by Joanne Rock
Warmth tingled through me just thinking about the time spent under that wool in the dark with him.
“Is that true, Hannah? You’re as resourceful in the woods as Geekster?” She arched an eyebrow at me.
It would be so easy to join her in the snark-fest. But I didn’t want to hurt Julian.
“No.” I shook my head, my throat burning at the thought of everything Julian had done for me. “Not even close. He’s the hero.”
My eyes went to Julian’s. Held.
He looked at me for a second, the most subtle shake of his head telling me that I didn’t have to make the big stand with my friends right now. Except I totally did.
If not now, when? I stepped close to Julian and touched his arm, our eyes clinging for a moment.
“Excuse me?” Bella stepped forward, drawn by the smell of drama.
“Hannah?” Missy’s voice faltered for a second. Confused.
I savored the moment. My one last mean girl act, I guess, would be to enjoy my defection from Missy’s tribe.
“Julian kept me out of the avalanche.” Because he was just that freaking amazing. “I would have been buried in that snow slide if it wasn’t for him.”
“Are you okay?” Bella came over and felt my forehead. “Do you have a fever? Like, maybe you should get checked out by a doctor.”
Missy’s mouth tightened into a frown.
“Think carefully, Hannah.” She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “I don’t know what’s going on with you lately, but you’re on thin ice. And this?” She glanced up at Julian with an open sneer. “This is not happening.”
Defensiveness bristled along my nerve endings. I hadn’t ruled Northstar Academy and Camp Juniper Point for all those years by being a pushover. And I wasn’t about to let Missy steamroll me either.
“Think carefully, Missy.” I moved nose-to-nose with my former bestie, letting her see I was dead serious. “I love you, but I know all your secrets. And you’re not going to give me a hard time about Julian because I’ve been there for you through a lot of family crap, a lot of guys, and a lot of mistakes.”
Andre came to mind along with a handful of other older guys who’d been daddy-substitutes for her. Her father stayed most of the time in Albany, while her mother drank until she passed out on the couch. I’d kept her level and out of trouble. Safe. Ish.
“You be-yotch,” she whispered. Maybe only I could see that it was a term filled with love. And more than a little envy.
“Takes one to know one,” I whispered back.
When Bella burst out laughing, I felt the tide shift.
Missy and I still didn’t crack, but Bella laughed so hard she grabbed Julian’s other arm to keep herself upright. I think Julian was saying something uber-wise about not burning bridges or something, but Missy and I were having an alpha dog moment. Yes, it’s a sickness.
“You two!” Bella shrieked. “My God. Get over yourselves!”
“This is going to be trouble,” Missy said, shaking her head, finally caving.
“No kidding. But he saved my life.” I poked her in the shoulder…gently. Sweetly. “And I’m really, really into him, so get over it. Fast.”
It was more than that, but I didn’t want to overload Missy tonight. I’d pushed her to the brink. Declarations of how I really felt—like I wanted to carve our initials in a big fat heart on the nearest tree—were going to have to wait for another day.
After a moment, something gave way in Missy’s eyes. The hardness was replaced by something softer.
“For you?” She plastered a noisy smooch on my cheek. “I guess I’ll have to.”
“Girls, come inside!” Ms. Hanrahan appeared at the double doors leading into the lodge. “Hannah and Julian must be freezing.” She waved us into the lodge, her misshapen boobs all the more obvious with one arm raised.
“Sorry, Ms. Hanrahan.” Bella beamed at our chaperone, all smiles. “We were just wishing each other a Merry Christmas.”
Even Julian smiled as he reached to hold the door for all of us. Total gentleman.
God, he was awesome.
And the shared laughter with my friends told me things were going to be all right. There would be bumps in the road with this whole Julian thing, but I wasn’t going to compromise.
Ducking under Julian’s arm to head inside the lodge, I stumbled a little when he tugged on my jacket.
Memories of him holding onto me the whole way down the mountain, keeping me out of danger, made my heartbeat flutter.
“You didn’t have to do that for me.” He lowered his arm, creating a barrier between me and the lodge. Keeping me where he wanted me.
At least, I liked to think he wanted me right there. Close to him.
I was dying for him to kiss me again.
“Yeah, I did.” I couldn’t resist touching him. I hooked my hand in his open fleece. Danced one finger along his T-shirt beneath. “No one gets to call you Geekster but me. And only then, in the nicest possible way.”
I’m pretty sure I fluttered my eyelashes at him. I just couldn’t help myself. He made me feel like flirting. Smiling. Just being a girl.
“I don’t want you to think you need to stand up for me.” He turned serious, his gaze searching mine while laughter from inside the lodge drifted out toward us and snowflakes swirled around our feet.
“I know. You’re strong in a different way than me. But caring about you isn’t going to make the fierce streak in me go away.” I was going to work on the snarkitude that I’d developed. Hearing my friends talk about Ms. Hanrahan on the bus this morning reminded me how childish and snobby I could be sometimes.
At sixteen, I was a work–in-progress, right?
He shook his head, but I could see a hint of a smile return.
“Things are going to get interesting for us, aren’t they?”
“That’s one way to describe it.” It would be hell at school. Impossible at Camp Juniper Point. “If I know I can sneak a kiss with you at the end of the day, though, I think it’s going to be okay.” It was my turn to be serious. “You talked me out of stage fright. Saved my life. Made me laugh. Paid attention to me in a way no one else does. You’re worth the fight.”
Julian stared at me with eyes that could hypnotize a girl. I stood there—under his spell—while he leaned closer. Closer.
“Ohmigod! Hannah and Julian, will you get in here already?” Bella screeched from inside, ruining the moment in one way, but inviting us into the small group of skiers as a couple. Sort of.
All eyes turned toward us.
Missy shrugged. The skateboarder dudes toasted us with their hot chocolate cups. The tennis boy came over to Julian to clap him on the shoulder. I forgot these people had all seen Julian in action. He’d saved more people than just me on that mountain today.
“I’m driving you home,” Julian told me while a Search and Rescue lady brought us each a blanket.
Someone’s parents arrived and joined the crowd. A reporter was there too, talking to one of the Search and Rescue guys about getting everyone off the mountain. Missy hovered near the reporter, no doubt wanting a photo in the paper. Our classmates were all too busy to say much about Julian and me sitting close to each other in a corner, gulping hot chocolate and touching knees under a blanket.
“I’m dying to know what your tattoo says,” I told him between sips when I was sure no one else could hear us.
“You’ll have to learn Elvish first.”
I cleared my throat. “Which dialect?”
He choked so hard on his hot chocolate I thought he’d spew it. The coughing fit afterward made me laugh. I was going to like surprising him.
“I knew you were a closet geek,” he accused.
“In your dreams.” I smiled like an idiot.
“Definitely.” His smile was so wicked I had to pinch his arm to make him stop.
Because seriously? Julian Berwick was smoking hot.
“Did I ever tell you that you remind me of a video game charact
er?” He set aside his empty cup and turned toward me on the bench against a bank of windows with a big evergreen wreath over our heads.
“Um. No. But I hope she’s really kickass.”
“Obviously.” He got to his feet. “You ready for that ride home?”
“Yes. I should call my mom. What time is it?” Without my phone, I was lost.
He checked his phone. “Past midnight. You know what that means?”
I got to my feet. “It means Merry Christmas, Julian.”
“Merry Christmas, Hannah.” His voice hit a rough note and I knew he was thinking about…us. “You want to say goodnight to your friends and I’ll warm up the car? I’m glad now that I decided to drive instead of taking the bus.”
“You’re such a grownup,” I teased, liking how thoughtful he was.
“Remember that when I’m telling you about the video game character.” He winked at me as he headed toward the door.
Dreamy sigh.
“Ohmigod, you’re disgusting.” Bella appeared at my side, slinging an arm around my shoulders as we watched Julian leave the lodge. “Could you be any more obvious?”
“Thank you for being my friend.” I laid my head on her shoulder, feeling warm-hearted toward my friends, and not just because Julian had brought out my softer side tonight. “You helped me with Missy.”
“It’s Christmas,” Bella reminded me, linking her arm through mine. “We can take a break from our evil ways once a year.”
“High fives to that.” I smacked her hand. “I owe you.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t forget.” She hip-bumped me toward the door. “I’ll tell Missy you said goodnight. I think she’ll be in a good mood anyway. The reporter can’t take enough pictures of her.”
Blowing her one more kiss, I left my blanket with the Search and Rescue people and jogged toward the door.
Toward Julian.
I hoped so hard he took the long way home. I wanted a peek at the tattoo, for one thing. For the other? He was the best Christmas present I’d ever gotten and I wasn’t ready to say good night yet.
Or ever.
Read about the next summer at Camp Juniper Point in Camp Payback
Acknowledgements
From Joanne:
To my sons, who have tackled Whiteface enough times to give me tons of respect for the mountain. Thank you for sharing stories and pictures of your snowboarding adventures. Bet you never guessed I was filing it all away for story purposes. To my high school classmates who taught me about mean girls, nice girls and how tough if can be to tell the difference. Who knew we shared the same likes and fears all along? Merry Christmas, my friends. I hope you are all happy and thriving.
From Karen:
To my wonderful daughter, who prefers parkas to bikinis and would rather make a snowman than suntan any day. Thank you for sharing your love of winter with me; it lights up those dark nights!
To my best friend, Laura, who made me feel welcome and included on my first day in a new school. Thank you for your gift of lasting friendship, your fabulous photos (of us of course!), and the ear that is always there to listen, the shoulder I sometimes cry on, and the hug that waits for me, no matter what.
Camp Crush
By J.K. Rock
Copyright © 2016 by Joanne Rock and Karen Rock
Sale of the paperback edition of this book without its cover is unauthorized.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
CAMP CRUSH
Chapter One
Seth
Beetles ticked in the forest gloom. Split wood lay jumbled, heaped, on the needle covered ground. Blisters marked my palms from chopping trees, and the raw skin throbbed. I have been laboring— no, struggling— to ignore how the cedar scent reminds me of my old days here at Camp Juniper Point, of the guy I’d never be again.
I slashed, my ax sinking deep into a fallen yellow pine, splinters filling the air like confetti. Only this wasn’t a party. It was mindless work, hard labor and I needed to stop thinking so damn much. Yet being back in North Carolina’s Pisgah Woods, where I’d hiked with my ex-girlfriend, Lauren, made staunching the memories impossible.
My blade flashed in the mid-summer light, shearing off boughs, each thud giving me a savage satisfaction. I might have lost my best friend, the only girl I’d ever love or trust, but I could sure as hell rip apart this rotted tree.
In fact, I wished it could chop it into a million pieces. Turn it into sawdust and grind it into the earth the way I wanted to bury the raw burn in my gut. But as a caretaker for my grandparents’ camp, Juniper Point, I followed orders: clear the pine off the trail and deliver the logs for the bonfire. Now that I was eighteen and too old for camp, I wouldn’t be sitting around that fire laughing with friends or flirting with my girl.
My ex-girl.
The memory of Lauren’s hand in mine as we’d watched the leaping flames each year, singing off-key until we laughed, cut through me, sharp as a fresh blade. But that ended last summer when she’d returned to camp with an ex who wasn’t an ex—someone she said she’d break up with, but then broke my heart instead.
I’d believed in her, in us, and—eventually—a future together. I thought that if I gave her space, she’d become her old self—the astronomer who quoted Star Wars and debated Marvel superheroes. Most of all, I’d had faith that she’d remember what we’d meant to each other and come back to me.
Dumbass.
Hadn’t my deadbeat mom taught me not to trust anyone when she’d dropped me off at pre-school and never came back? At least not until two weeks ago, after I’d graduated high school. Nice job, Mom. I couldn’t get out of town fast enough when she’d rolled up to the house in a cab last month, trying to make things all better. I’d heard that act before— that she’d gotten clean. That this time would be different. Cheers to Gramps for coming through with the caretaker job to spare me the latest episode of Reines family drama, even if it meant spending the rest of the summer at Camp Juniper Point. Better here than back in Indiana.
I shoved the thought aside and hacked a branch in half, my shoulders aching. A drumming sounded nearby, and I spotted the scarlet-topped head of a pileated woodpecker. Dryocopus pileatus, I automatically recalled. It banged its long white bill into a dead balsam, widening a hole from which scurried large, black carpenter ants. I dropped my blade and chugged warm water, the bitter tang of metal sliding down my throat. All around me, shrubs and saplings competed for the scarce sunlight in this dank, natural sauna. Had it been this hot in the North Carolina mountains every year?
Swiping the sweat from my forehead, I took a deep breath and hefted the ax again, my arms straining as I brought it down on the main trunk. The simple instrument was a lot more satisfying than a chain saw with the added bonus of no air and noise pollution. It felt good to use my own hands, my strength, and my will to slog through it after the shit year that I’d had.
A cloud of dust rose as I chopped through the top of the tree; something whizzed by my ear and embedded itself in the white birch beside me.
What the hell?
I examined the yellow-tipped arrow, recognizing it from the camp’s archery course. One inch to the right, and it would have been in my skull.
Maybe that would have been preferable.
I yanked it loose and headed for the clearing on the other side of a copse of beech trees. I’d avoided the campers until now, but if I didn’t toss the thing back on the field, one of them would come searching in the woods— and I wasn’t in the mood to socialize.
When I burst through the trees, the bright sun made me see spots. The instructor yelled “Not clear” for everyone to hold, making me realize what a stupid move it was to walk o
nto an archery course without checking. I waved the arrow at a line of girls who pointed and smiled at me, someone yelling, “Seth.” It wasn’t until my vision returned that the arrow dropped from my numb fingers.
They were Lauren’s former bunk mates, the Munchies Manor girls. It was exactly the reminder I’d been avoiding by working on the edges of the property and leaving the onsite work to the full-time caretaker. My eyes skimmed down the line of familiar girls, my gaze automatically searching out Lauren, her absence feeling like a pulled tooth. Yet the sight of another girl distracted me, her long purple tie-dye skirt blowing in a light wind; her dreadlocks pulled off her face to show large gray eyes that widened when I met them.
Trinity.
We stared at each other for a long moment and it all came rushing back, her stolen journal last year, her secret crush on me revealed. My eyes darted away then returned, our gazes locking. I wondered if she still felt that way. Not that it’d change anything. She was pretty with those larger-than-life eyes, her chin a soft point beneath her full mouth. But looks didn’t matter to me. Trinity and I were just friends. Friends who had less and less in common as she’d gotten more involved in astrology and fortune-telling— stuff I didn’t believe in.
“What are you doing here?” she called.
For the first time, I noticed her smile, the kind that lit up her whole face. Where would I be now if it had been Trinity who’d held my heart all those years? Just my luck, I’d care about someone who wouldn’t stick around.
The universe had a perverse sense of humor.
“Working. I’m staying at my grandparents’ house.” I nearly smacked my head. Why had I shared that? It wasn’t like I wanted a visit.
After a last look at Trinity, I waved back at the girls, spun on my heel, and headed into the woods. I was done trusting in things I couldn’t count on. Trinity could have her superstitions. As for me, reality was all that mattered, and right now, that meant I needed to finish up, deliver the wood, and forget about camp for today.