Camp Boyfriend

CAMP BOYFRIEND

J.K. Rock

Copyright © 2013 by Joanne Rock and Karen Rock

Sale of the paperback edition of this book without its cover is unauthorized.

Spencer Hill Contemporary, an imprint of Spencer Hill Press

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Contact: Spencer Hill Press, PO Box 247, Contoocook, NH 03229, USA

Please visit our website at
www.spencerhillcontemporary.com

First Edition: July 2013.
J.K Rock
Camp Boyfriend: a novel / by J.K. Rock – 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary:
Teen girl gets caught between her old self and her reinvented self, and two boys, one in each world.

The authors acknowledge the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this fiction: Advanced Placement, Bambi, Batman, BMW, Breathalyzer, Bugles, Calvin Klein Obsession, Cheetos, Comic-Con, Diet Coke, Dungeons and Dragons, Elmo, Energizer Bunny, Eveready, ex-lax, Facebook, Field of Dreams, Frisbee, Gatorade, Geological Society of America, Gollum, GQ magazine, Gucci, Harry Potter, Hayden Planetarium, Hershey, IMAX, iPhone, Jell-O, Juicy Couture, Keds, Lamborghini, Light Saber,
Lord of the Rings
, Magic Marker, Mario Kart, Mercedes-Benz, Motel 6, National Geographic Channel, Olympics, Ouija board, Pepé le Pew, Pepto-Bismol, Peter Pan, Poison Ivy, Polo,
Popstar!
Magazine, Pringles, PSATs,
Seventeen
magazine, Silly String, Skunk-Off,
Survivor
, Swatch, Tabasco, Thriller, TiVo, Twitter, U-Haul, Wizard of Oz.

Cover design by Jennifer Rush
Interior layout and chapter artwork by Marie Romero

ISBN 978-1-939392-50-3 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-939392-51-0 (e-book)

Printed in the United States of America

To the wonderful students that we’ve worked with past and present, thank you for inspiring us with your lives and stories. We hope we’ve done them justice!

HONORABLE MENTION: Lake Juniper Point Director: Mr. Woodrow (“Gollum”): Most likely to have his whistle surgically removed from his stomach
.

Chapter One

Ten, nine, eight…

At Jefferson Davis High School, we drummed our fingers on our desks and half-rose from our seats, counting down the last seconds to summer vacation. I held my breath and eyed the wall clock. Would I go through with tonight’s plans to sabotage my so-called perfect life?

Seven, six, five…

Today, everyone was actually psyched to be here. From slacker to brainiac, we listened to the ticking and waited for our break to officially begin. If only my life was on TiVo—then I could fast-forward to the fun.

Four, three, two
…

Even the teachers were excited. Music had vibrated through their lounge door all day, their laughter so loud our red-faced principal looked ready to give
them
detention. You’d think they’d survived the zombie apocalypse when we’d barely survived their burial mounds of homework. But we forgave each other—all sins forgotten—when the school year ended…all except the one I was about to commit.

One!

You couldn’t hear the bell ring for the collective cheer. Fists pumped the air. Notebooks sailed into the trash. Sneakers beat a path to the door out of Mrs. Kazinski’s health class. Goodbye to a semester’s torturous viewing of human sexuality films—most of which weren’t half as enlightening as the girls I sat with at lunch.

Kids screamed, shouted, and high-fived without penalties from the absent hall monitors. If only I could celebrate with them. The end of school began my indentured servitude to my older sister while she planned her Texas-sized wedding. And that was just the start of my summer problems.

“Hey, Lauren.” My boyfriend, three-sport standout Matt Butler, grabbed my hand as soon as I hit the corridor of sophomore lockers. “Ready to ditch this place for a couple months?”

He gave me a lazy stare that could turn most of the female student body into babbling idiots. Even our principal, sixty-something-year-old Ms. Collins, must have had heart palpitations around Matt, considering the way she smiled at him and let him get away with anything. She was too old to be a cougar, so we’d dubbed her a saber-tooth tiger.

But Matt’s green eyes, dark hair, and retro sideburns were undeniably hot. And the fact that he was all abs and square shoulders didn’t hurt either.

“In a minute,” I stalled, trying hard to smile despite the dread balling up in my stomach. “I’ve got to clean out my locker.” My solar system magnets came off easily, but I had to abandon my ‘Save Pluto’ sticker. Hopefully whoever had my locker next year would appreciate it.

“Look out! Coming through!” One of Matt’s football friends—a huge lineman they called Crash—barreled down the hall on a skateboard. He knocked over freshmen like bowling pins, propelled on two sides by a couple of running backs who lived in the weight room.

Matt pounded knuckles with the oversized musclehead while I grabbed a NASA sweatshirt and stuffed it in my bag.

“Matt and Lauren,” Crash shouted, winking at me while he held out his arms like a surfer to ride the waves of discarded folders and test papers. “You’ll be at the beach tonight, right?”

My gut knotted even more, and for once I wished it was only PMS. Actually, maybe it was the flu. That would make an awesome excuse to miss the party at Turtle Creek later, but it would only delay what had to be done.

“We’ll be there,” Matt called, loud enough for his friend to hear even though Crash was halfway to the other end of the hall by now.

Matt, meanwhile, had never taken his eyes off me.

“Won’t we, babe?” He ran the back of his knuckles along my cheek, a sweet gesture that made me second-guess my plan for tonight.

Oh God.

My stomach cramps increased in velocity, knocking into one another like molecules in collision theory. I distracted myself by watching Crash and his buddies. They made no effort to avoid a couple of students carrying the hovercraft that had taken top honors at the school’s science fair.

“Whoa!” Crash shouted as he plowed into it, making me wince. All of that hard work and ingenuity—gone in seconds.

Matt turned at my expression and surveyed the damage. Grinning, he shot his football buddies a thumbs-up sign, oblivious to the feelings of the kids who’d poured their hearts into this piece. They must have been crushed. Witnessing Matt’s reaction while our valedictorian fought back tears erased any doubts I had about tonight. Call me crazy, but I was breaking up with the hottest guy in our school.

“I’ll be at the beach,” I told him, backing away. I didn’t care who saw me rush toward the destroyed hovercraft to help. I had a soft spot for the school nerds.

After all, I used to be one.

“See you at seven-thirty?” Matt called through the hysterically laughing crowd.

“Sounds great.” My gritted teeth flashed in a bright smile. It was an expression I’d perfected during my transformation from geek to popular girl this year after moving half-way across the country to a new school. Amazing what losing my glasses and braces and joining the cheerleading squad had accomplished. Sometimes I felt like a science experiment gone wrong, like a broken hovercraft lying in pieces on the school floor.

“I need to talk to you.” He smiled in a way that had heads turning toward me from every direction.

Matt attracted attention. At one time, that kind of flirty look would have sent me running to fill ten pages in my diary. But I’d seen through Matt’s gorgeous exterior. Laughing with his friends when they mocked or pranked other kids made him as guilty as if he’d done it himself. I’d been too dazzled by his attention to notice at first. Now it bugged me and I couldn’t wait to get some space. Hopefully our “talk” wouldn’t be about something serious. How awful if, after months without the “L” word, he said it tonight. I definitely needed to tell him my news first.

Summer camp started next week and I couldn’t return to the Smoky Mountains while I remained Matt’s girlfriend. I had other plans for my eight weeks at Camp Juniper Point. I missed my old friends and our goofy fun, like staying up to watch predawn meteor showers or casting Harry Potter spells with wands we made out of twigs.

“Same here,” I muttered as I helped pick up the pieces of a project I wished I’d done myself.

I was over being popular, and I was done with being Matt’s girlfriend. I’d decided as much last night when I’d gotten an email from Seth Reines.

My camp boyfriend.

* * *

I slipped inside my house and eased the mammoth door shut, the central air conditioning raising goose bumps on my arms. One of many things I resented about my new Texas hometown was that you could sweat one minute and freeze the next. Speaking of icy things, my mom and sister were quarreling in the living room to my right. Again.

“But Momma, this bride’s wearing semi-gloss lipstick. Look,” Kellianne drawled—the only one of us who’d acquired a southern accent besides our Texan mother. As for Dad, he’d barely said a word since being laid off from his geology professorship at Cornell University and taking a job at Mom’s family’s oil company. Meanwhile, I stubbornly refused to call anyone “darlin’” and held on to my upstate New York accent. It was the only relic of the old me to survive the move. Well, that and my telescope.