f*****g supermarket.

Distracted, I pulled on the reins without meaning to, and Betsy stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Lake asked.

“Nothing.” I squeezed Betsy’s middle to get her going again. I tried to remember what Tiffany smelled like. Nothing occurred to her except that she was smoking cigarettes and chewing a lot of mint gum. “I’m willing to try,” Lake said.

My head was still foggy, my ears were ringing. I didn’t want Lake to take over while I was down. Maddy had died around the same age as these girls around me. I was responsible for them. Should I do more to protect them? Things I hadn’t done for Madison? The day he died was not the first time my father had become angry. So why didn’t my mother or I lock him up sooner? Why hadn’t I been gentler, more understanding with Maddy?

“Manning?” » asked the lake.

“In a minute.”

“But we are falling behind.”

The rest of the campers were yards ahead, so I put Betsy into a trot. Lake bounced underneath me, skidding backwards on the saddle until she was right against my crotch. Until now, as an adult, I thought I could control myself. Even earlier, when she had squeezed me as tightly as a predator would its prey, her hands dangerously low on my stomach, I had kept her together. But now my body only reacted as a man. I wanted to wrap my arms around her front, pull her closer, let her feel what she was doing to me. I was losing control.

“Take the reins, Lake. I slowed Betsy down and said, “Now. Come on.”

She did, and I stepped back to put some space between us.

“I’m not going to the dining hall tonight,” I announced.

“What?” Her fine blonde hair flowed between us and stuck to my chest. “Why not?” I guess I said it to diffuse it. To put a different distance between us. Because I knew, I knew she would ask why. How many had she heard the night before in the woods? Tiffany and I had argued because I refused, again, to go on a “walk” with her. She didn’t want to walk. She wanted to act stupid. “I

came here for you,” Tiffany had said once Lake had left with this kid. “You think I like it?” she’d asked. “Girls hate me. I’m here for you, and you walk away files.

“I care”, I said.

Tiffany had stubbed out her cigarette in the woods without thinking about how dangerous it could be. “Then prove it,” she said before leaving.

I needed to hear it. Being here, the rules have changed. There was nothing wrong with hanging out with a sixteen year old, and it was making my head spin. Tiffany was out of her element and she needed my help. Lake could handle himself. Maybe that was the wake-up call Lake and I needed.

“Tiffany and I have plans,” I told Lake. “Alone.”

Lake had the posture of a university professor. This made his reactions easy to read. I was expecting disappointment, and that’s what I got. My instinct was to comfort her, but that would probably be the worst thing I could do to a teenage girl who I was pretty sure had a crush on me.

“What projects? ” she asked. “You can’t leave the field.” “I can if I want.” I was an adult and I went wherever I wanted. But I wouldn’t do it. Where I wanted to be, one of the main reasons I came here, was where I could look out over the lake. I wasn’t going to go away for a few hours and leave her behind. “Bucky’s going to make us dinner after lights out.”

“Oh.”

There was a fine line between hurting her and warning her, and I could tell by her reaction that I had reached the former. Knowing it was better didn’t make me feel better. Not thirty minutes ago, she brought her body closer to mine, told me she was getting older every day. This wasn’t new to me, and it tore me down the middle. I didn’t want her to grow old, to know what I knew, to do what Tiffany did. But it would happen regardless. Someone else would be his first love. Another man would be the first to cherish her. The first to ruin it. It couldn’t be me. It wasn’t so much the age difference that scared me, but how much a person could change, could be changed, in just a few years.

These were thoughts I didn’t want to have, and they grew stronger as she sat quietly, guiding the horse. There was not a single spot on her rosy cheeks. I opened my mouth to ask her if she had worn sunscreen, but that wasn’t what came out. “What about this guy?” »

She sighed. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

I had gone too far, perhaps. “Do what?”

“To drive.” She held the reins. “Are you going?”

I took them back as discontent overcame him. “Lake?” “Were you with her last night?” she asked. “Is that why she was late this morning?”

I had no idea it was even on his mind. It really shouldn’t have been. She should be thinking about campfire skits, summer playlists, and whatever else young girls think about. “It’s between me and your sister.”

“Oh. Okay. So don’t ask me about this guy and his name is Corbin.

I knew his name, but I wasn’t going to use it. I didn’t like the way he kept saying “appearing out of nowhere, the way he had set his sights on Lake but also knew Tiffany through his brother. “Did he just take you back to your cabin or something?” “I want to come

down .”

“And do what?” I asked. “Come back?” “

It’s not that far.”

“I’m not prying, I’m just making sure he was polite. That he doesn’t didn’t, you know, try anything.

Her breathing quickened. Her heart had thumped against my back earlier. I was better than her at hiding it, but my reaction to her was the same. Physical. Powerful. Painful.

“I’m not going to let you down,”

She looked over the horse, as if thinking of jumping. I had no reason to ask her what I had done, making her feel sad or bad for letting Corbin walk her home like any normal teenage girl would. My hands are sweating around the leather reins. “Wait,” I said.

“What?”

“Take something. The saddle, my arms, whatever.

Once she had the horn, I applied pressure to Betsy’s sides. She set off at a trot. “What are you doing?” Lake asked, grabbing my forearms instead. I pushed the horse again and he sped up. “Relax.”

“You don’t even know how to ride a horse,” she shouted. “Stop.”

I led the horse alongside the other campers, who yelled at us. One of the instructors encouraged us. He called Betsy a savage, but he didn’t want to put us on an out-of-control horse. We galloped to the front of the group.

Lake squirmed between my legs, his fingers digging into my skin. “Manning, please.” »

“Please, what, Birdy?” I got you. Don’t worry.”

She didn’t release her grip on me, but she relaxed her back against my front as we walked away in front of the group. Instinctively, I put an arm around her, holding her close, just us , just for a second. A few strands of her hair flew into my mouth, but she laughed again. It came from a place of pure joy. I loved that laugh so much, that carefree sound in my ears. My world was

so dark before Lake.

It worried me how far I would go to keep that light in my life.