Boyfriend for the Summer (A Second Chance Enemies to Lovers Romance)

by Penny Wylder

  6

  Eric

  Six Years Ago

  Swimming is always the best part of the summer. I swear that I spend half my time in the water whenever I’m at camp, but I’m not complaining. It’s only been a few days and it feels more natural to be in the water than anything else. I love the sun on my skin and the way the girls look at me when I’m in the water. It’s an intoxicating feeling, though it’s been a little different the last few days. There’s only one set of eyes I want on my body, and I can’t them out of my head.

  So far things have been going well for camp, except for when Mom and Dad show up and try to get me to be ‘more involved.’ When we left to come to the camp, we agreed that they were going to treat me like every other camper, and that they wouldn’t tell anyone that we own Red Rock. I don’t want special treatment, and I don’t want anyone else bugging me to get favors because my parents are the camp directors.

  Seems like they’ve forgotten it a little bit when they try to get me to step up and lead stuff, but today they’ve stayed away, and I’ve been having a good time. Michael crashes off my shoulders as Krista and Trevor knock us over in the shallows.

  Michael comes up laughing. “I’m done.”

  “Come on,” I say. “We need a rematch.”

  Chicken is almost a sacred tradition at Red Rock, and any time the lake is open for swimming someone is playing. And I’ve been getting crushed today.

  “No, man. I’m tired. I’ll be your wingman tomorrow,” he says clapping me on the shoulder and heading for his towel.

  I point at Krista and Trevor. “I will find someone. Stay there.”

  “No problem,” Krista says. “We’ll beat their ass too.”

  I roll my eyes but I’m smiling. “Speaking of wingman,” Michael says, he nods towards the shore.

  “What?”

  He rolls his eyes. “We’re not idiots, Eric.”

  I look in the direction that he nodded, and I see her.

  Seph.

  The green eyes that I can’t get out of my head.

  I’ve seen her everywhere since I tackled her that first day, and I still feel bad about it. The bruising on her face is almost entirely gone. But it’s more than guilt that’s kept me looking at her whenever she appears.

  She’s beautiful.

  In a way that I’m not used to. She just…is. I’ve never known someone with that color hair. A perfect, vibrant red that lights up like fire when the sun hits it. She’s got this perfect pale skin, and when I knocked her down I got to see her eyes—a gorgeous green that reminds me of the leaves of these woods at sunset.

  Michael laughs at my staring and heads out of the water. But not before I can flip him off.

  I’ve never had a crush this hard this fast before, but I want to get to know her. Something in my gut is pulling me toward her, and I want to follow it. Now is the perfect chance. Right now, she’s under a tree on her towel, scribbling in that notebook that she brings everywhere—I’ve literally never seen her anywhere without it. But she’s wearing a bathing suit too. A green bikini that hugs her body in a way that makes me really glad I’m in the icy water of the lake.

  “Seph!” I call, and she glances up, confused for a moment, trying to figure out who’s calling her name, and I wave. She gives me a tentative smile. That same one that she’s given me whenever I’ve said hello. “I need a new partner. You game?”

  “I’m not sure you would want me,” she says. “I’ve never won a game of chicken.”

  “There’s always a first time.” And if I were being honest, I gave up caring about winning the moment I realized that she was here. That she would ever ask the question why anyone would want her makes me want to prove in a very public way that everyone should want her.

  She presses her lips together a moment before speaking. “If you’re sure.”

  “I am.”

  She puts her notebook on the towel and comes into the water with us, wincing for a second at the cold. It’s milder today and the sun hasn’t burned off as much of the chill. “This is Krista and Trevor,” I say, not sure if she’s met them. I haven’t seen her hang out with many people here.

  “Hi.”

  I lower myself into the water and she climbs onto my shoulders. Holy shit, I didn’t anticipate what it would feel like to have her so close to me, and the fact that my hands would be on her thighs to stabilize her. I need to get my brain under control. I clear my throat. “Okay. Ready?”

  “Ready.” She doesn’t sound like it, but that’s okay. Trevor and I step closer to each other, and the game is on. I tighten my hands on Seph’s legs and brace against the lakebed, trying to keep her steady. She gives it her best shot, and she does manage to knock them off balance for a moment, but the pair across from us have been together forever and have been playing chicken here just as long. There’s no beating them, and only a few minutes later Seph reels back, and I follow her into the water.

  Kristin cheers with victory and I laugh. Seph surfaces but doesn’t stand. She’s smiling even though her chin is still in the water. “Are you okay?”

  That blush that I’ve learned to look for creeps up her cheeks. “My top came off. I’m trying not to flash anyone.”

  Before I can stop them, my eyes fly to what little is visible of her shoulders in the murky water, and her straps are gone. I rip my eyes back to hers as quickly as they dropped. “Stand behind me.”

  I turn and block her from both Kristin and Trevor and the people lounging behind me. She steps close enough that I can feel her moving, and I’m actively trying not to imagine her naked. And pretty much failing. My imagination is spinning into what might happen if we were alone. Would she let me turn and kiss her? Feel her skin without the fabric in the way? My dick wants that. Stop it, Eric.

  Her hand brushes my shoulder. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.” I follow her back onto the beach to her towel, grabbing my own in the process, and I sit with her. Close enough to be able to talk but not so close that she would feel uncomfortable. “Is this your first year here?”

  “Second,” she says, grabbing her towel off the blanket she’s spread out and wrapping it around her shoulders. “But first without my best friend. Probably why you don’t remember me if you were here last year.”

  “Yeah, I was.”

  “We were pretty much doing anything and everything together. It’s weird to be here without her.”

  I run a hand through my hair, using the water already in it to keep it out of my eyes. “Where is she this year?”

  She almost rolls her eyes but catches herself. “Vacationing in France with her family. Being glamorous. It’s hard not to be jealous, but I’m trying. I really want to travel. But,” she says, pausing, “Leena really is amazing, and she deserves it. She’ll come back from her trip and I know all the stories will be great.”

  “I’m sorry you miss her.”

  Seph shrugs. “Not much I can do about it, but when you spend that much time with someone it’s hard not to feel like you’ve lost a limb when they’re not there. But it’s fine, because senior year is going to be fantastic. We’re going to make it amazing together. Her and me against the world, you know?”

  “I wish I did,” I say, grinning. “But if you want to make me jealous then you’re well on your way.”

  Seph goes quiet for a moment and looks down at her hands. “Why would you be jealous?”

  “I think I’d be jealous of anyone you talked about like that. I don’t have any friends like that. “Us against the world.””

  She blushes and smiles a little, but doesn’t meet my gaze. Crap, I don’t want her to feel awkward.

  “Any chance you want to go for a walk? The woods are beautiful right now.”

  She looks up at me now, and the breath is knocked out of my chest when those green eyes meet mine. I really, really, like this girl.

  “Sure. Let me change really quick.”

  “Meet you back here?”

  She nods
, and I have to make it look like I’m not sprinting to my cabin. It doesn’t really matter though because I’ve never changed faster in my life. Jeans and one of the better t-shirts that I brought. I’m back at the tree by the lake first, just like I wanted to be. I want to sit and look cool like those guys in the movies, even if I know that I can never, ever come close to that.

  I hear Seph’s laughter before I see her come around the tree. “You were fast.”

  All I do is smile. “Which path is your favorite?”

  There are several cool wooded paths, and they all have their own benefits. I like them all, and I know them like the back of my hand since I’ve been coming here for years. But I have a favorite, and I want to know hers.

  “The waterfall path,” she says, and that makes me smile wider. “It’s mine too,” I tell her.

  We pass some of my friends on the way to the trailhead, and they look at me with questions on their faces. I ignore them entirely. I don’t give two shits about what they think of Seph.

  The path entrance is taped off, which is weird. I didn’t realize that it was closed. I’ll have to ask Mom and Dad later if there’s some kind of maintenance going on.

  “That sucks,” Seph says. “I hadn’t been down this one yet this year.”

  I lift up the tape. “Don’t worry about it. We can still go.”

  “I think we might get into trouble doing that,” she says.

  I barely even debate telling her. It’s true that I don’t want special treatment, but I’m not about to let this ruin the moment that we could potentially have. “I don’t tell everyone this because it sometimes makes it weird,” I say, “but my parents are the camp directors. We won’t get in trouble.”

  She looks shocked and then laughs. “You’re their son? I’m amazed they don’t blast that all over the camp.”

  “We’ve come to an agreement.” I duck under the tape and hold it up to her. She follows.

  “Well I’m glad we still get to do this. I love this path.”

  “It’s the best.”

  She smiles, and I see that she still has that notebook with her, tucked against her chest as she walks. “Probably the one thing about this summer that Leena will be jealous of me for. This was one of our spots.”

  I nod. “Sometimes there’s just as much good about being somewhere that’s familiar.”

  “That’s true, but I want to travel. I want to see everything and go everywhere, and so being stuck wasn’t on the top of my to-do list.”

  I hold a tree branch out of her way as she brushes past it. “Where would you go first, if you had the choice?”

  “Greece.” There’s no hesitation in the answer. “My mom obviously loved mythology enough to name me Persephone, and even though it’s always been kind of a strange name, I do love it. So I want to visit the place where all the stories come from.”

  “That’s the myth where she gets kidnapped and has to spend half the year in hell, right?”

  She laughs softly. “Yeah, that’s the basic version. But there’s a lot of re-imaginings of it that make it less…harsh than that.”

  “What version of it would you write, if you got the chance?”

  She stops in her tracks and looks at me. “No one’s ever asked me that before.”

  “Have you thought about it?”

  “Yeah,” she says, her fingers running across the cover of her notebook. “In my version she wouldn’t be kidnapped. She would be in love. So overwhelmed with it that she would run away to hell to be with that person. But she still has responsibilities to the rest of the world, and so she splits her time between them.”

  I nod. “That’s a nicer version.”

  “That’s the good thing about the myths. No one minds if you change them up. It’s completely fine.”

  We reach the section of the path that opens up into a glade with a waterfall. There’s a giant rock that sits at the edge of the pool, and when the path is open, this place is usually pretty busy. This is one of the only times that I’ve seen it completely vacant.

  “For what it’s worth,” I say, “even if it’s selfish, I’m glad you’re stuck for the summer.”

  Looking over at me, Seph breaks into a shy smile. “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

  She climbs up onto the rock, and I take a moment before I follow her, watching her take it in. Seph has a way of observing the world that is entirely new to me. She seems to soak in everything around her. She’s present. It makes me want to pay more attention to absolutely everything.

  When I join her on top of the rock she sits down, and she’s smiling even though I don’t think that she realizes it. “I love this place. It feels like being in a place where time is standing still, and the only thing that’s moving is the water, and that’s because it doesn’t have a choice. This is a place that the universe forgot and now it’s only ours.”

  I understand what she means. Hidden away from everything and entirely alone, this place feels special. “You should be a poet,” I say.

  “I’ve never been good at poetry,” she says quietly, “but I do want to be a writer. And the traveling is part of that. I want to write about what I see.”

  “Poetic prose then.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m really not that good.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second,” I say, grinning.

  “Seriously.”

  “Prove it. Let me read what’s in that notebook that you take everywhere.”

  Seph only hesitates for a couple of seconds before she hands me the notebook. “Okay.”

  “Anything specific I should read?”

  She shakes her head, and I flip it open to a random page. Her handwriting is better than mine will ever hope to be.

  Here time can stand still. The wind will blow and sound disappears and it feels like the world has stopped spinning for the space of one heartbeat. And that heartbeat lasts for a thousand years and not at all.

  It in those moments that I can remember lifetimes before my own. This has always been here, and we’re just fragments of light passing by. But for a single moment the world revolves around us. We’re the center of the world, and everything hinges on the breath we take.

  But you have to notice it.

  I don’t read anymore, but I don’t look up from the page, because I think I’m having one of those moments right now. These words are stunning and clear, and even though I’m not sure I’ve felt what she’s describing I can imagine it with such clarity that my chest aches.

  “Seph,” I say, “this is beautiful.”

  She stares at me, the look on her face telling me that she’s deciding whether or not I’m lying. I’m not.

  Her eyes flick to my lips then back to my eyes, and she leans forward and kisses me. I go still with shock, and then she’s pulling back, blushing.

  I’ve never kissed anyone before, and I’m glad that it was her. That it’s us right now. Because I like her. More than I probably should. And I don’t say anything as I set the notebook on the rock beside me and pull her closer. I give Seph every chance to pull away, and she doesn’t.

  And so I kiss her.

  I don’t plan on stopping for a long time.

  7

  Persephone

  Present

  I could have sworn when I looked at the schedule this morning that David was the counselor overseeing archery with me today. But when I come out of the cabin fully changed—no way was I going to stay in my bathing suit after that—Eric is already there overseeing the boys.

  He has a bow slung across his back and is showing several of them the proper way to pull back the string so that you don’t cut your fingers on it when you release.

  I can’t stop seeing him sprawled on the beach, wet and sparkling. And I can’t stop thinking about what he asked me. Why I’m being so cold to him? The answer is complicated and makes me want to run and hide so I don’t have to see his stupid gorgeous face. Or his body in his still-drying clothes.

  Eric’s body
was perfect when we spent the summer together, and it’s only gotten better. He’s grown into his height and his weight, and the damp t-shirt he has on does nothing to hide it.

  I try to ignore him and focus on my girls. Archery is something that I’ve always loved, and I kept doing it long after camp. Now I don’t do it as much as I would like, but I try to get to the range at least once a month so I can keep the skill sharp. If there’s ever a zombie apocalypse, I’ll get to be the badass chick with a bow. And people will want me because I’ll have a valuable fighting skill. Win-win.

  Margot pulls back and releases a perfect shot that hits within the bulls-eye ring. She’s got a natural eye for it and is sinking shot after shot without much practice. “Michael,” she calls over at the boys. “That’s three bull’s eyes in a row.”

  “Don’t worry,” he calls back after landing a shot that barely snags the edge of the target. “I’m just biding my time until I kick your ass.”

  “Or I could just kick your ass now,” she says, laughing.

  Lord, these girls are going to kill me. But I know that I was like that at that age, and so was Leena. Constantly wanting to one-up the boys in hopes that they would notice us. But that summer…

  I didn’t need any boys to notice me. Eric already had, and he was all I needed. Glancing over at me, he’s already staring at me like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

  Fine. We can do this. I know what it’s like to be them, and I’ll throw them a bone. “What do you think, Eric. A little friendly competition between your group and mine?”

  His lips curl into a smile. “What’s the prize?”

  “Bragging rights,” I say. “And our next shift in the kitchen.” There’s a rotating list of chores that all the campers do. They’re pretty basic as the camp has a full-time staff. But still, everyone tries to get out of their shift if they possibly can, so it’s a pretty good motivator.

  “What do you say, guys?”