Lost (Captive Heart #1) by Carrie Aarons Page B

of toilet paper and coat the bottom of a new pair of boxers with them. It’ll have to do for now.
    Thank the Lord Tucker isn’t anywhere to be found when I finally make it out of the cabin to search for period supplies. While I knew this day would come, I didn’t think about it. But of course, being a girl was always harder than being a boy.
    I check the mess hall first, scrounging in the cabinets and the cleaning supply cabinet. I check the counselor cabin, the bathrooms of the rest of the camper cabins, the recreation building, and even the canteen.
    Nada. Nothing.
    “Shit.” I don’t normally curse, but I’m all out of options and I know this will be unlike any period I’ve experienced in the past eight years.
    “What’s wrong?”
    Double shit. This is embarrassing enough without Tucker knowing all of my female problems. “Nothing.”
    “You don’t look good. Are you okay?”
    Right then another cramp kicks in, this one stronger than the ones that woke me up, and I swear I’m not a wuss but it hurts like hell. I clutch my stomach and groan.
    Tucker is on me in two seconds flat. “Whoa, what the hell is going on?”
    I’m going to be down for four days at least, he’s going to notice anyway. “I uh … it’s my time.”
    My effort to save face is lost on the idiot male over here. “What?”
    “I have my period!”
    Tucker immediately takes his hand off the bottom of my back. “Ohhh.”
    Men and periods. I roll my eyes silently.
    “Um … what do you need?” At least he’s trying to help despite looking at me like he might catch a menstrual cycle.
    “Well, I need tampons. Or pads. But I can’t find any, anywhere. So I guess I’m going to have to make do with whatever kind of fabric or towels we can find.”
    “Towels, fabric? What are you going to … OH.” The light bulb goes on in Tucker’s head when he realizes I’m going to bleed all over those. “I’m gonna just go search …”
    He’s running across the quad in seconds.
    “And a hot pack if you can find it!” I yell out to him. My back is killing me.
    I hobble back to my cabin like some medieval woman in the throes of labor. Goddamn birth control, who knew it had been hiding the real pain of periods all along. I mean … I knew, I just never thought about what I was ingesting.
    Fifteen minutes of me lying on the mattress, clutching my back and my stomach, and Tucker finally walks in.
    “Okay, I got you a bunch of towels and I found some instant heat packs in a first aid kit in the mess hall.”
    He kneels down next to me and presents me with everything. My very own period attendant.
    I’m far past the point of modesty, and grab one of the towels and shove it down my pants.
    Already the bunched up pressure on my aching pelvic bones feels better. Tucker looks away, cracking a heat pack so that it warms for me.
    “Here.” He hunches over my body and tucks it securely in the waistband of my sweatpants so that it’s pressing against my skin. The touch is intimate, but not sexual, and my heart melts just a little at his caring, soothing voice.
    “Thank you.” While I still ache all over, I do feel marginally better and cleaner.
    “I’ll come check on you a little later, okay?” Tucker gives me a look of concern, but stands.
    I pass out maybe twenty minutes later, dazing in and out of an achy, restless sleep. But I do remember two big strong hands caressing my forehead and changing the heat pack on my back.

23
Tucker
    I used to freaking love Halloween.
    Well … correction. I used to freaking love Mischief Night. What can I say, I was … and apparently still am, an arrogant shithead.
    I’d plan my pranks for weeks, staking out the perfect houses and the perfect tricks to play. Smashed pumpkins, fiery dogshit, toilet-papered trees … I’d done it all.
    As I got older of course, the pranks between my friends and I got raunchier and seedier. Stealing chicks’ underwear and hanging them on the satellite dishes on their houses.