Tales of a Sibby Slicker Read online

  “Dehydrated meals. Apparently hikers eat them.” I looked at her in horror. “I didn’t think about hiking. Am I gonna have to hike?”

  “You mean actually move your body? Probably. You did buy the boots. Come to think of it, they are kinda cute.”

  “I need chocolate. Like pronto,” I said, running out of the bedroom. I hauled it to the kitchen and pulled out a chair so I could reach the top shelf of the cabinet.

  “What’s in the stash?” Annie asked.

  I pulled out a box and threw her a grin over my shoulder. “Entenmann’s chocolate donuts.”

  “Double chocolate?”

  “Nope. The yellow cake donut with chocolate frosting.”

  “Oooooh, I love it when you talk dirty. Gimme one of those.”

  I climbed down from my perch and opened the box. “If I give you one of these, you have to stop heckling me.”

  “Not a fair trade, but I’ll try.” She plucked a donut and stuck it in her mouth. I did the same and then made an inappropriate sound.

  “Just make sure you have this in your survival bag,” Annie warned. “When your blood sugar gets low, you get crabby.”

  “Cold, hungry, tired, I get crabby.”

  “Donuts for hunger. Pack a fifth of bourbon. That’ll take care of the warmth problem.”

  “What happens if I get tired?”

  Annie swallowed the rest of her donut. “Tell Aidan to pray.”

  Annie had to go grocery shopping for her diabolical boss, so she left after she helped me polish off the donuts. Aidan was still at Veritas, no doubt making sure everything was in order for his two-week absence. Though the trendy wine bar was doing well, it was still young, only a little over a year old. Restaurants and bars came and went frequently, but I knew Caleb and Aidan had real staying power. Still, I worried he was taking off too much time, but if he felt good enough leaving the business for a couple of weeks, then that was his concern.

  After straightening up the living room and changing the sheets on the bed, I put on some water to boil and threw in the pasta just as Aidan walked in the door. “You’re cooking?” he asked by way of greeting.

  “I am.” I poured him a glass of red wine from the open bottle on the kitchen counter into one of the wine glasses from our wedding registry.

  “What did I do to deserve this?” he asked with an adorable smile.

  I picked up my wine glass and clinked his. “It’s an apology dinner.”

  He raised his eyebrows and took a sip of wine. “Nice.” He sniffed. “You opened one of the good bottles we got in Italy.”

  “The Chianti,” I said with a dreamy sigh. For our honeymoon, Aidan and I had gone on a two-week wine tour of Italy. We’d come home with a few cases of wine—I’d wanted to bring more, but we’d recently moved into a two-bedroom apartment and didn’t have a ton of storage.

  “So let’s get back to why this is an apology dinner,” Aidan said, shrugging out of his light black jacket and hanging it on the back of a kitchen chair.

  “I wasn’t that…supportive. Of the camping trip.” I leaned back against the counter, wine glass in hand.

  He crooked a grin. “I know.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You know why I like us so much?”

  “Why?”

  “Because we force each other out of our comfort zones.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’re taking me camping, which I admit is way out of my comfort zone. But what do I do for you?”

  “You make me think differently.”

  “I do?” I asked.

  He set his wine glass down and sauntered toward me. Plucking the wine glass from my hands, he glanced at the timer. “I’ve got about twenty seconds.”

  “For what?”

  He gently put my glass on the counter, wrapped his arms around me, and kissed me. It was a good kiss. A great kiss. Our kisses had only gotten better with time. Being married totally had something to do with it; I was sure of it.

  The oven timer beeped, and I sighed at our perfect moment being interrupted.

  “You sit down,” I told him. “I got this.”

  I tore into my piece of garlic bread and set it aside to let it cool. “How do I make you think differently?”

  Aidan grated Parmesan over his bowtie pasta while he answered. “Because of you, I opened Veritas with Caleb.”

  “I can’t take credit for that,” I said. “That was your idea.”

  “True. But it came about sooner rather than later.” He held up the grater and cheese wedge, and I nodded. He got up from his seat and grated cheese onto my pasta.

  “Oooh, baby, you can grate my cheese anytime.”

  “I’m an expert grater,” he said with a grin. He sat back down and put his napkin in his lap.

  “As you were saying?”

  His fingers pinched the stem of the wine glass, but he made no move to drink. Blue eyes rested on me, his face thoughtful. “You deserved better,” he said.

  I frowned. “Better? Better than what? You? There is no better than you.”

  A ghost of a smile flitted across his mouth. His dimples popped up like little happy beacons. “When we met, I was…I don’t know, content with being a restaurant manager. Content is not really the right word. It was enough—for me. But then I met you, and I knew you were it. And I’m probably not explaining this right, but there comes a time in a man’s life when he meets the woman he’s supposed to be with, and suddenly, he wants more—needs more—so he can provide for her. I needed to be able to provide for you.

  “Owning the bar with Caleb, I feel like I can look your father in the eye and stand proud. That I can provide for his daughter.” Aidan fell silent, his eyes still on mine.

  I blinked away the tears that were gathering in my eyes. He was just so damn perfect—and he got me. In a way no one else did.

  “I made you cry,” he said with small smile.

  “No you didn’t,” I lied. “I’m allergic to emotion.”

  Aidan laughed.

  I raised my wine glass. “Aidan Kincaid. Good at marriage.”

  “Sibby Goldstein-Kincaid. Good at compromise.”

  “Let’s eat, before it gets cold.”

  The week passed in a blur. Whenever you dreaded something, time seemed to speed up. But when you were looking forward to something, time seemed to move backward.

  Suddenly, it was the weekend, and we were upstate. Every time I was around Aidan’s family, I was always amazed at the differences in how we’d grown up. Aidan’s family understood boundaries, had bonfires in the backyard, and they all loved the outdoors. My parents had no filters, enjoyed Puerto Vallarta, and camping wasn’t even in their vocabulary.

  “You guys are basically an REI store,” I marveled when Aidan showed me his parents’ garage.

  He laughed. “I love all this stuff.” He touched a massive blue hiking backpack, and I prayed to Moses that was his.

  “You’re not gonna make me”—I gulped—“hike. Are you?”

  Aidan chucked me under the chin. “There’s a really cool walk I want to take you on. Easy, very little incline, and at the end, a waterfall.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Don’t think you can easily substitute the word ‘walk’ for the word ‘hike.’ Call a spade a spade, okay?”

  He wrapped his arms around me. “I promise it will be worth your while.”

  “How are we gonna stay clean? Two weeks with out showers—”

  “Got it covered.”

  “And using the bathroom—”

  “Got that covered too.” He kissed the end of my nose. “Trust me. I got this. I also got you a present.”

  “You did?”

  He nodded and released me. Grabbing my hand, he tugged me to the corner of the garage where a cardboard box rested on Aidan’s father’s worktable.

  “Go ahead,” Aidan said, looking excited.

  I reached for the cardboard box and managed to get it open. Inside was a knife in a pink carrying cas
e. Aidan picked it up and clipped it to my belt.

  “See? You’re all decked out, ready to go. You’re practically a wilderness girl.”

  I struggled to unsheathe the blade, but once Aidan showed me how it popped out and locked into place, I got the hang of it.

  “You really trust me with a knife?” I asked in wry humor.

  “Valid point. Please be very careful. It’s wicked sharp.”

  “I feel like Crocodile Dundee,” I said in excitement. “What other stuff do I get?”

  “For now, you’ll borrow everything you need. If…”

  “If what?”

  He cocked his head. “If I can get you into this, then we’ll go full throttle and get you all the gear.”

  I must’ve blanched because Aidan laughed. “Right, baby steps.”

  “I know you have an agenda,” I said.

  “The not-so-secret agenda can wait.” He smiled. “Come on. Mom’s making dinner. We’ll leave first thing tomorrow.”

  Chapter 3

  #intothewoods #offroad #help #someonesaveme

  We were on the road a little after ten the next morning. I’d refused to leave at the crack of dawn. Showers, people. I had to have one last good shower before I turned into a dirty, filthy, granola-eating, backpack-toting, thermal-wearing mountaineer.

  There was a very good chance I was going off the deep end. But I could do this. I could do this for Aidan. What was two weeks?

  About an hour into our trip, Aidan pulled off onto a gravel road, leaving the nice even paved road behind. The Toyota Tacoma that belonged to Aidan’s mom rocked and bounced as we continued, the trailer hitched to the back jostling along with us.

  “Uhm. What’s happening?”

  He looked at me. “We’re going off road, baby.”

  I gripped the side of the door. “You mean this isn’t your way of getting rid of me?” I teased. “Ready for a younger model already?”

  “Nah, I think I’ll keep you for a while longer. At least until I’m gray at the temples, and I’m a true silver fox.” He reached over and quickly squeezed my thigh before putting both hands back on the wheel.

  Smiling, I looked out the window. “So really, what’s going on?”

  “It’s free to camp in any national forest in the United States. So that’s what we’re going to do.”

  My head whipped around to look at him. “You mean you’re not taking me to a campsite with other people?”

  “Nope.”

  “So it’ll be just the two of us.”

  “Yep.”

  “Sleeping in a tent. With no one else to talk to. Alone with my thoughts. And bugs. Many many bugs.”

  “Sibby…”

  “Nope, I’m good, totally good. Not freaking out. Not freaking out at all.”

  He laughed. “Freaking out a little.”

  “You’re taking me off the grid! What if a snake bites me? Or if I’m eaten by a coyote.”

  “You don’t have to worry about either of those things,” he assured me.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Bears on the other hand…”

  “WHAT! You said they were hibernating.”

  “It’s unseasonably warm, but relax, I’ve got bear spray.” He threw me a grin. “I’ll teach you how to use it.”

  I pressed my face to the glass as we continued the drive. I so didn’t have a good feeling about this. But I held in all the feelings that wanted to come spewing out.

  “My mom used to hate camping,” he said.

  The switch in conversation totally worked, and I peeled my face away from the glass. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. She said she loved nature, but she hated being dirty and inconvenienced. You know how my dad got her over that?”

  “How?”

  “He bought this truck and the trailer attached to it. See the flat square thing on the back of the trailer?”

  I looked behind us and sure enough, there was a puffy canvas-topped square thing I had paid little attention to. “What is it?”

  “It’s a tent. So you unhook the trailer, the tent opens up, and then if you have to drive off to get more supplies, you can leave everything else. And,” he added, “you don’t have to sleep on the ground.”

  “Nifty. So what’s in the trailer?”

  “All will be revealed in due time. But trust me, I’m about to change your idea of camping.”

  My idea of camping was roughing it at a Motel 6 with a questionable bedspread. This was something else all together.

  “Okay, big guy. Show me what you got.”

  Another hour later and we were in a clearing. In a forest. I was in a forest. Aidan cut the engine and then climbed out of the truck. “Come on,” he said, eager. “I’ll show you how all this works.”

  I tugged on one of my pigtails, nervous and completely out of my element. There was nothing worse than feeling like a fish out of water—or in my case, a Sibby out of the city.

  The tent took very little time to set up, and when I peered inside, all the bedding was in there. It was roomy, and the idea that I’d be able to see the stars before going to bed was appealing. Then he showed me the trailer. With the opening of a few doors, everything was at our fingertips. A small but efficient propane stove, a section for cooking utensils, and even a tiny refrigerator.

  “How does this work!” I asked in excitement, opening the well-stocked refrigerator.

  Aidan grinned. “Solar power—as well as a generator.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Told you I’d see to your comforts.”

  “Too early for a beer?”

  “Not at all.” He reached around me to pull out two. They were twist-offs, and soon I was sipping on cold microbrew, sitting in a camp chair, totally feeling like I could do this.

  “Okay, I know I’m only like an hour into this excursion,” I said as Aidan sat next to me in his own camp chair. “But this is already better than my three-week long stint at Girl Scout Camp when I was twelve.”

  “I need more.” Aidan took a drink of his beer, his blue eyes lit with humor.

  “Fourteen pre-teen girls sharing a cabin. I learned how to shave my legs that summer.”

  “Not very well,” he murmured.

  I nudged him with my foot. “It was fun—until I got my period for the first time.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. It was so embarrassing.”

  “That’s not that embarrassing.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Have you ever been a twelve-year-old girl?”

  “No,” he agreed. “But I have been a twelve-year-old boy. The wind blew, and I got an erection. Top that.”

  “My Hungarian camp counselor had to talk me through how to use tampons—and then the director called my parents to let them know what had happened. When my parents came to pick me up, my dad said, ‘Mazel Tov.’ Oh, and did I mention that I made friends with a really nice girl whose hot older brother came to get her? Well, he overheard. I know he did.”

  “My high school English teacher was super hot, and I got a woody listening to her read The Scarlett Letter.”

  “You know, let’s not do this—trade war stories about our embarrassing youth. Just tell me I win, and we can move on.”

  He leaned over and kissed my lips. “You win.”

  Aidan stood over me, looking like a sexy lumberjack fantasy come to life. His black and red flannel shirt was rolled up to his forearms, and his jeans were already dusty with dirt. His head blocked the sun, so I didn’t have to squint behind my sunglasses. “What do you think, champ? You ready to go for a walk?”

  “Walk?” I asked. “But I’m so comfortable.”

  Of course I was comfortable. I was sitting in a camp chair, nursing a beer, relaxing in the sun. The late September weather was holding onto Indian summer, and fall was nowhere to be seen except for the slight changing of the leaves. I prayed it stayed that way for the next two weeks.

  “If you go on a walk with me, I’ll cook you dinner.”

>   “Hmm…”

  “And clean up.”

  I grinned. “You’re pulling out all the stops, huh?”

  “I want to ensure we stay married.” He held out his hand, and I grasped it. He hauled me up and wrapped his arms around me. “Thanks for doing this,” he said into my hair.

  Squeezing him around the middle, I buried my face in his flannel shirt. He smelled like the woods, earthy and masculine. He smelled like Aidan.

  I nuzzled deeper.

  “What are you doing?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “Seducing you in the woods. Duh.”

  “You’re not trying to get out of the hike, are you?”

  I laughed. “Service me now, and I’ll hike with you tomorrow.”

  Aidan was already backing me toward the tent.

  “You have really good ideas,” Aidan said. His breathing was returning to normal as we lay on the surprisingly comfortable foam mattress in the tent. The vents were open, and air filtered through. Late afternoon sunshine peered through the flaps. As far as an afternoon romp went, it was definitely top five.

  “I think I like camping.”

  He laughed and pulled me into his arms. I rested my head against his chest. “I needed this. So much.”

  “Sex?” I quipped.

  He pinched my side and made me squirm. “This.”

  I dragged my finger up and down his arm. “You’re not like, having a midlife crisis? Like you’re not gonna suddenly insist we leave the city, move upstate, and grow vegetables. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love farm-to-table, sustainable, traceable, all that stuff, but I’m not ready to—”

  “I don’t want to move.” Aidan looked unperturbed by my outburst. He continued to lie there, all sexy with bedroom eyes.

  “But you do want something.” I sat up and reached for my black tank top. “Tell me what’s going on. Because I feel like there’s something going on with you—and it’s not just about the need to go camping.”

  “You’re reading into things,” he said.

  My eyes widened. “Now I know there’s something to read into.”

  He shifted his position, making the muscles of his chest dance.