by Lissa Linden
She leans forward. “You knew all these people as kids?”
I nod. “Most of them, yeah. A lot of them came up at least a couple of sessions each summer.”
“So, how did you choose?” she asks. “Do you have an evaluation rubric or skills test?”
I click to minimize the screen and spin the chair around. “Nope.”
She frowns. “So how do you know these are the best people for the job?”
“Same way I know you’re the right person for this job.”
Amy narrows her eyes. “How’s that?”
I shrug. “You’re the people I’d want to spend a whole summer with.”
“Be serious.” She rolls her eyes, but her cheeks turn the faintest shade of pink.
“I am. It’s actually Bobcat who had the idea for cabin staff to live on-site. So, I had four summers’ worth of practice living up here.” I nudge her foot with mine. “And I hoped I’d run into you on that first bus up every year.”
Her pen stalls. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“But, why?” She sucks her cheek between her teeth. “We barely knew each other, really. It was only a couple weeks each summer…”
“Are you kidding me?” I ball my hands into fists so I can’t run my thumb over the dent, smooth away the things that gnaw at her enough to make her gnaw on herself. “Those weeks are a lifetime. Or they used to feel like it—like my real life started and ended each summer. Until you didn’t show up and it became clear that nothing ever ended. Camp’s in our blood, Amy. It’s in everything we are. Our weeks here never really finish, and I wanted you here every summer because you and I? We never finished.”
She clicks her pen open and closed. “Then I guess you can leave now. I mean, you did finish me two and a half times already.”
“We’re a long way from done.” I push back from the desk and reorganize the keys hanging on the wall. I run a hand through my hair and turn back toward her. “And I have to say, the fact that you’re here is still blowing my mind a little. I mean, I spent years hoping you’d show up here, then I send in my notice and bam, you’re here. It’s like, I don’t know, fate.”
Her face breaks into a grin. “It wasn’t fate. It was a demanding bride and her ever-accommodating fiancé.”
I lean against the wall and nod at her to go on.
“To be honest, I’ve had way worse than her. She wasn’t even mean. She was just a perfectionist, which I can almost admire. But last week, the couple was in my office. She was insisting that we change the chair covers from gold to rose gold, and he was nodding along, rubbing her back like this was the most important decision in both their lives. And he was serious. He was all in. I mean, do you know the difference between gold and rose gold?”
I shake my head.
“Yeah, I’m damn sure the Miller groom doesn’t, either. But he knew it was important to her, so he was meeting me on his lunch break, looking at swatches with the woman he loved.” She taps her pen against her leg. “It, um, made me think about my own wedding.”
All my nerves deaden. “You got married?”
Amy rolls her shoulders. “Almost.”
I breathe in and blood rushes to my head as I come back to life. “What happened?”
“Dan told me to plan the wedding, so I did. But I’d agreed that he could have two vetoes. If there was something he didn’t like, he could veto. But only twice. Otherwise he may as well be planning it along with me, and he wanted no part of that.”
“And…” I swallow bile at the image of Amy in a dress, kissing someone else. “Dan used a veto?”
She fixes her eyes on her notebook. “Both, actually. But he used the second one to veto the venue. He refused to get married at a summer camp.”
“This camp?” I swallow hard. “Or your other camp?”
“This one, of course.” Amy gazes out the window. “It’s the only one that ever mattered. The place that was always in me even when I tried to leave it behind. But he couldn’t see himself getting married here. Claimed it went against everything that made us, us. So we didn’t get married.”
“You broke up with the man you—” I cough. “The man you loved. Because he wouldn’t get married here?”
“It was more than just a veto.” Her eyes, hard and piercing, find mine. “He laughed. At me. Told me I wasn’t the kind of girl who could take a canoe out solo, or build a fire. The things that made me into who I am were a joke to him. And after his first veto…” She shakes her head and returns to her notebook. “Never mind.”
My words grate out over the sandpaper in my mouth. “You’ve been able to paddle solo since you were twelve.”
“I know,” she whispers. “And it clicked. Finally. He didn’t know me. And after being with him, I barely knew myself. So, I told him there was more to me than looking good on his arm. I begged him to come up for a visit. To dance with me under the stars and see the things I’d loved for longer than him. He refused.”
“So, you broke up?” I hold my breath but it doesn’t slow the beating in my chest.
“Yeah. I told him that I couldn’t marry someone who wouldn’t even try to understand me. Not when I’d already given up so much for him. But he wasn’t even willing to take a day off work to see this place and actually get to know the woman he claimed to love. He wouldn’t even try to wrap his head around me wanting something he didn’t. So I gave him back the weapon of a ring I’d been wearing. I told him he could keep it unless he could be the kind of person who would at least pretend to consider something—anything—because it was important to me. Even if it meant nothing to him.”
“Like the difference between gold and rose gold.”
“Exactly.” She rolls her head and cracks a knuckle. “Never saw that gaudy thing again. But this couple, she was talking to him about golds like they were the most important elements in the world, and he was actually listening. It made me think about my own rose gold for the first time in a while.” She flicks her eyes up. “I would have been married for four years last month if he hadn’t used his vetoes. So I Googled camp while this gold-obsessed couple was talking, and, well, here I am.” She makes a mark in her notebook.
I clear my throat. “I would have been here.”
Amy looks up, pen still on the page. “What?”
“Four years ago. If you’d gotten married. I would have been here.”
She smiles. “Yeah. I guess you would have been.”
I palm my knotted neck. “Not going to lie. I’m kind of glad it didn’t happen.”
She blinks. “That makes two of us. Well, three if you count Dan.”
And I do count Dan. Because his idiocy in not seeing Amy means that she’s here now, with me. Her eyes hang on mine in the least awkward staring contest of my life—the kind where I don’t want her to lose because I never want it to end and the only way I can win is if I get to look at her like this every day. Amy’s cheeks flush and she shifts her eyes away.
“Hey, Paul?”
“Yeah?”
Her eyes dart back to mine. “Want to go canoeing?”
Chapter Seventeen
Being a chubby kid at camp didn’t have a whole lot of noticeable upsides, but I’d give my left breast for the padding my knees used to have. My kneecaps grind against the bottom of the aluminum canoe as I readjust my butt on the edge of the seat. “Any chance canoeing strategy has changed in the last decade and we’re actually allowed to sit on the seats now?”
Paul pushes his canoe from the dock with the handle of his paddle. “No chance, unless you want to move straight to practicing canoe-over-canoe rescues.”
“Right.” I push myself from the dock and dip my paddle into the lake. I pull hard against the water. Too hard. Water splashes into the canoe and runs forward, soaking my knees and toes.
“I’m thinking that maybe we should hold off on the canoe-over-canoe rescues.” Paul glides past me and makes a tight rotation, stopping so we’re face-to-face. “At least until you remem
ber the finer points of the sport. Like, how canoeing is the water sport where you don’t get wet.”
My paddle cuts through the lake in a shaky J-stroke and I pull up next to Paul. “What if I want to get wet?”
He locks eyes with me. I don’t look away. The corner of his mouth turns up. “Pretty sure you’re already all kinds of damp.”
“That’s a safe bet,” I mutter as I switch my paddle to the opposite side of the canoe. I dig into the water. Take out my frustration on the stroke. My adrenaline and nerves from looking at him, not through him. And turn smack into Paul’s canoe.
He pushes our boats apart. “How long has it been?”
“I don’t even know.” My shoulders fight the motion of my cautious stroke, but I move forward. “Ten years, maybe?”
“So this Dan.” He pulls up next to me. “Not much of a nature-lover?”
He’s looking across the lake. His face is shadowed by the trees in the late-afternoon sun. But his jaw twitches.
I dig into the water and swallow a cheer when I keep going straight. “Dan’s version of nature was making a weekend event of driving upstate and buying fresh fruit. He didn’t even lie about picking it himself. Nobody would have believed him.”
Paul glances at me, then back across the lake.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
Muscle memory awakens and I get ahead of Paul. I angle my canoe in front of his. “You’re not acting like nothing.”
He rests his paddle across the canoe. “You said he used two vetoes. What was the other one?”
I readjust my grip on the paddle, but it doesn’t stop the restlessness in my muscles. I use the energy to back my canoe away from Paul’s. “I don’t really want to talk about it. I was an idiot.” I pull hard against the lake and surge forward. “And I don’t particularly want to relive more of my bad decisions today.”
He glides up next to me. “You make it sound like you’ve made a lot of them.”
I pull against the lake. “Feels that way most days.”
“So, what bad decision did you make with veto number one?”
I shoot him a glare. “You’re not going to drop this, are you?”
“Unlikely.”
“Fine.” I pull my shoulders down. Focus on my stroke. “He vetoed my dress. For the wedding.”
“Well, that’s a dick move.”
My hands reset their grip on the paddle. “I see that now.”
Paul keeps pace with me. “But not at the time?”
I chop into the water. “Clearly not.”
We glide across the lake, rust chipping off my form with every stroke. The chirp of birds breaks the silence. They chase each other from trees and duck back into the branches. It’s peaceful. Serene. I relax even as my muscles tense with effort. Until Paul opens his mouth and I’m plummeted back to four years ago.
“How did he even know what it looked like? I mean, I thought that was the kind of thing women kept secret on the same level as nipple hair and hemorrhoids.”
I tilt my head. “Yet you still know about those things, so we clearly aren’t doing a very good job with the secrecy.”
The corner of his mouth turns up. “I have my ways.”
There’s no humor in my laugh. “So did he. He went through my phone when I was in the shower.”
“Seriously?”
My paddle cuts through the lake smoothly. “Indeed. He called veto before my hair even stopped dripping.”
“What was it like?”
My skin tickles with the memory of the beaded lace buttoned over my lower back. The weight of the crystals that skimmed my hips and the way it made me believe I was as beautiful as Dan always told me I was. “It was ivory,” I say. “Lace.”
“Did you like it?”
“I loved it.” I roll my shoulders to refocus. Rid myself of my naivety. My weakness. My mom’s tearful face. I execute a crappy J-stroke with shaking hands. “But it’s not important. What is important is the fact that I’m in a canoe for the first time in years, and I’m totally sucking at it, but I don’t even care.”
Paul catches my eye. He pauses, jaw tense, then nods.
“Well,” he says. “I care. Because that means I could completely kick your ass in a race.”
“Of course you could! There’s no way in hell I’d race you right now.”
“Not even if I started to pull away a little?” He paddles faster.
“No.” My canoe keeps moving forward even as I forget to analyze every angle of entry and turn of my blade.
“How about if I do this?” He takes off his life jacket and peels off his shirt. Water safety be damned.
“Not going to work.” But my strokes come faster and we’re side by side by the time his paddle dips back into the lake.
“What if I promised to hook your knees over the sides of that canoe and get you off with whatever part of me makes you scream the loudest?”
“That.” My center clenches at the thought. “That might work. But are you really willing to break your deal?”
He creeps ahead of me. The muscles in his back flex and there’s a tug low in my core. Those arms. Holding my legs up. Open.
He hitches onto one knee. Leans forward. And puts his full strength into a stroke. “I wouldn’t be breaking it,” he calls over his shoulder. “If you can catch me using that rusty stroke, pretty sure I’ll believe it’s me you want.”
For an instant, I consider not following. I consider laying my paddle down and getting myself off to this fucking amazing scene of half-naked man cutting across calm water. But his strokes are sure. Relentless. And I want them on every part of me.
I chase him. I lean into every dip and pull of my paddle. He gets farther away and I plant one foot on the bottom of the canoe out of instinct. The leverage gives me an extra boost and I’m flying. Not fast enough to catch him. Not fast enough to win the orgasm my body is clamoring for. But fast enough to remind me that I can do this. Canoe. That the skill is still in me. Hidden and underused, but still part of who I am.
I’m sweating when I slide up next to him. My hair is wind-whipped and tangled. My hands are raw where callouses will form. And he’s looking at me in a way I’ve never been looked at before. Like he wants to kneel down before every knot of hair and bead of sweat.
“You lost,” he says. “Too bad.”
My heart beats fast. And it’s only partly from the effort it took me to get here. “Next time, Harding.” I lick my lips. Lift my hair from my neck. “I think I missed this.”
His chest glistens in the sun. “Canoeing?”
“Canoeing. The calm.” Feeling whole. I swallow hard. “Everything.”
“The city had to have some perks.”
“Compared to this? None.”
His eyes scan the peaks surrounding the lake and he works his hand through his damp hair. His chest expands and deflates in a sigh that ends with shoulders hunched.
I rack my brain for a way to make it better. Something to bring back his easy smile. To remind him that camp doesn’t have the monopoly on perks that my quick tongue claimed. “I mean, there are some good things. You know, restaurants. Music. Not having to wait until an old friend shows up after twelve years to get laid. Things like that.”
He flicks water at me. “You make it sound so appealing.”
“Hey,” I laugh, wiping droplets from my cheek. “I tried! The getting-laid thing is a pretty big perk.”
His fingers curl around the side of my canoe and he works his way up the edge until we’re face-to-face. “Hey, Amy?”
I trace my thumb over his knuckles. Draw lazy swirls on his palm when he opens for me. “Yeah?”
“Would you like to have dinner with me? Tonight.”
“Paul Harding,” I tease. “Are you asking me on a date?”
His eyes burn into mine. “Yeah. I am.”
My stomach quivers under his gaze. I pull my shoulders back. Press my chest out. But my boobs are prisoners in this life vest
and his view doesn’t waver. My words force their way out over the lump in my throat. “I have to have dinner with you. Your house has the only food up here.”
His fingers tighten on mine. “But I’m asking you to have dinner with me because you want to, not because you have to.”
“I know.” I swallow hard and lick my dry lips. “And the answer’s still yes.”
*
I throw my hoodie onto the pile of clothes on the bed and press my fists onto my hips. Nothing I packed is exactly screaming “date with the guy I spent my entire childhood crushing on,” never mind “man whose kisses turn me on so much I threaten to hump a chair.”
I tug a strapless maxi-dress from the bottom of the pile and slip it on. I could kill for a pencil skirt right now. Something that would hug my ass and distract from my nerves with the certainty that I looked damn good.
The built-in bra squishes my breasts and the empire waist hides my body in draping jersey, but it’s a break from the leggings and jean shorts I’ve been living in. A change from Amy the camp director to Amy the woman. Going on a date. With the man who’s already made me scream.
The man who’s been suffering without a woman’s touch, but won’t let me pleasure him until he’s sure it’s what I want. What all of me wants. Until I’m sure I want him. Until it’s Paul and Amy, not tab A and slot B.
I pull on a sweater and close the rec hall door behind me. The scent of campfire wafts up on the breeze and beckons me forward. I wrap my arms around myself and stroll toward the lake. Paul is on his knees next to the fire pit, blowing gently on the small flame. Coaxing it to life.
Heat spreads through my body as I get closer. I can’t identify which parts of me are warmed by the flames, and which are warmed by the man who knew exactly how to goad me into racing him. Who knew that I needed to stop thinking and start doing. That the only thing keeping rust on my strokes was my own doubt.
Paul adds a larger log to the stack of kindling and I join him. I pick a piece of wood, small enough to catch on the current flame, but large enough to burn for a while. With my fingertips on the end of the log, I balance it against his. “Dinner el fresco?” I ask.