Bookishly Ever After

by Isabel Bandeira

  “I’ll bring you back a burger,” he said, tossing the rake onto the table and grabbing his clipboard. He started walking and added over his shoulder, “No extra pickles, since you don’t need the ammunition.”

  I cracked a smile. “You’re the best.” As soon as he left, I jumped into action, grabbing my bag of supplies and hightailing it to the archery field.

  I hadn’t lied about the condition of the bows and arrows. About a third of the arrows had chipped or damaged shafts, or destroyed fletching and some of the bows desperately needed new strings. I tore through the equipment and repairs faster than I’d ever done anything in my life. That didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous when I checked the time on the little clock on my clipboard. I really wanted to get this over with so I could enjoy what would potentially be my last afternoon of not feeling like an idiot.

  I still had fifteen minutes before Dev was supposed to show up to help set up. Hands shaking, I spread my borrowed supplies on the ground and got to work sewing together the sheets of paper I had made the night before and writing. I was Marissa, figuring out the tussie-mussie. I was Maeve with the clover. I was Kaylie, planning out her song.

  I was concentrating so deeply on my writing that I didn’t even notice Dev until he was nearly on top of me. With a squeak, I rolled up my work and shoved it in my quiver.

  “One burger, ammunition-free.” Dev slid a napkinwrapped burger across the table and, without waiting for my “thanks,” headed over to my rack of repaired bows. He twanged a string. “Looks good.”

  “Yeah.” The rest of our setup went the same way, him making one or two word comments and me unable to say anything longer back. By the time the campers arrived, the atmosphere around us was back to charged and tight, like we were engulfed in a ball of coarse Suffolk yarn.

  “Do something cool,” one of the boys challenged me, like every group had, and I looked over at Dev.

  “We’re here to teach you basic—” he started his usual spiel about safety and how tricks could wait. But as he was speaking, I nocked an arrow and, in an attempt to repeat what I’d done that day in the school field, whipped around and took a shot. The arrow zipped through the air and hit the blue circle. Not as impressive as a bullseye, but it still elicited a few gasps and “cool”s from the kids.

  Dev joined them in staring at me. I shrugged, plucking another arrow out of my quiver—careful not to jostle my papers—and preparing for a proper demonstration. “I thought it might be good to change things up a little bit.” I felt the corners of my lips turn up before I turned my attention to the campers and launched into archery 101. His eyes never left me.

  Golden series book 1: Golden PG: 443

  A feeling, like the heavy shadow of a wrecking ball, pressed against her skin.

  “It’s coming,” Maeve whispered, the warm wood of the harp practically melting into her palm as she squeezed it.

  Aedan looked up, shock clear across his features. “Not yet. You’re not ready.”

  She took a deep breath. Now that the time had arrived, instinct was taking over, telling her what to do. “I’m the Harper. It doesn’t matter if I’m ready24. I have to stand at the gates or they’ll fall. And then everything will be destroyed.”

  “The Guard will stand at the gates. They can protect both our worlds.”

  “Right. So they can get crushed first? Aedan, I need to do this. Alone. It’s my job.” The wind kicked up as she stood in the middle of rocks and gorse and moss. Her hair whipped around her like a wild thing, like she belonged in this place. The harp might have been symbolic of her power, but right now, she couldn’t imagine being there without it.

  Aedan bounded the rocks like they were nothing and pulled her close. “You’re never going to be alone.” Instead of struggling, she leaned against him and let herself soak in his strength and warmth. His chest rumbled when he spoke, his words vibrating through to her core. “We’ll stand together. Legend be damned.”

  She laughed, but it was a hopeless laugh. That wrecking ball had turned into a bulldozer. Soon. “You and me, it’s all like a bad fairytale, isn’t it?” Aedan made it sound so possible, like this fantasy could be real, like they could stand against a century of prophecies and rules. She breathed in his scent of sea and clover one last time. “It was always meant to be this way. The Harper is supposed to fight without support from anyone. Not even you.” She had to say goodbye, break away, and take her stand. Touching his cheek lightly, she whispered, “We weren’t supposed to be together, anyway.”

  Maeve slipped out of his arms, but his hand wrapped tightly around her harp-hand. His eyes met hers and she couldn’t look away.

  “Enough of letting stories dictate what I can and cannot do or how either of us can feel.” He said. “I want to stay with you. I will support you while you fight to save both our worlds. We will win this fight.” He bent forward until his lips brushed hers, so light it could have been a breath except for the fire that rose up in her at his touch. “Please.”

  What she heard in that “please” undid her. “If the gates fall, save yourself. Go somewhere safe.” She turned instinctively towards where the gates should open.

  His hand gave hers a squeeze before letting go. “Safety is nothing without you.” He moved behind her, a warm shadow.

  “Stubborn.”

  “Says the redhead.”

  She laughed and took her position between the worlds, fingers poised over the harp strings while Aedan’s arms anchored her firmly in their world. Anticipation and fear coiled up in her, like a harp string tuned too tight. “Let it come.”

  50

  The clearing in front of the mess hall was filled with hay wagons packed with campers, their voices filling the quickly darkening sky. Even though it wasn’t fall, the night was that perfectly crisp kind that was just right for a hayride. Willing myself not to shake, I tugged the sleeves of my merino sweater over my hands and slipped my fingers into the thumbholes before reaching up to grab Dev’s hand. Even the few seconds of contact though the wool as he helped me up into the wagon were enough to send tingles up my arm and straight down my spine.

  “You look…abnormally nice for the woods,” he said before quickly letting go of my hand and turning his attention to locking up the back of the wagon.

  I let a tiny smile break through my nerves. I had trolled this Juliet pattern on Ravelry for ages before finally giving in, and knitting it in the Woolbearers rosewood colorway that almost made my hair and eyes look pretty. It was totally a Grace-approved sweater.

  “I figured it would be cold out. This is local wool.” An evil little Marissa-like part of me was tempted to stick my arm out and ask him if he wanted to pet the sweater, but I held back and dropped onto a mound of hay at the back of the wagon across from him. My secret project, slipped up my sleeve, dug into my arm and my stomach started churning again.

  One positive: if I threw up, at least I could blame it on the hayride.

  The campers were wound up and, just as the wagon started moving, hay began flying.

  “Whoa. Hay stays in the wagon!” Dev called out, ducking in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid a bundle of hay thrown his way. At the front of the wagon, Cassie and Mike were also trying to keep their campers—and the hay—from flying out into the dark woods around us.

  A few more minutes of chaos and then Dev’s voice carried over the dark night in an old, ridiculous camp-y song. Silly as it was, his singing reached straight to my bones and settled there, my body humming in time with his words. Dev wasn’t one of our musical theatre stars for nothing. As he kept going, the kids started chiming in and the song carried over to the other wagons until the mostly off-key singing took over the quiet of the night. Between verses, Dev looked over at me and gave me a Why aren’t you singing along? gesture, but I pressed my lips together tightly and shook my head. Em was the singer. I’d just sound like someone was skinning a cat in the middle of the woods.

  By the tenth verse of “Henry the Eighth,” half of the gir
ls from my cabin had dissolved into giggles and the rest were starting to sound hoarse from trying to yell louder and sound “worse.” The wagons pulled up alongside of the firepit and Dev popped open the wagon door, starting the campers on another song as we helped them down. I noticed how almost all of the girls went over to Dev’s side. He was grabbing them by the waists and lowering them down to the ground, even though most of them didn’t need the help.

  Cassie bumped me in the side as she passed me, her free hand glued to Mike’s. “Can you and Dev handle straightening out all the mess in here? Mike and I want to squeeze in some quality time,” she wiggled her eyebrows at me, “before we have to make nice and sing kumbaya around the campfire.”

  I glanced over at Dev, who was still busy playing human elevator to all the female campers, and my insides twisted again. No use delaying my deep confession. “Sure.”

  “Grace was right, you are the best.” Cassie winked at me before jumping into Mike’s arms in a totally graceful cheerleader move.

  When all of the campers were off the wagon, Dev pulled himself back on board and flopped onto a half-destroyed hay bale, rubbing at his arms.

  “Who knew almost-sixth graders could be so heavy?” he complained, before looking at me and the empty wagon. “Where are Mike and Cassie?”

  “I told them we’d handle clean up.” I couldn’t meet his eyes and instead focused on picking random pieces of hay from between the wagon’s wooden slats. Back in the cabin, I’d gone through my entire notebook one more time to absorb as much bookishly romantic knowledge as I could to be ready for this moment, but it didn’t stop my stomach from turning somersaults.

  “Thanks for volunteering me,” he said dryly, tilting his head back against the side of the wagon. “We really need to work on that selfless impulse of yours. It’s making a lot of work for both of us.”

  “It’s just hay. Besides,” I gulped down my nerves and pulled my secret project out of my sleeve, hands shaking. I was Maeve, ready to defend the gates. I was Marissa, sealing back the demonic spirit. Sliding next to him in the wagon, I handed him the folded up bundle of papers. Even though we still weren’t sitting that close, I could feel the heat radiating from his body and all the chilled parts of me were so tempted to burrow into his warmth.

  He looked from the little book to me like opening it could make laser beams shoot into his eyes. “What’s this?”

  Another deep breath. I was Kaylee, baring her soul on a stage where everyone could see.

  “Just read it,” I said as fast as I could, pulling my flashlight out of my back pocket and wiggling it at him.

  Dev squinted at the title in the sparse light coming from the clearing and the moon. “The story of the shy knitting girl and the mini sock boy?” He looked up at me, brows furrowed together. “Phoebe—”

  “Read it, please?” I whispered, my throat tight. I needed to get this over with so I could dive under the remaining hay and wallow in my mortification.

  He stared at me for a few heartbeats before nodding silently and taking the flashlight from me.

  While waiting, I grabbed a piece of hay and started splitting it with my fingernail. I reached for another and another until I had a pile of stiff strings in my lap. At least it kept my hands busy so he couldn’t see them shaking. I snuck a glance at him, but his face was shadowed and his lips were in a straight line, neither smiling nor frowning. Ice shot down my spine. Maybe I should start neatening up the wagon. That way, if he rejected me, I’d have an excuse to keep my back to him.

  I started to turn, but Dev’s hand on my arm stayed my motion. His eyes were wide and his expression serious. “Is this story about us? You and me?” He gently lay the bound pile of handmade paper on his lap and his thumb traced the rough edges.

  My fingers curled around the pile of hay-strings and I nodded, dropping my eyes. This was a stupid, ridiculous idea. He had to think I was some nutty—

  “Is it true?” He reached over and gently used two fingers to lift my chin so I had to look him in the eye. It took monumental effort to keep from sucking in my breath. “You like me?”

  My brain ran through the possible answers. Marissa would have something snappy and cute. Maeve would say something immensely quotable. I could just quote directly from that part in Golden where she confessed her feelings to Aedan. Or—Dev’s thumb just barely grazed my chin and cleverness flew out of my head as my heart decided to stop.

  “Yes,” I breathed. I wasn’t Marissa or Maeve. I was Phoebe. I wrote a silly story about the guy I liked. And I was positive he was about to reject me, let me down easy. I braced myself for his answer.

  Dev’s expression remained serious, but his voice seemed to shake. “I was hoping you’d say yes,” he whispered back.

  “Really?” Cue pulse running though my whole body, centering on those spots where his fingers touched me.

  “Really.”

  He leaned forward, but I reached out and stopped him with a hand against his chest, as bold as Maeve. If this was my story, I was going to be the one to decide the ending. “And you like me?”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you that for ages, but you kept finding ways to push me away.” At my raised eyebrow, he moved his fingers from my chin to my cheek. His other hand came up to pull a piece of hay out of my formerly perfect curls. He squinted at me for a few long seconds, making me wonder if I had pushed too much. “I’d level cities for one of your smiles.”

  I held back a laugh, the tightness in my chest loosening to make room for the same feeling as finding a book I really wanted on shelves a few days before its release date. “That’s from the Sentinel series!” Any boy who would quote a romantic line from a bestselling YA novel had me, heart and soul.

  “Caught me.” In the dark, his pupils had dilated, making me feel like I could fall and fall into his eyes forever.

  “No,” I said, dropping my hand and leaning forward until my lips were millimeters from his, just as bold and crazy as any of the characters I admired. “You caught me.” We both seemed to move at the same time and I didn’t know or cared who closed the distance between us.

  Our lips met and it was like the fire Maeve described running through her veins when kissing Aedan, and the energy Marissa felt with Cyril, hit me all at the same time. Our first kiss was tentative and awkward as we tried to figure out where to put our heads and hands and bodies. It was clumsy and definitely not “perfect” like any of my favorite book kisses, but all I wanted to do was pull him closer and never let go. Dev leaned forward and his hand slipped on a patch of hay in the wagon, sending us both tumbling into a mound of hay. He pulled back, using the side of the wagon to prop himself up slightly.

  “Sorry.” But a silly grin spread across his face and he brushed hair and hay out of my face. “Not as smooth as your book crushes, huh?”

  “I don’t know. I think I like the real thing better.” That earned me an even wider grin and this time when he bent to kiss me, we lined up perfectly. Hay dug into my back through my sweater and jeans and I didn’t even notice.

  After what seemed like a lifetime of kissing, Dev pulled back, his lips a whisper against my cheek. “We need to get this wagon cleaned up and get to the bonfire before Mr. Hamm comes looking for us again and busts us for PDA.”

  I groaned, but let him pull me up to sitting with a coaxing kiss…or two or three. “So, what do we do now?” A limp curl hung in front of my nose and I pushed it behind my ear. My hair was probably a rat’s nest of tangles, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  Dev seemed to take a lot of pleasure out of helping me wipe the hay off of where it clung to my sweater and hair.

  “Considering what just happened now and everything, does that mean I finally get a real pair of socks?” At the look on my face, he flicked a piece of hay at my nose. “I hear that kitchenered toe thing is amazing.”

  I tossed a handful of hay in his face, then shrieked as he stuffed a retaliatory bunch down the back of my sweater.

  “Goof,�
� I choked out between laughs.

  “But a cute goof, right?”

  “Bollywood-worthy cuteness.” In a move that would make Marissa proud, I reached up and pulled him down for a kiss, breaking away after a few seconds to start working on straightening up the wagon. I turned and smiled at his surprised but happy expression.

  This was the best camping trip ever.

  51

  The camp was quiet at the moment. In a few hours, we’d be loading up the buses, but now, everything was still. I’d felt electrified all night, the haywagon and the bonfire and our ride back running over and over in my mind. So, when the first hints of sunlight tinged the sky, I climbed out of my bunk, grabbed a sweatshirt and my book, and slipped out of the cabin without waking any of the girls. A bit of reading might calm down my all-too-active brain. I touched my lips with my fingertips and stifled the urge to giggle like a little kid.

  I set myself up on the dock, dangling my legs over the edge so the toes of my sneakers just barely skimmed the water’s surface. I only had about two chapters left of Cradled and I could probably finish them before reveille.

  “‘Sometimes you need to leave everything you know to find yourself and to learn that life isn’t a solo,’” I read aloud to the pines.

  “Talking to yourself?” A voice said behind me and I nearly fell off the dock. Dev grabbed my shoulder to steady me. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” He joined me on the edge of the dock, letting his hand slide down my arm to capture mine. Even through my sweatshirt, his touch brought goose bumps up on my skin.

  I tilted my head to look at him, smiling but wishing I had thought to put in my contacts. “I’m quoting from great literature while communing with nature, and you just interrupted me.” A part of me wanted to reach up and kiss him, but the still awkward and tentative part of me held back, waiting for him.

  Dev didn’t kiss me, just started rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb. His other hand tilted my book so the page faced him, too.