Chapter 4: Morris Camp l

-- MONDAY, JULY 2, 2007 --

I thrust forward a final time, closing my eyes and throwing my head back as I grunted out my orgasm, feeling the delight of a quart of spunk flowing out of me and into Adrienne's still quivering pussy. My fingers tightened their grip on her shoulders. My pelvis pivoted forward with my knees as fulcrums so that my feet came off the bed, all of my weight and energy being put into that final deep thrust. And I kept my cock buried at full depth down the gorgeous supermodel's vaginal canal, straining with my back and leg muscles as I spat out glob after glob of boiling cum into the deepest recesses of the most desirable pussy in the world.

"Ohhhh ... migawwwddd..." Adrienne groaned in response while she pressed her right cheek into the mattress beneath her. A small puddle of drool darkened the sheets, and the quivering from her lower lip eventually carried down across her body in a shiver as she recovered from her last orgasm as well.

Like a light bulb going dim, I felt the energy of my climax fade from me, as did the tension in my arms, back, and legs. Releasing my tight grip on her shoulders, I slid my palms outward across the mattress and slowly lowered my chest onto Adrienne's naked back. And then I tilted my head to give her a tender kiss on her cheek.

She hummed happily and turned her face further so that our lips could meet. And with my cock still snugly embedded inside her, I brought my legs together on the outsides of hers while bringing my arms in so that I could wrap my entire body around her, almost as if we were spooning vertically.

"Mmm..." the third spoon sighed from behind my ear as Sasha lay her naked body down on top of mine, her firm breasts pressing against my back as she wrapped her arms around both me and Adrienne beneath her.

I grinned, the meat in a gorgeous-naked-babe sandwich, relishing the notion that none of us had to leave this bed anytime soon to go do something so mundane as "work". Indeed, neither of my bed partners seemed inclined to move from our current positions, not even Adrienne beneath the weight of her two lovers. I slid my palms over the backs of Adrienne's hands, letting our fingers intertwine. Sasha covered my hands with hers as well, giving them a quick squeeze. But eventually Adrienne groaned and I started to get us up.

Sasha rolled one way and I went the other, but Sasha quickly flipped Adrienne onto her back and slid between her lover's legs to slurp out the creampie.

The blonde beauty moaned and slid her fingers into Sasha's dark locks, tugging the Armenian angel's face against her sodden snatch. And I leaned in to caress Adrienne's big breast and leave a trail of butterfly kisses up her cheek before meeting her lips with my own.

A hand found my crotch, fingers tickling my balls before encircling my half-hard cock. The hand began to squeeze it, manually giving my dick directions to reverse the retreat of blood and regain the rigidity it would require for a repeat ravishing. I broke my kiss with Adrienne to look down my body and see Sasha's eyes twinkling at me over Adrienne's thigh as she continued to manipulate my manhood. I'd already fucked Sasha to climax before losing my load inside her fellow girlfriend, but she seemed intent on getting an insemination of her own to start the day.

Did I have a perfect life or what?

But just then, there came a quiet knock at the door and it opened just enough for Kim to poke her head in. Though I couldn't see him, I could hear the baby-babble of a near-toddler, and as Kim smiled at me, I saw little BJ's hand reach out and grasp her face.

The blood flow in my cock reversed again as thoughts of sex evacuated my mind. But my mood had not been wounded. Rather, it had been enhanced by the idea of spending more time with my little boy. As wonderful as it would be to remain in bed with my girlfriends and fuck the day away, I found myself excited to start a different kind of play with my only child, and I gently pushed Sasha's hand off my prick while rolling myself over the edge of the bed.

"Sorry ladies. BJ's up."

"And Li'l Ben is down," Adrienne chuckled while flicking my now flaccid penis. I shot her a frown, but she was already laughing and waving me on. "Go on, go on."

Kim spoke up, saying apologetically, "He knows it's breakfast time. BJ's sucked me dry already, but he wants out of the cabin. And you guys had better hurry before the camp stops serving breakfast."

"We can be dressed in two minutes."

"YOU can," Adrienne snorted. "You're a guy who still looks great even with bedhead."

"And you both are gorgeous ladies who still look great no matter how mussed up your hair may be."

Adrienne grinned. "Flattery will get you everywhere."

"Even bald, if it came to that."

Adrienne frowned. "Okay now you're pushing it."

I smirked while she blew me a kiss.

"Go on without us," Sasha suggested. "But bring some food back; we're not going to make it in time today."

"Yeah, not happening," Adrienne agreed, reaching one arm below the bed to drag out her toy box. She fished around for a moment before retrieving the girls' favorite, the double-ended strap-on dildo meant for one of them to fuck the other, with both sides exact replicas of Big Ben.

Sasha's eyes lit up as she saw it, and she clapped her hands together enthusiastically. "It's like you can read my mind!"

Chuckling, I was already on my way out the door.

"The girls?" Brandi inquired with our dad's familiar arched eyebrow.

I shifted BJ on my hip and shrugged. "Running late."

Brandi frowned. "Hair and makeup?"

Dayna snorted. "Twenty bucks they're playing with one of the 'Ben Juniors'."

I pointed at Dayna and tapped my nose, much to her smug delight. But I also sighed, saying, "I keep telling y'all I'd rather you called them 'Big Bens'."

Brandi shrugged. "Adrienne keeps calling them 'Ben Juniors'. Besides, 'Big Ben' is the real McCoy. There can only be one."

I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

"Whatsa matter?" Dayna drawled. "Only two girls and not man enough to satisfy both before leaving?"

I rolled my eyes and hefted BJ again. "We're gonna take a crack at real-people food again."

Just then, one of the ranch hands stopped by our table with several full glasses on a tray. "Orange juice?" he offered with a warm, charming smile aimed straight for Brandi.

My big sister blushed and smiled coyly. "Why thank you," she replied as he took a glass and set it down on the table ... right next to the half-full glass of orange juice she already had in front of her.

"Me too!" Dayna chirped. She had actually finished her previous glass.

The muscular, handsome ranch hand glanced at Dayna with a smile. But no sooner did he set the glass down in front of her, than my gorgeous sweetheart was forgotten as his attention returned straight back to Brandi.

"My little brother needs one, too," Brandi added. "Plus one more for Kim."

The ranch hand grinned wider, perhaps thinking Brandi had just gone out of her way to identify me as her brother and not her boyfriend, and he handed over two more glasses. "Let me know if you need anything else." His eyes were only for Brandi.

"We will," Brandi assured him, and watched as he turned to walk away.

"He's cute," Dayna drawled the moment he was out of earshot. "What was that about?"

Brandi blushed again. "What was what about? He's a ranch hand passing out drinks."

"Anyone and everyone can get their own orange juice at the buffet line," Dayna pointed out. "He didn't go out of his way to bring anyone else any orange juice."

"He's flirting. Single guys that age do that from time to time."

"So flirt back. Ben, back me up here."

I shrugged and shifted BJ from one knee to the other in my lap. "Dayna's right. If you like him, flirt back."

Brandi sighed. "What's the point? Not like it can go anywhere. We're going back home in less than two weeks."

"So?" Dayna elbowed her best friend. "Even if it can't go anywhere, you can still enjoy yourself for the next two weeks."

"Whatever. Fine. We'll see," Brandi said dismissively.

Just then, Kim returned to our table with a tray laden down with breakfast, including even more orange juice. She set a plate in front of me, but it wasn't food for me. Instead, I spent the next fifteen minutes attempting to perfectly time the moments when BJ opened his mouth to push in a baby spoon with a bit of scrambled egg on it.

"Here comes the choo-choo train," Dayna offered playfully, which unfortunately only got BJ to look at her instead of me, and I nearly bonked the spoon into my little boy's cheek.

"Here comes the choo-choo train," Kim repeated with a twinkle for me in her eyes, and I obediently opened up to let her fork a stack of cut-up pancake into MY mouth. I didn't even need to look at her before biting the food off and chewing while I resumed my attempts to feed BJ.

"There's a good boy," Brandi chuckled as she reached over to pat the top of my head. And she rolled her eyes when I promptly gaped my mouth open wide to show her the mess of pancake and syrup in my mouth.

It was Kim who slapped me upside the back of my head. "And that's naughty boy behavior you won't be teaching our son. This isn't 'see-food'."

I grinned before putting on an exaggerated frown with puppy dog eyes. "Sorry, Mommy."

Kim patted the top of my head. "That's better."

The girls all helped me bring food back to the cabin for Adrienne and Sasha. We found them putting the finishing touches on their hair and make-up, and they dug into their breakfast while Brandi, Dayna, and Dawn went back to their cabin to grab some gear before setting out for the day.

While there were a lot of things to do at Morris Camp, there wasn't much of a structured itinerary to follow. Guests came and went, some who stayed for a few days at a time and others, like my family, who remained much longer. The staff organized a few group activities each day, but attendance was completely optional. Likewise, my little group had come up with a loose, flexible framework of things we wanted to make sure we experienced at some point while we were here for the next two weeks, but for the most part we were making up our daily itineraries on the fly.

Sasha wanted to check out the ropes course and climbing tower this morning. With her aerialist background, I figured it wouldn't present much of a challenge. Obviously, little BJ couldn't go up there, but when Kim suggested that she didn't really have to go climbing, I rolled my eyes, insisted that I'd already spent plenty of summers walking amongst the treetops, and ordered her to buckle on a harness and go enjoy herself. I had little enough Daddy/baby time as it was.

The eight of us made the short hike out to the course, and soon the six ladies were twenty feet up in the air trying to find their balance. Dawn led the way, with Sasha a quick study right after her. Brandi made a point of helping Kim, and Dayna brought up the rear helping out a visibly struggling Adrienne. From the ground below, I pointed to keep BJ's attention on the ragged line of yellow helmets making their way across the ropes. And I kept laughing as Adrienne cursed about how easy it was to walk a Milan runway in skyscraper heels, but that her chest-mounted counterweights didn't lend themselves to proper balance on a tightrope.

"C'mon, you said you've done this course before," Dayna encouraged.

"Just once, and I hated it just as much then, too!"

"You never said anything about hating it!" Dawn called from ahead.

"That's because you and I were still fighting over Ben at the time, and I didn't want to show any signs of weakness!" Adrienne shot back.

The whole row of six laughed at that, and they were on to the next obstacle. BJ and I watched them for a few more minutes, and I especially got a kick out of the part where the girls partnered up on parallel ropes. In order to cross, they had to lean toward the middle with their hands braced on each other's shoulders as they side-stepped their way across the ever-widening ropes, until they were practically at forty-five degree angles with arms outstretched palm-to-palm. Dayna and Adrienne never made it more than ten feet without falling despite multiple attempts. Brandi and Kim fell twice before accomplishing the feat on the third attempt. And Sasha and Dawn made it all the way across on their first try.

But as the girls moved on to the next challenge, BJ's attention span ran out and he started getting fussy. I called up that I was going to take him down to the beach to help me flirt with other chicks, ordered Kim to enjoy herself and not worry until lunchtime, and my little boy and I left.

Unfortunately, using BJ as a chick magnet didn't turn out to be as much fun as I would've thought. Cruising around San Francisco with an adorable baby (and no wedding ring) could be quite entertaining, but the city was populated with lots of gorgeous women between the ages of 18 and 35 who would love to chat up a cute guy alone with a cuter little boy. Here at camp, there were still plenty of females who wanted to check out the adorable baby and even talk to his dad, but the vast majority of them were under the age of 18. And I'd grown well past the age where it would be appropriate to flirt with inquisitive 15-year-olds in bikinis.

Still, BJ enjoyed himself, and the other kids around were happy to share their sand toys. I found myself flirting with married moms in their thirties and forties, many of whom already knew I had arrived at camp in the company of the most beautiful young women within a 500-mile radius. BJ and I spent about an hour on the beach, but he started to get fussy again and I realized I didn't have Kim's milk-filled boobs anywhere nearby.

Rather than track her down and disrupt her morning off from baby-duty, I picked up my near-toddler and brought him back to the cabin. After a diaper change and a bottle of formula, he passed out for his morning nap and I set him in the pack-n-play we'd brought along before stretching myself out on the bed to catch a quick catnap of my own.

An hour-and-a-half later, I awoke to the tiny sounds of a little boy muttering "Da-da!" and the feel of a tiny hand tugging on my shorts. BJ had stood up in his pack-n-play beside the bed, just tall enough to stretch his arm over the railing and reach my leg. So I roused myself from my slumber, changed his diaper again, and recognized that it was almost lunchtime.

BJ and I emerged from our cabin to find a familiar face walking up the trail toward us. Dawn looked a little worse for wear, with most of her entire right side splattered with brown mud that caked parts of her right thigh, her shorts, her shirt, and even her neck and cheek. I stopped on the porch, set BJ's butt on the railing with my arm wrapped around him, and leaned over. "What happened?"

"We went to the beach to go looking for you two, and the camp had a little tug-of-war game on the lawn. Some teenage boys were cat-calling a bit and Adrienne got it in her head that the six of us could take them."

I smirked and shook my head. "I take it you lost?"

"Actually, no; we won." Dawn got to the porch and hopped up the steps before giving me a sardonic grin. "We were about to lose when Dayna let go of the rope to flash her boobs at them. She was in the very front, about to fall into the mud when three of the boys stopped pulling entirely. We all yanked back really hard on the rope and the guys in back knocked those first couple of boys into the mud."

I frowned as Dawn shook her head, opened her door, and went inside. I collected BJ and followed after. "So how did you wind up muddy?"

Glancing back at me, Dawn rolled her eyes. "Payback from years ago. You remember when we were sixteen?"

"That was seven years ago. I'm not gonna remember--" I stopped mid-sentence as the memory DID pop into my head. "She pulled the same shirt-flash during a tug of war back then. On ME."

Dawn laughed. "Your family versus ours. You were the front anchor with your dad in the back, and it was you who stopped pulling--"

"And got knocked into the mud when Brooke crashed into me from behind," I recalled. With a smirk, I added, "And while Dayna was hopping up and down all proud of winning, you pushed her into the mud from behind."

Dawn smirked and gestured down at herself. "Dayna's payback, seven years in the waiting."

I laughed and shook my head. "I'm not sure I ever thanked you for getting her back for me, for cheating."

"The summer I turned sixteen? You paid me back many times over," Dawn said with a smug smile, her eyes a little unfocused as she stared off into the distance.

I nodded, reminiscing a little myself. But a moment later, a shadow passed over Dawn's face as she glanced at me. The invisible wall rose up between us, and we fell into awkward silence.

The summer we were sixteen was a long time ago, and things between us weren't like that anymore.

"Well, it's almost lunchtime," I finally said after far too long of a pregnant pause. "You should probably get changed."

Dawn picked at her muddy shirt and nodded. "Yeah, I should. I'll see you guys there."

I nodded, gave her one more awkward look, and backed out of the room, closing the cabin door behind me.

For about two seconds, I stared at that door, shaking my head.

This is ridiculous. It's been two years and we both want to move on. This awkwardness HAS to stop.

So open the door and go TALK to her.

I don't know what to say.

Say that this is ridiculous, it's been two years, and you both want to move on.

She knows that already.

So why is it so hard for you to say aloud?

Because ... because...

Because two years later, after everything that's happened, you still don't have enough of a spine to FIX THIS?

Shut up, you.

Go ahead. Run away. Again.

I'm not going to run away.

Then why isn't your hand on the doorknob, opening it?

Alright, alright. Just shut the fuck up.

I turned the knob. I pushed open the door while taking a step forward. And I called out, "Hey Dawn? Look, I know we ... oh, shit. I'm sorry!"

Standing like a flamingo on one leg to hide her nudity, the gorgeous 22-year-old blonde raised one knee to cover her crotch while holding an arm across her naked breasts. Her muddy clothes were beside her on the hardwood floor, well away from any furniture and in a convenient pile for easy cleanup. But before I could see anything else I already found myself back on the porch with the closed door in front of my face, my hand still on the knob having yanked it shut myself.

You did that on purpose, didn't you?

What? Not like you've never seen her naked before, even as recently as yesterday at the Garden.

Ugh, shut up. We're going to lunch.

Lunch was just like every other meal we'd spent at camp. If Dawn and I were a little more awkward around each other than usual, nobody seemed to notice. Kim spent the entire meal doting on little BJ, apparently suffering withdrawal pangs or something after spending the morning away from him. Sasha had actually offered to take care of him instead, but settled for making faces at the little guy to keep him entertained. Dayna, Brandi, and Adrienne decided to chat non-stop while explaining all the details of what I'd missed. And Dawn was pretty quiet, per the norm.

After lunch, Dayna and Brandi wanted to drag me back to the cabin. Neither of them had gotten laid since yesterday morning's hike to the Garden of Eden, and Dayna in particular seemed quite antsy. But I deflected everyone by approaching Dawn, looking her straight in the eye, and asking, "Hey, can you and I go somewhere and talk?"

Everyone around us shut up, their eyes going wide in surprise as they all leaned in toward us. After raising my eyebrows and glaring at all of them, I took a deep breath, focused back on Dawn, and added, "Alone?"

At first, Adrienne looked like she wanted to say something, but she abruptly turned and glared at Sasha as if the brunette had pinched her. Dawn glanced at them both, her eyebrows popped as if waiting for one of them to protest, but when Adrienne set her jaw and remained silent, she returned her attention to me and nodded. "Okay."

I took a moment to rub BJ's cheeks and warn him to be good for Mommy. I pecked Adrienne, Sasha, and Dayna on the lips, with a quick apology to Dayna acknowledging her antsy-ness.

"No, really, go ahead," Dayna encouraged with a smile for her little sister.

So I headed out from the main lodge with Dawn following closely behind. On the way we passed the two "bathroom guys", who silently exchanged a look with each other. But I paid them no mind as we got outside and started to think about where to go.

One of the cabins seemed obvious for privacy reasons, but the girls were heading there to change into their swimsuits. Besides, the recent mud/flamingo incident would only make that feel more awkward. Of course, I also thought about "The Clearing", but ... no. Just no.

Without me saying a thing, Dawn suggested, "Balcony? It's nowhere close to sunset, so I doubt anyone else will be remotely near there."

I nodded and gestured for her to lead the way. It wasn't too far away from the main lodge, making it a short hike. The trail was fairly wide in most places, allowing us to walk side-by-side so that with my attention forward I didn't see her at all; I merely felt her presence to my right. But every now and again I found myself lagging behind just a bit, my mind churning as I tried to wrap my head around what I wanted to say, before I glanced up and found Dawn in front of me with those long, creamy legs leading up to a perfect ass poured into short-shorts and a blue and white plaid shirt she'd tied off at the midriff to expose a tantalizing expanse of creamy white skin before rising up to those mouthwatering big br...

Sigh.

Why'd you stop? I was enjoying that!

Shut up, you.

Dawn's sensual beauty had been easy enough to ignore for the past year whenever we met face-to-face. I'd noticed it, of course, but the awkward tension underlying everything had prevented me from ever having sex on the brain. Being amongst other people and located in various non-private settings also kept any loose thoughts at bay.

But here at camp, back at this place that had meant so much to us, I would start thinking about the things I'd done to that body the last time we were here together. I'd start reminiscing about the intimately personal moments between us, even the non-sexual ones. And as image after image of our personal moments together flashed into my brain (not to mention the crystal clear HD videos with Dolby surround sound), I'd find my mind overloading to the point where I had to pick up my pace, get her back to my side and out of my field of view, and try to get a fucking grip once more.

The combination of memories and possibilities were simply too much to handle, more than I could take. THIS was why I hadn't had this conversation before. THIS was why I couldn't work up the nerve to be alone with her and talk about our feelings, and hadn't done so for the past year.

No one else on the planet affected me like this. If she'd been anyone else – a friend, ex-girlfriend, co-worker, even family – I'd have no trouble opening my mouth and having it out. Awkwardness is best nipped in the bud, sorted out so that both parties know what the score is and where everyone stands. Every time, every situation in the past year that I found myself hesitating to take action and FIX the problem, the stupid voice in my head kicked me in the ass and got me into gear.

I'm not stupid. I'm smarter than you, stupid. We had a deal: I remind you every time you try to sit on your hands and pussy out. You sack up and DO something about it.

And I do. Except with Dawn. Visit the old Berkeley house? Chickened out. Thanksgiving with the Evanses? Always an excuse to not be alone with her. I couldn't open my mouth, couldn't go through with starting a serious conversation, and nobody else could hamstring me like this, not even DJ. As strained as my relationship currently was with the youngest Evans sister, at least we had talked about our situation and told each other the truth about how we each felt. But every time I tried to do the same with Dawn, every time I thought about sitting down with her and talking out what we currently meant to each other, I froze, we got awkward, and one of us would make up an excuse to exit the conversation.

It wasn't about being spineless. It wasn't that I was running away, postponing the inevitable discussion that would HAVE to eventually take place just because I was afraid of the consequences.

Ahem...

Okay fine, I WAS being spineless. I WAS running away.

Didn't you learn anything from your coma dream about not sticking her on the back burner forever?

I know, I know. I never meant for it to last this long, but it just sorta happened that way. It was easy to do. I was never around Dawn for more than maybe an hour at a time, and as long as I kept my thoughts casual and the conversation even more casual, I could stand to be in her presence without getting the brain overload. But the instant I started thinking about our past relationship, the instant I pondered our future one, my mind filled with those images (and videos) and what used to be and what could possibly be tomorrow or next year or beyond, and it was all just too much for me to take.

We get it, we get it. Fuck, you're a fucking broken record. You miss her, you want her, you're terrified of what could be. Everything's awkward, you don't know how to act around her, and you keep having this internal monologue with yourself every fucking time you're within ten feet of her for more than thirty fucking seconds! ENOUGH ALREADY!

"Ohmigawd!" I yelled. "Shut UP!"

Dawn stopped in her tracks and gave me a funny look. "Um, I didn't say anything."

So filled with frustrated rage, rather than feel embarrassed, I simply shook my head, stared at the ground, and grunted, "Not you. I was talking to him."

"Him?"

Looking up at her, I sighed and banged the heel of my right hand against the side of my head. "Him."

"Ah," Dawn said with a smile of understanding. "I know the feeling. You have NO idea how many arguments I've had with Her." She tapped her temple with her right middle finger for emphasis.

I snorted. "Great. So we're both schizophrenic."

"Actually it's MPD: Multiple-Personality Disorder," she explained. "Schizophrenia is hearing voices from inanimate objects, like the couch is talking to you or something."

I blinked at her in surprise, getting a sense of déjà vu.

Dawn came over to me and held my hand. She gave it a squeeze, flashed me a reassuring smile, and tilted her head towards the trail. "C'mon. We're almost there."

After a couple of minutes, we came to "The Balcony". In the evening, this perch would have a nice, unobstructed view of the valley with the river winding its way westward toward the setting sun. But now, in the early afternoon, we merely had a nice view of the valley. It was a sight both of us had seen many, many times before, although for me at least, I'd been here only a few times NOT during a sunset. And I wondered just a little bit why Dawn had chosen this place.

As out of sorts as I'd been after my little outburst on the trail, I'd now regained my wits about me as I let go of Dawn's hand, moved to the bench, and took a seat. Dawn, on the other hand, was the one out of sorts as she remained rooted where I'd left her, standing and staring at me ... sorta.

After further scrutiny, I realized that she wasn't staring at ME so much as staring at the bench, lost in her thoughts. I wondered if "The Balcony" carried some sort of significance for her, and after a moment's thought I asked, "Was this one of your regular spots to be alone with Nick?"

"Hmm?" she asked distractedly before her eyes suddenly came back into focus and she raised her gaze to look right at me. "Um, Nick? Well, yeah ... yeah ... But not like you think. We just did a lot of talking in this place, especially before he and I..." Her voice trailed off.

"Before you two hooked up?"

Dawn blushed and stared at her toes for a second. "Yeah."

I tapped the wood beneath me. "Am I in his spot?"

She rolled her eyes and approached me. "Don't be silly." She sat down beside me, crossed one leg over the other, and clasped her hands together atop the upraised knee while staring at them.

"Do you miss him?"

"Nick?"

"No, Bert. Do you miss Bert?"

Dawn realized I was messing with her and she immediately raised one hand to shove me in the shoulder. I looked at her expectantly, and after a shrug she admitted, "Sure, I guess. But I'm used to the long-distance thing."

"Missing him from Berkeley is one thing. I meant: Do you miss him being here? You said this was one of your regular spots. And I know that just a moment ago you were reminiscing about you and him being here together."

Dawn sighed and folded her arms over her chest. Biting her lower lip for a moment, she thought about that before explaining, "It's been nearly a year since Nick and I were here, in this spot, together. Yeah, I was thinking about him and me being here, specifically about a conversation we had the last time we were here just before I left to return to school. But that was a long time ago and things between us aren't the same anymore."

I frowned. "Not the same? Did something happen between you two?"

Blinking, Dawn sat up straight, inhaled, and gave me an uncertain look. "Nothing bad, just different. We've spent most of the past year apart and our relationship has changed because of it. But we're not here for you and me to discuss Nick."

"No, no. You're right." I took a deep breath and fought to keep my mind clear of the riotous images and video threatening to spill into it once again. As long as the focus had been on Dawn, her boyfriend, and her generally distracted appearance, it had been easy for me to talk and even throw in the joke about missing Bert. But now that the topic was back to me and MY feelings, the panic and helpless feelings were coming back again.

"You want to talk about you and me, right?" Dawn offered.

There was a frog in my throat, preventing me from audible speech, but I nodded.

"I've been wanting to talk about 'us' too, for a long time."

I frowned, looked down at my lap, but managed to croak, "I know."

"But the time never seemed right. There was always something else going on: school, your job, BJ, one of your girlfriends..." Dawn sighed. "I could tell you weren't quite comfortable around me, not like I'd thought ... not like I'd hoped you would be after I came back."

I swallowed thickly, finally getting rid of that frog. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize."

"I do. I know I've made this past year pretty awkward between us."

"It's never easy for a guy to reintegrate an ex-girlfriend back into his life."

I rolled my eyes. "Me? Reintegrate an ex-girlfriend? You mean like Megan, Cassidy, Allie, Adrienne, Kim, Lynne, Paige, Amber, DJ, Andie..."

Dawn blushed and glanced down. "Okay maybe you can reintegrate just fine. But ... this is different. I know I broke your heart, broke it in a way like none of the others did. That's not me being egotistical; I just know that I hurt you very, very badly."

Well, she DID.

"Well, you DID," I sighed.

"But ... I'd..." She took a deep breath. "I'd hoped that after the way we left things at your graduation, I'd hoped that you and I could move on and be friends again. I never expected it to happen overnight, but I'd hoped we could rebuild at least a little bit of we used to be."

I shook my head. "Can't rebuild the pieces of a broken house."

"I know, I know. Wrong word. I meant that I'd hoped we could build a new friendship, with the new 'you' and the new 'me', you know?"

"I know," I sighed. "It's just that things have been so busy with the new job and BJ arriving and you've had school and--"

"I know," she interrupted, placing a hand on top of mine. "But I would have thought ... I would have hoped ... that you'd make a little time for me, too. Isn't that what we talked about when you graduated? About how we'd always be family, about how we both wanted to maybe become Best Friends again?"

I exhaled slowly. "About how this awkwardness between us is ridiculous? How it's been two years since we broke up and we both want to move on?"

Dawn smiled. "Exactly!"

The riotous images started to come back, and I closed my eyes and pressed the fingers from both hands against my temples in an effort to quell the flood.

"Hey ... you okay?"

"I..." The images were filled with noise, noise without sound and yet sound that washed away my hearing. White static like the rush of ocean waves splashed around my head, tugging my sense of balance around into a spinning vertigo that--

"Ben? Are you--?"

Noise-noise-NOISE!

"You're turning pale. Maybe--"

"I can't..." I muttered, frustrated with my inability to fully block out the overload of information. It was like a tower of paperwork stacked a thousand feet high on my desk, a staggering amount of details, emotions, and fears so intimidating in sheer scope and size that I simply COULDN'T handle it all and refused to even start trying. "I can't..."

With a weary sigh, Dawn said quietly, "This is the part where you find a way to exit the conversation."

The noise stopped. Clarity and awareness of my surroundings suddenly came back to me, and I blinked my eyes open and looked at her. "Huh?"

Sighing again, Dawn frowned and muttered in resignation, "This is the part where you shut me out and walk away. Every time I try to initiate a serious conversation and get us talking about building a new friendship, you change the subject. The last time you visited the Berkeley house? Didn't want to talk about it. The last time we all went to my parents' place for a group dinner? Deflected so that you'd never be alone with me. You Keep. Shutting. Me Out. Always."

I frowned right back at her. "Not always. Half the time it's you that walks away."

"Me?"

"Like yesterday on the hike up to the Garden. I tried to keep things going with that crack about the generic local sports team."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Trying to chat about a sports team or the weather is NOT getting you and me into a serious conversation about our relationship!"

"Well at least -I- wasn't the one who walked away!"

"Ugh!" Dawn stood abruptly and paced away from the bench. Folding her arms across her chest, she huffed for a moment and stared out across the valley. And I set my elbow on my knee and dropped my chin into my palm while I stared back at the trail, wondering what I could say that would let me get up and walk back to the main lodge.

Running away again?

With her back to me, she shook her head and muttered, "I should've realized something was up when you didn't visit camp with everyone else last summer. I told Dayna I thought you were avoiding me, but she tried to say you just needed space and a little time."

"I did need space and a little time."

"It's been a YEAR, Ben! A year is not 'a little time'," Dawn suddenly barked while spinning around to face me. "Why won't you let me IN?"

"What are you TALKING about? I haven't gone anywhere! You know where to find me. If you ever wanted to talk and try to fix this, you could have TRIED to make an effort."

"I HAVE!" She flung her arms at me. "You came by the Berkeley house the day after I arrived and I dropped everything to try and talk to you. But you insisted that you had some upgrades to the house you needed to do and even when you were done with those, you came up with some phantom idea that Faye needed your help in unpacking her belongings. As if SHE wanted you to handle her suitcase full of underwear. Gawd, the poor girl was mortified and had to go get Brooke to order you out of her room to do something else!"

"I..." I frowned. "That's not how I remember it."

"And then after dinner, you left before the meal was even finished without telling anyone and we had to find out later that you were drowning yourself in Tri-Delt pussy!"

"Hey, they came to the door to get ME."

Dawn stared at me like I'd grown a third head. "No they didn't! There were a dozen people in that house, including our parents. Nobody ELSE saw a Tri-Delt come to the door. You left on your own."

I frowned and pondered that.

"The girls and I came over to your new apartment more than a few times," she continued. "We'd talk. As long as the topics stayed casual, you'd talk. But the minute I tried to get a little deeper ... the second I asked about rebuilding 'us', you stonewalled me. Change the subject, give me some waffling non-answer, and if that didn't work you'd just up and walk away. Half the time you found some excuse to leave the apartment entirely."

"I didn't..."

"And then BJ arrived and all of a sudden you became a black hole. Now I get it: a newborn can be rough on any first-time dad. I don't begrudge you focusing your attention on him when you needed to. And Kim told me you were getting so little sleep that she didn't think it would be a good idea for me to press you about rebuilding our friendship. But it's been a LONG TIME since BJ was born. You don't have that excuse anymore."

"He's not an excuse. I've just--"

"You've just been shutting me out!" she cut me off.

"You had schoolwork to deal with. A new major. A long-distance boyfriend."

"All of which I could handle AND still try to be your friend!"

"WE have felt awkward around each other and couldn't figure out how to start this conversation."

"I've been trying to start this conversation for months but you KEEP WALKING AWAY. And with so many people around us, watching our every move, I never wanted to make a scene about it. I didn't want to come off as the desperate, shrill ex-girlfriend who can't let go!"

I blinked and looked her up and down. "You mean like you're coming off right now?"

Clenching her jaw, I could see Dawn fighting the urge to haul off and smack me right now. Her chest heaved and I could practically hear her teeth grinding, but after two seconds she spun around, folded her arms across her chest, and bowed her head. Even from behind I could tell her chest was heaving, but two seconds after that I realized that she was crying.

"Dawn?" I ventured quietly, not getting up from my seat.

She kept her back to me, visibly shuddering as she fought to get her crying under control.

"Dawn?" I said again.

"Fuck you, asshole," she spat without turning around.

I sighed. "If I'm such an asshole, then why do you even want to be my friend?"

"Right now I'm asking myself that very same question," she muttered.

A part of me expected her to just walk away. Now that I really thought about it, it wouldn't be the first time. She was right: she had been trying to get through to me. But the invisible wall that kept coming between us was a wall -I- created. Many times over the past year she'd made overtures toward rebuilding our friendship the way we'd talked about long ago, only -I- had been the one evading her, if not avoiding her entirely. And the few times she'd pressed the issue beyond casual invitation, trying to insist that we go talk in private somewhere, I'd been this very same asshole in turning her away. Surrounded by friends and family, she'd always retreated rather than cause a scene like the one she'd made the night I proposed to DJ.

But we weren't surrounded by friends and family anymore. I thought now of the last time we were, not too long ago after lunch when I'd worked up the gumption to ask Dawn to go somewhere and talk. I thought about the surprised look on all their faces, realizing now that they were all surprised to see ME make the suggestion.

"You're living such a happy, perfect life – a perfect life that apparently doesn't need me in it," Dawn sighed, turning back around to face me while wiping the tears from her eyes. "Adrienne's back to being your girlfriend full-time, Sasha adores being with you, Kim is such a devoted mother, and BJ is just the cutest thing ever. You've even got Dayna now, and she tells me it's casual and convenient and it's not like you're gonna get married or anything, but Ben, really? My older sister is now falling in love with you, your older sister is using you as a booty call, and who's left on the outside looking in? Especially here? When there's nobody else from our families around but us?"

"I'm sorry. I don't mean for you to feel like an outsider."

"I know you don't, but I do." She shook her head. "Look, I knew what I was getting into. I didn't have to come along on this vacation. I'm not part of the whole 'San Francisco' group, and I asked to tag along, knowing that I'd be the outsider. But I did it because I knew this chance would have to come sometime over these two weeks. No more school, no more work, no more external distractions. HERE ... OUR camp ... This place is magical, and if there's anywhere in the world that can help me find a way to be your friend again, it's here."

I snorted and gestured around. "In the spot where you fell in love with your new boyfriend."

Dawn averted her eyes, staring away from me for a long few moments.

I sighed, took a deep breath, and apologized. "I'm sorry, you're being sincere and I'm being an asshole again."

"This has nothing to do with Nick."

"Okay. I'll believe you."