Keeping Her Secret (8 page)

“You don’t fall
that
often, huh?” Courtney murmured, a sleepy smirk on her face.

Behind them, she heard Tiffany roar in triumph.

“Ugh,” Bridget scoffed. “Klutz, much?”

Belatedly, Courtney’s face twisted into a mask of contempt. “Get off me!” she said, much louder.

Riya scrambled off of Courtney, falling butt-first into the sand and mumbling her apologies.

Tiffany yanked her up by her armpit. “Awesome save!” She gave Riya a sideways squeeze and held her other hand up for a high five.

Riya stared at it before raising her hand to smack it.

Becky’s whistle blew erratically. “Nineteen-seventeen! Nineteen-seventeen!”

Tiffany hauled her back to the court, where her teammates gave her enthusiastic high fives. Riya tossed a glance over her shoulder.

Courtney was staring directly at her, mouth slightly parted and forehead creased in confusion.

…

When she had been younger, Courtney thought watching a movie under the stars was just about the coolest thing ever. For years, it’d been her favorite thing about c
amp. They only held the movie nights in the field if there was zero percent chance of rain for the night. Otherwise, they’d be in the cafeteria.

She lay back on the grass, her head resting on Derek’s thigh. She sipped from a juice bottle David passed her, filled with something more potent than juice. A superhero movie played on the pop-up screen, but she’d seen it when it played in theaters, so she only half paid attention.

Derek’s long fingers caressed her hair. It felt nice. He was nice.

She was glad she’d decided to check out the woodworking class for the first time ever the other day, or else she might not have noticed him. Bridget had whined and begged her to join her at the pool again, but Courtney needed some time to herself. She never imagined she’d find a tall, dark drink of water to distract her. He was new this year and not in her brother’s cabin. Fresh meat.

Movement on her right caught her attention. Someone sat up, shifting their position, and Courtney recognized Riya’s silhouette. Despite her brother’s insistence, she hadn’t spoken to her today, not once. Not even when Riya’d fallen on top of her during the volleyball game. Courtney’d been drifting off to sleep, so when she opened her eyes, she’d thought it was a dream. Riya floated over her, wisps of her hair soaked with sweat, ragged breaths pushing her chest against Courtney’s. Then Bridget spoke, jarring her awake.

Courtney forced out a breath.

Riya sat on her left, Trey on Riya’s other side. Colt and Delores sat on Courtney’s right. Beyond Riya, the other twins and the loud-mouthed blonde lounged, lazily tossing popcorn at each other. Since when did these two groups sit together on movie night? Since when did they mix at all? Most of them had been coming for years and never exchanged more than casual pleasantries. Now—what?—they were friends?

She’d heard people talk about how at summer camp, people made friends with people they’d never look twice at in the real world. Courtney had always thought that was true of her and Bridget, but this was beyond irregular.

Trey raised his arm, placing it over Riya’s shoulders, pulling her in to his side. Riya adjusted her legs and her knee grazed Courtney’s hip.

Riya jerked back like she’d accidentally touched fire.

Courtney gulped several mouthfuls of the not-juice—vodka with a splash of orange juice for color—then grimaced at the taste. She usually didn’t drink much, if any. At parties back home, she’d clutch a red cup full of soda and no one was ever the wiser. And she hated how it made her thoughts burst out of her mouth, no matter how uncool.

Just for tonight
, she told herself. She’d done so well ignoring Riya today. She deserved a little something to take the edge off. Tomorrow would be easier. Maybe then she could look at Riya without focusing on her lips, without her pulse beating in her throat.

Beside her, Riya wouldn’t stop moving. Every other minute, she readjusted her position, her limbs bumping and brushing Courtney like a needy cat. Courtney wasn’t usually the type to be bothered by people touching her, but every touch from Riya was like a livewire to her awareness.

The bottle emptied before the movie finished. Courtney didn’t notice until Colt picked it up, then shook it at her, raising his eyebrow. A couple drops rattled against the plastic walls.

When the movie finished, everyone stood up slowly and lingered, chatting. Derek stood first, then pulled Courtney to her feet. She swayed, and he caught her with an arm around her waist. Lying down, she hadn’t felt a thing from the vodka, but now she realized: she was drunk. Way drunk. She recognized the feeling from the one night she’d been peer-pressured into taking shots.

Across the circle composed of her long-time camp friends and her sworn enemies, Trey put his arm around Riya’s waist. When Riya turned her face toward Trey’s, Courtney looked to Derek.

“Wanna go for a walk?” she asked, tracing slow circles on his muscular back with her fingers.

Derek’s smile lit the night. “Where?”

“Anywhere.”

Derek nodded, and Courtney tossed a lazy hand toward her friends. “Catch y’all later,” she murmured before leading Derek away.

They walked aimlessly. Courtney grabbed Derek’s hand, mainly to steady her path. Her head spun in the quiet of the night.

Courtney broke the silence. “So what do you do for fun, besides woodworking?”

“The usual,” Derek said. “Hanging out. Video games.”

She asked him a couple more questions, and he answered all of them without using a single complete sentence. Before they stepped foot on the long dock, she was already bored with him. That was not a good sign. It usually took a couple of days, at least.

Courtney thought about the talks she’d been sharing in the mornings with Riya. Those blew this one out of the water. Why couldn’t Derek be more like Riya? Courtney giggled, picturing a Riya-Derek face swap.

Halfway down the dock, she decided she wanted to sit down. So she did, without warning. She was too warm, so she dropped her feet into the lake. The cool, dark liquid soothed her omnipresent blisters and bruises. Everything was pretty about a ballerina, except her feet.

Derek paused, staring down at her with his lips slightly parted. “Okay.” He sat next to her.

Courtney gripped the edges of the boards beneath her butt and held tight. Even though she knew the dock was secured into the lake bed, she felt the rocking motion of a boat under her. She locked her gaze onto a light in a window across the lake until it blazed in her vision, steady and still.

Warmth enveloped her bare shoulders, and she realized Derek had put his arm around her.

She sighed. His touch meant nothing to her. His underarm was moist from sweat. She wrinkled her nose. Moist. She hated that word. And now she had underarm sweat on her shoulder.

Courtney rolled her shoulders, shrugging Derek’s arm off. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she giggled.

His forehead wrinkled, and the moonlight cast shadows in the creases. “I…I’m confused.”

“Sorry.” She shrugged. “I’m just not interested.” She marveled at how easily the truth formed itself into words, slipping out of her mouth as if they had a mind of their own.

Courtney braced for whatever was about to come. A lot of boys didn’t take being brushed off well, especially when she’d just spent an entire movie in their lap.

“But you were?”

Though Courtney searched for it, she didn’t find bitterness or hostility in his tone. Her shoulders drooped.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re sweet and crazy hot. I thought you could help me forget someone else.” She became convinced that vodka doubled as a truth serum.

“Ah.” Derek smacked his lips. “But it’s not working.”

“Nope.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to do,” he said.

So you
can
speak in complete sentences
. She wasn’t sure if she said that part out loud. “I’m not a very nice girl.”

Derek stared out over the lake, considering her statement. “We all do wrong things for the right reasons.”

“Not me. I do everything for the wrong reasons.”

Derek offered her a sad smile. “I think you’re a nice girl. You’re just confused.”

“You’re half right.”

“It’s weird,” he said, twisting his lips as he thought. “It’s easier to talk to you now that I know you’re not interested in me. Before, I was so scared of saying the wrong thing.”

Courtney nodded once before deciding that was a terrible idea. It took a count of four before the world stopped moving. “I can be intimidating.” Everyone seemed to be scared of her. Except Riya.

“Ha!” He barked out a single laugh. “True. Plus, I’m a nerd back home. Girls like you don’t talk to me, ever.”

“You are
not
a nerd,” she said, eyes trailing over his toned arms and the way his soft T-shirt clung to his stomach, hinting at the sculpted abs she and Bridget had whispered about during the volleyball game.

“Why in the world would anyone claim to be a geek when he wasn’t?”

“To get girls?”

Derek laughed so long and so hard that she worried he might never breathe normally again.

“What’s so funny? Geek chic is so in right now.”

He laughed even harder, wrapping a hand around his stomach. The movement drew her attention, and she looked closer at his shirt. What she’d thought was Arabic writing stretched across his chest under “No place like” written in English.

“What does your shirt say?”

His gaze dropped to his chest, and he smiled liked he’d just won an argument. “These are the glyphs on the DHD representing the chevrons needed to travel back to Earth, i.e. home.”

“Huh?” She recognized about half of those words.

“
Stargate
?”

Courtney shook her head.

“It’s a TV show. That nerds watch.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

He leaned back on his hands and stared up at the sky. He stared for so long, Courtney thought she should check out what had kept his attention. She tried to lean back on her arms, but they felt too weak to hold her. She dropped to the deck, lying flat on her back with her hands cushioning her head.

“Whoa, there.” Derek examined her face. “You okay? That was like six shots you drank.”

“Fine,” she said, before the sky took her words away.

Living in the city, it was easy to forget how many stars twinkled every night. Between the smog, the buildings, and the streetlights, Courtney was lucky if she could make out the Big Dipper at home. But here, in a huge valley, with nothing obstructing her view and the closest town miles away, they were innumerable. Her eyes traced Scorpio, the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, and more constellations she wasn’t sure were official or just in her head. With that many stars, she could trace any shape she wanted. The longer she stared, the more stars appeared. And as long as she kept the lake out of her peripheral vision, the world didn’t spin.

A soft, rhythmic
thunk
vibrated through the boards of the dock.

“Your friend’s coming,” Derek said. “I’m gonna go, okay?”

Unable to rip her gaze away from the millions of stars dancing before her eyes, she was vaguely aware of him standing, then walking away.

“Thanks, Derek,” she called after him.

Someone sat down beside her with soft, slow movements. A cold water bottle was placed in her hand. Courtney heard the splash of feet joining hers in the water.

“I drank too much,” Courtney said.

“Yeah,” an unexpected voice said. “That’s why I came to make sure you were okay.”

Courtney’s head snapped up. “Riya,” she said.

…

“Hey,
Court.” Riya cast a single glance over her shoulder. “How you feeling?”

“Great,” Courtney said. “Fantastic. Excellent. Dandy.” Her body was rigid, like she was trying to hold herself together by clenching every muscle in her body.

Still a terrible liar.

“Then let’s get back to the cabin. It’s past lights-out.”

Dee said she’d cover for them, but Riya didn’t know how long that would work.

“Leave me alone,” Courtney said, slurring her words. “I’ll come in when I’m ready. The stars are too beautiful to leave.”

Or she was too drunk to stand up. In which case, there was no way Riya would leave her alone inches from a lake. Riya reclined until she lay next to Courtney, who turned out to be right. The stars were actually magnificent. A million twinkle lights on an endless expanse of deep indigo velvet. A crescent moon on the horizon cast a soft glow over everything. Worth missing curfew for.

Riya turned her head, scrutinizing Courtney’s profile. “I saw Derek leaving. What happened?”

Her lips parted, closed again. She breathed out through her nose. “He’s a Monet.”

For some reason, that made perfect sense to Riya. “I’ve always been partial to Picasso.”

Courtney’s head swiveled to the side. She searched Riya’s face. “Are you making fun of me?” Her pale blue eyes sparkled in the darkness like the light came from inside them.

Riya shook her head. “He’s hot, though.”

Courtney sighed. “They always are.”

She didn’t know what that meant, but Courtney hadn’t told her to leave again yet, and she wanted to keep the peace.

“There’re a lot of cute guys here.” Riya wasn’t sure why she took the conversation in the boy direction, but from what she’d seen, it was basically all Courtney and her best friend Bridget talked about. Seemed like a safe subject.

“Yep.” Courtney turned her eyes back to the sky.

Minutes passed before either of them spoke again. So much for trying to engage Courtney in a conversation about boys. Riya was content to simply lie there, next to Courtney, staring at the sky. She kept checking to make sure Courtney hadn’t fallen asleep. Her blond hair fanned out against the gray, sun-bleached wood.

Courtney broke the silence. “You and Trey are getting along really well.”

Courtney bit off the ends of her words, bitterness coloring her tone. Riya wondered again if the two had dated before.

Riya chewed her lip. Guilt washed over her. “I guess.”