“There’s the first star.” He pointed up at the sky. “Or is that Venus?”
Was he trying to keep conversation from anything personal? But if he was trying to distract me, it was tough to mind. At least I got to stand beside him at dusk and watch the stars come out.
For a moment, it felt like old times.
“That’s Vega,” I reminded him, knowing we’d talked about this once before. “Remember, it’s—”
“—right overhead.” He looked at me instead. “I remember you telling me that one time.”
I looked him in the eye as we stood several yards from the river. It was calmer here even though the water was high. I pointed to a fallen log nearby and he joined me on it, taking a seat that was close, but not too close.
A “just friends” kind of close.
My chest ached.
“Seth, I also want to apologize for what happened with the kiss. I should have told you about the dare and I’m sorry.”
He stared out at the water. Silent.
Hurt.
I could sense his pain as clearly as my own.
“But I want you to know that the only reason my friends dared me to do it was because they knew how much I liked you.” It didn’t matter anymore if I was embarrassed. Braces, glasses, frizzy hair, rashes … none of it mattered now. It was all superficial dumb stuff. What was important was that Seth knew I cared and that I was sorry.
He still didn’t say anything. But I hadn’t expected him to open his arms and forgive me.
“I liked you last year too, and I didn’t do anything about it.”
That got his attention. He looked at me finally, his elbows on his knees.
“So this year, I think my friends were determined to push me into talking to you more. Into making something happen with a boy that I had this… huge crush on.” My cheeks flamed like someone had thrown gasoline on a bonfire. Hot.
I resisted the urge to fan myself. Or hide my face in the neck of my T-shirt.
“Lauren, you don’t have to say that just to—”
“Don’t make this more embarrassing than it already is.” Now I
did
tug at the neck of my T-shirt like a five year old. But I did not pull it up to my nose. “I wouldn’t say this if it wasn’t true. Seth, we were friends for a long time before this stuff happened between us.”
“Lauren, I had a crush on you too. And it killed me to think you were just fooling around.” He pushed back the waves that had flopped in front of his eyes.
Frustration straightened my spine. “I wasn’t fooling around. I wanted to kiss you. Thought about it all last summer. Hoped maybe we’d get together this year. But then my friends dared me to kiss you and everything got messed up.” I touched his cheek and met his eye. “I meant everything and I think you did too. Remember how happy we were the day we won Capture the Flag? When you tied the bandana around my wrist …”
I reached into my back pocket and pulled it out—the orange bandana we’d won from Hannah’s team.
“You kept it?” He grinned. That slow Seth smile that you had to work for. That he didn’t show to just anyone.
It made me feel awfully special to have put it there again, if only for a moment.
“Of course I kept it.” I wound it around my wrist again, as I had a hundred times since that night when Seth had done it for me. “Because of my friends and that dare, some of my dreams came true this summer.” My voice caught and I had to clear my throat past the lump. “Even if it was only for a little while.”
“I wish you’d told me about the dare.” He reached toward my hand and rested his fingers lightly on the place where I’d wrapped the bandana.
I stared at that—our hands resting side by side but not connected—and wondered if I’d ever get back to normal with Seth. I cared about him so, so much.
“I’m sorry.” I knew I’d messed up. Knew I’d hurt him when I’d promised not to. “I should have. I was scared you’d think I didn’t really care, that I was like—” I clapped a hand over my mouth, horrified that I was about to bring up his mother.
Seth tugged my hand away, the slanting sun shading the upper half of his face so I couldn’t read his eyes. “Like my mother. Is that what you were going to say?” His voice cracked at the end, reminding me that for all his maturity, he was still a kid. Maybe a part of him still protected that four-year-old who’d stood at his playschool window, waiting for a mom that would never return. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”
I twined my fingers in his, unwilling to let go. “I don’t.” His fingers tugged free of mine and I sighed. “Okay. Maybe I do. But that has nothing to do with how I feel. With why I kissed you. But you don’t believe me, do you?”
“How can I when—” He rubbed his hands over his eyes and I peered into the shadows that shrouded them.
“When you don’t trust anyone?” I finished for him.
Air exploded from him, then his shoulders collapsed. I wanted to touch him, to take away the pain my words inflicted, but it was the truth and he needed to think about it. We sat in silence, watching the river for several minutes.
When he spoke at last, I could barely hear him over the rushing water. “I don’t know if I can.”
For a moment I felt sick. This really was it. We weren’t going to be a couple, or friends, or anything.
“But Lauren, I believe you about the dare. And if there is anyone I want to trust, it’s you. Can we start with that? I know it’s not much to offer. But it’s all I can guarantee. That, and I—like being with you.” His fingers rubbed a circle on the inside of my wrist where the bandana covered my skin.
And just like that, my world flipped from bleak to … starlit. Hope burned like Vega in the sky of my heart.
“I like being with you too.” We broke into cautious smiles and I wiped what could have been water spray off his cheek.
“I’ve cared about you for a long time, Lauren.” He rested his whole hand on the bandana, his thumb grazing the middle of my palm where the fabric spilled over onto my skin. “This week—one by one—all your friends have told me the same thing about the dare. How it’s a yearly thing. How they were only trying to help.”
“They
did
?” It was the first I’d heard of it and it made me want to hug them all. “They probably didn’t mention it because they didn’t want to get my hopes up that you’d understand.”
I stared at him as the sky darkened and more stars came out, the water gurgling nearby and night bugs chirping. I wished I could preserve this moment like a fossil. Put it in my pocket and pull it out during the lonely Seth-less months. It felt timeless. Perfect. Meant to be.
“I didn’t. But I think I do now.” His thumb roamed over my hand, an exploratory circle like the first one drawn from a new compass.
My gaze dipped down to his broad palm coming closer to mine. Closer.
My chest felt tight with hope and want, but I didn’t trust myself to speak. I’d said all I could about what had happened. It was his turn to tell me how he felt. What he wanted from us.
“What if we tried again?” he asked softly, turning on the log so that he faced me. “What if we went slowly? Cautiously?”
With a pang, I thought about those stolen kisses on that hike on Tennent Mountain and wondered if we’d ever be like that again.
“Would we be more than friends?”
He nodded. “How about we start by being together through the summer? I’ll be your camp boyfriend.”
There was a time I would have turned cartwheels and somersaults for that kind of commitment. But I could hear the caution in his voice and I knew we weren’t done working out terms for our future.
“What happens when camp ends?”
“We go back to being single.”
Ouch. There it was. The arrow to my heart. And not the cute, adorable kind that Cupid threw.
“Not because I don’t want to be with you.” He sounded so serious. So genuine. “But if we’re together, I’ll worry about you back at your own school where every guy is probably in love with you.”
I almost laughed at the impossibility of that. Seth wasn’t really worried about other guys. He didn’t want to feel the way he did long ago, waiting and wondering if he’d be forgotten, if I’d return to him—to camp. Words alone wouldn’t win his trust. Never letting him down was the only way to prove he could count on me. Believe in us. And since I trusted my own feelings, that would not be a problem.
He held my hand for real now, softening the sting of his confusing words with the touch I’d been craving.
“Okay,” I agreed, knowing we could overcome the obstacles. Certain we would figure out our future … together. “I will be the best camp girlfriend you’ve ever had, Seth Reines.”
“I’d like that.” He smiled for real again, his shoulders easing as he pulled me closer. “Dudes!” Alex’s shrill voice shouted from behind us, making us both jump. “Pizza’s here! Come on before it’s gone!”
She burst through the brush to find us sitting together, then scrambled back up the hill.
“Whoops. Awkward. No need to stop doing whatever you were doing. I’ll just try and sneak some pepperoni slices through a bush or something. Er ...” She turned and sprinted away, making us both laugh.
“Guess we should get going if we want to eat,” I said, even though I didn’t make any move to stand.
“Guess so.” He gripped my wrists and wrapped them around his neck, pulling me closer. “But we’d better make this official first.”
My heart skipped beats and tangoed in my chest. But then, I was with the most amazing boy at Camp Juniper Point and he wanted to be my boyfriend.
For now, that was enough to make my whole life feel just about perfect.
“Should we put it in writing?” I suggested. “Or pinky swear on it?”
“No.” He turned serious again, his eyes roaming all over my face. “Technically, I kissed
you
first after your friends dared you to kiss
me
.”
I was already shaking my head. “You can’t hold that against me too!”
“No. But I wouldn’t want my camp girlfriend to lose Truth or Dare.”
I tried to glare at him, but I could feel myself caving. “I’ve kissed you first since then.” Facts were facts and I’d promised myself not to mislead him again. Although, I really wanted that kiss.
“I
did
save your life today. I deserve a kiss for that.”
My grip on him tightened, my hands coming around to touch his face.
“Yes, you did.” I leaned my nose against his and our eyelashes touched as feather soft as a moth’s wings. I closed my eyes and brushed my lips over his.
Slowly. Cautiously.
And then Seth was the one kissing me, and it wasn’t one bit slow. I smiled against his lips, liking the direction of this camp boyfriend arrangement.
I had the feeling this was going to be the most unforgettable summer ever, and it was only just getting started …
Read more about Lauren and Seth in Camp Boyfriend
Camp Christmas
By J.K. Rock
Copyright © 2016 by Joanne Rock and Karen Rock
Originally published 2013 by Spencer Hill Press
Sale of the paperback edition of this book without its cover is unauthorized.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Merry Christmas to our readers who have been so
wonderfully supportive of the Camp Boyfriend series.
We are endlessly grateful!
CAMP CHRISTMAS
Chapter One
Hannah
Worst. Boob job. Ever.
Missy Watson’s text made my phone vibrate, the pinkcrystal case humming against my palm.
2 funny tho she just had a baby
, I wrote back then hopped off the bus at the base of Whiteface Mountain, home of the highest vertical drop in the East, according to a nearby sign.
I nearly dropped my phone when our militant gym teacher, Ms. Hanrahan, passed by to do the head count. She was scary on a normal day, but would be murderous if she knew we were talking about her mismatched boobs.
And who would sleep with her? So gross,
added Bella Hopkins, my other bestie. I laugh/snorted—so not cool but totally impossible to stop—until I looked up and caught
Ms. Hanrahan’s sharp eye. She
had
made me run ten laps when I’d shown up late to class last week—again—but still, I didn’t want to get on her radar and miss out on our school’s Christmas Eve day trip, a ski club tradition for the locals who attended our elite Lake Placid private school.
Bwahahahahahaha—Beyotches. Love ya!!!
buzzed another text, making me smile. Messages flew among the three of us who ruled Northstar Academy. Not that I took my status for granted. The borders of our circle shifted all the time. You never knew when you’d be on the outside looking in. Lately that seemed more and more like a real possibility for me.
Northstar was all about image, and since my mother lost her platinum credit card after the divorce, my style was taking a major hit. At any moment someone—probably Missy—would call me out for wearing last year’s ski clothes.
It was beyond embarrassing, but I couldn’t confide in anyone that the settlement covered my tuition and not much else.
Even worse, my dad was suing to lower his child support because he was marrying his twenty-something secretary and starting a new family. How cliché could you get? And he wondered why I didn’t take him seriously.
Seriously?!
Thanks to him, his midlife crisis was now mine.
I pulled a Thermos out of my pack and gulped the last of my hot chocolate, warding off the chill that shivered through my gut. A new family. One that wouldn’t include me. It shouldn’t matter that my dad would have other kids, but somehow it did.