“You worked for him. Did you always have feelings?”
“No, not in the beginning. We were nothing more than friends. He was my boss. Nick is the last guy I would’ve ever dated. He was crazy, wild, and I was always getting him out of trouble. I’m telling you Nick was a train wreck. And after a few years, he started to see me more than a friend. I think we were always attracted to each other from the very beginning. But he didn’t want to hurt me, so he stayed away. He knew what a jerk he was. And I stayed away because I didn’t want to get hurt by him. But little by little, things changed. Eventually, we crossed the line of friendship.”
“Were you scared, you know, with his reputation?”
“Yes. Very. Especially when I got pregnant. And then after we jumped out of a window to escape a bar fight, it hit him like lightning. He was tired of that life. And he wanted me, and nobody but me. He swore he was going to change. And he did. We got married and we’re crazy about each other.”
“He just needed to find ‘the one’.”
“Yeah. I think so. I love doing things like this because we never get a chance. My daughter, Arabella, is spending the week with her grandparents and they’re spoiling her rotten.”
Abby pulled out a picture and showed me an adorable little girl. “She’s lovely. How old is she?”
“She’s eight. Her grandparents are taking her to Florida. We have a week, so we figured we’d have a little fun. Nick wanted exotic. I wanted simple. So we placed a bet and I won. I picked camping. But enough about me. How are you and James doing?”
“It’s early. But I’m absolutely crazy about him.”
“Could you fall in love with a man like James?”
“I think I could.”
“I think James could fall in love with you.”
“Really?”
“I know he’s serious about you. The fact that he isn’t dating anybody but you is a huge sign. Are you dating anybody else?”
“Just James.”
“Then you’re serious about him?”
“I am.”
“We should do more double dating kind of things. I’d love to visit the Caribbean.”
I smiled. “Well, I’m always up for that.”
“So did you read about my story or did James tell you?”
“Internet.” I raised my hands innocently between us, one of them still gripping the flask. “I used to live in New York. It was kind of hard to avoid your shadow there for a while.”
Abby laughed quietly, then shook her head and wore a pained grimace. “You know, if I was still Nick’s publicist, I never would have allowed that stuff to be spilled to the media.”
Frustrated beyond fathomable belief, James and Nick had simultaneously taken to trying to set fire to more interesting things, like the edge of the canvas bag that held all our supplies, as well as Nick’s shoe.
“There’s really only so much you can do in terms of damage control, right?” I said.
“My goodness, you have no idea!” Abby shook her head slowly, covering her face with her hands. “I tried everything with Nick. I tried to humanize him, make him seem...real and relatable, within reach. Not a single time did I even come close.”
We both glanced again across the campsite, staring speculatively at the two Greek gods toiling obliviously before us. They both looked defeated, as if they’d angered the higher-ups on Mount Olympus and had been sentenced to community service, forced to work amongst the mere mortals.
“I wouldn’t take it personally,” I said with a grin. “Like I said, there’s only so much you can do.”
Abby shook her head and smiled at me fondly, her eyes growing distant as she remembered. “It got so bad that I even gave him a pet, just to make him seem more human. Do you know what he did? That lunatic set the cat free! He did the same thing with the bird. I finally settled on a dog, and... Well, you get the general idea.” She shook her head again and shoved her hands in her pockets to warm them. “It wasn’t until he tried to adopt the same policy with his housekeeping staff that we really had a problem.”
A burst of sudden laughter exploded from my lips, so loud that the failing fire starters paused and looked over at us suspiciously, before returning begrudgingly to their work.
“Well, at any rate, it seems to have worked out all right.” I glanced between the lovely couple and couldn’t help but notice the blazing adoration in both their eyes. “You’re living the fairytale.”