Camp Payback (16 page)

True, but I forced my mind off what I wanted and focused on my mother. She needed me. If Alex’s famous parents found out about us, they’d turn me into a bad boy and go viral with it. Not that they could mention my name legally. But some of the campers would post about us and everyone would know anyway. It’d make Gollum mad enough to send me away and, worse yet, Alex would be in trouble, too.

“‘Signs your child is dating someone undesirable: Your child is acting differently. Your child is keeping secrets.’ Sound familiar?” I intoned.

Alex scowled. “You spent way too much time on my parents’ blog.”

I crossed my arms. “Yep. I don’t think I’d make the
Wholesome Home
cut, do you?”

Alex scuffed the dirt so hard it rose around her shoes in a brown cloud. “Like that matters?! I’m sick of living by those rules, and I came here to get away from them. And now you’re enforcing them? When do I get to call the shots in my life? I thought you of all people would get that.”

I caught her neatly by the elbow when she spun hard enough to stumble. Helena opened the back door with a trash bag in hand, spotted us, then eased the screen shut. I sent her a silent thank you.

“I do get that. But we’re no good for each other. Besides, that TV crew is supposed to show up and film you any time. If they caught us together…there’s too much against us.”

“Then why does it feel right?” When Alex brushed away a tear, the backs of my eyes pricked. I hated that I’d made her cry. Plus, she had a point. I’d been forced to follow other people’s rules all my life and so had she.

“Can we just hang out—take things slow? Friends with—uh—potential?”

Alex blew her nose and shot me a speculative glance. “Doubt it. But at least we’ll still see each other.”

I held in a groan. Spending time with Alex and keeping us from going too far…it’d be an impossible feat. But I couldn’t deny how much fun we’d had today—both together and separately—and that I didn’t want it to stop.

“So you want to help me with these pans?” I tossed a small one to her, then ducked when she pantomimed hitting me over the head with it. “What the hell?”

“I thought I’d knock some sense into you.” Her sassy grin was back in place.

“Good luck with that.” I stacked a couple of containers and headed toward the lit kitchen, Alex hot on my heels. There was nothing sensible about “us.” Maybe I needed that blow to the head after all.

……………….

A half-hour later, we stopped in front of the juniper trees that guarded either side of her cabin. The smell of fresh earth and decayed pine needles hung heavy in the humid night air. It was one of those moments that felt as still as a snapshot, and I kind of wished it was. Next month, I’d want this mental picture of Alex, her eyes flashing as bright as her smile, her hands gesturing for emphasis as she described her
West Side Story
plans. She’d been thrilled when Helena gave a cautious thumbs-up to the idea of me joining the group. Especially when Alex mentioned it’d be supervised.

“So you get to do this whole fake death scene, and I’ll be crying over you, and then…”

“Hello,” called Alex’s friend from the porch. She had dark hair and thick glasses, but I blanked on her name. “How was cooking for the rich and famous?”

A guy named Rafael sat across from the nameless girl, a chessboard set up on the table between them. I’d met him a few times around camp, and he seemed cool. He wasn’t one of those tools who tried to make me feel like a loser for working in the kitchen.

“Hey, Siobhan!” Alex called, answering the mystery of her friend’s name. “It was hot and sweaty. Lots of work.” Alex grabbed my hand and tugged me up the stairs. Like a friend would. A friendly friend. The kind of friend that makes your knees weak when her small fingers wrap around yours. Friends with potential.

“Sounds fun.” The screen door banged as another girl wandered out on the porch. I knew this one because the guys talked about her a lot—Jackie. She wasn’t Alex-hot, but I guess she was hot in a way a lot of guys notice. The bigger reason they knew her, though, was that she could kick most of their asses on a hoops court. Jackie glanced down at the checkered board. “I’m not an expert, but it looks like she’s got you in check in, like, three moves, dude.”

“Concentrating,” Rafael said through clenched teeth, his thick eyebrows knitting over his prominent nose.

Siobhan leaned back with a smug smile. “Did you guys get to have any fun?”

“If Alex is involved, I don’t doubt there was mischief,” another girl called from the window, then peered at our clasped hands long enough to make me let go. That piercing stare of hers made me think of Helena.

A huffy breath sounded beside me. “F.Y.I., Yasmine,” Alex began, “today was totally legit. I helped Javier cook until the assistant director asked me to do a non-speaking role.

“Still concentrating.” Rafael tapped a pawn against the side of the table.

The guy clearly took his chess seriously.

“It won’t do you any good. I’ve got this one.” Siobhan’s voice rose. She stared at Rafael like no one had ever bested her before at anything.

Hadn’t she heard Rafe was a chess whiz? I barely hung out with most of these kids, and even I knew that.

I cleared my throat, wanting to see Alex get her due. “The director told Alex she has real potential.”

“Really?” Another girl—there was no end of them on this side of camp—rushed outside and hugged Alex, her blonde dreads swinging. “I’m so proud of you.” She stepped back and studied Alex. “You have a rainbow aura tonight. I think you’ve found your life’s purpose.”

I wasn’t exactly sure of the aura stuff, but Alex did kind of glow as she explained her plans to get the camp involved in the musical.

“West Side Story?
Great message about intolerance.” Yasmine pushed a brightly patterned head scarf over her forehead as she joined us outside. “I’m in.”

There was a brief quiet moment. Almost as if all the girls had been waiting to see what Yasmine would say. Then they all spoke at once.

“Me, too,” they chorused. Now that they’d stopped teasing Alex, they looked as excited as she was.

And suddenly I was, too. I’d never seen myself as the kind of guy that’d do something like this. But I knew it made Alex smile, and I couldn’t do that enough.

“Me three.” Their counselor jogged up the stairs, her bushel of blonde hair wilder than ever. “I love musicals. Nearly played
Annie
on Broadway until my final audition with Sandy the dog ended with an EpiPen and an ambulance ride. So much for my name in lights,” she sighed.

Rafael twisted around in his seat. “Still concentrating.”

“Focus on how you’re going to carry my meal trays all week because I’m going to win.” Siobhan laughed along with the group.

“Not exactly.” Rafael slid a piece diagonally, captured one of Siobhan’s pawns and announced, “Checkmate.”

Yasmine whistled, and the rest of the group leaned over the board.

“No. That’s—that’s not possible.” Siobhan stood, her eyes wide behind her thick lenses. “I had him.”

“So
had him.” Jackie nodded and patted Siobhan. “I never saw that one either. Sorry, champ.”

“She’s not the champion anymore,” chortled Emily. She pointed her index fingers, cocked her thumbs, and curled her fingers toward her palms. “Looks like there’s a new sheriff in town. Pow pow.”

“But…but…,” stuttered Siobhan. If it wasn’t a game, I would have actually felt sorry for her. She looked like she’d lost more than the chess match.

Rafael stood. He was compact and so thin the porch rails were thicker than his calves. He pointed at Siobhan, one side of his mouth quirked. “I like hot sauce on my scrambled eggs. See you at breakfast. Good night.”

Had to hand it to the dude, he had style. I returned his grin, then winced when Alex elbowed me.

When Rafael stepped off the bottom stair, two middler kids raced up the path, their flashlights bobbing like police search lights.

“Fight! Fight!”

My gut twisted.

Emily leapt off the porch, going into Power Ranger mode. “Where? Who?”

“Vijay and some other guy,” gasped the boy, holding his side.

“Where, Emilio?” Rafael squatted down, their resemblance suggesting they were brothers. For a moment, I felt a pang and wished I had one, too.

“Down by the dock,” a high voice rang out, the girl who’d run with him. “And one of them has a bloody nose, Piper. Gross. We saw them on the way to outdoor movie night.” All of the sudden, her voice wavered, and she ran into what must be her sister’s arms.

“It’s all right, Leila. Shhhhhhh.”

“I’ll take the kids with me and find Mr. Woodrow.” Emily already had the pre-teens in hand. “Meet me down there but don’t do anything stupid, like get in the middle of it. Talk them down if you can.”

Alex’s friends all took off—Rafael, too. But I held Alex back before she could spring off with them.

“We should find another counselor.” I looked at the other cabins, but they were either dark or—if the lights were on—looked empty inside.

“There’s no one else.” Alex tugged me forward. “Come on.”

It wasn’t like me to play Switzerland and be all neutral, but I knew I skated a thin surface around here.

“I’ll get in trouble—”

She sprinted toward her friends and raced along the narrow forest path, giving me no choice but to follow her. Damn it. Damn it.

Our shoulders and hands collided as we careened off each other in the dark, catching up to the others. After a moment, we burst onto the beach and took in Vijay and Jake wrestling on the sand. Even in the dim lighting, the red flow from Jake’s nose gushed bright.

My pulse thrummed. I’d seen and been in way too many of these fights to count. It was easy to see that Jake was about to get his ass handed to him. He covered his wet face with his hands and twisted uselessly to the side. But that’s what happened when you went up against a kid who fought dirty. Knowing Vijay, he’d probably thrown sand in Jake’s eyes.

“Stop it, Vijay!” Alex screamed. Before I could stop her, she lunged at her ex and grabbed his swinging arm.

What the hell?

I was in motion before I could stop myself. Toward her, toward him, toward trouble.

Vijay’s momentum hurled Alex into the sand, and I heard her teeth rattle as she landed hard. I saw red. Intentional or not, no one hurt Alex. Especially this douchebag. Anger management could kiss my ass.

I grabbed him from behind and put him in a headlock that gave Jake enough wiggle room to escape. In three steps, he stumbled into the forest and disappeared. Now I was the one left holding the bag—two hundred pounds of raging Vijay who was pissed to see his opponent get away…and all too happy to see me take his place. A jack-o-lantern grin split his bruised face.

“Let go, asshole.” Vijay squirmed, but I tightened my hold and dug my heels in the sand.

“So you can throw around more girls? Yeah. Super tough, man.”

Jackie stormed to my side, and Alex joined her until I waved them back. No more collateral damage. Besides, I had this. Vijay might outweigh me by thirty pounds, but it took brains as well as muscle to win a fight.

Vijay kneed me in the groin and ducked out of my hold when I doubled over. I took an uppercut to the jaw before I shoved him hard against the chest.

“Don’t want to fight you, man,” I rumbled, forcing myself to step back and give him a chance to calm down. Not that my temper was going away. I wanted to pound him. Grind his ugly face into the ground until he learned to stay away from Alex for good.

Vijay crouched, ready to spring. “I bet you don’t, you puss—”

I dove for his legs and grunted in satisfaction when the jerk-off crashed backward. Adrenaline pumping, I leaped to my feet, then stared down in amazement at an immobile Vijay, his head resting on a rock the size of his head.

Damn. Was that blood by his temple?

“What in the name of Camp Juniper Point is going on here?” Gollum thundered, his whistle emitting a powerful shriek.

A flashlight shone in my eyes, blinding me. Without thinking, my arms rose in the air.

Emily knelt beside Vijay and gently tapped his cheeks until his eyes slid open. The snake.

“You’re in a lot of trouble, young man,” hissed Gollum.

Helena was going to kill me for letting her down. Again.

“Tell me something new,” I muttered and followed Gollum back to the main office.

Alex

Teeth chattering, I danced from one foot to the other to stay warm in the dark outside Warriors’ Warden shortly before midnight. I’d been waiting for Javier to return from the meeting with Gollum for almost half an hour.

I jumped up and down in between the juniper trees, sticking to the shadows since a few lights stayed on around the perimeter of the boys’ camp at night. Had the temperature really dropped into the fifties or was I just shivering from fear? I knew a storm was coming, and I’d even worn a hoodie. But I think most of the chill came from the inside.

Javier was going to get booted out of camp, and it would be completely my fault.

At the sound of a twig snapping, I flattened myself to a tree, heart racing. There were wild animals out here. Dangerous ones.

But as I searched the dark woods, the tree bark biting into my cheek, I recognized the sound. Someone walking toward the boys’ cabins without a flashlight.

“Javier?” I shout-whispered. “Is that you?”

The walking stopped. The shadow stilled. I swallowed my tongue because whoever it was stood tall enough to be a counselor.

“What if it wasn’t me?” the voice shot back. Javier’s voice, thank you, God.

He sauntered over while I peeled myself off the tree, my knees shaky.

“What happened?” I could see him fine when he got close. “They didn’t kick you out, did they?”

I reached for him before I could stop myself, my hand landing briefly on his bare forearm. Tense. Muscular. Warm.

I stepped closer. He stepped back. Pulled away. It hurt me to see how much he wanted me to stay away from him.

“They didn’t kick me out. Yet.” His white teeth flashed in a grimace as he flexed his fingers.

“Are you okay?” His knuckles looked scraped.