"Like another Dave?"
"Yeah. Well, no. Like Dave, but if Dave was broke, and older, and tall, dark, and handsome, with a bunch of tattoos, but still, like, the kind of guy who would say 'redpilled.'"
"Oh man," I said. "And this guy's part of the group?"
"Sort of," she shrugged. "He's around, I guess. I've seen him before but last night was the first time he hung around us."
"Well. I guess we'll burn that bridge when we get to it."
"Please don't," she laughed. "I want them to like you."
"Okay, okay," I said. "If we can get through today and tomorrow without horribly traumatizing each other, I'll come meet your friends. Is that okay?"
"Perfect. You think there's a chance of that? That we'll traumatize each other?"
"I don't know." I said. "I hope not." She nodded. "But we have to talk about what we want, and whether it's compatible. What our plans are, that kind of thing. That's what we were supposed to think about this week, remember?"
"Yeah," she said, wincing. "I kinda got caught up in the other stuff."
"Me too."
"Did you think about it at all?"
"Yeah," I said. "Some." I'd thought about it a lot, actually. I'd had to make myself stop; I'd been spinning my wheels, not wanting to confront the inevitable conclusion: if she left, if she went back to California, it'd break my heart. That we'd stay together if we got together, I had no doubt. She flitted from guy to girl and back, she'd said, but I thought what we might have would be different. And my history was falling and falling hard. But a long-distance relationship with no plan to reunite, no date to look forward to, wouldn't work. I couldn't handle it, even for her.
Could I let myself feel for her more than I already did, knowing how badly it might hurt? Probably not, but I couldn't give up what I had, either.
"Did you figure anything out?"
"Yes," I said, as seriously as I could. "That I really want to fuck you, and it's been driving me crazy all week."
"Me too," she said, then spoke quietly in her low voice, though we were alone in the car, and put her slim hand on my leg. "So. Anything in particular?"
"Well, I've looked at that picture from your bathroom probably a thousand times. And I think I remember you threatening me yesterday with an orgasm that might kill me?"
"You know," she snickered, "I think I remember that too. And you told me you'd tell me you loved me if I fucked you hard enough."
"No!
No
. No. I told you I'd say that about your sex drive."
"Same thing," she said, snicker now a full, mocking laugh. "You're so cute when you're flustered."
"It's not – oh, whatever. I remember you saying that to
me
, though."
She paused, considering. "I don't remember that. I think I'd remember something like that. You're probably making that up to get in my pants."
"I don't think I need to make things up to get in your pants," I said. "Not at this point."
"Are you calling me a slut?" she gasped, voice filled with fake outrage.
"Yep," I said casually, squeezing her slender thigh hard, high up where my fingers just brushed the outer edge of her groin. "My slut, tonight."
She squirmed in her seat. "Fuck. I need today to be
over
."
"Me fucking too," I said with feeling.
**
Somehow, we made it through the day. Unusually, Thom had assigned both of us to the low course under Gwen's supervision, and looking back, I don't remember much of what we did. Every time I looked at Emily I felt myself stir, remembering what she looked like naked, and the smell and taste of her, and when she looked at me I felt it on my skin like fire. When we met each other's eyes, I heard in my head her ragged breathing as she'd come on my tongue and her long slow groan as she'd come on her fingers in my car. In our long break after lunch, Kieran asked her to show the group some basic yoga flows, and Emily had led us through a series of poses, walking us through the proper techniques and correcting our mistakes. Apparently, I was very bad at them; she seemed to regularly find mistakes I was making in body positioning that required correction, and she could never seem to find the words to correct me without using her hands to reposition my butt, hips and core. And maybe my ineptitude was because each of her poses seemed to point her tight ass or small tight tits at me, and I couldn't think of anything but fucking her until she screamed out my name. At one point, as we were waiting for our next groups, Gabby gave her a little nudge and whispered something, and Emily, for the first time in our acquaintance, turned bright red. Whatever was going on, I suspected it had to do with me, or us.
Just before the last group of the day arrived, I pulled Emily aside.
"Hey," I whispered to her, "when we're done today, let's not hang around."
"Yeah, duh," she said back. "But let's not just run off, either. Gabby's already asking if we have –" she looked around a little surreptitiously "—plans of the physical sort. A little decorum, you know?"
"I know, I know. I just want to."
"Trust me," she said sympathetically. "I do too."
"I've never seen you blush before. What the heck did she say?"
She opened her mouth to answer, saw the horde of kids approaching, and changed her mind. It was probably for the best.
Afternoon debrief seemed to take forever. In the afternoon, one of the kids at the pond had bashed himself in the nose with a paddle, bloodying it; and Scott, Kieran and Ryan had all had to give their perspectives on what had happened, what steps they'd taken and why. Thom had gotten on all three of them for not calling to report it immediately, then taken the opportunity to use it as a learning experience for the summer staff, walking us through filling out incident reports. When he made his end-of-day call to the office, Ryan and Kieran had been called in to speak with Ruth, then Thom had called Gwen in for a private chat, all of which delayed us further. And when he was
finally
ready to wrap up, he asked Emily and I to stay behind. I was immediately nervous, and we exchanged somber glances as Gabby, Scott and Dave gave us sympathetic looks and filed out of the cabin with the rest of the staff, leaving us alone with Thom.
"Don't worry, you're not in trouble. You two," he said, "have been pretty good so far. Better than the others. Dafydd, I know you're hoping to do the apprentice program in the fall. I'm just going to tell you now, we don't make decisions on it this far out based on summer performance. But you're on the right track. And Emily, I think if you want to stay for the apprenticeship, you've got a good chance right now too." We looked at each other again, more happily this time, but I still felt a twinge of trepidation. Then he dropped two spiral-bound books on the table, each festooned with colorful sticky notes.
"Here's the deal, kids. We have an outside group coming in next week. Short notice. I need at least three staff members for them, preferably four. Arthur gets in tonight, so he'll be one of them. My wife Amber is going to come in as an extra pair of hands. But that still leaves me short. So. Here are your Bibles. Read the introduction until you understand it, then study the pages with the notes until your eyes bleed. Don't just memorize it, internalize it. Be here at 6:45 on Monday. Gwen and I going to test you on everything on those pages, then walk you through it on the course.
I swallowed, and I heard Emily take a deep breath. "Okay," I said. "We can do it."
"You'd better," he said. "Gwen vouched for you. Both of you. Don't let her down." Then he frowned, seemingly at himself more than us. "If you have doubts about it, talk to each other over the weekend, then call me. We have options, okay? If you don't think you can lead groups safely yet, we can pull one of the full-time people, or we can get Ruth to come out. It'll be tight for her on time." He smiled unexpectedly, full of sarcastic cheer. "And none of us want the owner here, right? But we're only doing this if both of you, and Gwen and I, are convinced you can do it safely."
"We'll get it done," said Emily. Her voice was strong and confident; whatever nerves she'd had were gone, or hidden far away.
"Good. I hope you're right. Two more things." I felt my nerves return. "First, I just said we don't make decisions on summer performance. We wouldn't normally have summer staff lead groups until at least the fourth week." Camp was broken into three sessions of three weeks each, so he meant the beginning of the second session. "And we wouldn't have you work without a full-time staff, period. But we're understaffed right now and things are tight. Give me what I need from you next week, and as long as you keep your noses clean the rest of the summer, you'll have earned your offer for the fall, and maybe we can arrange some work between the end of camp and the start of the apprenticeship. Understand?"
I nodded, and Emily said she did.
"Second," he said, sneering again, "I don't know if you two are dating. If you are, fine. I don't give a damn. Keep it work-appropriate and remember where you are. Don't make your teammates uncomfortable. Your relationship is not my business and you'd better not make it my business. Am I clear? And whatever was going on with you two today, get it worked out. I need both of you on your A-games next week. Do not let it affect your work. Got it? Now get out of here."
We grabbed our bags and escaped, hearing his voice float after us – "And no copies or photos! Of the book! It's all under copyright!"
