Nathan marched forward until he got to the soggy part of the sand and stopped. I felt him shiver. “Shit. It’s really cold.”
“Do it quick,” I said. “I just want to touch it.”
“Hang on,” he said. He turned me over until I was dangling upside down, facing out toward the ocean. He hooked his arms around my waist, my legs over his shoulder. “You okay like that?” he asked.
It was perfect. I was upside down, but I could reach to feel the waves with my hands. He marched forward and I spread my hand out over the surface and touched the most chilling water I’d ever felt before. If it would keep still, I was sure the water would turn to ice.
“Got it!” I said and burst out laughing. “Holy crow, it’s cold.”
Nathan laughed and hoisted me a little higher on his shoulder, though leaving me upside down, as he bolted for the dry sand. I dangled in his arms, jostled by his movements.
When we were away from the water, he hauled me up even further until my stomach was over his shoulder. I giggled and patted this butt as he marched back to the picnic table.
“Are you done playing with the ocean?” North asked as we got back.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s too cold to swim.”
“No swimming.”
Gabriel was putting a stereo on the table and then he adjusted an orange wool hat over his head. “Oy, Trouble, where’s your hat?”
I stuffed my hand into the pockets of the jacket, pulling out my pink gloves and hat.
Gabriel walked over, taking the hat and adjusting it, pulling it over my head. “No sense in buying you shit if you don’t wear it.” He reached his fingers into the hat, stuffing my hair in, and then tugged out two locks of hair to frame my face. “You can leave those out,” he said.
It was like how he wore his hat, with his two blond locks sticking out. It was a funny look for him because it made it appear like he had only blond hair and blue eyes with his contrasting dark eyebrows.
I put on the gloves, too. My nose was chilly, but it wasn’t that bad.
North hovered over the grill, looking at the ocean and then down at the coals. “I don’t know if I should light this.”
“Just do it,” Nathan said, brushing his feet clean of sand while sitting on the table. He groaned and wiped and wiped at his feet. “This is going to be my life this week. Sand in every little cranny.”
“You like dirt,” North said and then eyeballed me as I inched closer to the grill. He waved a hand at me. “Don’t,” he said. “Wind is blowing. I’m pretty sure I want to keep your face flame-free.”
“Pretty sure?” I said, although I was joking and took a step back.
He said nothing. He took out a stick from a kit, and lit one end of it with a lighter, shielding the flame with his body. He stuck the still-burning stick into the coals.
The coals flamed up instantly. The breeze wasn’t horrible, but there was no protection from it off the ocean, so it was constant, bending the tall flames away from the water.
North backed away from the grill. “Maybe we should eat sandwiches. This might be too dangerous.”
“I can eat cold hot dogs,” Gabriel said.
“The coals will simmer down after a bit,” Nathan said.
“I don’t have a lid to this thing,” North said. It was a standard park grill, sticking out of the sand on a pole without a cover. “I should have brought one.”
“There’s a grill back at the camp,” Nathan said. “And I bet it’s better because the trees block the wind more.”
Gabriel and I stood behind North, watching the flames. Nathan put his shoes back on and took turns poking at the charcoal. Eventually, the charcoal started glowing more and the flames simmered down, so North could place hot dogs on the grill to heat up.
North turned his head, looking toward the dunes. When I turned to see what he was looking at, I spotted Silas, Victor, Luke and Kota materializing over the hump of sand.
Luke broke into a run toward me, hurrying down the path while scooting the others out of his way.
He was carrying a soccer ball under his arm. “Hey,” he called to us. “Let’s play something.”
The others carried ice chests and extra folding chairs and started to set them up around the table.
Gabriel took one of the ice chests, dragging it down the beach to where the sand had flattened out and was relatively dry.
Nathan tagged along and he and Luke set up a few lines in the sand.
“Sang’s on my team,” Nathan said.
“Are we playing soccer?” I asked.
“I guess,” Nathan said.
No one said anything about rules, so I assumed we were going to play was basic soccer. The only rules I knew were to use your feet, or any body part except your hands, and kick for a goal.
I started out trying to just chase the ball, but they were all really fast. I ended up just aiming to block Gabriel and Luke while Nathan took over trying to kick the ball over the goal lines.
Nathan and Gabriel were struggling for the ball near the middle, and I zagged in front of Luke. Luke held his hands out as if he was going to catch me. I sprinted and when I thought he was going to zag out of the way, he held out his arms instead, catching me around the waist. I lost my balance, folding over in his arm toward the sand, but he shifted quickly, bringing me down on top of him as he sat down hard on the sand.
I luckily caught my knees in the sand and not in his stomach or groin.
“Ow,” he said, laughing. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, drawing me in to kiss my cheek. “It’s too cold for tackling.”
“You started it,” I said.
“Oh yeah?” Luke slipped his hands under my jacket and shirt, his chilled fingertips finding the bare skin of my stomach.
Icy waves seared through to my center and I yelped, slapping at his biceps as I tried to crawl off of him. “No,” I whined. “Let go.”
He laughed but didn’t release me. “Warm up my hands.” He sat up, sitting cross-legged on the sand and kept his arms around me.
“Argh,” I said, but I found both his hands, pulled the off me and stuffed them into my jacket pockets instead, securing them with my own arms. I bit my tongue as if that would stop the shivers—remnants of his cold hands on me.
“Oy,” Gabriel called to us as Nathan made another goal. “Get your hands out of her shirt.”
“Warming them up,” Luke said.
“Wear your gloves.”
“You’ve got gloves?” I snapped at Luke. I should have known, but had gotten caught up in the moment, not thinking of them. I wasn’t really annoyed, but he had ice fingers.
“Maybe,” he said. “But you’re a better heater.”
I pushed to try to knock him back over into the sand, but he was too strong and remained upright. He yanked his hands out of my pockets, capturing my hands and grinning.
He had such a wicked, yet warming smile. I had to scramble out of his lap; my heart was melting too much around him.
When I made it back to the center of our soccer field, Kota called for Nathan. They were going to move the table out a little and wanted an extra hand taking all the stuff off and carrying it over.
Gabriel turned up the radio. It was a little hard to hear around the waves, so he faced it our way and turned it up loud. “Oh my god, this song is awesome,” he said. He twisted around again, kicking the ball away where it rolled into a hill of sand and stopped. He dashed toward me, snagging my hands and pulling me toward the stereo and then to a section of smooth sand in front of it. “Come on, Trouble. You’ve got to learn this one.”
I didn’t recognize the song at first until I heard the guitar intro as we got closer. “Beat It?” I asked.
“Michael Jackson.” He positioned me in front of himself and then backed off a couple steps. He started snapping his fingers. “Learn this. Next time we go to a club, we’ll do it.”
I hesitated, looking at the other guys, but they were busy moving around supplies for the
picnic. I’d danced once in front of them before. I focused on Gabriel moving around and I tried doing the same thing next to him.
Gabriel stopped instantly, snapped his fingers again at me and then pointed to the spot beside him. “No, no, just watch first. I don’t want you to learn it backwards.”
How do you learn a dance backwards? I grunted, stopping. I learned better by diving in. Luke sat on the ice chest next to the stereo, turning up the sound more.
Gabriel started swinging his arm out, snapping his fingers. He did some hip swivels and spins. The more he did, the more I vaguely remembered a music video with this song and the dance he was doing.
Gabriel did the moves again and started explaining how he was swinging his body. He clapped his palms together, gesturing to me. “Come on, you do it now. Luke, start the song over.”
Luke pushed a button and the song stopped suddenly and then started fresh from the intro. I stood quietly at Gabriel’s left. He started snapping his fingers. I snapped mine. His arms went up and slid down. I did it. He pumped his arms out. I followed.
I repeated every move. We replayed the song from the start again and I was about a half step behind him for each movement.
By the second chorus, I had at least that chorus part and was keeping in time with him.
“Oh my god, you’re beautiful,” Gabriel said. He ran at me after we’d done the chorus and caught me around the waist, swinging me off the ground and then brought me back down into a hug. He kissed my eyebrow. “You and I, Trouble. You’re the only girl who can keep the fuck up.”
He’d kissed me so openly that I glanced at the others, but no one said anything about it, even though I had to think at least some of them had seen it. They were letting things slip a little. Kota was going to start asking about things.
Luke hit the repeat button on the stereo and jumped up. “Let’s do it.”
Gabriel positioned himself a step in front. Luke and I took up positions just behind him. When the chorus started, I let the guys start first and I joined them a half bar later. I followed Luke, trying to be his match. Occasionally Gabriel would spin out and do his own thing, but for the most part, we synced up.
Nathan strolled over, followed by Kota and the others. Silas hit the repeat button again when the song ended.
I was blushing now that the others were watching, but I wasn’t about to stop or mess up. Nathan surprised me by jumping in after the first chorus. He fell in step next to me and followed me closely. I thought I’d trip over him but he managed to stay out from underfoot. When it looked like he was staying, I moved over a bit, still behind Gabriel, and Luke stepped aside to give me more room.
Gabriel might have taken the lead, but Luke danced more smoothly than any of them. He swung his hips with a dip and tucked his knee in at certain spots that made it look cooler. I tried to mimic his moves, but he was much faster than me. Gabriel could sing, though, and did. Nathan mouthed the words and did okay with the dancing.
I was going into another turn when I spotted Kota holding up his cell phone. I thought he was taking a picture but he kept holding it up.
When the song finally ended, I was breathless after dancing for so long. Luke fell on his butt on the sand. Gabriel practiced a few moves and Nathan picked the sand off of his shoes. I went over to Kota as he lowered his phone and hit a button.
“Taking pictures?” I asked.
“Video,” he said. He hit the replay button to show me. The other guys were visible, but mostly the camera was on me. My cheeks heated as I watched myself on the small screen. I had my head turned a lot, watching Luke and the others and the video captured every time I slowed down or misstepped.
Gabriel came to stand behind me, looking at the screen. “I want a copy,” he said. “Sang and I could do YouTube.”
“No YouTube,” Kota said.
“Aw,” Gabriel said.
“I’m not allowed?” I asked.
Kota shot a look at Gabriel, as if blaming him for my question. He sighed and turned to me. “We want to try to keep you as low profile as possible.”
“Why? What does low profile mean?”
“Sorry, Sang,” he said. “No getting famous for you.”
“I don’t want to be famous,” I said and meant it. Famous meant a lot of attention, and I barely tolerated what I got at school now. I couldn’t imagine being someone really famous and having all those eyeballs on me like Victor had to deal with on occasion.
Kota smiled and swept a fingertip across my cheek. “Good.”
“Do I have to be low profile for the Academy? Is it so I’d be able to get in?”
Kota said nothing, but winked at me and turned away back toward the table. He must not be able to tell me that much, I thought. Victor caught my eye and he winked at me, too. He picked up my hand where Kota left off.
“Hey!” a voice shouted.
Victor released my hand quickly, stepping around in front of me as a shield.
Nathan pointed down the beach. “From there,” he said. Everyone turned, eyes darting toward where the voice was coming from.
There was a group of people coming from the southern part of the beach, walking our way. One ran ahead of the others, waving his hand to get our attention.
“I thought we had the place to ourselves,” Victor said in a low voice.
“The Academy has this whole place,” North said coming up from behind us. He stared ahead out at the approaching group, squinting his dark eyes, a hand lifted to his brow to shield the sun. “Unless it’s park rangers, they’ve got to be Academy. They aren’t dressed like rangers.”
“How do we find out if they are without asking directly?” I asked.
Victor turned his head back toward the people approaching. He remained in front of me, standing close. “Random,” he said.
I knew it meant something, but in my panic, I couldn’t remember what. Kota told us to stay put, breaking away from our group with North and Silas following. We inched forward to stay within earshot but held back.
The group consisted of three guys out front with three girls trailing behind them at a slower pace.
When the three guys got close enough that Kota could talk to them, the lead one spoke. “Caught you all dancing. Are we missing the party already?”
My cheeks burned in embarrassment. They had seen us? I ducked a half step behind Victor, putting my cheek to his shoulder to peek around. That they had watched us dancing made me super self-conscious.
Kota held out his hand toward the guy who had spoken. “Taco,” he said.
Taco?
The guy smiled and looked Kota in the eye as he shook his hand and said, “Copernicium.”
Kota’s head bobbed in an approving nod. Silas and North relaxed behind him.
I remembered suddenly that if Kota said something random, and the other guy said something random as well, that was a sign that they were Academy. Anyone else would have asked why he said taco.
“That’s number one-twelve, right?” Kota asked.
“Of course. Much better than the old name,” the guy said. “Did you hear Japan might get to name a periodic element soon?” I couldn’t see much of his actual face, but he was wearing jeans, a blue sweatshirt, and had on a New York Yankees baseball cap. He was the same height as North. The guys behind him were a little shorter, but broader.
All of them were casually dressed. One guy was just wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt but had his hands in his pockets like he was cold. The guys looked to be eighteen, maybe a little older. The girls looked older than that, like twenty-five.
Looking at their group, I suddenly felt so young and small. Would I be the youngest here this week?
“I’m Ian,” New York guy said.
“Kota,” Kota replied.
“This camp is better than the one from a few years ago,” Ian said. He adjusted the cap higher on his head. “The one with the outdoor showers.”
“We didn’t know another team was coming in today,” Kota said.
>
“We weren’t going to, but then we didn’t have anything to do today. At least my team didn’t. Thought we’d at least come check out the place.” He turned to the girls.
The three girls stood close together, and I got the feeling they had followed the guy team over but they weren’t really familiar with them. “Us, too,” said one of them. She had long brown hair, wore a brown sweater, and had brown glasses. “We wanted to set our tent up. We like getting to places early.”
“We did a sweep of the camp,” Ian said. “There’s a couple of girl rangers that live in a trailer on the grounds, and the guy is in the booth right now. He’ll leave for the night. I hope no one else decides to come in after he takes off later.”
“There’s another campground, though,” the girl in brown said. “It’s a few miles out, but other campers might stop here, thinking this is it. It’s a camp for hunters.”
As they started talking about the campgrounds, what was close, and where their tents were, Nathan, Luke, and Gabriel moved in, joining Kota.
I lingered behind, standing next to Victor. He started to move forward but stopped when I grabbed his shirt and didn’t move.
He paused and looked over his shoulder at me with his eyebrows up, a spark of curiosity simmering the fire in his eyes. “Sang? You okay?”
Was I ready for this? After this morning, I’d assumed I had a whole night with the guys to myself before I needed to prepare myself for meeting other people. My heart was beating a mile a minute. What was I supposed to do? I looked at the boys and the girls but wasn’t sure what would happen now.
Suddenly, one of the guys looked right at me and nodded. “What about her team?” he said. “We didn’t see another girl team around.” He spoke directly to me then. “Where’s your campsite?”
Kota started to do a side shuffle to block me from view but then stopped, shoulders relaxing. “She’s with us,” he said.
Curiosity filled all of their eyes. Ian spoke, “She’s new, huh? That’s cool.” He smiled at me. “Sorry, I don’t mean to talk around you. There’s plenty of new recruits showing up this week. You won’t be the only one.”