Camp Payback

by J. K. Rock

  “Andrew.”

  I reared back to look at him. “How did you know?”

  Javier grinned. “You talked a whole lot that week you had mess hall duty.”

  “You know all my secrets, and I still don’t know much about you,” I complained, even though I melted inside that he remembered so much of what I’d said.

  “You know a lot more about me than most people.” He turned serious again, his eyes locked on mine while rockets and Roman candles whistled in the distance.

  But the explosions over the water were nothing compared to the fireworks I felt inside. I’d been falling for Javier ever since he’d handed me that purple flower. And now? I was waaay into him. What had started out as a simple scheme to pay my parents back by raising a little hell and having fun had turned into something so much bigger.

  “Then you probably don’t let many people get close to you.”

  “I haven’t had much luck trusting people.” His voice was soft, and I knew I would hear it over and over in my dreams tonight.

  His eyelids fell halfway, and the look he gave me tingled over my skin.

  “Maybe your luck’s about to change.” I drifted closer to him as if pulled by a magnet.

  His forehead tipped to mine. Touching. “Alexandra,” he said in a way that rolled the “x” into a soft “s”—a sweetly accented version of my name. “I don’t think I could stay away from you if I tried.”

  Javier

  And I had tried to stay away.

  But keeping my distance from Alex right now felt like deciding not to breathe. Impossible. Besides, anyone who said she was looking for trouble didn’t know the side of her I knew. Other people saw the fierce girl who didn’t take any crap. I saw the hurt that had made her that way.

  “I can’t stay away either,” she said, her green eyes huge.

  Her emotions were all right there: attraction, curiosity, and a kind of wonder I’d never seen before. It shone in her eyes as clearly as the reflection of the fireworks. Girls I’d been with before weren’t like that—willing to let you see what they were feeling without playing games.

  Her hands fluttered around my shoulders and fell there, her fingers resting lightly, as if she might get chased away any second. I hated that she’d doubt her attractiveness for a second when I’d been thinking about her all the time.

  “I have to kiss you.” I think I was warning my conscience more than her.

  “Well, you owe me one,” she whispered against my mouth, so close I could have licked her.

  But I didn’t. I brushed my lips against hers with all the gentleness she deserved—this girl who was more wholesome than she would ever admit and too sweet to understand how badly I wanted this. And how much trouble we’d be in if we were caught.

  I touched her waist, one hand on each side of her cotton tank-top. Safe terrain, right? I just wanted to steady her, I told myself.

  Yeah, right. And I was going to be Camp Employee of the Month, too.

  She tasted like bubblegum and lip gloss, smelled like sunscreen and girl-soap. I wanted to go on like that, breathing in the tastes and scents of summer camp and one of the best days of my life. But then her fingers tightened against my shoulders, short nails scratching into my tee as she deepened the kiss. The fireworks outside were nothing compared to the warning flares going off behind my eyes as she inched closer.

  Maybe I should have known Alex would bring the same fire to a kiss she brought to everything else she did. Still, it caught me off-guard and…

  “Whoa.” I pulled back, taking my hands off her waist and capturing her wrists instead. For my own sanity.

  And because I really couldn’t afford for things to get out of hand on a first kiss.

  “What?” Her forehead wrinkled. She looked up at the sky, still flashing from the occasional burst of light. “We don’t have to stop. The fireworks are still going on.” She looked over her shoulder. “And Gollum is way down on the other end. He can’t see us.”

  “I…” How to put this in a PG way? “I like you, Alex.”

  She scooted toward me again. “I like you, too, Javier.”

  I closed my eyes. Thought about the consequences of letting things get out of hand. And steeled myself against the scent of bubblegum.

  “I might like you a little too much right now.” Gently, I untwined her hands from my shoulders and put them in her lap.

  “Oh.” She ran a finger over her Secret Camp Angel bracelet. “Sure. I guess we can watch the fireworks.”

  I breathed the scent of the pine trees deep.

  “Is it okay if I…” She bit her lip as a shot of red streaked through the sky with a hissing whistle. “Rest my head here?”

  She tipped her forehead to my shoulder and peered up at me. It felt good to have her want to be near me.

  “Yeah.” I nodded, kissing the top of her head like I wanted to. I needed to get kissing out of my mind. “That’s nice.”

  “Can I ask you something?” She spun the bracelet on her wrist. “Since you know so much about me and I’m still clueless about you?”

  On the beach below us, some of the kids were playing flashlight tag on the perimeter of the crowd. The hints of light coming on and off were like lightning bugs around the bushes.

  “I guess.”

  “Where are you from? Did you grow up around here?” Her temple moved against my shoulder, and I smiled because I could tell she was back to chewing her gum.

  “My mom moved us all over the place trying to find work until a few years ago when I went into foster care.” I willed her not to ask about that. Mom had done the best she could. “I was born in New York, near where she grew up. But we lived in New York and Texas for a little while before we came here.”

  “North Carolina?” She lifted her head.

  “Yeah. Just outside Brevard.”

  “I haven’t met many kids at camp who live near here.” She laid her head on my shoulder and kicked her foot so that her flip-flop swung from one toe. “Well, this one kid who used to go here, Seth, his grandparents actually own Juniper Point, and they live close to here.”

  “Helena has an apartment next door to my mom’s old place.” An apartment I hadn’t gotten to see much when she was in and out of trouble with the cops and I’d been in and out of trouble with school principals and foster parents. If only I’d been a smarter kid, maybe I could have stayed out of trouble longer, but those first couple of years when my mom had been in jail on and off, I’d been mad at the world, exploding on anyone who tried to help me. “Mom thought the mountains would be a good place for a fresh start.”

  “It is beautiful here.” Alex picked a few tufts of grass that sprang up between our knees.

  “I wish I could leave when I finish high school.” Too many bad memories. Me sneaking out of foster homes to try and visit Mom. Me getting yelled at by various foster parents. Me punching walls, windows, and—one time—a foster dad who’d tried to intervene. I was damn lucky he hadn’t pressed charges.

  “Really?” She straightened again, winding the long pieces of grass together, fingers fiddling while she snapped her gum. “Where would you go?”

  “I don’t know.” I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Anywhere but here, I guess. But with Mom’s parole, I’m pretty much stuck.”

  “You should visit me in Savannah.”

  “Georgia?”

  “Yeah.” She glanced at me sideways and grinned. “You can sneak onto the campus of my new school for ‘troubled girls,’ A New Day Alternative Boarding School. Save me from whatever torture they’ve got planned.”

  “That sounds just as bad as the group home they want to send me to if I lose my job here.” Alex seemed too lively and fun to be labeled a troubled girl. It was funny that she and I faced the same future, just with different names.

  “It’s my punishment for Vijay’s text.” She rolled her eyes while the light show came to a finale, the lights flashing all over the sky.

  “Will you be all right w
ith that?”

  “The workload will be tougher.” Her fingers paused. “And I’ve griped about strict stuff, but I’m already used to people telling me how bad I am. What really bothers me about going away is that my parents are doing it because they can’t be bothered to deal. They’re probably glad to have an excuse to get rid of me.”

  Shaking her head, she looked back down at the grass she’d been braiding. She laid the green strip on my wrist next to my Secret Camp Angel lanyard and tied her creation beside it. “That sucks. But you might still make some friends here.” Her father sounded like a major douche. How could anyone not appreciate magnetic, funny Alex?

  “Maybe.” She kept a hand on my wrist and tipped her head sideways as if trying to see me from a different angle. Her long, silky hair grazed my fingers. “But school won’t have you. That’s why I wish we could be together this summer. It’s all the time we’ll have.”

  My heart exploded. I wished this stolen moment could be more than that—a point in my life I could shout about from the rooftops and celebrate in public. Alex didn’t make me feel like I was any of the things written in my foster record. She made me feel like none of that mattered—that she saw who I really was and liked me for it. Ironic it took coming to a camp full of entitled kids to make me feel that I might be worthy, too.

  Down below us, the campers clapped and cheered for the finale. The flashlights that had been darting around the woods bobbed in the dark, back toward the rest of the group. We’d have to walk back to our cabins in another minute before someone caught us. But right now, Alex shifted closer.

  “Camp is turning out better than I expected, too.” I cupped her cheek and held her still, memorizing her face. I wasn’t sure when I’d get to look at her so openly again.

  She studied me before closing her eyes, her mouth curving. We kissed, and I forgot everything else. I didn’t think about foster homes or the fact that my mom was in jail. I didn’t worry about not having any money and no place to turn if I screwed up at camp. All of it evaporated with Alex. For a few seconds at least, I felt like a guy in control of himself and his future.

  Happy.

  Inhaling the scent of her, stroking her soft hair, I heard movement in the brush behind us.

  A flashlight swung in our direction. It landed on Alex’s wide eyes as she pulled away from me.

  “What the hell, Alex?” Her ex-boyfriend’s voice was as irritating as the blinding light flashing in our faces. I tensed. Fists clenched. So much for that control I was working on. I shot to my feet, ready to break every anger management rule in the book.

  Vijay sneered. “Do you drag all of your boyfriends to the same spot to swap spit?”

  I froze, and my eyes went to her. She looked away fast but not before I caught her guilty expression.

  The jerk-off lowered his flashlight as he swaggered closer.

  “You’re trying to rub my face in it that we’re not together anymore, aren’t you?” He shook his head, his features twisted in a snarl. “Is this how you get me back for sending you that text?”

  “Is that true?” I asked her in a low voice, sitting up to shield her.

  “No.” She shook her head fast and inched up beside me.

  I wanted to believe her. I really, really did. But a part of me wondered if her kiss on the first day of camp and now here, at her old spot with Vijay, was her way of using me to get back at him. Maybe her parents, too. What better way to piss them off than a good girl like Alex hooking up with a low-life like me?

  Nauseous, I stood and held my stomach. Helena was right. Whether Alex meant to or not, she brought a lot of trouble I couldn’t afford to get into.

  “Give the bastard a break, Alex.” Vijay crossed his arms and glared at us. “He deserves to know how much you like to mess with guys’ minds. And I’d tell Gollum, too, if you didn’t have those texts.”

  “Shut up!” She leaped to her feet, ready to do battle.

  But it was too late. I’d already been cut deep. “Forget it,” I told her. “We’ll talk another time.”

  Her friends—and his—were already running up the hill toward us. Alex had other people to protect her. Besides, I needed to follow one anger management rule: walk the hell away. And that meant from Alex, too.

  “I’ve got to go.” I strode off, wishing like hell I’d listened to Helena in the first place and returned to the kitchen after dropping off Alex.

  “Javier!” Alex called after me, but I could hear the quieter voices of her friends around her, settling her down. She didn’t need me. She had her friends and all the attention she seemed to want.

  And I didn’t need Gollum to catch me with her or, worse, that TV network Helena warned me about. Alex played me, and I’d lost.

  Even though I had every right to be, I wasn’t so much angry with her. I was mostly mad at my dumbass self.

  Alex

  “Okay, girls, let’s move it out!” Emily yanked the bullhorn away from her mouth and clamped a hand over her slipping beret. Its dark color matched her neck scarf, off-the-shoulder shirt, ankle-length pants, and flats. She looked like she’d stepped out of an old-time movie, which was completely in keeping with today’s field trip. After getting permission from our parents, our cabin and a handful of other kids were going to be extras in Mine Forever. My mother had come through with a fax last night, just when I’d been plotting how to fake her signature and plant a form in the administration office myself. I wondered how much she had ticked off Dad for allowing me to do something he’d probably call “frivolous.” But today, I wasn’t going to waste time thinking about it.

  A current of excitement rushed through me as I dashed down the porch steps into the dawning light. A wind came up and blew out of the woods toward me, carrying with it the chill scent of pine needles, damp earth, and the sweet smell of honeysuckle. It felt like a fresh start, and maybe, after three days of being taunted by Vijay and avoided by Javier, getting away from camp was exactly what I needed.

  Javier.

  My heart still squeezed up tight when I thought about how we’d parted. I’d made a quick trip to his empty cabin this morning, knowing the Warriors’ Warden guys usually went running as a group. Javier, I’d guessed, would be at work in the kitchen, and I was right—the coast had been clear. I’d left him the Venezuelan cookbook my mom had sent me, a perfect Secret Camp Angel gift. He’d probably know it was me, but I didn’t care.

  What had surprised me about my stealthy mission had been seeing he’d kept the grass bracelet I’d woven for him. It hung around the wooden post of his bed. I hoped it was a sign he didn’t hate me.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this!” Trinity practically skipped beside me, her long blonde dreadlocks bouncing. I couldn’t read auras the way she claimed to, but I could tell when someone glowed with happiness. She had a new sketchpad tucked under one arm as we headed through camp toward the mini-bus.

  Behind us, Siobhan and Piper tested out their old skills at leap-frog, a game that was working until Jackie came along and practically crushed tiny Siobhan as she vaulted over her back. They collapsed in a pile of giggles.

  Trinity pulled her hair back into a bun. “Do you think this will fit under a bonnet?”

  I laughed. “A big one, maybe. But it’s worth a shot. Plus, the director is going to take one look at you, fall madly in love and say, ‘Darling, you must be in all my movies.’”

  She laughed. “Are you kidding me? I’m not the drama queen around here.”

  I peered behind me. “Drama queen? None of those in Munchies’ Manor.”

  That set off more laughter as the other girls caught up to us. Yeah, I got it. They all thought I was the reigning performer in the cabin. They wouldn’t even recognize the girl I was back home: Alex the Afterthought. The girl most likely to be swept under the rug.

  When we boarded the van, I spotted a couple of the Diva girls and two of the boys from Wander Inn already in their seats. Thankfully, Vijay was not among the small group. Hannah an
d Kayla were there, and they sat next to Julian and Garrett. Hannah and Julian spoke quietly to each other in the back row.

  How did such a great guy end up with the camp queen of mean? It was a mystery I’d solve sooner or later. If Hannah could snag a nice guy, surely I could, too.

  “None of the Warriors came?” Jackie observed, dropping into a seat beside Yasmine. “Big surprise there.”

  “Why?” Yasmine asked, reaching for the box full of paper bags containing our breakfasts as a trio of copper bracelets slid down her arm. “They don’t like movies?”

  Emily boarded, and Bam-Bam slid into the driver’s seat, cranking up the music as soon as the van door shut.

  “They’re playing sports all day since it’s a free day.” Jackie took a few of the brown paper sacks and started tossing them to people as we set out for Waynesville. “Jake is determined to win back the boys’ volleyball trophy from the Wander Inn guys this year, so he wanted extra practice.”

  I caught my to-go breakfast and took a big bite of apple, grateful our cabin wasn’t devoting every waking second to volleyball this year. The rivalries had gotten way too heated in the past.

  “Oh, wow, the breakfast sandwich is awesome,” Siobhan sighed. “So glad I’m not vegan. Sorry, Piper.”

  Piper dropped her apple core in her bag. “Apologize to the chickens. Not me.”

  “Long live chickens,” Jackie agreed, halfway through hers already. “The food is definitely better this year.”

  Curious, I opened the foil container in my bag and found a still-hot toasted English muffin with an egg and cheese inside. It was a real egg—not the processed slab of questionable yellow that came in fast-food meals.

  “I think it’s because of Javier.” Siobhan polished off her sandwich and wiped the corners of her mouth.

  The whole bus went quiet at the mention of his name. Everyone turned to look at me.