by A. R. Perry
“Pretty sure I never said date. What’s wrong with a hot summer fling?”
I level her with a glare. “For you, nothing. Toot your own horn. But it’s not for me. I’m like a penguin—always looking for that one person.”
“You’re eighteen. There will be plenty of time for that. Live a little.” She flips onto her side and props her head up with one hand. “Also, I might have told the boys we’d meet them for a late-night stroll.”
“Nope.” I stand and dust the dirt off the butt of my jeans. “I’m not risking getting sent home again.”
“Then don’t tell straight and narrow.” She jumps up and grabs my hands. “Please?” Her bottom lip juts out, but this time it won’t work.
“There’s no way I can sneak out. Shane and I share a cabin, remember?”
“Well…” Scarlett nibbles on her lower lip and glances away. “The boys came up with a way to avoid that.”
“Whatever it is, call it off. I’ve been dreaming about being a counselor for years. I’m not going to watch it go up in smoke because of two boys.” I should point out she promised to stick to the rules after the whole bonfire thing, but I suspect it won’t sway her much.
“Okay.” She releases me and steps back, hands in the air in surrender. “Okay. But if you change your mind, we’ll be at the shore. Midnight.”
Scarlett jogs away, probably off to meet up with the boys. I wish she would take this seriously. This may be a way for her to escape home life for the summer, but for me, it’s my last summer of freedom. As it stands, I’m lucky I convinced my mom to let me come this year.
“This has been the longest day ever.” I fall face-first onto Shane’s bed to the sound of Shane laughing.
“These kids get a little rowdy when there isn’t structure.”
“For real.” I flip over so I’m facing him and tick of the day’s issues. “Two kids making out in a cabin. An almost-drowning. And an almost-brawl over a volleyball game.”
“And here we assumed this summer would be a breeze.” Shane walks into the bathroom and closes the door. A second later I hear the faucet turn on.
I rub a hand over my face, trying to push away the fatigue, but it’s no use. It may only be ten at night, but rising with the sun coupled with little sleep is taking its toll. What I wouldn’t give to sleep until noon. Just for a day.
Right as I’m drifting off, a loud bang from right outside our door makes me jump and snaps me out of my slumber. I blink away the haze coating my brain and lay still, listening for signs of whatever made the noise.
Nothing.
It’s almost dead quiet. Too quiet.
When I’m convinced my brain must have made up the sound while in some in-between phase of sleep, I hear it again, only this time it’s closer.
I spring from the bed and reach for the massive flashlight Shane keeps on the nightstand. Thank goodness I fell asleep clothed because I’m not sure I could think straight enough to get dressed.
The water is still running in the bathroom and Shane must either be deaf or I imagined the sound.
I take a step toward the door, brandishing the flashlight like a weapon when a light scratching on the window behind me has me spinning around.
I’ve never been a fan of scary movies, but I’ve seen enough to tell me this is the moment where some psycho kills me with a machete.
The scratching turns to tapping right as the knob on the door shakes. All thoughts of bravery go right out the window. I stagger backward until my spine presses against the bathroom door and knock frantically. It doesn’t sound as if Shane is in the shower so I’m gonna need him to hustle out here before I become some scary campfire story.
The door gives and I stumble into Shane’s chest. His warm arms wrap around my middle to steady me and if I wasn’t seconds away from a freaking heart attack, I would be enjoying myself.
“What’s going on?”
I point to the door with a trembling finger, and as if sensing my growing fear, the wood rattles and the windowpane shakes.
“Stay here.” Shane takes the flashlight and switches it on. Being the chicken that I am, I lean against the wall and try to steady the racing of my heart before it bursts out of my chest.
“Who’s out there?” Shane shouts, with a hand wrapped around the doorknob.
Yeah, I’m sure that’s on the list of things you never say when you’re in a cabin in the middle of the woods.
Everything goes quiet and I’m left holding my breath as Shane yanks the door open and steps outside. For three pounding heartbeats, he stands on the wooden deck, shining the light into the darkness. I’m almost convinced it’s some animal trying to get inside, but not even the smartest animals would team up to attack the only two entry points into the cabin.
Shane turns around, the bright light blinding me. “There’s nothing—”
He tumbles to the ground. The flashlight goes flying underneath the bed and I glimpse zombie masks before all I hear is laughter.
Scarlett is the first to reveal herself. She whips off the mask as tears stream down her face from how hard she’s laughing. “Oh man. You should have seen your face!”
Forget seeing my face, all I can see is red. “Have you lost your damn mind?” I shove at one of the figures and help Shane up. His nose is bleeding pretty bad so I lead him to the bed.
“Come on, it was funny.” Dax reveals himself and Shane clenches his hands into white-knuckled fists, not even trying to stop the blood from trailing down his chin.
I run into the bathroom to grab some toilet paper and when I return, I fling it at Shane, then turn toward the three pranksters. “What the hell would make assaulting someone funny?”
Scarlett at least has the decency to appear a tad ashamed. Jason raises his mask to rest on the top of his head and laughs.
“What’s the point of staying in some creepy cabin if you can’t at least have a little fun with it?” Jason asks.
“Yeah. Instead of roasting marshmallows, we should be telling ghost stories and picking off the weak kids who should be at some space camp learning about Orion’s Belt and shit,” Dax adds in.
“You two have lost your mind. And you.” I glare at Scarlett who I still can’t believe would want to join in on something as juvenile as terrorizing children. “I don’t know what to say to you.”
“Lyla, I—”
“You three need to get back to your cabins. Now.” Shane towers behind me, the bleeding thankfully stopped, but he still resembles an extra from a slasher film. “We’ll deal with this tomorrow when Mr. River is awake.”
Scarlett’s eyes widen. Dax and Jason, on the other hand, couldn’t look more unimpressed if they tried.
“You’ve got to be kidding. It was a joke,” Dax says as he shrugs out of the shredded black cloak he paired with the mask. “No one got hurt.”
“Uh.” I point to Shane’s face and the remnants of red smeared around his mouth.
“Jesus. It was a—” Jason starts.
“Let’s go. I’ll walk you.” Shane kneels down and grabs the discarded flashlight before turning to me. “Stay here.”
Nodding once, I avoid Scarlett’s gaze. I have so many things to say to her, but they will have to wait until tomorrow. I’m exhausted and don’t feel like getting into a fight.
Shane motions for the three of them to follow him and a few seconds later, the door shuts leaving me once again in silence. Only it’s not the comfortable silence that lulled me to sleep. Now I’m amped up and lucky if I can drift off at all. Even knowing it was just a prank doesn’t quell my anxiety.
The whole time Shane is gone, I pace from one side of the room to the other, not able to talk myself into jumping in the shower for fear of a knife-wielding shadow waiting on the other side of the curtain once I turn my back.
What feels like an eternity later, Shane returns looking worn down and far more tired than he did thirty minutes ago.
“Those boys are no good.” He dumps his boots and the flashlig
ht at the end of the bed. “Your friend shouldn’t be hanging out with them.”
“I know.” I wrap my arms around my stomach, standing in the center of the room. I should get ready for bed, but all I want to do is run into Shane’s arms and let him pull me into a comforting hug. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”
“Can’t promise she’ll be here.” He walks past me to the bathroom and grabs a towel to wipe the blood from his face. “Mr. River isn’t fond of terrorizing the kids that come here.”
“Swear I’ll talk to her. Trust me, she wants to stay.”
Shane nods, his gaze raking over me and sending a shiver down my spine. “We should get some sleep. We have the six-mile hike around the lake tomorrow.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep,” I admit.
Shane smiles and runs a hand through his messy hair. “There’s nothing to be scared of. Stupidity isn’t contagious.”
I shrug off the idea that I’m scared, then do something stupid. I blurt out the first words that pop into my head. “Do you think I can sleep with you in your bed tonight?”
Even on separate sides of the room I can see him swallow. “Ly—”
“Just tonight. If you could feel how hard my heart is still beating, you’d know why I’m asking.”
He’s silently staring at me, eyes ticking between mine. I should let it go. Why put myself into an awkward situation of him turning me down and making it clear once again that he’s not interested in me in the slightest? But my mouth has other plans.
“Come on. We used to have campouts in the backyard all the time. Three people in a two-person tent had us in closer sleeping quarters than a bed. You can shove a pillow between us like Jay used to do if it makes you feel better.”
He squeezed the back of his neck and sighs, but I swear I can see a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Fine. This once. Just this once.” He nods almost to himself, then disappears into the bathroom.
A minute later he reappears wearing a pair of low-slung gray sweats and a blue T-shirt. My mouth goes dry and now I’m rethinking this whole stupid idea. Every reason not to do this comes flooding in, raising my anxiety. I’ve never slept in a bed with a guy before. Sure, we had campouts, but we were preteens. What if I snore? Or drool? Oh God, what if I talk in my sleep and blurt out something embarrassing?
“You gonna change?” Shane sits on the corner of the mattress, making it dip.
Now the thing doesn’t look big enough for one person, let alone two. “You’ve gotten a lot bigger. You never had those muscles before. Did you?” And now I wish that a crazed killer had, in fact, murdered me.
Shane laughs, shaking his head at my idiotic rambling. “Go change, I’ll keep a lookout for Michael Myers or whatever his name is.”
I grab my jammies and bring them with me into the bathroom. I should jump in the shower and wash away today’s grime, but I risk him falling asleep. Then again, that would mean I could slip into my bed and forget this conversation ever happened. Just like he forgot about the kiss.
I brace my hands against the cold steel of the sink and stare at my reflection in the warped mirror. My hair is a mess, pieces hanging out of my ponytail in frizzy chunks. Purple mars the skin under my eyes from the long days and early mornings. Without a stitch of makeup on, I could resemble a zombie. No need for a mask. A shower won’t fix that.
I dump my dirty clothes on the floor, vowing to throw them in the hamper tomorrow, then pull on a pair of night pants adorned with sloths hanging from branches. As if I need another reason to repel Shane. I shrug on a black sweatshirt despite the muggy air, needing a barrier between our skin. I’ve gotten myself into this stupid mess so I might as well try to keep my hormones or whatever is running the show in check.
When I exit the bathroom the lights are out, something I’m grateful for. At least now he can’t see what a total train wreck I am. Pretty sure he’d be able to see my thoughts written all over my face.
I feel my way to the bed as my eyes adjust to the darkness. From what I can see, Shane is lying all the way on the far side of the mattress. He hasn’t said a word and I’m convinced he’s asleep until I slide under the covers and brush my leg against his. He scoots over so fast it’s as if he’s been electrocuted. At this point, he’s got to be hanging off the bed.
“This is stupid. I can sleep in my bed. I think the shock has worn off now.” I lift the covers and go to sit up, but his arm wraps around me and tugs me down, anchoring me to his chest.
For a moment my heart stops beating, but I can feel his racing against my back. If I didn’t know any better, I would think he’s just as freaked-out about this sleeping arrangement as I am. So, instead of giving into better judgment, I melt against him and rest my head on his pillow—one that smells of nothing but him.
“Comfortable?” he asks, so close that his warm breath hits the shell of my ear and makes me shiver.
“Mmm-hmm.” Why did I think I would sleep better in his bed than in mine? I don’t even want to move, let alone breathe, in case the hot dog I ate earlier is still lingering on my breath.
“Do you remember when we were younger and Jay would force you to watch a horror movie with us, then you would refuse to sleep with the lights off?”
I wince. I was a total scaredy-cat. I thought I grew out of it, but judging by tonight, that’s not true. “Yeah, he loved torturing me.”
“Well, I remember how I would wake up and he’d be sleeping on the floor and you’d be all cuddled up in his bed. Every single time.”
“Well, he’s nice to me when no one is looking.”
“He’d do anything to protect you.”
As I try to turn to face him, his arm tightens, trapping me in place. “What brought this up?”
“It’s nothing. Go to sleep.”
Shane lets me go and rolls over so we are back-to-back. Not even a minute later his breathing evens out and there’s no question that he’s dead asleep. The boy always had magical powers when it came to falling asleep in two-point-five seconds flat.
I scoot over to the edge of the bed so I’m not crowding him and stare at the floor. This isn’t the first time Shane has brought up my brother in situations that could be construed as inappropriate. Okay, this kiss was totally inappropriate, but still. It has me wondering if there is more to their bro breakup than either has said.
A tiny part of me wonders if I had anything to do with it. I guess I’ll figure it out when we’re all back in town. It’s not as if they can avoid each other forever.
The truth always comes out.
Shane’s already up and gone when I wake. I roll over to find his side of the bed cold, telling me he rose long before the sun. As for me, well, it took over an hour to fall asleep. It wasn’t just how Shane was lying right next to me, close enough to touch if I moved an inch. But I also spent a good chunk of time trying to figure out what went wrong between him and my brother. The more I think about it, the less it makes sense. Those two were closer than anyone I have ever met—practically brothers. Whatever happened was bad if it broke up their friendship.
I sit up and stretch, rolling out my neck from the weird way I slept. Somehow, I stayed on my chunk of space. At least I hope I did. If I find out later that I drooled all over Shane or his pillow I’ll die of embarrassment.
After a quick shower, I throw on the first pair of clothes I can find. For now, I need to put Shane out of my head and go find my best friend. I don’t know what’s gotten into her, but I’m certain her friendship with Jason and Dax won’t end well. Shane is right, they’re both trouble. They proved that last night and the fact that they roped Scar into their shenanigans worries me.
Everyone is in the dining room, filling the tight space with laughter and loud chatter. I forgot to set my alarm and Shane left without waking me, so I’m the last one here. As long as Mr. River doesn’t realize I’m tardy, I should be in the clear. After a quick sweep of the room, I don’t find him scowling and ready to pounce. That small win releases th
e tension knotting in my shoulders. I don’t need another reason for him to send me packing.
I skip the food line and find Scarlett sitting alone at her normal table. “Hey.” I plop down across from her, but she doesn’t so much as raise her head. “So last night was—”
“Stupid.” She stabs a chunk of scrambled egg and moves it around in the residual goopy syrup pooling in the center of the plate. “It started out as a joke. Jason and Dax had these masks they said got mixed in with their clothes.” She leans back, meeting my gaze. “Dax started saying how funny it would be to scare everyone tomorrow at the bonfire. Jason jumped in and said we should do a test run. It was dumb. I’m sorry.”
“Someone could have gotten hurt.” I think back to Shane’s bloody nose. It won’t surprise me if he woke up with two vicious black eyes this morning. “Someone did get hurt. These kids aren’t even teens yet. Most of them have never been away from home before and you think it’s a wonderful idea to terrorize them?”
“No, I don’t. I just…got caught up. Maybe I need to be exiled to your cabin or something.”
The very idea of her bunking with Shane does something weird to my stomach. I’m not sure if it’s the idea of Scarlett in the same room as Shane or the fact that it wouldn’t be just the two of us anymore, but whatever it is doesn’t sit well.
“You need to stay away from those two. Speaking of…” I glance around the room but I don’t see them anywhere. Shane is missing too.
“They’re with Mr. River,” she says, reading my thoughts.
“Where’s Shane?”
She shrugs and pushes her plate away. “I guess he’s ratting them out.”
My spine stiffens at the tone of her voice. “Hey, don’t blame Shane. He’s not the one who played psycho killer.”
“Yeah, well, he’s never liked them. I’m sure he’s doing whatever it takes to kick them out.”
“And that would be a bad thing? Come on, they don’t want to be up here for any other reason than to screw off without parental supervision.”