Chapter Twenty-Eight
Keeping this field trimmed and ready for camp-wide games is more play than work when there’s a ride-on mower involved. I make a turn and catch sight of Amy, sitting in the roots of a willow tree, poring over the training manuals on my laptop. Her spiral-bound notebook rests on the ground beside her.
I aim the mower toward the lake and slow my speed, taking in the beauty that kept me going for so many years. But it’s nothing compared to waking up with Amy’s hands in my hair, her lips on my cheek, pussy slick against me, whispering that I’d been moaning her name in my sleep—that she wanted to make me feel as good in real life as I was feeling in my dreams.
My cock twitches and I turn the wheel before I reach the end of the field. I may have promised Amy that I’d keep myself busy and let her get into director mode, but I could spend hours watching the way her shoulders rise and her thumb clicks her pen when she reads. I up my speed and make another turn, but catch her out of the corner of my eye. She holds her notebook and stretches her back, pushing her tits out. And it’s like she’s a magnet. I abandon my straight lines and drive across the field.
“Hey.” I cut the engine and the quiet of camp returns. “What’s up?”
She raises her eyebrows. “Aside from you slacking off with mowing duties?”
I grin. “Aside from that, and my cock. Yes.”
Amy looks down and rolls her lip between her teeth. “You know we have to do this, Paul. Camp starts tomorrow.”
“Yes, Director. I’m at your beck and call for whatever you want a hand with.”
She throws me a half-smile. “Not sure you doing a half-assed job of the caretaker duties actually counts as helping.”
“Fair.” I lean my elbows on the wheel. “But it looked like you needed something. And giving you what you need isn’t something I’d ever half-ass.”
Amy glides across the grass and threads her fingers through the hair at my neck. “Now that I believe.”
I feed my hand into her back pocket and squeeze. “So, Camp Director. What do you need?”
She taps her notebook against her thigh. “I need you to show me this low ropes course you installed.”
My thumb rubs her ass through her shorts. “No problem. Want to see it now?”
“Nope.” She untangles her hand from my hair and makes a note in her book. My hand slips from her pocket as she backs away. “I’m scheduling it in for the hour after dinner,” she says. “Right now, I want to see you finish this lawn.”
“On it. Anything else you want to see done?”
She narrows her eyes at the notebook and clicks her pen. “Whatever you think needs to happen. Just tell me what you’ve handled. You know, so I don’t double up on it.”
I give her a salute and finish the lawn with the kind of speed normally reserved for the chores I hate. Mower stowed in the shed, I take the stairs to the upper camp two at a time and whip open the door to the rec hall. In her room, I fold the clothes she’s thrown on the end of the bed, and pack until her backpack is full. The front door slams shut as I’m rolling and stuffing her sleeping bag into its case.
“What’re you doing?” She pushes her sunglasses onto her head.
I pull the cord to close the storage bag. “You told me to do whatever I think needs to happen.”
She crosses her arms under her breasts and raises her eyebrows. “And packing my dirty laundry is what you think needed to happen?”
“Most definitely.” The straps to her frame backpack are too short, but I struggle into it. “Moving you into the director’s house is priority number one.”
“Right,” she laughs. “Higher than the giant refrigerated truck that just showed up?”
“Oh, great. It’s always good when the food order arrives before the campers.” I pick up the sleeping bag and kiss her cheek. “Especially with your archery skills. I’m pretty sure those poor kids would starve if you were in charge of hunting for their dinner.”
Her mouth falls open in a laugh and she flicks my earlobe. “Asshole.”
“I mean, maybe you should let me stay just in case you need my superior hunting skills.” I grin and toss the sleeping bag in the air. “Let me drop your stuff off and I’ll come help with the truck.”
“I’ve got it.” She holds up her notebook. “You know, assuming you didn’t intentionally mess up the instructions and leave out something important just so I’d need you?”
“I wouldn’t do that.” I slide my hand onto her lower back and step forward until she’s pinned to the wall with my heat. She relaxes into me and I nibble her earlobe, making her breath hitch. “But I think you need me anyway. Why come find me otherwise?”
Her shoulders climb toward her ears, but I step closer, crushing her breasts against my chest. She tilts her head and I tease her neck with the tip of my tongue until her eyes flutter closed.
“Oh, I need you.” She threads her fingers into my hair and guides me to her collarbone. I tickle her nerves awake with soft kisses until a truck horn sounds and she pulls my head away, blinking the glaze from her eyes. She pushes me back with a gentle hand on my chest. “Later. Definitely later. But now, I have to do my job.”
* * *
I dip the thermometer in the oil once more to double-check, but we’re good to go. Or we would be if Amy wasn’t intent on following every word in those damned manuals like they’d been written by God and not me. Luckily, I’d left the actual receiving of food deliveries in the cook’s control, which meant that I was able to smuggle my special order out of the dining hall while she was double-checking activities supplies and making lists of campers with allergies.
The lyrics to the song I’ve been practicing filter out under my breath as I set the table—as I picture Amy pressed against the doorjamb, foggy eyes unsure of anything but her and me and the fact that she wants me later. My body hums along with the chorus.
The door creaks open. “Hey,” she calls. “Did you know that the spring that closes Cabin 2’s door is broken? And—” Her words cut off as she comes into the kitchen. “Fondue?”
I pull bowls of chopped and spice-rubbed meat from the fridge and place them next to the cubes of bread. “You bet. It’s the traditional night-before-camp meal.” The chair scuffs across the floor when I pull it out for her.
Amy perches on the chair and leans on her elbows, peering into the bubbling pots. “I’ve never actually had fondue.”
“Then you, my dear, are in for a treat.” I fan the colored forks in my hand. “Green, white, yellow, or purple?”
“Green.” She takes one of the forks and I hand over its mate.
“You need both,” I grin, stabbing my yellow forks into meat and popping them into the oil. “You can cook more than one thing at a time that way.”
“Right.” She glances at the meat and her shoulders rise. “This is going to take a while.”
I take the seat next to her and work my thumb into her knots until little by little, her shoulders fall. “It can,” I say. “But that’s kind of the point.”
Amy chews on her lip. “Maybe we should use two sets of forks each?”
“What? That completely defeats the purpose of a leisurely meal and conversation.” But I catch sight of her cheek rolled between her teeth and her eyes darting like a doe’s. I clear my throat. “I mean, sure. Whatever you want. Your house. Your rules.”
My fingers grasp for another set of forks and I knock them onto the ground. We kneel together, crawling under the table and reaching under chairs.
“It’s still our house,” she says.
I raise my head fast and knock it into the table. “Yeah?”
Amy’s eyes crinkle with contained laughter and she combs through my hair, parting it to check for damage. “Yeah. I’m just worried about seeing the ropes course. You didn’t finish that part of the manual.”
“Shit. I totally forgot the plan.” I reach for the burner to kill the flame. “We can go right now.”
She grabs my wrist. “Wait. You said this was tradition.” She folds my hand in hers and pulls me back to my chair. “Explain it to me.”
I roll a fork between my thumb and fingers. “It started when I was eight—the first year I came here. My parents only sent me for one session that summer, and they made a big deal of sitting down for fondue before I left. I had them all to myself, for hours.” I disengage my hand from hers and rub the back of my neck. “We ended up doing it every year before the first camp and, you know, it was nice. Feeling like we were a normal family who actually told each other things, even though I know it was just their way of saying they’d put in time with their kid. To help with their guilt, or whatever.”
“They wouldn’t have kept doing it if it was just about guilt.” She picks at a thread on her placemat. “It wouldn’t have helped with that.”
Her fingers twist the stray thread, but her jaw clamps shut and I swallow my questions. “You’re right. I can’t say for sure what it did for them.” I pull my forks from the oil and put the chicken on my plate, steak on Amy’s. “But it was always my cue that the best part of the year was just a night away. Having fondue gave me something to focus on and enjoy when all I wanted to do was get back to camp and everything I loved.”
She nods and flips her placemat, smoothing it flat. “So you’ve done this every year since?”
I clear my throat and poke at the meat until I find the perfect piece. “Yeah. They’d always call before the first camp, no matter where they were, but, well, that’s not going to happen this year.”
She squeezes my hand and kisses my knuckles. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you’d lost them both in one year.”
I iron her creased forehead with my thumb. “At the same time, actually. They were on a ski trip in Italy when there was an avalanche. It buried their hotel.”
“I’m sorry, Paul. I know you weren’t close, but still.”
My lips press against her palm. “They would have been happy that they went together.”
“They really loved each other, hey?”
“For all their faults as parents, I can never say that they didn’t give me something to aspire to.”
She nods and pulls her back straight. “Right. Tonight, for them and for you, we fondue.” She pierces the meat with her forks and cautiously drops them into the oil. “But you’ll show me the ropes course tomorrow morning, right? Before the buses get here?”
“I’d like that.” My knuckle traces her jaw, the gesture calm and gentle against the hammering in my heart—the heart that pumped happiness and life through me all day as I watched her in stolen moments, and is now swollen with quiet conversation. I pinch her chin between my thumb and finger and guide her lips to mine. My nerves come alive when our lips meet and I linger on our single kiss, so far gone that no compass could guide me back.