Miles saw very little of Sophie the following day until the Underground Railroad simulation at the end of the evening when he traded his laborer’s cap for a sheriff’s hat.
“You look tired, sweetheart,” Miles noticed as Sophie slipped into an over-sized house dress.
“Just not used to working with a group all day,” she smiled. “How did the rest of your day go?”
“Nothing exciting. We hauled a bunch of boards to separate piles so people can slap together an addition to the storage shed this weekend. Mindless stuff, more of the same tomorrow.”
“I know as soon as we get done with this I’ll be wide awake and want to stay up all night in the lounge or something,” Sophie lamented.
“That’s how it always goes, Miles agreed. He wasn’t feeling tired in the least. He had worked all day, just as Sophie had, and done some pretty heavy labor at some points but physical work had something on working with a group sometimes. In group situations a person was not only running around with kids all day, but figuring out logistics, learning names, and gauging the group every step of the way. There was a lot more to the whole picture than most people thought. Miles certainly knew where Sophie was coming from. He massaged her shoulder and kissed the side of her head before they made for their hiding spot in the closet upstairs from where they were getting prepared for the show.
Sophie smiled up at Miles. “If we stay up all night, we stay up all night, hey?” Miles was glad to see Sophie perk up. “Let’s go to Starbucks and Borders the next time we get a chance. We haven’t done that in a while.”
“Ah, the classic Miles and Sophie date.”
“I just like it because I don’t have to talk to you the whole bloody time,” Sophie smirked.
“There she is.”
“Oh, you like it. Look at me, won’t you?”
Miles did. “What?”
“I’m giving you my ‘kiss me’ face. You know this face.” Miles had seen it before but was unaware the look had a special name. Sophie’s chin was jutted out a bit and her eyes her half-closed. Her lips were struggling to hold back a pucker. Miles obliged Sophie’s pose before stepping into the closet.
“Good boy.”
“I just kissed you to be nice. I don’t have to, you know?”
“Oh, you don’t, eh?” Sophie pressed her hands to Miles’ elbows to push herself up to his face. She moved her lips across his cheek and then almost over her lips. She pulled back just as Miles was about to go for her. “Ah, no. You don’t have to kiss me.”
Miles swiftly curled his arms around her and took his kiss.
“I knew it,” Sophie cooed.
“Well, you’ve done it now,” Miles answered.
“What?” Sophie gripped her answer.
“Well, that’s not going to make it any better, now is it?”
Sophie rubbed her hand along Miles’ obviousness. “This probably isn’t helping either, is it?”
“What in the world has gotten into you? I knew we should have never shagged in that cabin.”
“That was your idea. I can’t help it if I liked it.”
“That doesn’t help either, you. Stop. But you know you’ve gotten yourself into something first thing when we get back.”
Sophie let go and yawned. “I don’t think so; not tonight. I’m tired.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing you don’t have to be awake for it, isn’t it?”
“That’s just wrong, there. I better just let you do what you need to do then, eh?”
“I’ll make it worth your while.”
“You always do. I wouldn’t tease you if I didn’t want to have some fun.”
The kids started filing the room; there arrival was never any small affair. Miles and Sophie went mute and listened for their key phrase like dogs trained to play slave trader.
“Whew, I knew I did that for a reason,” Sophie huffed. She squeezed Miles closer to her, which was hard to do since he was already lying on top of her, just as out of breath. “I needed that.”
“Me, too.”
“You always need that.”
“You’re no prude.”
“It’s all from you.”
The banter was typical of most of their post-sex conversations. To anyone listening through the walls they may have sounded like two children who had just exhausted themselves jumping again and again into a huge pile of freshly raked leaves.
“We should probably take the sock off of the doorknob and see what everyone else is up to.”
“I suppose you’re right.” The Underground Railroad simulation had ended at just after nine that night. Miles and Sophie were lying next to a digital clock that had yet to reach
“Look at these two,” Jabari chuckled. “That was a convenient absence.” They both shrugged and smiled, remembering the first night they had slept together in
It was hard to fault a guy who mixed you drinks, however, and Jabari presented a pair of rum and Cokes to the lovebirds before they had even thought it seemed like a good idea. They clinked the beverages as well as plastic cups clink and drank a salute.
“Do you ever want to stay in bed all day long and forget about the world?”
“All the time. But one of us has to be the grounded one.” Sophie countered.
“I swear, if you were a regular starry-eyed girl…”
“We’d be living in the south of
“I love you, too.”
Sophie soaked it in, but only for a moment. “Come on, Mushy.”
“Am not.”
“Don’t even argue it.” Miles felt the damp heat of Sophie roll away from his leg and knew there was nothing else that he could do. Miles stayed in bed long enough to watch Sophie stand up and walk to his closet. She looked like a Calvin Klein commercial as she folded a shirt over her breasts and looked back at Miles.
“What?”
“My favorite part of the morning,” Miles said simply. Sophie snorted but the hidden curl of her lips sweetened the sound of the air she expelled.
“Later, for all that.”
“Sorry. You just do it for me sometimes.”
“Well, I should hope I do it for you every time because you’re stuck with me now.” Miles waited for Sophie to cover her southern hemisphere before breaking free from the blankets that bound him to the bed.
“It never hurts to dream,” Miles said, hugging Sophie tightly, before putting on his attire.
“No. I’m glad for it. But don’t listen to that. You don’t need any more reason.”
“Hey, before you came along I would have slapped some sense into a guy like I’ve become. You probably do this to everyone you date.”
“I don’t think so,” Sophie turned in Miles’ arms to meet his eyes. “Besides, I’m marrying you. There’s a difference. I had better make you want to run away with me forever.” Miles smiled at how much sense Sophie always made. They finished getting ready for work and stepped outside.
Miles was surprised at how much fun it was to work jobs with Jabari, Scott, and Kyra. The second day they spent in the trenches was still in preparation for the weekend’s Family Camp. The majority of the quartet’s tasks were designed to lighten the load for the volunteers coming in that Friday. Lumber was organized, put into different piles and painted so that the only thing needed to complete the shed was nailing boards together like a giant 3-D puzzle.
Miles, Jabari, and Scott picked up where they had left off the day before; painting two-by-fours a sort of dried-blood red. Dan, the head maintenance man, liked Kyra’s company and had her up on the roof of another shed a few yards away helping get measurements for a new roof.
“Seems like we were here not too long ago making these boards,” Scott commented.
“You’re right, I almost forgot about that,” Miles said.
“I sure as hell didn’t. This is pretty much our shed, and somebody’s going to come along this weekend, prop these boards on end, stick a couple of nails in them, and take all our glory.” This was from Jabari.
“What are you going to do, man? We get some free work out of these people and they get that happy ‘I helped someone’ sense of accomplishment. And we get hours. Everyone wins. I mean, we’ll be getting around sixteen hours with this group, easily.”
“That will be nice.”
“What are you doing after this, Jabari?”
“I’m going to try to get a job as a youth counselor somewhere, more inside stuff like an after-school center or something, Boys and Girls Club, I don’t know.”
“You shouldn’t have a hard time landing that,” Miles said. Jabari shook his head.
The conversation ambled on as they leisurely slathered paint onto their homemade boards. They talked mostly about things they had talked about dozens of times before, mostly to drown out the country music blaring tinnily from Dan’s radio.
Lunchtime came around with nothing of note happening during the morning hours. The four at the shed site were only working until four-thirty that day, the same hours as any other maintenance person stuck to. Only having four hours of work after lunch was a welcome change as well for the four affected, but they made sure not to brag about it to the ones stuck with the big school spending their second of three days in the camp.
Miles could see the fatigue in Sophie’s demeanor even though she seemed happy with her group.
They went through the usual ‘how’s your day going’ banter as they ate and parted seemingly moments after they sat down.
“I need to do something for that girl tonight,” Miles commented on the way back to the work site. “She’s tired and stressed out about the wedding and everything. Not having the same times off toward the end here probably isn’t helping either.”
“So, a bath with rose petals and a hot stone massage?” Scott joked.
“No, maybe I’ll rent some sappy movie or something. We’ve watched all the Netflix stuff I had. Make some tea or something. She needs a bit of relaxation, I can tell.”
“Yeah, man, that wedding stuff has got to be hard to tackle with all this going on.”
“And thinking about grad school to boot. I should call my parents tonight, speaking of all that.”
“They’ve never met Sophie, have they?” Miles shook his head.
“They will in a month or so. I’ll meet hers then as well, I suppose.”
“That’ll be weird.” Miles nodded and started prying open a can of paint.
“You guys are coming, right? You too, Jabari.”
“Planning on it. We’ll have to see how the new job thing pans out.”
“Same here,” Jabari said, “Although, I guess since I haven’t started looking yet, I can put off doing that a little while longer.”
“Well, I hope you can be there. God, I haven’t even thought of invitations yet. Am I supposed to do that?”
“Hell if I know. Why do you think I’m not married yet?”
“Well, I’m not crazy about the rush, but with Sophie being from an exotic land and all…”
“Right, right.”
“Ah, if anybody belongs being married, it’s the two of you,” Jabari said, settling the conversation.
The three guys settled into painting once again. When they finally saw Dan climbing off the roof they had painted almost all of the boards.
The four Jobs people felt a bit sheepish clocking out at four-thirty, especially when they could hear groups of kids and staffers from every direction.
Miles, for one, did not mind having a hot shower before dinner. Scott had gone to Kyra’s so Miles had their cabin all to himself, which was a rarity, considering it housed four normally.
Miles sat on his bed for a moment thinking about what he could do for Sophie that night to give her some unwinding time. His best bet was to rent a movie she would like and just being there with her. He shrugged mentally when he heard the dinner bell and walked down staff row towards the dining hall.
Sophie seemed about the same when Miles sat beside her at the staff table that evening.
“What time are you finished?”
“I’m doing dishes after this until the campfire. I’ll be done about nine, I hope.”
“Well, come to my place when you get done, okay?” Sophie looked at Miles questioningly. “Just do it,” He answered.
“Okay. You have tomorrow off, don’t you?” Miles nodded. “Will you call your mom about the wedding plans?”
“Yeah, I’m going to spend time on that tomorrow, definitely.”
“What have you got planned tonight?”
“What do you mean?”
“Miles, I know you better than that. You’re acting all sneaky. You’re up to something.”
“No, no. You jump to conclusions.” Nevertheless, Sophie’s new smile showed no signs of leaving her lips.
They finished dinner with the usual partings and Miles immediately drove into town, excited by the way he had brightened Sophie’s evening. He just hoped his plan wouldn’t disappoint.
Miles browsed Blockbuster in search of the perfect movie: a movie Sophie would love and he wouldn’t mind watching. He thought he found it in a movie called ‘Serendipity’. On the surface it looked like a cheesy romance movie, after reading the back Miles thought it might have a little more going for it. There wasn’t anything else that wasn’t overly syrupy or that just did not fit the bill at all.
Miles arrived back at Ontonagon just after seven o’clock. He cleaned up the cabin and dusted a couple of candles off. He snuck into Sophie’s cabin and stole her bathrobe back to his bed; then waited. Well, he went down the lounge to play darts with Jabari for a bit, but after that he waited.
Sophie opened Miles’ door right on time. The sad little candles were lit and casting halos on the ceiling, samples of Shiraz were aerating in glasses on the nightstand next to his bed, and the movie he had picked out was ready to go on his laptop.
“Miles Drake. Did you do all of this for me?”
‘It isn’t much. Do you want to take a shower?” He motioned to her robe hanging on the inside of the open bathroom door.
“That sounds lovely. I don’t suppose you would care to join me?”
“It had crossed my mind, to be honest.”
“It better have,” Sophie smiled devilishly. She hooked Miles’ pinkie with hers and led him into the bathroom.
Their shower was just shy of an NC-17 rating. It had the intended affect of Sophie, however, as far as Miles was concerned. By the time they got into bed Sophie was as warm and soft as a blanket in a sunbeam.
Miles passed Sophie a glass of wine. They sipped slowly and deeply, draining half the contents of their vessels on the first try.
“Miles, this is your last bottle,” Sophie moaned.
“We’ll be back in Chicago soon enough. They have stores there that sell this stuff every day of the year.”
“I didn’t know it was such a special occasion.”
“It’s not. Well, I suppose it’s as special as any other time we do this sort of thing which is to say, they all deserve a last bottle of wine, if you ask me.”
Sophie shivered. “You do realize this is why you get to have your way with me every single night.”
“You’ve had your way with me just as much, I think. Or maybe I just like it when you think that.”
“You do like it. You don’t have to do any bloody work when I won’t let your hands free.” Miles smiled uncontrollably and drank the rest of his wine. Sophie followed suit and he poured fresh depths into their glasses before starting the movie.
Miles wasn’t sure how far the movie had played before they lost track of the screen and became far more interested in what was happening under the covers, but even after they emerged it seemed as though the characters were nowhere near the life-altering events and realizations that signaled the finale of the movie. They saw the rest of the story unfold on the screen but couldn’t say they really watched the rest of the movie. Call it post-coital cataracts.
“Hhmm. That was good, Sophie murmured once the credits rolled.
“Which do you mean?”
Sophie raised her eyebrows though her lids were closed. She nuzzled closer to Miles. He saw it as the cue to flip the top of the computer down with his big toe and roll to Sophie.
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