I Vid. I Write. I Fangirl.

Poppy put her clothes back on, aware of Alex doing the same beside her. When they were both finished, they both scooted forward towards the tent door at the same time, nearly colliding in the process. They turned to each other then, both a little shy and laughed.

“Go ahead, Poppy,” Alex suggested, but she shook her head.

“No, you go.”

He raised his eyebrows in question.

“So I can check out your ass when you head out the door.”

Eyebrows still raised, his eyes widened slightly, but then a sultry grin covered his face.

“Oh, and I don’t get to check out yours?”

She blushed slightly.

“I don’t have much of one,” she said shyly. “You do.”

He laughed, blushing too and wrapping a hand around the back of his neck.

“I beg to differ, but alright. You win. This time.”

“Thank you.”

She leaned back on her hands and watched as he made his way out of the tent, shaking his head at her voyeur’s stance. Just as he was almost all the way through, she leaned forward and smacked his ass, causing him to look over his shoulder.

He looked almost scandalized but then he smiled.

“You’d make one hell of a girlfriend, Poppy.”

And that line hit her like a ton of bricks. Her heart started beating rapidly, and she could feel her breathing start to come in short breaths. It must’ve shown on her face because Alex began to stammer, even as he held his hand out for her to come out of the tent too.

“I-I don’t mean for me,” he clarified, and she took his hand and climbed out of the tent.

“It’s okay, Alex,” she said, sweeping the images of them being cutesy and in love under the rug for the time being. “Don’t worry about it.”

She tried to untangle herself from him, so as to dig through their cooler and find something for them to eat, but his hand was still clasped on hers as she began to walk away, and he used the lingering touches of his grip to pull her back to him and kiss her.

She sank into the kiss despite herself, letting him explore her mouth and feel the rush of the kiss all the way down to her toes. When he pulled back a little, he nuzzled her nose, and didn’t say a word, though she felt like he wanted to.

Poppy for her part just sighed dreamily.

She was getting in way too deep with all of this, and she knew it. But it would all be over after today, so maybe she should just enjoy it while it lasted: the sex, the post-coital glow. It was nice being with him like this, and realizing just how much he trusted her and how deep their friendship ran.

“I love kissing you, Poppy,” he said, pressing his forehead to hers – and she let him.

“I love when you kiss me,” she confided, softly, smiling like a fool. “But I, uh, should get the food out and ready, yeah?”

He nodded and finally let her go.

“Yeah. Okay.”

She could feel his eyes on her backside though as she bent down to open the cooler. Heard his grunt too that he didn’t even try to hide.

“Alex,” she warned.

“Sorry,” he said, then plopped into one of their camping chairs.

She straightened and turned around, some foil packages in one hand and two smooth sticks in the other.

“Are you?” She raised an eyebrow and sat down in her chair. “Want to start a fire?”

“Yes,” he said, standing up and then crouching down to re-arrange some logs on the fire pit. “To both.”

Poppy smirked, then dug around in one of their bags where she’d tucked the lighter away and handed it to him.

“Thank you for your service.”

He rolled his eyes and muttered something she couldn’t make out, but she didn’t ask for him to elaborate, only chuckled quietly to herself.

Things settled in nicely after that. Alex got a fire going, and Poppy put some pre-cooked chicken and steak and veggies on two different sticks for cabobs, so they could warm them up over the fire.

They sat there for a while in silence, waiting for their food to get ready, then chowed down once it was. Alex chomped too soon and started exhaling sharply till Poppy got him a water, which he thanked her through a mouthful of meat over. She smiled and said you’re welcome before getting her own water and relaxing in her chair to eat and gaze out over the beautiful surroundings.

Time passed, and they settled into a soft silence for nearly an hour, just looking around, dozing on and off, and smiling at each other when their eyes met.

Then, quite expectedly, Alex broke the silence.

“So…”

Poppy turned to look at him. Then she looked down and saw a definite bulge in his shorts. She shook her head.

“What in the world are you going to do without me all summer, Alex Nilsen?”

He frowned.

“You’re not coming home?”

She shrugged.

“Maybe for a little while, but it’ll probably be better for me to move to New York before the rush of fall comes in. Besides, don’t we usually get busy and just text when we have time? That’s what happened last year.”

He frowned.

“I guess I’m just used to seeing you every day at school. It’ll be weird not seeing you even throughout the week.”

Poppy thumped a staccato of her fingers on the arms of the chair.

“Because we’d just become friends a year ago?” she guesstimated, and he nodded.

“Yeah.”

“We can facetime,” she said. “And maybe you can stop by once before I leave.”

“Just once?” He gave her his sad, puppy dog eyes, and she had to laugh.

“Alex Nilsen, I swear you weren’t even this attached to Sarah when we first met.”

He scoffed.

“I like spending time with you. Is that a crime?”

She smiled softly.

“I like spending time with you too.”

Her eyes looked over at his tent, and he caught on immediately and looked over too, before matching her heated gaze.

“S’mores later?” he concluded, hopefully.

Poppy’s smile spread.

“S’mores later.”

…

As the sun began to set, Poppy and Alex made their way into Alex’s tent. They were just about to get undressing when Poppy yelled out condoms! Alex muttered damn it under his breath, but crept on out of his tent and ran across the short way to Poppy’s before clutching the huge box of condoms and trudging back to his tent.

Poppy stared at him after he got inside and then burst into laughter.

“What?” he asked, but Poppy couldn’t stop laughing.

These weren’t small, cute little giggles either, but a huge belly-laugh where she was doubled-over and clutching her middle.

“Poppy, what?” Alex asked again, but her laughter was contagious and soon enough he was trying to bottle up his own chuckles to no avail.

“Sorry,” Poppy wheezed. “It’s just…we’re only going to need one.” She swiped away at the giggly tears taking up residence in the corners of her eyes. “Not five hundred.”

“Four-hundred-ninety-nine,” Alex said, “to be precise.”

Poppy’s lips spurted out some spit as she began to laugh again, and Alex tossed the box to the side, pulled her into his arms and kissed her firmly on the mouth to settle her.

Much to Alex’s delight, Poppy melted in his arms and murmured a thank you, I needed that, when he lifted his head.

“Happy to oblige,” Alex said, with a wide grin on his face.

“Should we, uh…” She gestured to the sleeping bag they were sitting on.

“Get to business?” He filled in the blanks, and Poppy blushed. He found it adorable.

“You said it, not me.”

Alex rolled his eyes, smiling playfully.

“Okay, well, first things first,” Poppy said. “We undress.”

She reached for her shirt to lift it up and over her head, but when she had it halfway to her elbows, Alex stopped her.

“Let me.”

Poppy stilled, and he was pretty sure she was going to object. Probably saying something like it’s a little too romantic to be undressing each other. But then, she’d stopped objecting to their kisses ever since their waterfall make out, and that was as romantic as kisses get.

There was a little voice in the back of Alex’s head that he was trying to ignore. Something about how he was possibly getting addicted to seeing Poppy in such an intimate setting. That he’d miss touching her, miss tasting her, miss seeing her so vulnerable and opening up beneath him like the flower she was.

He didn’t think he was developing romantic feelings for her by experimenting sexually with her a few times, but his knee-jerk reaction to fixing any problem had started to become kissing her, and he obviously couldn’t do that anymore after tonight. And what about next summer? What if they were with other people? Could he really just put this whole experience behind him as Poppy being a really good friend and helping him out with his sex life, his love life too?

“Okay,” Poppy said, giving in to his request, and Alex watched as she lifted up her arms for him and let him pull the shirt all the way off.

They’d already kicked off their shoes, so that wasn’t an issue. Their lower halves might be a bit more complicated, but nothing they couldn’t handle.

Just as Alex was starting to lean over Poppy to help her with her shorts, Poppy laid her hands on his chest, pressing her forehead to his, and he watched as she lifted the hem of his shirt up higher and then over his head, tossing it to the side.

She touched him then, not down below, but on his chest and stomach, tracing the lines on his pecs and abs as if she were trying to memorize them.

She didn’t say anything about how ripped he was this time, so he didn’t blush, but he knew she was thinking it. Maybe. Hell, he wasn’t sure, but it did something to him to have her touch him so gently. Made his heart flip and butterflies fill his stomach.

“Poppy…”

Her hand slithered up then and wrapped around his neck, and she pulled him in for a kiss.

One kiss became two, became five, became endless. Each messier, sloppier, more intoxicating than the last.

Alex groaned and quickly eased her down onto the sleeping bag, deepening each kiss as if he would swallow her whole.

Her feet snuck under the waistband of his shorts and pulled them down at almost the same moment as she lifted her ass off the ground to aid him in pulling her shorts off.

When they were both nude, Alex felt this overpowering need to worship her with kisses like he’d done before. He knew they were here to learn, not just to have any kind of sex, and it certainly wasn’t supposed to get romantic like this, but the ache inside him to please her was quickly overruling any desire to learn multiple sex positions for the sake of his future partners.

“Poppy,” he sighed, sounding exhausted, like he’d just run a marathon.

“What is it?” she asked, cradling his face in her hands and looking concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to do this.”

She froze and slowly released his face.

“You don’t want to do what…exactly?”

“This…position we were planning on,” he said in a huff.

Poppy relaxed immediately, a trace of a smile now on her face. She tangled her fingers in her hair.

“Does it make you nervous?” she asked gently.

Alex turned his head and kissed the inside of her arm.

Hell yeah, it made him nervous.

It made him nervous that he wanted to see her face when they fucked, that he wanted to pleasure her more than himself, that he wanted to experience an intimacy so deep that went beyond just having an amazing orgasm.

He didn’t want to just fuck her. He wanted to make love to her.

And it scared him shitless.

“Isn’t there another position we can do instead?” he asked, avoiding the question entirely.

“Well, there are lots of positions, Alex. I’m not flexible enough for all of them.”

“I’m serious.”

She pursed her lips.

“We could fuck side-by-side. You behind me, holding me, and me in front. You hold up one of my legs to give you access, you fuck me from behind, but it’s a little bit different. Easier on our knees for sure because we’d both be laying down.”

Alex’s mind stopped at holding me. He felt a flutter in his chest.

“Okay, let’s do that one,” he said.