Technically, at eighteen, I could now do as I pleased. I’d landed a scholarship to Notre Dame. I didn’t need anybody’s help or approval anymore.
“Hi, Seth.” Trinity gave me a quick wave, her large eyes flashing like quicksilver. But she didn’t come bounding over the way I half expected her to. She went back to what she’d been doing before, which looked like digging through the pile of scrap wood left over from the parts of the old, rotted gazebo I’d already pulled down.
The art instructor— Ms. Votraw, I remembered— knelt beside her, the two of them spotlighted by a patch of sun just peeking over the horizon. Trinity’s ropes of golden hair fell down her back, not quite like Rapunzel because of the dreads, but close.
“Hi.” I would have told Trinity she was wasting her time on this stuff if the camp’s most renowned artist wasn’t kneeling next to her, babbling a mile a minute about “sustainable features” and “respectful restoration.”
“So good to see you, Seth!” Ms. Votraw rose to her feet, her cork and leather sandals a weird choice for walking in the woods, as were the silver serpent toe rings on most of her digits. “Your grandfather gave us permission to take a peek at your project so we could generate some ideas for inserting the camp’s Appalachian design aesthetic on the gazebo. Maybe brainstorm a collective art piece that could be installed as part of the structure.”
Since when was this a decision by committee? Was it so much to ask for this one thing to be all mine?
“Collective art? That doesn’t fit with the gazebo I planned. I’m going for practical.” I looked over at Trinity, where she tugged at a weathered piece of roofing trapped under some rotted beams, her slender arms straining.
She didn’t even glance up.
“Well!” Ms. Votraw drawled, turning her head sideways to stare at me. “
Someone
sounds a bit out of sorts this morning. Not a fan of the arts, Mr. Reines?”
“It’s not that.” I ran a hand through my hair and wondered what it was about Trinity that was getting my defenses up so high. “I just wasn’t expecting you this morning. Last I knew, I was working on the design alone.”
And the demolition.
The pile of “salvaged” pieces were meant for my own bonfire.
“We thought it’d be cool to incorporate some of the old portions into the new design,” Trinity spoke up as she freed the roofing she’d been pulling out of the pile. “Look at this. It’s camp history.”
Surprised, I did a double take when I looked at what she held. Using two hands, she steadied a huge section of the original gazebo’s cupola, complete with a tarnished copper decorative piece.
Ms. Votraw hurried over,
ooh
ing and
aah
ing. I had to agree, it was a good discovery.
“The copper is definitely worth saving,” I admitted, wondering how I’d missed it in the first place.
“As is the rest of it, don’t you think?” Trinity looked up at me with her big gray eyes, but there was a new challenge in them. Almost as if she was daring me to argue with her. “You used to believe in being eco-friendly.”
I used to believe a lot of things that hadn’t come true. First, there’d been the business with my mom. She’d bailed without a look back. Then, there was Lauren. I’d been so careful with her— trying not to care too much and failing anyhow— only to have her fall for another guy.
“There’s eco-friendly and then there’s wasting time.” I dragged my boot through some dead leaves, ready to get to work. “The cupola is mostly destroyed, and we’ve only got three weeks to put the gazebo up before I leave for college. Good restoration work takes time, and a budget to incorporate the old with the new. It sounds less expensive, but it isn’t. You run into detail work and additional kinds of woods and—”
Trinity and the art teacher exchanged looks.
“Actually, your grandfather seemed very interested in restoring some of the old design elements.” Ms. Votraw frowned as she glanced back and forth between us. “I’m sensing some unresolved issues here that don’t involve me.” She pulled out a cell phone from a small backpack. “How about I wander this way to research a few ideas on my phone and maybe you two can clear the air?”
She took a few steps backward and then turned on her heel, not stopping until she reached a flat rock by the falls and sat. Phone in hand, she seemed to devote all her attention to her screen. Or pretended to.
I turned toward Trinity and noticed she was struggling to put down the broken cupola and the support beam without breaking anything.
“Here.” Hurrying over, I took the support beam from her and eased her out of the way. “I’ll get it.”
“Be careful with it,” she urged, hovering just over my shoulder as she grabbed the decorative top piece to help me. “We can use it on another building, even if we don’t use it for the gazebo.”
“We?” Tension threaded through my shoulders as I lowered the beam. Carefully, as instructed. “Trinity—”
“You, okay? I meant
you
.” She wiped her hands off on the sides of khaki shorts that she wore with a green top that— no joke— had a fairy on it. “You can probably do whatever you want around here since your grandparents own the place, but for me, this is my chance to add my artistic stamp to something, and I’m going for it.”
She put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes, her blonde eyebrows coming together in a way that looked more cute than angry. Maybe it was the fairy on her shirt, but it was kind of like being glared at by Tinkerbell.
“And I’ve got no say in this…” I muttered, hating myself for being an ass but unable to stop since something about the set of her small chin and the splatter of freckles across her nose was making me imagine things I had no business thinking. I’d come here to avoid complicated relationships, not start any. Especially with a girl who didn’t even live in reality.
Her lips drew together in a flat line, as if she wondered what to make of that.
But then she followed my gaze to her shirt and grabbed its hem, stretching it out so she could look down at the design.
“This is one of my earlier designs, and she’s not quite as elegant as I would like.” She twisted the fabric a bit more and I saw a patch of tanned stomach. “I think it’s her hands that aren’t quite right.”
My head whipped around to see what Ms. Votraw thought of the skin show.
But she was texting away, not paying attention while my throat was dry as sawdust.
“I don’t know,” Trinity said finally, letting go of the shirt and smoothing it over her hip. “I guess she’s okay. But that’s just the thing, Seth. I’ve been working on a more fanciful brand of art, but my teachers want me to branch out this year. I really see the gazebo as an opportunity to work on some more relatable art…” She trailed off, staring at me. “Seth? Are you okay?”
Clueless. The girl was oblivious that I’d been hypnotized by the sight of bare skin. I felt like a dog for noticing it in the first place, when she was trying to talk to me about…what?
I slapped a hand over my eyes and my forehead, hoping I could blot out the mental picture that was totally messing with me. “Sorry. What were we talking about?”
Chapter Four
Trinity
Seth was acting really weird.
I was worried about him, actually. His aura was doing funny things today, flashing from hints of yellow— which was the color he always used to be— to dark, dank brown. Brown hinted at his confusion and some frustration I didn’t fully understand. And just now, there were red flashes in the mix around his head. What was going on with him?
Gently, I moved closer the same way I would a nervous animal. I mean… he really looked freaked.
“We were talking about the gazebo and my art.” I put a hand on his arm, to steady him and share my energy.
“I’m fine. And yeah.” He nodded quickly, swallowed hard. “I remember. You want to contribute to the gazebo.”
“I won’t get in your way, and if I know when you’ll be here, I can work at different times.” I wanted to be accommodating. Non-threatening. Something had really rattled Seth, not just today, but since the last time I’d seen him. It was definitely more than just Lauren breaking up with him. It’d been almost a year. “Whatever you want, but I’d really like to work on some artistic touches. My art advisor at school told me I need some more,” I made air quotes, “‘relevant and relatable’ work for my portfolio. Like people don’t relate to dragons and unicorns? Puh-lease.”
Seth frowned, but his lips quirked at the corners first, as if fighting back his old, sexy pirate’s smile. “I— uh— see your point.” He cleared his throat, and this time he did give a small grin, his chipped canine tooth making an appearance. Wow, had I missed seeing it. All at once, I remembered a lot of happy times at camp. Happy times he’d been a part of. “That sucks, Trinity. And sorry if I’ve been a jerk. I came back here to get away from crap back home, and I’m not really…I don’t know. I’m not up to hanging out.”
Seeing shades of his old self made me want to hug him. But I needed to hide those old feelings and act normal so I didn’t send him running. I couldn’t stand it if I saw pity in his eyes again like that night at the camp bonfire last summer, where my crush on him had been revealed to everyone. He might never feel about me the way I’d once felt about him. And right now, I just really, really wanted the chance to be his friend again.
“That’s okay. I’m sorry your summer’s been bad.” I leaned back against a birch tree, glad to be in this beautiful place to get inspired.
Could I paint this spot on canvas
, I wondered? It’s funny how, even in my mind’s eye, I could almost see the dance of lacy butterfly wings as tiny fae creatures. How could I change my art if it meant changing how I viewed the world?
“My mom came home.” He folded his arms across his chest as he tipped one shoulder into the same tree that I leaned on.
Everyone in Munchies Manor knew Seth’s history with his mom. We’d always thought it was amazing that a guy who’d been abandoned by his mother as a preschooler could still turn out so sweet and caring.
Or at least, he always had been before. He’d been the leader of the Wander Inn pack, the guy everyone wanted to be friends with. He had that Aquarian knack for mediating disputes while leading by example.
“That’s not a good thing?” I asked, lulled by the music of the falls nearby and the deep tone of Seth’s voice.
“No.” His answer was quick and fierce. “She left over a decade ago and didn’t look back except for a handful of times that she went into rehab and got clean. But it never lasted. And after you fall for that a few times, you learn not to be an idiot.”
“Oh, Seth.” I shook my head, not sure what to say and definitely not wanting him to see that I felt sorry for him. I knew how much it stung to see pity in someone else’s eyes. “That sucks.”
He shrugged. “Worse at ten than at eighteen.” Straightening, he seemed to be done sharing confidences. “Still. The project is keeping my mind off things until I get to college. I’m— uh— probably not at my best right now. I nearly torched that pile of wood you were digging through.”
I couldn’t hide my gasp, but I tried to swallow down the worst of it. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Yeah. Well. I wasn’t planning on a fairytale design for this thing.” His gaze dropped to my shirt which made me self-conscious for a second, until I remembered the super fanciful design on the material. “I want it to be strong and functional. Built to last. Indestructible.”
“Right.” Resentment stirred, but I wouldn’t let myself argue. Not when I was finally making some progress. Besides, Seth hadn’t found much that was “built to last” in his life. “I’m sure we’ll find a compromise.”
He didn’t look sure at all.
“How are you kids doing?” called Mrs. Votraw, her helium-voice scaring a squirrel up a tree. “Are you working through things?”
Seth crossed his eyes while his back was to her, and I held in a laugh. Barely.
“Almost,” I called, not ready to give up the privacy factor just yet.
She nodded and shot me the thumbs up sign, then went back to texting.
“Shouldn’t you be getting to breakfast?” Seth’s golden eyes slid sideways, the concern in them warming me. “It must be time.”
“Um. Actually.” How to tell him? “I got special permission from my parents to devote as much time as necessary to this project.”
His eyes darkened a shade along with his aura as he coughed in surprise. “Oh. I guess you had this planned, then. Wish someone had let me know.”
“Seriously? Since when did you get so uptight?” I asked him evenly. I wanted to know. “Is this new for the summer, or have you always been like this and I just never got to know you well enough?”
He ran a hand through his curls, making a few stand up at weird angles. “I’m not the guy you knew, okay? I wouldn’t want to be him again, even if I knew how. Too many people used the old me. Mom, Lauren…and now you too, in a way.”
I tried not to take it personally that he was lumping me into a category with a horrible mother and the girl who broke his heart. How could he say that? “That’s not fair.”
“Neither is you trying to change my project so you can prove a point to your art teacher.”
“It’s not just for that,” I blurted before thinking it through.
“No?” He looked over his shoulder at Ms. Votraw and then drew me behind the birch tree so we were mostly hidden by the pile of discarded gazebo parts. “You said you needed something more relevant and relatable for your portfolio and this is the perfect outlet. You’re not here to help me. You’re here for yourself, and when you get what you need, you’ll leave. Just like everyone else.”
The ragged-sounding words seemed torn from some deep place that had Seth turning away and crossing his arms across his broad chest. My heart ached as I imagined how he must look at the world, everyone he let close hurting him down the road.
How to make him believe I would never do that? Sure, I wanted to be a part of his project, but there was no denying I liked him. I’d
always
liked him. So I couldn’t help it that my thoughts turned from the gazebo to Seth. They were both too special not to salvage.