“I wanted to work on the gazebo with you as soon as I heard you were back at camp. Even before it occurred to me that this could be a kind of art all its own.” My arm tingled where he’d touched me, and I could hear my heartbeat in my own ears. With Ms. Votraw out of view, it suddenly felt like we were alone. Private.
“But you already had the decorative wood piece when you saw me on the archery course.” He turned and his eyes met mine, his expression pained but determined. “I’m sorry, Trinity. Maybe you’re forgetting…but I— I just don’t believe you.” There he went. Sounding mistrusting and withdrawn.
Where was the Seth I knew? I wished I could see that wry half-smile again, the one that made him look like the boy I’d adored since forever. He knew so much about plants and animals and the universe. He cared for other people and stuck up for the underdog. Was there a way to get through this hard shell? To find out if the boy I’d once crushed on still existed?
“No. I remember it perfectly.” I was scared, but I felt like I had to convince him. To remind him that I was different. That he didn’t need to have his guard up around me. “My first thought was about you. That I wanted to see you again.”
My breath caught in my throat. What on earth was I doing, acting on instinct without consulting the cards or the stars or anything else? But maybe this was part of what I needed to do this summer— to get real.
I arched up on my toes and put my hands on his shoulders. He didn’t move away. So, slowly, I moved closer. His eyes went wide. Could he be into me— even a little?
Before I lost my nerve, I closed my eyes and kissed him.
Chapter Five
Seth
The softest lips possible brushed against mine and my body tightened as her fingers threaded through my hair. She smelled of wild roses and tasted like honeysuckle, the combination making everything fade away. There was nothing and no one that existed in this moment except us and I pulled her closer, wanting more. My mouth angled against hers and my arms stroked her lean back as our kiss deepened, my heart drumming a rhythm I’d never felt before. When she stood on tiptoe and molded her body to mine, I groaned. She felt good. Right.
Hoping we were hidden from view, I cupped her cheeks and intensified the pressure against her mouth. My thumbs stroked her jaw, my fingertips tracing the curve of her ears. When she shuddered and made a small sound, something loosened inside me, or unleashed it, because I stopped caring what Mrs. V. might see. I kissed Trinity over and over until she swayed and gasped. My arm circled her narrow waist to keep her from falling as I backed her against the birch tree, my hips pressed against hers, my lips trailing along the warm length of her neck. I couldn’t get enough of this incredible sensation, my pulse pounding loudly in my ears. She arched her body and her head fell back. Every place we touched burned like a flame, the heat spreading through me until my insides turned to ash.
“Seth,” she whispered, but there was something off about the voice. A questioning, hesitant tone that doused my raging heart with ice. What the hell was I doing kissing a girl just because it felt good? I hadn’t thought this through, damn it. This wasn’t some casual hook-up in the woods for her— and since I’d never been the kind of guy to do that, it wasn’t that way for me, either.
Her large gray eyes stared up at me in wonder, the light in them making some of my resolve crumble at the edges. With the sun filtering through the trees, her heart-shaped face glowed. She was beautiful. Funny that I’d never noticed just how much until now. I forced myself to back up a step, the absence of her feeling like I’d lost something I’d never get back.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Our gazes locked, and we stared at each other for a breathless moment. A black-capped chickadee sang, its piercing
chick-dee-dee-dee-dee
a wake-up call. I’d just led an innocent girl on, made her think that I could return her feelings. But my reality was too dark for a girl with stars in her eyes.
I wouldn’t trust another girl the way I’d trusted Lauren. And I wouldn’t hurt one either. Yet I had to undo the damage I’d just done and let Trinity know the truth about me. I was damaged goods— if I’d ever been whole in the first place. Maybe that was why Lauren had left me for Matt. She’d seen the defects, and Trinity needed to see them too. Plain and simple, I wasn’t good enough for her. I probably never would be.
“I kissed
you
, Seth.” She spoke so matter-of-factly, I could almost forget she lived in a world of magic and impossible dreams.
One summer she’d made necklaces with zodiac signs for all her friends— me included— and tried to explain what each one meant. Like it really mattered or would somehow offer us new life insight. I remember Lauren said once that Trinity saw magic around every corner, and the way she’d said it…it was almost like Lauren thought it was kind of cool instead of just weird. But we weren’t kids anymore. When was she going to grow up?
“And I should have stopped you.” I willed down the heat still burning me up, forcing my voice to sound flat. Detached. As if holding her hadn’t been the closest to peace I’d felt in a long, long time.
When she reached for me, I flinched away, afraid her touch would melt my resistance completely.
“But you kissed me back,” she whispered, her full lips shaking, her expression confused.
I clasped my hands to keep from reaching for her, to stop giving her more mixed signals. I wouldn’t let myself use her. I’d been used too many times myself.
“I shouldn’t have.” I was going to make this very clear. “It was a mistake.”
“A mistake?” Her eyes widened to an impossible size, her voice rising as she flung herself off the tree and brushed by me before whirling around. “Don’t you get it? There are no mistakes in the universe. Only what is meant to be.” She gestured between us. “Today, our stars aligned. You came back to camp and you’re working on exactly the project that provided the inspiration I’ve been looking for all summer. This was meant to be.”
I needed to snuff out the whole idea that we were cosmically destined. Fast.
“No. You’re still seeing the guy I used to be. And that part of me that you used to like is gone. You don’t want me.” I jabbed a finger at my chest. “Especially this me.”
The hope in her eyes cracked into a thousand pieces, and suddenly I wanted to pick up every one. Restore them to her. But it was impossible. Red stained her cheeks, and her long eyelashes fluttered.
When her eyes snapped open, the gray had turned bright silver, gleaming as sharp as a blade. “You don’t see what’s right in front of you. You felt something when we kissed, and so did I. That was real. You haven’t changed, Seth. Underneath all that anger holding you back, you’re still a special person. Someone I like.”
My gaze slid from hers because, for just a second, I could have sworn she saw right through me. She’d stirred something inside me that I definitely didn’t need to risk feeling again.
“It doesn’t matter. Like I said, it was a mistake.”
She stepped close, and I stumbled a bit as I backed up. Her bangles sounded like a shower of gold coins when she lifted her arm and pointed at me, her expression fierce. “I may be a lot of things, but I am not a mistake. Got it?”
Before I could nod, she turned on her heel and stomped away, my eyes tracking her lithe body as she spoke quickly to Ms. Votraw, and then they disappeared together around a trail bend. A flutter of wings as another chickadee took flight reminded me that I wasn’t alone in the woods.
So why did I feel so lonely?
***
Three days later, I dropped the handle of the ground tamper and took out my water bottle. All around me the earth was packed and smooth, ready for the gazebo’s foundation we’d be pouring today once the guys from The Wander Inn arrived. They’d been busy finishing up the first half of summer camp for the last few days, and I’d been just as glad to work alone since the Trinity incident. The kiss I couldn’t get out of my mind.
She’d messed with my head, and my thoughts had tangled together ever since that kiss. I stared at the tree where I’d held her, recalling the soft feel of her before reality wiped away the fantasy like a returning tide. She might think she liked me, but once she really got to know me, she’d be gone.
No one picked the defective toy off the shelf and brought it home. They stuffed it to the back and bought the perfect one instead. Trinity talked a lot about fate and destiny, and if that were true, then mine was to stay in the shadows, disregarded, tossed away. I’d let myself forget that when I’d finally opened up to Lauren and she’d stomped my heart flat. I wouldn’t take that risk again.
I pressed the thermos to my forehead then unscrewed the cap for a drink that did nothing to lower my temperature. Maybe my intense reaction to Trinity was because I associated her with Lauren? But I shook the thought away the moment it occurred. Lauren dreamed of stars, but her feet were always on the ground. She was the most down to earth girl I’d ever known, and I’d fallen for her because of it. Trinity lived on some other dimension, a faraway galaxy of her own making. Why then did I find myself looking for her every morning since we’d kissed, wondering when she’d arrive, feeling let down when she didn’t?
I shoved the water container in my bag and picked up the roller’s handle, my hand slipping on the steel. It was hot already, at barely eight a.m. If I didn’t have so much work to do, I would have jumped in the rushing falls beside me and doused my heated body and thoughts. But after taking trips into town for cement, a portable mixer, lumber, hauling supplies, and equipment to this remote trail— and then after finishing up the clearing process— I’d questioned whether or not I’d have the ground ready for the guys when they arrived after breakfast. I could have worked faster, I admitted, if I hadn’t caught myself staring at that damn birch tree too many times to count.
Water sloshed inside the steel drum as I pulled it behind me one last time, my need to work myself into physical exhaustion pushing me hard. I needed my muscles to ache at the end of the day, not the empty hollow in my chest. Earlier this summer, I’d spent restless hours thinking about Lauren, and now it was Trinity’s face that I saw when I closed my eyes.
Fortunately, I had real life to prevent me from treading down that path in the daylight hours. Just this morning I’d ignored another text from my patient father asking me to call Mom back.
I yanked the tamper around and started down another row. He might be in a forgiving mood with her, but I sure as hell wasn’t. An apology didn’t make up for missing over a decade’s worth of birthdays, Christmases, and every other big event with the exception of my high school graduation. Somehow she’d stumbled into that, claiming to be sober for good, and expected what? That she’d be accepted back into my life like she’d never ditched me in the first place?
I swatted a biting fly then gripped the tamper to tackle another row. Escaping my mom this summer meant steering clear of that drama. It would be another letdown when she decided, again, that I wasn’t more important to her than Jack Daniels. No. Despite everything, I’d rather be here. I just had to keep my head down and power through until I went to Notre Dame in the fall.
“Hey, man!” hollered a deep voice behind me that I recognized as Julian’s. My mood lifted, and suddenly I was glad that Gollum had made this a camp activity. I’d missed these guys.
When I turned, my old bunkmates crowded me, slapping me on the back as we grabbed hands and came in for a quick, one-armed bro hug. Damn. It was good to see them.
“I’m Rafe.” A shorter, slim guy with dark hair and sharp eyes stepped forward. “I’ve got your old spot.”
“Welcome. Thanks for coming out to help with the project.” I shook his hand. “Do you like it here?”
The kid nodded, his smile revealing teeth that looked a little too big for his mouth. “Better than math camp.” He looked around the construction site. “Hey. Is that a transit?”
The tripod stood at the end of what I hoped was leveled ground. My shoulders ached from pulling the tamper. With the naked eye, the ground looked ready for us to build the forms, but I wouldn’t be sure until I peered through the transit’s binocular lenses.
“It’s got a laser too.” My grin matched his as he hurried to the apparatus and crouched behind it.
I was betting math camp had given Rafe a skill set that would be helpful on the work site.
“Need some help with the tamper?” asked a bulked-up Vijay. His sullen expression didn’t look like he wanted to help. In fact, it didn’t look like him at all.
“No. The ground’s level! All good,” shouted Rafe. “Nice work, Seth.”
“Thanks. Why don’t you guys grab a stake and head to each of the points on the octagon I spray painted? Don’t drive them in too deep. We’ll set them once I measure the diagonals.”
I grabbed the measuring tape and began adjusting the stakes when a group of female voices neared. My eyes widened as I took in Lauren’s old friends, but strangely, instead of my gaze searching for hers, I looked for Trinity and found her hanging back behind the rest. My chest squeezed like I’d been running too long when her gaze landed on me. It darted away as fast as the silver fish beneath the falls.
Emily, the Munchies Manor counselor, bounced up, her wild bushel of blonde hair contained beneath, of all things, a real hard hat.
She saluted me. “Reporting for duty. What can we do? Well. Except for Trinity, who’s been working on some embellishments.”
I looked over Emily’s shoulder and met Trinity’s stare. “Embellishments? This is going to be a functional gazebo.”
Emily laughed loud enough to startle mourning doves from a nearby perch. She punched my shoulder. “Hah. Good one. Like anyone would want to sit in a ‘functional’ gazebo. This is begging for some pizzazz and Trinity is the girl for the job.”
She reached behind her and pulled Trinity forward. Today her dreadlocks were pulled back in a low twist that showed off her pretty face. I dragged my eyes off of her full mouth, and saw the telltale red bloom in her cheeks. With her this close, I was feeling warm myself, and wondered if she was thinking of our kiss. I cleared my throat.