“No way!” Chels rolled her eyes. “Can you please disappear, nerd? Breathe in our direction again, and I’m telling a teacher you flashed us your tiny dick.”
Hurt flashed in his expression as he turned to me.
“Chels.” I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be a bitch.”
“What? He’s a lanky troll.”
People around us laughed.
His eyes locked on mine.
Time stood still.
I chose myself.
Instead of him.
“Sorry, Marlo. Not now.”
“But—”
“I said not now!” I roared. “God, can you just leave me alone?”
“What a loser.” Chels laughed.
Everyone joined in.
And then my ex came toward us with a few guys from the football team. It all happened so fast, the fight. The blood. Marlo on the ground looking up at me like I was the devil.
And I walked away.
I walked away and didn’t look back.
Tears welled in my eyes as Marlo looked down at me with that same expression, like I was the cause of all the pain the world — the major cause of his, when he was the only person who had ever kissed me like I mattered.
“Change your fucking shoes,” he gritted through his teeth. “Try not to sleep with the first guy who smiles at you, and do your job or you’re gone.”
“Fine,” I said with false cheer.
He shook his head and walked off, leaving me feeling nothing but shame and remorse.
“YOU LOOK PISSED,” Jen pointed out at the bon fire that night. I shook my head and ignored her curious stare. It wasn’t the first time she looked at me like I needed to be put in my place. But Jen grew up in the suburbs — not that I held it over her head, the biggest issue she had as a high school student was what to wear to prom, and if she should try out for cheerleading. Her college experience was much the same. No judgment, I loved her like a sister, but she didn’t get it.
There would always be people who had it easy and were just too ignorant to realize it — she was one of those people.
“Sorry Jen, it’s just one of those days…” I finally answered. “And just in case you were wondering, kinda hard not to be pissed on the first day of camp, right? Keeps the campers freaked a bit?” I tried for a smile.
She narrowed her eyes, she both saw too much and knew me too well.
Yeah, she wasn’t buying shit.
Probably because I wasn’t selling it worth shit.
The two hundred pushups had helped a little.
The quick two-mile sprint had done nothing.
“Is everything set up?” Gravel crunched beneath my Converses as I made my way over to the large fire that Jackson was struggling to set up. “Matches, bro, use matches.” I tossed him a pack
He caught them with a wink then gave me a middle finger salute.
Some of the senior teens started making their way toward us. Everything felt like it was spiraling out of control. It was my last year directing before moving out West. I loved my job. I loved the teens. The camp. Teaching. I loved what it stood for. Why the hell was my last year going to be tainted with visions of the only girl I’d kissed in high school?
Was this some sort of punishment? And what had I ever done to piss off the universe that much?
I wiped my face with my hands and then threw my hat on the ground.
“Marlon?” One of the senior girls sashayed over to me, hands on hips, short as hell shorts and a wide come-hither grin that I was sure worked with every single boy in her class. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her smile promised secrets and heated kisses, I knew her type. I stayed far, far away. Besides, girls like that were trouble, and we had a very strict policy at camp. “Can we eat your hot dog now?”
People around her gasped. Oh, good. A blunt one.
“Oh, my gosh!” She covered her mouth with her hands. “I’m so sorry. I meant can we eat the hot dogs now?”
My ass.
I forced a smile, I didn’t feel. And so it begins! “Sure thing…” I waited for her to offer me her name, which she would.
“Erika.” She bit down on her lower lip. Yeah it was going to be a long two months.
“Great,” I said with warmth and false affection. “Erika, why don’t you grab some food? Jackson?”
I always made Jackson take on the flirty ones. He loved the attention and had no qualms about bluntly putting the girls in their place when they tried to flirt with me or any of the staff members. As much as he survived off sex and air, he knew what our rules were and found pleasure in making the girls think he wanted them when he was too busy with, in his words, a grown ass woman back at his cabin.
Basically, he was a creep.
But he handled it with more finesse, so I let him and stayed out of the way.
“Yeah?” He looked up glanced between us and grinned. “Hey there, sweetheart, need help with the hot dogs?”
She nodded.
He jumped to his feet and trailed after her.
“Don’t forget our rules,” I whispered under my breath.
He rolled his eyes and gave me a thumbs-up then trailed after her.
“He’s going to be screwing her sideways by Friday,” Brax’s voice said behind me.
“Then he’s going to get fired.”
One could only hope. He was already sniffing around Ray more than I would like. Not that it was my problem; she could spread her legs for whoever she wanted.
Damn, when had I turned into such a prick?
“You should do something before he takes it too far and her rich family tries to sue the camp.” Brax elbowed me.
“Her body her choice, besides, this is a safe place, maybe she’ll learn that flirting with men is a hell of a lot more painful than sleeping with the boys in her class. I’ll pull her aside after she comes to the lodge begging me to fire him for flirting with her, and I’ll make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
“Shit.” Brax shook his head at me. “When did you turn into such a dick?”
Hah, it was like he read my mind. Fantastic. I looked up at him and saw Ray make her way toward us. She’d changed into tight skinny jeans, converse, and put a black beanie over her golden princess hair.
“Ah!” Brax snapped his fingers and whistled. “I see.”
I grunted and threw a stick into the fire.
“Ex-girlfriend?”
“Hah.” I felt the heaviness on my chest; it pressed down, it laughed just like she used to laugh at me with her friends and the entire fucking school. “Not in this lifetime.”
“Revenge sex,” Brax said under his breath.
“What?” I jerked my head to his so fast my neck almost cracked. “Explain?”
“Revenge sex is the best sex, or so I’ve heard. Play nice…” Brax lowered his voice. “Fuck her out of your system, then leave her. You’re left satisfied, with the upper hand, and you prove to yourself and to her that it’s nothing.”
“I thought about it,” I said, feeling like the lowest human being on the planet for even admitting it out loud. “But the thought of even pretending that she’s anything other than a spoiled bitch really puts me in a bad mood.”
“No. Shocker. You don’t say?” Brax rolled his eyes just as Jen strolled up.
“What are we talking about?” Jen was way too cheerful. I didn’t want her cheer. Or her smiles. At least she seemed to be over our little altercation.
“Nothing.” I flashed a grin and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “Have I ever told you I appreciate you?”
“Um, are you feeling okay?” Jen pressed the back of her hand to my forehead. “Because two hours ago I was afraid you were going to run someone over with the camp truck.”
“Ah, that’s still a very real possibility,” I joked.
She and Brax burst out laughing while Ray grabbed a hot dog and sat next to a few girls who looked so lost it was almost laughable. They had no phone, ergo they had no direction.
/> Conversation?
Humans?
Holy shit.
How did one even begin?
She tried. She really did. I’d definitely give her an A for effort. She was animated, and her smile was friendly. But both girls got up, pale, and ran off, like they were ready to puke.
I snorted out a laugh earning her attention across the campfire.
The blaze roared to life like it was using our hate as its fuel.
And then she held the hot dog to her lips and parted them.
My breath hitched as she took in a huge bite, her eyes locked on mine like she had her mouth on me, her teeth, her tongue swirled around catching bits of ketchup that had hit the corners of her mouth, as she chewed she stuck a finger in her mouth and licked it.
What the hell kind of game was she playing?
“Like I said,” Brax whispered under his breath and leaned closer to me so Jen couldn’t hear. “Revenge sex.”
“She’ll think she won.” I turned to him while Jen tended to the fire, oblivious to my dark thoughts. My pain. The sour direction my stomach had taken the minute I saw Ray walk up.
“So let her think she has the upper hand, then pull the rug out from underneath her. Easy.”
“You need to stop hanging out with Jackson. Bastard’s tainting your soul,” I joked, toying with the idea more and more, tossing it around like a ball in the empty dangerous parts of my head. The ones where ideas were born or killed.
“I just hate seeing you like this,” Brax said. “You’re one of my best friends, plus it will keep all the teens from salivating over you if you have someone to focus on. It’s a win-win.”
Interesting.
It typically took the first month for the girls to realize that I wasn’t interested, and it was annoying as hell.
It was a thought.
Sleep with her. Use her as a human shield. Then pretend like it never happened, like we never existed. Just the way she did four years ago.
She took another bite.
And then flipped me off.
I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling then turned to Brax and said. “Consider it done.”
ONE NIGHT DOWN, a million more to go.
I was staff, so I didn’t have a cabin of screaming girls that I had to watch over at night, which almost made it worse. I was lonely.
So lonely.
I wiped a tear from my eye as I grabbed the flashlight and the rest of my shower caddy and slowly left my spider-infested cabin and made my way toward the bathroom.
Any time after ten, the staff bathrooms were co-ed.
Which sucked for me, since the campfire had just ended, but I couldn’t stand sitting in my cabin all by myself with my thoughts, plus I smelled like smoke.
I made a mental note to do a little sprucing up later that week, because my cabin looked like it was built in the twenties and had just had shitty updates until 2018. I was probably going to die in a fire, or it was going to just collapse on me while I slept in my bunk.
Yay!
With a shudder, I opened the bathroom door. Steam billowed out. Every shower was taken. I sighed in impatience and waited near the wall.
What kind of camp had only six showers for the staff anyways?
At least the room was clean. Stark white. It smelled like coconut body wash and Old Spice.
One of the showers turned off.
I pressed off the wall only to see Jackson pull open the curtain and grin at me. “Hey, friend.”
I groaned.
“What? I thought we were doing this whole friends thing.”
“Could you please not be naked during this conversation?” I pleaded turning away while he grabbed his towel.
“I can’t help that I’m packing.” He said with amusement. “Okay you can look now.”
I turned back. The guy had a nice six pack, a V that would make any woman salivate, and enough muscles to make me slightly attracted. It was the personality that killed it.
“Like what you see?” He sauntered toward me.
I shrugged. “I’ve seen better.”
“Doubtful.” He nodded like I was cute for lying. “I didn’t use all the hot water, but I may have fantasized a few times about a certain pretty girl.”
“Ew!” I shoved him while he fell into hysterics.
“I’m kidding!” He nodded back. “But it was tempting.”
“Oh, I’m sure it was, so many girls, only two hands and one dick. Poor guy!”
“Ha-ha!” He patted me on the shoulder. “I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship, don’t you?”
“Undecided.” I patted him right back, side stepped him, and turned the shower back on.
“Later, friend!” The door opened and closed, letting some steam out. I huffed out a breath and slipped off my flip flops just as the door opened again.
“Jackson, seriously—”
Not Jackson. Shit.
Marlo was standing there shirtless with a towel hanging over his shoulder, his caddy in his right hand, and wearing a pair of low slung shorts that made me drop my eyes to the impressive band of muscle around his midsection. Damn. What did he do to get abs like that? Just cut out all food that made a person want to live and survive off of dry chicken and beef jerky? Not an ounce of fat. It was almost disappointing, not being able to find a flaw on the outside when there were numerous ones on the inside.
“Disappointed?” Marlo tilted his head.
My first thought? Impossible. He was beautiful. The next thought was of our one night together, his mouth between my breasts, the way he clawed at me for more, the way I squeezed my thighs around him and begged him to go deeper.
“Uhhhhh,” I had absolutely no non-sexual thoughts in my head. “No?”
“Is that a question?” He smirked.
I’d forgotten about his smirk.
The way it made him look dangerous, sexy, like the bad boy riding in on the motorcycle, the guy you don’t bring home to Mom because he looks like his only goal in life is to live freely through the prison system and get a tattoo on his neck.
“Are you done?” He pointed to the empty shower.
“No, I was just getting in.” I turned around, trying my best to ignore him. I had a plan, take the longest hottest shower known to mankind and leave him with nothing but cold water and pieces of my hair stuck to the walls just to disgust him and piss him off, maybe a strand would land on him and send him into fits of hysteria. One could only hope!
“Better hurry,” he said with another smirk. “The other showers are taken, and they shut off the water at eleven.”
I gawked. “Are you serious?”
“No, I’m shitting you.” He grinned like we were friends capable of teasing one another, having a relationship that wasn’t filled with hate. I didn’t like how hopeful it made me feel. How dangerous that feeling was.
Friendship.
I’d never had real friends. Real people who cared about what happened to me. He’d been my friend that night.
Offered his shoulder to cry on.
And then his body.
I shuddered and let out a rough exhale. “My cabin’s creepy. I really wanted a long shower.”
Why had I just offered more ammunition? Information?
“I’ll walk you back.” He shrugged like it wasn’t a favor. Just as another shower turned off. It was a staff member I didn’t recognize. The shower was right next to mine. Marlo started stripping right in front of me while my hands were still on my own shirt waiting to peel it off. “Better hurry or I’ll be done before you.” That was the last phrase I was able to process before he slid his sweats down to his ankles and hung them up on the hook. Muscle, muscle everywhere. I was staring. I didn’t mean to stare. I couldn’t help it. His ass.
He had an ass.
My weakness in life was a guy who had an ass bigger than mine, hey a girl could dream!
I quickly turned away, stripped, and got into the shower. It was torture, the smell of his soa
p, the sounds of him slathering his body. Why was I being so stupid? My body was completely failing me with memories of our one night together over and over again.
“Let me love you,” he whispered against my neck. I told him I was wasted. But I remembered everything. I nodded as he slipped my bra down my shoulders and tossed it to the floor like a pro. His mouth was hot and eager against mine. I could taste whiskey on his tongue, smell grass on his skin.
He was stronger than I imagined. Probably from all the hard labor.
We were in my room.
My parents were gone.
They were always gone.
I’d just broken up with my boyfriend at my own party. Marlo had checked on me out of drunken guilt.
And there we were.
Naked.
He ran his fingers down my stomach. I arched up. With every touch, he mesmerized me.
I shook the memories away just about the same time I heard Marlo’s rough voice. “You tasted like candied rum and broken dreams.”
I smiled despite myself. “You tasted like whiskey and smelled like fresh grass and mint tea.”
“Your skin still as smooth as it felt against my tongue?” His voice lowered.
Holy shit.
I squeezed my eyes shut and ran my hands down my body. “Sure feels like it.”
“Fuck.” I could hear him bang something against the side of the shower and then. “Are you touching yourself?”
“Are you?”
“Guys, could you not?” Brax said from one of the showers. “I have a very vivid imagination, and I don’t want to make it so that the only way I can get off is if I hear you guys discuss whiskey and fresh cut grass. That cool with you?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. What just happened?
“No problem!” Marlo laughed like it really wasn’t, when my entire body felt like someone had just electrocuted me and put me back under water holding a blow drier.
The shower shut off.
I finished up, grabbed my towel, and then tried to dress myself in the small shower square. I ended up getting my sweatshirt a bit wet, but it still worked better than changing in front of Marlo.
He was already dressed and waiting for me by the door, same clothes, same smirk. As if our sexually charged conversation hadn’t happened at all.