Chapter Two
It’s not like I expected Fred to send a picture of the new camp director along with his quick FYI email that she’d be showing up for training, but holy shit. He could have given me at least some warning that I probably shouldn’t be free-balling it when she arrived.
“Hey,” I manage to croak out. The words are directed toward where her thighs disappear into her perfect shorts. There aren’t many times I’ve been jealous of the things my dog sticks his nose into, but this time, Chuck had the right idea. “You must be Amelia.”
She turns at the sound of my voice, but doesn’t say anything. I can’t tell what’s going on behind her sunglasses, but my body responds anyway. The hair on my arms stands on end just thinking that she might be raking her eyes over me.
I run through the Latin names for edible plants in an attempt to keep my hair the only thing that stands up under her gaze.
This. This is why I have to get out of here. Why I turned in my resignation just three weeks before camp started. Five years with only my hand and the infrequent townie hookups have turned me into a teenager. Worse, actually, because my dick actually knows what it’s missing.
My eyes follow her hand to her chest when she hangs her sunglasses from her curve-hugging tank top. I look up before she can catch me, and it’s all I can do to hold eye contact when she stands up straight and her boobs strain against the cotton ribbing. “Actually,” she says, “it’s Amy.”
She says it like a declaration—like it should mean something to me. My brain stalls. Reboots. And all the images I could never forget load at once. Her hair’s not as dark as it is now, and her curves aren’t as defined, but she’s there, over and over. Hiking a few steps in front of me. Winning the biggest-splash competition. Lying next to me on the field behind where she’s currently standing, looking at the stars with one eye and the kids playing flashlight tag with the other, while both of mine are stuck firmly on her.
“Holy shit. Amy-bo-bamy!” I jump from the front stoop without bothering with the steps and wrap my arms around her. She grips me for a second and her laugh vibrates against my chest, but she stiffens without warning and drops her arms from my back. I take a step away and run a hand through my hair. “Sorry. They say people start to act like their dogs, and, well, you saw how Chuck likes to greet people. But hey, at least I didn’t lick your thigh or something.”
She cocks her head and raises her eyebrows. “Do you want to lick my thigh?”
I shove my hands into the front pockets of my pants and she drops her eyes, stalling halfway between my face and her boots.
I clear my throat. “Let’s try this again. Hi, Amy, my old friend. I’m greeting you from a totally respectable distance given the fact that we haven’t seen each other in ten years and—”
“Twelve.”
“What’s that?”
She flicks her eyes to mine, then back to her boots. “It’s been twelve years.”
“Well, crap,” I say like I don’t know exactly how long it’s been—like it’s no big deal that she remembers, too. “We have some catching up to do.”
She makes a noncommittal noise. “So. You’re the current camp director.”
I smile. “Sure am.”
“And you’re leaving, right? Just after the first session starts?”
“Yeah. Unless you need me to stay on. I told Fred I could stay for the full first camp if—”
“No.” She shakes her head. “It’s ten days. Just ten more days. I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, this place is pretty much a time warp. Not a whole lot has changed since we were campers. I mean, we added a ropes course when I started here five years ago, and I’ve started some of my own things that you could take or leave, but really, you should be able to run this place on nostalgia alone.”
She shakes her head so slightly that I wouldn’t have noticed if her ponytail hadn’t bounced with the movement. “Right,” she says. “That means I won’t be needing much training. So, I can show myself around. I’ll let you know if I have any questions. Just wanted to let you know I was here.”
Amy’s nearly out of the yard before I find the voice I couldn’t shut up just seconds ago. “Wait. Don’t you want to come in? I mean, to drop off your stuff.”
She pauses. “What do you mean, ‘drop off my stuff’?”
I lean on the doorjamb. “You know, whatever you brought up with you. I’ve moved into the guest room, so the master is all yours.”
Her shoulders creep up and her voice is colder than a morning jump into the lake. “There’s no way I can stay in there.”
My fingers work their way through Chuck’s fur. “Not a fan of dogs?”
Her chest heaves with a deep breath. “Dogs are great. But I’ll stay in the rec hall for now.”
I pat my chest and Chuck stands on his hind legs, paws on my shoulders. He licks my face and I grin. “Why would you choose to be alone in a tiny staff bedroom with a shitty camp bed over our company and actual springs?”
“I don’t expect you to get it.” She turns her back to me. “Not then. Not now.”
The cold bitterness of her voice hangs in the air as she crosses the field and climbs the stairs without looking back. Chuck makes his awkward dismount and I usher him back into the house.
I bang my head against the closed door like it will pound my jumbled thoughts into something concrete. Because I don’t get why she walked away right now, and I definitely didn’t understand when she ditched me on our last night as counselors in training—why she refused to talk to me the next day. All I could get from the kids in her cabin was that Amy was sick. But she wasn’t sick. She wasn’t in the medical room, and she hadn’t been sent home early, like that summer we were ten and she woke up with chicken pox.
I’d been on the dock, getting ready for my third session at camp—the first time I’d stayed for four weeks straight—when I saw her load her pack into the luggage compartment and climb onto the bus. I would have recognized her white shorts and red boots from space. So I ran around the lake, sprinted across the field, and yelled her name loud enough to startle some kid who never quite warmed to me in the weeks that followed.
I could swear she paused—that she almost waited for me. That she almost gave me the chance my legs were clamoring for. Her email address, or phone number, or whatever else would keep us connected outside of camp. But her pause was nothing more than a stutter, and the doors closed behind her before I could stop them.
And now, twelve years later, she still won’t talk to me.
And she’s right.
I didn’t get it then, and I sure as hell don’t get it now.