by J. K. Rock
“So you get to do this whole fake death scene, and I’ll be crying over you, and then…”
“Hello,” called Alex’s friend from the porch. She had dark hair and thick glasses, but I blanked on her name. “How was cooking for the rich and famous?”
A guy named Rafael sat across from the nameless girl, a chessboard set up on the table between them. I’d met him a few times around camp, and he seemed cool. He wasn’t one of those tools who tried to make me feel like a loser for working in the kitchen.
“Hey, Siobhan!” Alex called, answering the mystery of her friend’s name. “It was hot and sweaty. Lots of work.” Alex grabbed my hand and tugged me up the stairs. Like a friend would. A friendly friend. The kind of friend that makes your knees weak when her small fingers wrap around yours. Friends with potential.
“Sounds fun.” The screen door banged as another girl wandered out on the porch. I knew this one because the guys talked about her a lot—Jackie. She wasn’t Alex-hot, but I guess she was hot in a way a lot of guys notice. The bigger reason they knew her, though, was that she could kick most of their asses on a hoops court. Jackie glanced down at the checkered board. “I’m not an expert, but it looks like she’s got you in check in, like, three moves, dude.”
“Concentrating,” Rafael said through clenched teeth, his thick eyebrows knitting over his prominent nose.
Siobhan leaned back with a smug smile. “Did you guys get to have any fun?”
“If Alex is involved, I don’t doubt there was mischief,” another girl called from the window, then peered at our clasped hands long enough to make me let go. That piercing stare of hers made me think of Helena.
A huffy breath sounded beside me. “F.Y.I., Yasmine,” Alex began, “today was totally legit. I helped Javier cook until the assistant director asked me to do a non-speaking role.
“Still concentrating.” Rafael tapped a pawn against the side of the table.
The guy clearly took his chess seriously.
“It won’t do you any good. I’ve got this one.” Siobhan’s voice rose. She stared at Rafael like no one had ever bested her before at anything.
Hadn’t she heard Rafe was a chess whiz? I barely hung out with most of these kids, and even I knew that.
I cleared my throat, wanting to see Alex get her due. “The director told Alex she has real potential.”
“Really?” Another girl—there was no end of them on this side of camp—rushed outside and hugged Alex, her blonde dreads swinging. “I’m so proud of you.” She stepped back and studied Alex. “You have a rainbow aura tonight. I think you’ve found your life’s purpose.”
I wasn’t exactly sure of the aura stuff, but Alex did kind of glow as she explained her plans to get the camp involved in the musical.
“West Side Story? Great message about intolerance.” Yasmine pushed a brightly patterned head scarf over her forehead as she joined us outside. “I’m in.”
There was a brief quiet moment. Almost as if all the girls had been waiting to see what Yasmine would say. Then they all spoke at once.
“Me, too,” they chorused. Now that they’d stopped teasing Alex, they looked as excited as she was.
And suddenly I was, too. I’d never seen myself as the kind of guy that’d do something like this. But I knew it made Alex smile, and I couldn’t do that enough.
“Me three.” Their counselor jogged up the stairs, her bushel of blonde hair wilder than ever. “I love musicals. Nearly played Annie on Broadway until my final audition with Sandy the dog ended with an EpiPen and an ambulance ride. So much for my name in lights,” she sighed.
Rafael twisted around in his seat. “Still concentrating.”
“Focus on how you’re going to carry my meal trays all week because I’m going to win.” Siobhan laughed along with the group.
“Not exactly.” Rafael slid a piece diagonally, captured one of Siobhan’s pawns and announced, “Checkmate.”
Yasmine whistled, and the rest of the group leaned over the board.
“No. That’s—that’s not possible.” Siobhan stood, her eyes wide behind her thick lenses. “I had him.”
“So had him.” Jackie nodded and patted Siobhan. “I never saw that one either. Sorry, champ.”
“She’s not the champion anymore,” chortled Emily. She pointed her index fingers, cocked her thumbs, and curled her fingers toward her palms. “Looks like there’s a new sheriff in town. Pow pow.”
“But…but…,” stuttered Siobhan. If it wasn’t a game, I would have actually felt sorry for her. She looked like she’d lost more than the chess match.
Rafael stood. He was compact and so thin the porch rails were thicker than his calves. He pointed at Siobhan, one side of his mouth quirked. “I like hot sauce on my scrambled eggs. See you at breakfast. Good night.”
Had to hand it to the dude, he had style. I returned his grin, then winced when Alex elbowed me.
When Rafael stepped off the bottom stair, two middler kids raced up the path, their flashlights bobbing like police search lights.
“Fight! Fight!”
My gut twisted.
Emily leapt off the porch, going into Power Ranger mode. “Where? Who?”
“Vijay and some other guy,” gasped the boy, holding his side.
“Where, Emilio?” Rafael squatted down, their resemblance suggesting they were brothers. For a moment, I felt a pang and wished I had one, too.
“Down by the dock,” a high voice rang out, the girl who’d run with him. “And one of them has a bloody nose, Piper. Gross. We saw them on the way to outdoor movie night.” All of the sudden, her voice wavered, and she ran into what must be her sister’s arms.
“It’s all right, Leila. Shhhhhhh.”
“I’ll take the kids with me and find Mr. Woodrow.” Emily already had the pre-teens in hand. “Meet me down there but don’t do anything stupid, like get in the middle of it. Talk them down if you can.”
Alex’s friends all took off—Rafael, too. But I held Alex back before she could spring off with them.
“We should find another counselor.” I looked at the other cabins, but they were either dark or—if the lights were on—looked empty inside.
“There’s no one else.” Alex tugged me forward. “Come on.”
It wasn’t like me to play Switzerland and be all neutral, but I knew I skated a thin surface around here.
“I’ll get in trouble—”
She sprinted toward her friends and raced along the narrow forest path, giving me no choice but to follow her. Damn it. Damn it.
Our shoulders and hands collided as we careened off each other in the dark, catching up to the others. After a moment, we burst onto the beach and took in Vijay and Jake wrestling on the sand. Even in the dim lighting, the red flow from Jake’s nose gushed bright.
My pulse thrummed. I’d seen and been in way too many of these fights to count. It was easy to see that Jake was about to get his ass handed to him. He covered his wet face with his hands and twisted uselessly to the side. But that’s what happened when you went up against a kid who fought dirty. Knowing Vijay, he’d probably thrown sand in Jake’s eyes.
“Stop it, Vijay!” Alex screamed. Before I could stop her, she lunged at her ex and grabbed his swinging arm.
What the hell?
I was in motion before I could stop myself. Toward her, toward him, toward trouble.
Vijay’s momentum hurled Alex into the sand, and I heard her teeth rattle as she landed hard. I saw red. Intentional or not, no one hurt Alex. Especially this douchebag. Anger management could kiss my ass.
I grabbed him from behind and put him in a headlock that gave Jake enough wiggle room to escape. In three steps, he stumbled into the forest and disappeared. Now I was the one left holding the bag—two hundred pounds of raging Vijay who was pissed to see his opponent get away…and all too happy to see me take his place. A jack-o-lantern grin split his bruised face.
“Let go, asshole.” Vijay squirmed, but I tighte
ned my hold and dug my heels in the sand.
“So you can throw around more girls? Yeah. Super tough, man.”
Jackie stormed to my side, and Alex joined her until I waved them back. No more collateral damage. Besides, I had this. Vijay might outweigh me by thirty pounds, but it took brains as well as muscle to win a fight.
Vijay kneed me in the groin and ducked out of my hold when I doubled over. I took an uppercut to the jaw before I shoved him hard against the chest.
“Don’t want to fight you, man,” I rumbled, forcing myself to step back and give him a chance to calm down. Not that my temper was going away. I wanted to pound him. Grind his ugly face into the ground until he learned to stay away from Alex for good.
Vijay crouched, ready to spring. “I bet you don’t, you puss—”
I dove for his legs and grunted in satisfaction when the jerk-off crashed backward. Adrenaline pumping, I leaped to my feet, then stared down in amazement at an immobile Vijay, his head resting on a rock the size of his head.
Damn. Was that blood by his temple?
“What in the name of Camp Juniper Point is going on here?” Gollum thundered, his whistle emitting a powerful shriek.
A flashlight shone in my eyes, blinding me. Without thinking, my arms rose in the air.
Emily knelt beside Vijay and gently tapped his cheeks until his eyes slid open. The snake.
“You’re in a lot of trouble, young man,” hissed Gollum.
Helena was going to kill me for letting her down. Again.
“Tell me something new,” I muttered and followed Gollum back to the main office.
Alex
Teeth chattering, I danced from one foot to the other to stay warm in the dark outside Warriors’ Warden shortly before midnight. I’d been waiting for Javier to return from the meeting with Gollum for almost half an hour.
I jumped up and down in between the juniper trees, sticking to the shadows since a few lights stayed on around the perimeter of the boys’ camp at night. Had the temperature really dropped into the fifties or was I just shivering from fear? I knew a storm was coming, and I’d even worn a hoodie. But I think most of the chill came from the inside.
Javier was going to get booted out of camp, and it would be completely my fault.
At the sound of a twig snapping, I flattened myself to a tree, heart racing. There were wild animals out here. Dangerous ones.
But as I searched the dark woods, the tree bark biting into my cheek, I recognized the sound. Someone walking toward the boys’ cabins without a flashlight.
“Javier?” I shout-whispered. “Is that you?”
The walking stopped. The shadow stilled. I swallowed my tongue because whoever it was stood tall enough to be a counselor.
“What if it wasn’t me?” the voice shot back. Javier’s voice, thank you, God.
He sauntered over while I peeled myself off the tree, my knees shaky.
“What happened?” I could see him fine when he got close. “They didn’t kick you out, did they?”
I reached for him before I could stop myself, my hand landing briefly on his bare forearm. Tense. Muscular. Warm.
I stepped closer. He stepped back. Pulled away. It hurt me to see how much he wanted me to stay away from him.
“They didn’t kick me out. Yet.” His white teeth flashed in a grimace as he flexed his fingers.
“Are you okay?” His knuckles looked scraped.
“It’s nothing.” He stuffed his hand in his cargo shorts pocket. “Look, thanks for checking on me, but everything’s fine.”
My teeth clenched. How easily he brushed me off like I meant nothing. Like my concern meant nothing.
“What did Gollum say? Did you tell him the fight was between Vijay and Jake? That you only went…because of me?” I squeaked out the last part, the guilt choking me.
“Bam-Bam intervened. He’d heard what happened from Emily and…” He took a deep breath and stared off in the direction of the moon, still kind of low over the lake where we could see it through the trees. “Bam-Bam went to bat for me. Really fought hard to make Woodrow let me stay. He told him I’d do some kind of overnight intervention thing with him.”
I silently vowed to be extra-nice to Emily for the rest of the summer. “He seems like a good guy. I just hope they kicked Vijay out.”
“As if. Vijay hasn’t used up all his chances like me. His punishment is to have an activity period taken away so he’ll sit in the mess hall for an hour a day.” He shook his head. “Right where I get to look at his ugly mug.”
I was stunned. “You’re kidding? That’s all he gets while you’re given the third degree? I just can’t believe you’d get in trouble at all when you didn’t even—”
“Alex.” Javier stared me down, his chocolate eyes fierce in the moonlight. “Don’t make excuses for me. Hitting him was wrong and I’m not getting dragged into situations where I can’t control myself anymore.”
“I didn’t make the drama—”
“But we let him drag us into it. The kid’s not right in the head, and the sooner everyone else realizes it, the sooner he’ll get help. Until then, I’d suggest you stay away from him, too.” He stepped toward his cabin, but I couldn’t let him go yet.
Not on that crap ending note.
“I’m sorry.” I put my hand on his chest to stop him, but then I pulled back. “I should have listened to you and stayed away from the fight. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. I make my own mistakes, and now I need to take that trip with Bam-Bam this week. He told me we were lucky that TV show of yours wasn’t around to catch that on tape or it’d be a lot worse. Oh, and I’m also supposed to hang out with the guys in my cabin more. Like we’re going to suddenly all be pals.” His jaw tightened. “It’s all B.S. But I’ve got one last chance here, Alex. I can’t screw it up.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“My mom—” He swallowed hard. Shook his head.
Nearby, a screen door banged from one of the cabins. Javier put an arm around me and guided me behind a thick tree trunk, and it was all I could do not to lay my head on his chest and feel his heart beat against my cheek. I could do it, too. We were so close.
“I don’t want anyone to overhear us,” Javier spoke against my temple, his words soft against my ear.
I nodded and—against all instincts—stepped back.
“I’m so glad you’re staying.” I snapped a twig off the pine tree, the sticky sap smearing on my fingers. “I’ll try to respect what you want.”
Maybe if I gave him space for a few days, he’d miss me. Besides, we’d be working on the play together. I could see him when he was Tony and I was Maria.
“It’s safer for both of us.” He reached toward me, and I closed my eyes.
Hoping.
His lips found mine in a kiss so light I could have dreamed it. He touched my hair, stroking down the side of my head and twining a finger in one lock before he let it go again and stepped back.
“Night, Alex.” He spoke softly, and I pretended it was tenderness I heard in his voice instead of goodbye.
I had to lick my lips before I could get any words out.
“Goodnight, Javier.”
I walked away before I said how I really felt. We might come from different worlds, but we were the same where it mattered. With him, I didn’t have to try so hard to be accepted, didn’t have to try at all. He liked me for who I was, and that was more precious to me than any payback summer.
……………….
“Where were you last night?” Trinity’s soft voice startled me awake the next morning.
She perched on the edge of my mattress, making me wonder what time it was. It seemed too dark to be breakfast time. Since most of the Munchies were gone, they must be at the showers. Jackie, however, was still in her bunk on the other side of the cabin, softly snoring.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I yawned through my lie, not ready to sit up. Last night wore me out i
n too many ways to count.
Javier.
I missed him, even though I knew we’d be together soon. I’d really, really blown it the day before.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You left, and I didn’t rat you out. That means you tell me what happened.”
Trinity wore her glasses instead of contacts, a sure sign she’d just rolled out of bed. The funky purple frames had zebra stripes on the arms. Her nightshirt had a screen print of some Dali image on it—a fact I’d never have known if she hadn’t explained it to me once. The melting watch had something to do with surrealism, I think. But I personally equated it with the way time slowed down at camp. Less focus on the cyber world. No discussions about Twitter feeds and what was trending in social media—especially when that trend was me. The year when I’d first gotten my period, I’d thought the Internet would implode from the comments on my parents’ blog post about it.
Total humiliation.
“I had to see Javier and find out what happened after Gollum dragged him off.” Reluctantly, I elbowed my way to a sitting position, blinking against the gray light and noticing it was pouring rain outside.
No wonder it seemed so dark. The earthy, loamy scents of camp really came to life in the rain. I inhaled the cool, wet breeze that floated through an open window above my bed. It hadn’t warmed up since the night before.
“And?” Trinity waved her hand in a circulating motion—to get my story moving.
“Bam-Bam stuck up for him and said he’d take Javier on an overnight thing—like some kind of ‘scared straight’ thing maybe. So Gollum said Javier could stay, but it’s his last warning. If he messes up again, he’s done here.”
Which meant I needed to make sure that didn’t happen. I didn’t want to stay away from him, but if there was really no other way…
“That’s not fair. Oh, hey, check this out!” Trinity climbed down the ladder, pulled her suitcase closer by the leather handle, and dug through the tangle of colorful tees and shorts. She pulled out a paint-by-numbers velvet canvas of Elvis Presley. “Does my Secret Camp Angel know me or not?”
