Chapter Sixteen
Mallory Rotates on Her Axis at the South Paw
Ben
Ben ran back to his cabin to change into running shoes and put on some deodorant. The least he could do was try not to smell. He trotted over to Blake’s cabin without wasting any time. Kipper, the animatronic counselor stopped him on the porch. “No boys allowed in the Chipmunk Bunk.”
“I know. I’m here to pick up Blake for a run. Will you send her out?”
With the look of a White House intern, Kipper announced, “Wait here for a moment. I’ll grab her.” She went inside and he heard her yell, “Hurry up, Blake. Ben’s waiting for you.” A few of the girls came out and sat on the porch. Actually, a lot of them came out. He gave a nod and a wave.
Someone called out in a singsong voice, the kind girls used to tease each other, “Blaaaake, Ben’s here!” Then came kissing noises. Real mature, ladies. He backed away a bit to put some distance between him and the estrogen den. All those girls in one spot—pretty soon they’d be curling each other’s hair and having their periods at the same time.
Five minutes later, Blake appeared in a pair of running shorts and an exercise top, her blonde hair in a big, swingy ponytail. “Well, you certainly got things stirred up in there.”
“I noticed. Kipper’s running a tight ship.”
“Girls only,” she said in a cheeky voice. “Kipper’s wound a little tight.” As they tromped toward the South Paw, he broke in to a running stride. Blake kept walking, which left him basically running in place next to her.
“So, are you gonna go for a run with me or what?”
“How about you go by yourself. I’ll follow.” She pulled out her phone, probably to text someone.
Ben snatched it from her grasp. “If you want your phone back, you’re gonna have to catch me.” He took off into the woods, just fast enough to motivate her.
She started to run—no, make that jog. He could comfortably walk through a grocery store while pushing a full cart at the pace she was moving. It looked like a twelve minute/mile pace. “You run like an old lady. If you want your phone, you better go faster.”
She stopped and stared him down. “It’s all yours, Ben! I don’t think we’re supposed to have phones here anyway.” He couldn’t imagine why she was running so slow. She said her knee hurt, but she wasn’t limping. Maybe she was just being lazy?
A little way up the trail, close enough that she could catch him if she really put her mind to it, he stopped and pulled up her email. “Wonder if you have any good dirt in here?”
He was just kidding, but he pulled up an email and started reading, “Dear Mr. James, I was wondering about your fall schedule. I need to work an internship around orchestra practice—” He looked up from the phone. “Seriously, whose phone is this? Orchestra? Automated notices from the library?”
She started running like hell while he taunted her. “There you go! Pick up your knees on the way up the hill, Jones.”
While she chased him, finally going a little faster, he jogged backward, all the while yelling the kind of things coaches were always hollering at him. Finally, he saw a hint of the athletic ability she was famous for. She might be out of breath, but she could move fast when properly motivated. “You’re out of shape, Jones. What’s with all the huffing and puffing?”
She stopped to catch her breath, took a puff off of an inhaler, and gave him the finger. He pulled the phone out again. He was going to read through a few of her texts—hopefully there was one about how cute he was—but there were too many words. “Geez. Every text in this thing is like a textbook.”
With that, she doubled down and ran again. He yelled, “Nice work. Keep it up.” She was running at him at an all-out sprint, clearly giving it her all.
Then, she tripped on a tree root and went down hard. He heard the wind come out of her lungs and a string of expletives. She pulled her ankle close to her. “Ouch! Dammit, Ben! You’re such a jerk.”
He ran toward her, feeling like the biggest ass. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?” He shouldn’t have made her run through the woods like that. “Don’t put any weight on that ankle until we make sure it’s not broken.” When he saw the tears in her eyes, he wanted to kick himself for being such an idiot.
He sat down next to her and said, “Can I see it?” Not that he could diagnose it, unless there was a jagged piece of bone poking through the skin.
She presented him with an impossibly long leg. For the barest fraction of a second his mind went blank, sort of. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes for a second to reset his brain. Focusing on her ankle, and only her ankle, he gingerly pressed his fingers around the spot she indicated. “Does this hurt?”
“Yes,” she cried. While he was trying to figure out what to do, she grabbed her phone, jumped to her feet, and ran as fast as she could. “Gotcha!” she called.
He laughed with relief. “Cheater!” he yelled after her.
When he caught up, she side-eyed him and asked, “Are you done? No more phone snatching or funny business?”
“No. There will definitely be more funny business.” That was a promise. “Wanna run around the lake?”
“I don’t think I can run too much farther. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m really out of shape. I’ve had a breathing problem recently.” She held up the inhaler for him to see. “I had pneumonia and my lungs still haven’t recovered.”
“I was wondering why you were going so slow.” Based on her grandma-style running, he’d started wondering if her dad had bribed all of the other athletes to throw the race at State. “You’re still doing really good. I mean, you’re keeping pace, even with pneumonia. That’s impressive.”
“I can’t believe I can keep up with you at all…in my current state. I know everyone thinks I’m like superwoman, but I’m not.”
Actually, he’d thought she was more like a super villain, Poison Ivy or Cat Woman, but he kept his mouth shut. Things were going too well to muck up. Some hair fell into her eyes, and she stopped to clip it back into place again. Everything about her was so different from the girl he remembered from the school year, so much more normal and likable.
At the top of the mountain, they took a break from running. The sun was just hot enough to make him feel warm and lazy. A gentle breeze wafted over them and blew Blake’s hair in her face again.
“God, I could kill the girl who talked me into these bangs.” She looked through her hair for the clip holding them out of her eyes.
He reached out a hand and brushed it back behind her ear, letting his fingers linger on her damp skin.
Looking embarrassed she apologized, “Sorry. I’m so sweaty.”
“So am I.” He’d like to get sweatier yet. But Blake started stretching. All cocky, he said, “Cool, first we’ll stretch and then I’ll aim for second base.”
Her eyes went wide. “Ben Iron Cloud!”
With a devilish smile, he said, “Just being honest.”
She blushed. Like the track team always did, he started the hip abductor stretch where you place one leg over the other, jam your elbow into your knee, and look over your shoulder. Blake gave him a funny look, like she was trying to figure out a Rubix Cube, and did something not even close to a hip abductor stretch. “Psst. You’re facing the wrong way.”
“What?”
When he did the hamstring stretch, she contorted her body into a random pretzel shape that didn’t involve any type of muscle stretching that he could identify. How could a chick who’d been in sports for years not understand a stretch? “Did you get amnesia and asthma at the same time? That is not even close to a stretch.”
She laughed and explained, “Ben, everyone’s body is different. My legs just stretch differently than yours.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes, but we’re both human. I’m gonna show you what a stretch should feel like.” With a glint in his eye, he knee-walked the two feet over to her. “Lay back.”
Her eyes went saucer big. “What are you going to do?”
He smiled like Casanova. “I’m gonna help you stretch.” He’d had plenty of coaches and trainers help him stretch his muscles. He imagined it would be a lot more fun stretching with Blake than Coach Peterson.
She looked like he’d just picked the restaurant without consulting her and she couldn’t decide whether to smile or take a stand in the parking lot of Bojangles’. Before she could protest, he walked her right through the doors of his favorite fast food joint and announced that he was going to order some fries with that shake. Actually, he said, “I’m going to touch your leg. I’m going to need to manhandle it a little.”
“Okay.”
He gripped along her ankle and her knee and helped her extend her leg, letting his fingers trace along her smooth skin just a hair longer than necessary. “I’m going to press your leg back, to help you stretch your hamstring.” He gripped her leg and pushed it back toward her body until her muscle was taut. He made her hold the position and then he pushed it even farther as he leaned closer and closer to her body.
“How does that feel?” His voice sounded hoarse, even to his own ears.
She breathed shakily. “Good.” Her eyes looked darker green than he remembered.
Because she hadn’t complained about the order yet, he said, “Let’s do your glutes now.” He took the same leg and pressed it across her body, pushing down on her knee and her ass cheek. That part might not have been strictly necessary.
“Ben,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Um.”
“Are you ready for the other leg?”
He released her left leg, letting his hands slide down her skin as he dropped it to the ground. “We’re gonna do the same stretch with your right leg now.” As he leaned in to the stretch with her, he noticed the beads of sweat on her upper chest.
She noticed and said, “Sorry, I’m all sweaty.”
Oh, to be a bead of sweat on Blake’s chest. “You still smell like flowers to me.” She did. He didn’t understand how girls always smelled like shampoo.
“Gardenias. The smell gets stronger when I’m all sweaty.”
She lay back and shut her eyes, letting the sun kiss her face. The Blue Ridge Mountains were filled with late summer flowers and grassy meadows. He lay on the grass next to her and reached out for her hand. When his fingers touched hers, she turned toward him and flashed the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen, not just because she was beautiful. It was like she wasn’t even the same person he’d known during the school year. He couldn’t believe the girl who’d had him hauled off campus in handcuffs was sharing this moment with him. It was awesome, but it also gave him a little bit of whiplash. He had to be missing something.
Ben wasn’t one of those guys who ditched his friends when a girl came along. He hated when guys did that. That night, he and George sat on the dock for some fishing. Well, Ben fished while George watched. Except for his own skin, George was all fake leather and animal-friendly dyes. He wouldn’t even catch and release because of statistics regarding fish mortality after release. His die-hard veganism had some limits, though.
“Explain your diet to me again,” said Ben.
“Well, I’m vegan except…” He held up a finger for each item he listed. “Grilled cheese, pizza, and Taco Bell.”
Ben snorted. The sun was going down and a hatch of mayflies was darting across the top of the lake. The fish were biting everything but his bait. He didn’t care, though. He just liked sitting on the dock and casting a line.
George swatted a fly and then shuddered at the carcass on his arm. The dude looked generally uncomfortable outdoors. Ben had been under the impression that vegans were into hiking and loving nature, but there sat George, propped uncomfortably on the grass in his black jeans and squinting into the sunset.
“You probably already noticed, but Blake and I are, uh, getting along now.” That was an understatement.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. She’s just so different from the school year. I think I’m going to ask her out. I don’t know how that works at camp. It’s not like we can go out, but still… Maybe I’ll ask her if she wants to go to the dance after the games together.” He stared at the surface of the lake. It was a perfectly still night. A fish surfaced for a fly and expanding concentric circles blossomed from the spot. “It’s not just because she’s hot even—I really like her. I don’t understand what all the pranking was about.” She forgave Nelly for the hair dye stunt, and she had been nice to everyone at camp, except him. Her behavior last year confused the shit out of him when he compared it to the girl he was getting to know at camp. Maybe if she needed an outlet for whatever excess emotions led to her criminal behavior, she could channel it into making out.
“Have you told her yet?”
“No. We’ve only been hanging out for a few days and we haven’t gotten around to talking much. Also, I wasn’t sure about her status with her ex.” Like he was announcing the enemy, Ben said, “Luke Culpepper. He’s the Bellevue quarterback. I’m racing him tomorrow at the games.” And he was going to be at the dance, which is why he had to lock Blake down.
George shook his head. “The way you say that…it’s like you think the winner gets the girl, but it’s a camp thing. I mean, it’s one step above a three-legged race.”
“I know it’s dumb.” Logically, Ben knew it was just a silly camp race, but when he thought about it, he wasn’t bringing that much to the relationship. He came from the wrong side of the tracks, didn’t have any money, and didn’t fit in with Blake’s friends, at least the ones she hung out with at Bellevue. Zoe was okay. The least he could do was be faster than Luke Culpepper. “Even if Blake doesn’t care, I want to beat him.”
George raised an eyebrow. “Dude, it’s like you don’t feel worthy of her or something.”
Ben shrugged. Blake had everything. Why would she want him? “On a more positive note, I think I have some Oreos leftover in my bag.” He and Blake hadn’t really gotten around to eating them.
“Score!” said George, reaching for a cookie.
Just then, Ben caught sight of his lady. Blake was striding purposefully across camp looking like a million bucks. There wasn’t a hair out of place on her head. She was rocking a fierce cat eye and wearing a dress. When she got to him, she wrinkled her nose and glared.
“Did you change in a phone booth or something?” he joked. It hadn’t been any time since they were sweating on the trail. He hadn’t even changed out of his running clothes.
When she gave him a weird look he corrected, “I mean, you look really nice. I’m just surprised. I didn’t think you had time to change.”
Blake bit her lip and shouldered past him without answering, like he’d really hit a nerve. Maybe she got dolled up because of him? “I screwed that one up.”
She seemed strange, though, almost like a flashback to the old Blake. He wasn’t going to let it bother him. He’d just decided to trust her. Still, the way she looked at him planted a seed of doubt. Maybe she’d already had enough of slumming it with him.