Camp Forget-Me-Not (25 page)

Brooke got a hit? Panic spiked through me as I worried I’d missed a ball that came my way, but it was Alex in centerfield who scrambled to retrieve a line drive. Turned out Brooke had been a talented softball player before she’d started singing, so she was actually their number two hitter. All afternoon, my mind was a million miles away today as my summer at camp ticked down to real life. I knew our team had been winning before this inning because Brittany kept us updated on the score along with her progress in cleaning up the dugout every time we came off the field. Last time, we’d been ahead 5-4 before the bottom of the ninth inning, with two new spider webs safely relocated to under the bleachers. No surprise that that bench closest to our dugout was now empty.

When Brooke stopped on third base and the crowd quieted, I looked to see who was up next. The number three hitter. Which would be…

Nick.

“The winning run comes to the plate,” Jake shouted from Nick’s dugout in mock-game commentary.

“Come on, Nick!” Brooke trilled from third. “Bring me home!”

Nick strode into the batter’s box, and I could see some kind of exchange between him and his brother, who was our catcher. Zach rose out of his squat behind home plate, and once again, Gollum seemed to be settling Nick down. I also noticed that Nick’s father didn’t stand at the fence when Nick batted the way he did when Zach came to the plate.

It wouldn’t be enough for Brooke to score, although that would tie the game and send us into extra innings. Nick would need a big hit here.

Should I root for him to be humbled after all the times he’d waved the whole competitive flag in my face this summer? Or should I hope he got a big hit and showed his father that Zach wasn’t the only one who could crush a ball with a stick?

When Nick swung and missed, my chest tightened. Who was I kidding? A part of me would always be on Nick’s side, even if I needed to be on the opposite team from him. Just because I couldn’t be with him didn’t mean I couldn’t root for him. A little, at least. Especially since his father was currently studying his phone up in the bleachers. The jerk.

Come on, Nick
.

For once, Brooke and I wanted the same thing.

Buster was our pitcher and he wound up. Stepped. Let loose a fast ball high and outside.

Nick tattooed that ball so hard I think they saw it on the other side of Lake Juniper. The dejected moans from my team were audible only for a split second before the cheers from Nick’s team took over. Brooke crossed the plate and waited for Nick to finish running the bases before leaping on him. His team crowded around to congratulate him. Zach peeled off his catcher’s mask before trudging into our dugout.

Nick’s father was off the bleachers before Nick even made it home. A woman lingered by the fence though, and I was pretty sure it was his mom, even though she hadn’t sat with Nick’s dad. So maybe someone besides me—and Brooke—had been rooting for Nick to get a hit. Even if he was way too competitive. Even if he’d changed from the guy I’d fallen for so long ago.

I was happy he’d gotten what he wanted because I sure hadn’t.

Pulling off my baseball mitt, I stalked toward the dugout past the home plate party. Nick stepped away long enough to catch my eye. Or tried to, anyway. He stepped in front of me, but instead of a big victory grin on his face, his eyes looked sort of bleak.

“Kayla, can we talk?” He put a hand on my forearm, and even now, my heart did a hop-step that stirred butterflies.

“About your big win?” I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic. I just couldn’t imagine what he wanted to talk to me about anymore. “I can’t, Nick.”

I was done letting my old feelings for Nick lead me around. I wasn’t a follower anymore.

“Just for a minute—” He might have said more, but Brooke burst away from the rest of the crowd to grab him by the arm.

“Come on, Nicky! You’re our hero!” she cooed, drawing him away from me.

“It’s okay. The game’s really over now,” I reminded him. “You won.”

“Hey, Kayla!” Cameron shouted to me as I walked down to the beach for the luau party later that night.

Instead of a traditional barbecue to top off the Family Picnic Day, Gollum had suggested a luau to the camp staff and everyone had jumped in on the idea.

“Wanna get lei’d?”

Cameron held out an arm full of brightly colored silk floral garlands. He wore a blue one around his neck and had twisted a green one into a kind of floral crown. It matched his blue-and-green beach trunks and a white tank. With his tanned good looks and his sandy hair tipped blond from the sun, he definitely made a sort-of tempting offer. It’s a shame I didn’t like him that way. It could have been a fun summer if I had.

“Cam, I’ve told you—”

He rolled his eyes and strode closer, picking out a pink lei to hand me as his flip-flops smacked his heels. Behind him, the beach was already full of families, alumni, and three small bonfires. There were even a few little flames out on the water in big, floating floral candles that must be anchored somehow on the bottom of the lake. With a food tent draped in paper flowers and tables all covered in bright grass skirting, the party looked really festive.

“Kayla, you’re too easy to tease, you know that?” Cameron dropped the pink garland over my head and grinned at me. “It took most of the summer, but I get it…you’re not going to give Cam the Man another chance are you?”

“I’m sorry—”

“Don’t say that.” His eyes went serious, which was a rare thing for my ex-boyfriend. “You don’t owe anyone an apology for a damn thing. Not me and not the hotshot snowboarder.”

It was the first time he’d ever really acknowledged my old friendship with Nick, and I wasn’t sure what to say. Maybe I frowned or something because his expression relaxed and he surprised me by taking my hand and squeezing it in a friend kind of way.

“What?” My heart thumped. If live-in-the-moment Cam had guessed my secret, then anyone else could have.

He shrugged and let go of my hand. “I don’t know the deal with you two, but if you’re still friends, you might try talking to him. His dad was a total jerkoff to him before his folks left. I don’t know what the deal is there, but dude, they put way too much pressure on that kid.”

Nick’s parents left?

It wasn’t my problem, I reminded myself. But the way his family changed him…it sucked.

“We’re not friends like that anymore,” I told Cam, my throat catching on the words. I fingered the pink silk flowers on the garland he’d given me. “This is really pretty. Thanks, Cam.”

“Okay, then.” He nodded. “Just thought you’d want to know. But I’m glad you like the lei. You think Piper would like one?” He twirled a green garland around his finger and looked down the beach where a bunch of the Munchies’ Manor girls were dancing. It looked sort of like the Cupid Shuffle, but with a lot more rump shaking thanks to Alex’s lead. “She’s into cycling, right? And that’s green.”

“It’s
re
cycling. You’d better get that right if you want to talk to her.” I smiled, imagining them together. It could work. “But yeah, I think she would.” I had to admire Cam. He never quit with the flirting. “But I wouldn’t try the ‘wanna get lei’d’ line on her.”

“Too much?” His tone sounded genuinely surprised.

“Yes! Too much.” Laughing, I started down toward the food tables where Rachel and Brittany tied grass skirts over their shorts. I stopped after a few feet. “And Cam!” I shouted to him as he headed toward the other girls. “Good luck.”

He shot me a thumbs-up sign, the sinking sun behind him leaving a purple smudge of color in the sky.

“Kayla!” Brittany called as I got closer. “Come try the huli huli chicken!” She held up a skewer and waved it like a magic wand. “And do a huli huli dance!”

She swung her hips in a way that turned boys’ heads from all over the beach, her purple skirt layered over white shorts.

I hurried toward them, more than ready to think about hula dances and parties. I needed this. Needed my friends before my whole world imploded this fall. Milan? New Jersey? It was all I could do to think about Juniper Point. I nearly ran right into Nick.

“Hey!” I held my hands out on impact and blinked to process who was suddenly standing in front of me.

Six-foot-plus of handsome boy in a light blue T-shirt with the most troubled eyes I’d ever seen.

“Sorry, Kay,” he mumbled, stepping back. “I wasn’t looking where I was going. Have fun tonight.”

He kept on walking.

“Hey.” I couldn’t just ignore how upset he was, especially with Cam’s words still echoing around in my head. My friends would have to wait. I took a couple of steps to follow him out of the flickering torchlight toward the edge of the beach. “Nick, is everything all right?”

“No.” He stopped in the damp sand but didn’t turn around. Didn’t look at me. “Everything is not all right.”

His shoulders were tense. His fingers clenched tight at his sides. I remembered how he’d found me that first time—practically in tears because I couldn’t climb a steep cliff—and I took a deep breath, wanting to pay back how nice he’d been. He hadn’t ignored me when I’d been upset.

“I know the game didn’t turn out the way you wanted,” I said quietly, walking around him so that we at least stood face to face. “But you have a lot of friends here who think everything you’ve achieved has been amazing.”

“Friends?” He shook his head. “Kayla, no one but you even really knew my name here until this year. I was some forgettable kid. Just because everyone knows me now doesn’t mean anyone really gives a crap about me.” He folded his arms. “You think Brooke would notice me if I wasn’t famous?”

“She likes you for more than that.” At least I hoped she did. I hated to think of Nick being used. It was almost as bad as his father refusing to recognize all Nick had done.

“Well, I’m not sure at all.” He stalked farther from the beach into the trees nearby and dropped down onto a big, flat rock. “But one thing I do know is that I acted like a first-class jackass today during the game and it just proves…”

He shook his head and didn’t finish.

“You didn’t do anything wrong today.” I joined him on the rock, not sitting too close. We stared out at the water.

“I took it too seriously. I did stuff to piss Zach off on purpose. I stood right in front of him when I walked into the batter’s box—it’s like this unwritten rule in baseball that you don’t do that to a catcher. I just—” He cut himself off again and turned to face me. “He got released by the White Sox on Friday. I had no idea because we have no Internet here and my dad didn’t bother telling me about it until after the game.”

“Released?” I drew my feet up onto the rock and hugged my knees as a cooling breeze blew off the water.

“The major-league equivalent of being fired. He basically got cut because he didn’t come back from his injury fast enough and the new catcher they brought up is hitting well.”

“Can’t he just play for another team?”

“Possible but unlikely according to his agent. His career might be over. If someone had bothered to tell me, I would have said something to him. But he drove back to Charlotte and my father stayed to bitch me out.” He propped his elbows on his knees and covered his eyes with one hand. “And I deserved it.”

“Your dad should have told you sooner.” What kind of father played head games like that? “Why don’t you call Zach? He might be glad to hear from you.”

Nick scraped a hand through his hair and looked over at me. “Zach didn’t deserve the B.S. from me. He drove all the way over here from Charlotte after he got released, and I was a total—”

“So call him. Go see Gollum and tell him it’s urgent. He’ll let you use your phone if you tell him what happened.” It was camp, not jail, for crying out loud.

He nodded, but I had the impression he was only half-listening. I swear I could see the thoughts going through his head, the words waiting to get out.

“I know what that pressure’s like, Kayla.” His voice hit a rough note. “The crushing expectations of everyone who’s invested you. It’s a constant head game. The travel is lonely, and the training is relentless.”

Close by us, the luau kicked into high gear as Gollum broke out a ukulele and launched into something he called a Don Ho classic. The warbling tune about a golden moon and silver sea felt like it came from a million miles away from Nick and me.

“I thought you loved snowboarding.” I looked down at his hand on the rock near mine, his skin paler in the moonlight. It was hard to believe there’d been a time I wouldn’t have thought twice about touching him. About holding his hand. “I remember when you told me about how good you’d gotten over the winter and how your friend wanted you to attend tryouts for the U.S. national team. You were so excited.”

“Yeah?” He frowned. “It’s weird. I hardly remember anything about that summer before you—” He stopped himself. Shook his head. “Before we stopped being friends.”

“You were really wound up. You were talking fast and there was this whole new…” I couldn’t think of how to describe it. “…
spark
around you. Snowboarding seemed like a really big deal.”

“I don’t even know what made me tell you about it.”

“It meant a lot to you.” It baffled me that he didn’t remember that day as clearly as I did. I’d gone through that conversation a thousand times, reliving it, wishing it had ended differently. On the beach, Rob took over the musical entertainment, breaking out his guitar to sing a song that had at least been written in this century. It was too dark to really see who was who down by the food tables, but every now and then a glow-in-the-dark football or Frisbee whizzed through the air in a blur of neon green.