Darien smirked and was about to turn his attention back to the window when the seat in front of him was suddenly invaded by a tiny Japanese girl with glasses and a slender girl with pigtails. He smiled. “Hey, Aki.”
“Hey Darien!” the Japanese girl exclaimed. “We finally made it all the way around the bus! We were talking to everyone.”
“I noticed,” he said. He let his eyes graze over the girl with the pigtails again, and he gave a shy smile when she met his eyes. “Hey, Lucy,” he murmured. “Make any new friends?”
She waved her hand. “Aw, it’s cool to say hello to everyone. I like to make the new kids feel welcome, but you guys know you’re my people.” She grinned and high-fived Colt.
“Where’s Doug?” Colt questioned.
Lucy thrust her thumb towards the front of the bus. “He’s giving a lengthy lecture to a seventh grader about why Anakin Skywalker descended into the dark side.”
Darien smirked. “Some things never change, huh?”
Lucy grinned and rested her chin on the back of the seat. “This is your last year, isn’t it?”
He looked up at her and nodded. “With any luck I might actually graduate next year.”
She giggled. “How was last year? Schoolwise and stuff?”
He shrugged. “More of the same. Dad telling me how lame I am. Jocks throwing me into garbage cans.”
“I had the varsity quarterback give me a swirly,” Aki volunteered.
Colt frowned. “They actually do that to girls?”
She shrugged. “I guess. It wasn’t so bad once you got past the smell.”
Colt and Darien gave a simultaneous wince.
“Check it out, guys, we’re here!” Lucy exclaimed.
Darien looked out the window and sighed in relief. Finally, he could get off the bus and start his summer out right. It was the last one he would spend with his friends. He wanted to make it the best it could be.
Chapter Two
The other counselors were tools. Logan could tell. One of them looked like Merlin on crack and the other one looked like she should be living in a cabin with a bunch of cats. Heck…maybe she did. The only one who looked normal was Willow. She was so hot. Slender, regal, curvy in all the right places. She looked like a dancer, graceful. He wanted to run his fingers through her lustrous auburn hair. Too bad she’d told him she wanted to bury him in the desert and then kick him in the cajones. That was a first. He’d never had a woman reject him like that before. He almost didn’t know what to do with it. Maybe she was a lesbian… His stomach knotted at the thought. He sure hoped not. That would be such a waste of a gorgeous woman. A woman like Willow Avaris was made to be loved by a man… A man like him.
His lecherous thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a big, yellow school bus. He heaved a sigh and put his clipboard behind his back, adopting a no-nonsense pose that he hoped inspired a little intimidation. He had no intention of making these kids think that he was a pushover like the other two lameoid counselors.
The doors opened and the saddest bunch of reject kids ambled off. He suppressed a groan. This was his worst nightmare. At least three fourths of them were wearing glasses and were paler than the undead. Almost none of them had any muscle mass, and the ones who weren’t pathetically scrawny seriously needed to go on a diet.
“Welcome back, campers!” Willow greeted with a great, big, stunning smile.
The kids grinned collectively and a few cried out, “Hey, Miss Willow!”
“Now, I know some of you are new here to Rogue River, so let me be the first to give you a warm welcome. I’m Miss Willow, head counselor. If you have anything you need to talk about, or have any complaints, you can come to me any time. Let me introduce you to our other counselors, Counselor Linda and Counselor John. Most of you know them already.”
A lot of the kids waved to Merlin and Cat-Lady also.
“We have a new addition this year.” She pointed over at Logan, but didn’t look at him. “Counselor Logan. He will be taking care of some of our older campers.”
The same bunch of friendly kids waved at him also, but he did his best to look fearsome. As a result, they averted their eyes almost immediately.
“Now, the other counselors and myself will be calling out role, so listen for your names. After you’re into your groups, you’ll be taken to your bunks where you can unpack and get settled. Dinner is at six and we will have an orientation meeting at that time so that everyone can get to know one another. Lights out is at nine. Be sure you get a good night’s rest because we have lots of exciting things planned for you tomorrow.” She grinned. “Is everyone ready for an awesome summer?”
The group screamed and cheered.
“All right! Let’s get to it then!”
Willow took her list and started to call names so Logan did the same. “When I call your name, I want you to line up in front of me!” he commanded. “Don’t talk and don’t give me any crap! Just do as you’re told!” He saw Willow give him a scornful look, but he ignored it. He wasn’t going to go easy on these geeks just because she did. He was there to make men out of these losers. He cleared his throat and looked down at his list. “Lucy Wilcox!”
A girl scrambled to stand in front of him and he almost whimpered. She was dressed in some frightening hippie skirt and she was actually wearing a brown knit shawl. Her dark blonde hair was in pigtails and she was toting an enormous book of some kind under one arm. He grimaced.
“Colton Mason!”
Okay, never mind. Pigtail girl was okay. This guy was a walking disaster.
“Doug Evans!”
A gaunt, thin, short boy with thick glasses scurried up like a frightened mouse. The large boy Logan had called up to the line a moment ago grinned down at the newcomer and tousled his hair.
“Aki Takahashi!”
Dang, he could barely even get her name out. He wasn’t surprised to see that she was Japanese.
“Darlene Rivers!”
A few giggles and snickers caught his attention and he looked up as a tall, decently built kid rolled his eyes, sighed and joined the group. “Darien,” he corrected. “I’m a guy.”
Logan took a moment to look over this one. He was still undeniably freakish, but less so than his comrades. Reasonably muscular, black hair… But he was wearing that ridiculous black nail polish. What was with that? Guys were not supposed to wear fingernail polish. And… Oh good lord. Was he wearing eyeliner…? Maybe not. Okay, maybe he just had thick eyelashes… He shook his head. What did he care? They were all freaks. Every last one of them.
“All right, maggots,” he started. “Let’s get a few things straight here. I’m not your average, run of the mill, walk all over me, pushover counselor, got it? I don’t tolerate whining. I don’t tolerate crying, and I don’t tolerate disobedience. When I say jump, I want to hear ‘how high?’ When I say go all the way, I want to hear you say ‘yes, sir!’”
“Um… Excuse me… Sir?” The large one interrupted, his voice hinting at mockery. “When you say, ‘go all the way’ I’m personally going to be heading for the hills because I’m pretty sure that goes against several sexual harassment laws. Besides, no offense, but I just don’t swing that way.”
Laughter erupted and Logan felt anger boil up inside of him. Mainly because the kid had actually made his face get hot, which meant he was blushing. That was humiliating. “Not sexually, you idiot!” he snapped. “I said no talking!” He shot the bedraggled group a sinister scowl, but was not met with the reaction he hoped for. He’d hoped they’d shrink back, maybe even tremble a little. Instead, they just rolled their eyes and stared at him like he’d grown another head. “All right, get to your bunks on the double!” he commanded.
The group turned, muttering under their breath, and trudged off toward their designated cabin.
“Four to a cabin!” Logan barked. “Girls and boys separate.”
The blonde four-eyes turned and looked at him with a confused expression. “We were going to slee
p the five of us to a cabin,” he stated. “We come as a package.”
“Well not anymore you don’t. Four to a cabin. Girls and boys separate. Those are the rules.”
“But Counselor Logan,” Pigtails interrupted. “Miss Willow has never cared before. She trusts us. She just lets one of us pull in a cot—”
“Am I hearing backtalk?” he snapped. “You heard what I said. Do as you’re told!”
Darien snorted and shook his head. “Whatever, dude.” He pushed open the cabin door and motioned his friends inside. The blonde boy looked confused for a moment, but Darien ushered him in also.
“What did I just say—”
“You can cram it,” Darien replied, looking him straight in the eye. “I have to take this macho man crap from my dad. I don’t have to take it from you. We’ve been here longer than you have. All five of us always stick together. That’s the way it’s always been.”
Logan folded his arms and glowered. “Well, things are going to be different this year!”
Darien rolled his eyes. “Screw you.” He went inside and shut the door.
Logan stared at the closed door in bafflement for a minute, then scowled and went to push it back open. He wasn’t going to take lip from a seventeen-year-old.
The door wouldn’t budge. He pounded on it, yelled and threatened for a few seconds, but all remained silent as the dead inside, and the door didn’t move one inch. Finally, Logan swore and just gave up. He simmered silently on his way back to his cabin. Who did these kids think they were? Well, they could be assured that their antics were not going to work for long. If he was stuck there for the rest of the summer, he sure wasn’t going to be stuck there with a bunch of snotty wimps. Maybe Willow let them run all over her and do whatever they wanted, but not him. He’d show them who was boss…
* * * *
“Who let that guy in here?” Colt asked as he flung his duffle bag down onto a bottom bunk.
“He was like Darth Vader,” Doug murmured. “I almost peed myself.”
Darien rolled his eyes. “He wasn’t like Darth Vader, Dougie, or any other famous villain for that matter. He’s just an idiot who’s stuck on himself.” He moved the chair they’d used to barricade the door out of the way.
“Why would Miss Willow even hire him?” Lucy asked as she climbed onto a top bunk. “I can’t believe he actually tried to separate us. We’ve been coming here for years together. We always share a cabin.”
“For real,” Colt piped in. “We’ve paid our dues. It’s nice to be the upper classmen who get leniency and privileges. The little kids still have to be same sex bunks.”
“Yeah, that was me last year,” Doug put in. He shook his head. “I had to sleep with these kids who actually liked Magic, the Gathering. All they did was play it 24-7. I almost went insane.”
Darien chuckled and sat down on his bed. He was the oldest at seventeen. Aki, Lucy and Colt were behind him by one year. Doug was the youngest, having just turned fourteen, but he’d bonded with the others the year before and they all stuck together like a team. Miss Willow always went easy on the older kids if they proved they were trustworthy. He and his friends had been running the place for years. He wasn’t about to let some half-cracked nut-job counselor ruin that. This was his last year of doing the only thing he really enjoyed. He wasn’t about to take orders from some idiot who looked like he’d just stepped off of a GQ magazine and acted like he thought he was a drill sergeant. Forget that.
“I have a feeling this summer is going to suck,” Aki grumbled suddenly.
Darien looked over at her and frowned. “Screw that. I’m not letting that dude mess with something we love.”
Aki looked up at him from where she’d been rifling through her backpack. She frowned. “I wasn’t talking about Counselor Logan.”
Darien blinked. “What were you talking about?”
“I forgot my inhaler.”
“That does suck,” Lucy commented.
“You can always go to the nurse, Aki,” Colt said.
She snorted and rolled her eyes. “What, every five minutes? Do you even know how much pollen there is this year? I’m going to be wheezing my head off all summer long.” She flung her backpack down. “Great.”
Darien smirked and set to unpacking his stuff. Orientation should be interesting, to say the least. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why Miss Willow had hired such a dork to be their counselor. It made absolutely no sense.
Chapter Three
There weren’t enough swear words in the English language to satisfy Logan as he stared at the growing lake in the middle of his cabin. It had started raining right before the orientation dinner, and when he’d returned from the ridiculous affair, his cabin had been waterlogged. There was an enormous leak in his roof and, no matter how many buckets he tried to put underneath it, they would just fill up. It didn’t help that the rain was relentless. It also didn’t make him happy to see that the place where the leak was just happened to be right over his bed… And he definitely wasn’t pleased with the fact that he had already made his bed and set everything up on it before he’d gone to dinner.
Dinner had been bad enough. Everyone had ignored him, which he was actually kind of okay with. There wasn’t really anyone he wanted to talk to anyway, being as they were all complete freaks. He would have liked some one on one time with Willow, but she’d avoided him like the plague. He couldn’t really grasp onto that. Every other woman he’d tried to hit on or pick up had fallen for his charm hook, line, and sinker. If he’d had a notch post, it would have been full. He had no idea what Willow’s problem was. Something was wrong with her. That was the only reasonable explanation.
As Logan flung his soaking sleeping bag down and swore again, he ran his fingers through his hair, yanked on a coat and stormed out into the soggy darkness of the night. This was ridiculous. He was absolutely not going to sleep in a leaking cabin.
He tramped through the mud until he got to Willow’s cabin, where the light was still on. He pounded on the door and stuffed his hands into his pockets, shivering. He was wet, cold and pissed off. This was not how he’d wanted to start out his summer.
Willow opened the door and immediately scowled at him. “What do you want?” she snapped.
He glanced past her into the warm room and noticed a beautiful, blazing fire going in a hearth. His eyes widened. “You get a fireplace?” he cried. “What the crap?”
She frowned. “I own the camp. I can have whatever I want.” She folded her arms. “What’s the problem?”
He met her eyes and frowned. “My cabin is freaking floating away. You put me in a faulty cabin with an enormous leak in the roof that dumped water all over my bed.”
She gave him a level stare for a few minutes, then shrugged her slender shoulders. “And? What do you want me to do about it?”
He blinked and snorted. “Well, giving me another cabin might be a nice start.”
She shook her head. “That’s all we have. Sorry.” She moved back inside and made to close the door.
“Hey! Wait a second!” he cried. He stepped up and placed his hand on the door, keeping her from closing it. “Give me a break, woman! My cabin is flooded and my sleeping bag is soaking wet! I sure don’t have a fireplace, and now I don’t have anywhere to sleep! What do you suggest I do? Sleep in the cafeteria?”
She still looked relatively unabashed. Her beautiful green eyes were full of apathy. “Frankly, I don’t care what you do, Mr. Savage. You’re a big boy, remember? I’m sure you’ll figure something out.” She pushed him backwards and grabbed the handle of the door. “Goodnight.” The door shut, ending the conversation.
Logan stared at the closed door for a second, having difficulty processing the fact that she apparently really didn’t care what happened to him. Die of pneumonia? Sure, no skin off her nose. He turned with a snarl and stormed back to his cabin. Relinquishing to the fact that he was just going to have to deal, he sucked it up, grabbed his damp pillow, p
ut on two extra shirts and curled into a ball underneath his coat in the corner. He’d been camping out in the rain before. He was a man. He could handle it. No need to be a wuss. A little cold and wet never hurt anybody. It built character. At least that was what his dad had always told him when he’d made him sleep in the garage during winter. He’d survived that. He’d survive this. He always survived. It was what he was good at.
* * * *
Obnoxious, loud music was what yanked Darien out of his sleep that morning. He raised his head with a frown and looked toward the door.
“What is that?” Colt grumbled from the bottom bunk. “Is that Revelie?”
Darien’s frown deepened. It was Revelie.
“What time is it?” Aki’s voice slurred.
Darien rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and glanced down at his watch. “Six A.M.”
“Come on maggots!” an abrasively magnified voice shouted. “Get your sorry butts out of bed and out here on the double!”
“What the ever-loving crap?” Colt muttered.
Darien heaved a sigh and rolled over, swinging his legs over the side of the bunk. He climbed down and went to the window, peering out the curtain. “What the—?” Their stupid counselor was standing out there in army fatigues with a megaphone. “This guy is seriously unbalanced.”
“What is it?” Lucy prodded.
Darien rolled his eyes and went to the door. He pulled it open and shivered. It was foggy from the rain and it chilled him immediately being as he was only in his boxer shorts and a t-shirt. “Dude, what is the matter with you?” he asked, recoiling from the icy blast of air that attacked his bare skin.
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