First Kiss: The Ghost Bird Series: #10 (The Academy Ghost Bird Series) (22 page)

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.”

Kota coughed. “Yeah, for now, she’s staying at our camp,” he said in a final tone.

“Are you hungry?” North asked, motioning to the picnic area. “We probably have enough hot dogs for everyone.”

Grateful when North changed the subject, I eased closer to Victor, but he didn’t grab my hand. I sensed it might not have been appropriate to do so.

Nathan joined me on my other side. I shared long looks with both him and Victor:
Don’t leave me
.

Maybe they were Academy, but I didn’t want to be separated from either of them. I was suddenly realizing there were going to be other people around, and they’d ask so many questions about me. I wasn’t sure what to tell them—I wasn’t prepared.

I suddenly had a million questions to ask the guys about what I should say. The only thing I’d prepared for was the end when I’d declare that I wanted to stay with the guys.

Nathan and Victor seemed to understand and when we returned to the table, they sat down on the bench, leaving just enough room for me between them.

Ian, Kota, and Silas talked about dragging over another table from a nearby camp and then left to go find the closest one, taking a guy from the other team. The third guy talked to North at the grill, watching as North turned them over with tongs.

The girls sat down on the picnic table bench across from us.

“Do you all want anything to drink?” Luke asked, standing at the far end of the table. He slapped his hand to his face, rolling his eyes. “Why do I feel like I want to say ‘Welcome to Bob’s’ suddenly?”

“I dream about waiting tables at Bob’s sometimes,” Gabriel said. He stood next to Luke and then turned toward one of the coolers that were parked in a sand dune nearby. “We’ve got sodas and water.”

“I could use a coffee,” one of the girls said. She had an oval face and while she had brown hair like the other girls, hers was up in a sloppy bun in the back of her head. She sat to the left of the girl who wore brown, who was in the middle. “But I guess it’s wishful thinking at this point. I only brought instant, but even that won’t taste right without some hot water. I brought an electric stove, but I didn’t see a place to plug it in except for the bathrooms.”

“There’s a picnic area,” Nathan said. “It’s on the map. It’s got a couple of shelter areas, but I didn’t see any outlets. There might be some, though. I think I remember seeing bare lights inside.”

Gabriel opened another cooler and fished out two flavors of Frappuccinos: mocha and vanilla. “I don’t suppose you like these.”

The girl’s eyebrows lifted and she started to smile, reaching out for the vanilla bottle. “It’s coffee and it’s in front of me. I’ll take one. Thanks.”

“You really need to work on your addiction,” the girl in brown said. She tilted her sharp face as she peered over the table to the open ice chest. “I’ll take a Sprite if you have one.”

Gabriel passed me the mocha coffee in his hand and then fished out other drinks for the others.

Coffee girl’s face was neatly made up, her skin looking smooth and contrasted with dark red lipstick. She pulled off the plastic safety wrapper and then snapped open the lid with a pop. “Ah,” she said and then grinned at me. “Isn’t that the best sound in the world?”

I wasn’t so sure, but I shook mine and opened it, giving her a small smile when mine popped the same way hers had.

Luke chugged half of a bottle of Coke and then wiped at his lips. “I’m starving.”

“The smell is making me hungry,” the girl in brown said. “What’s your name again? Sorry.”

“Luke,” he said. “Wait, what’s your name?”

“April,” she said. She pointed to coffee girl. “And this is Taylor and...”

“Ha!” Luke said, cutting her off. He pointed to North and then back at himself. “Our last name is Taylor.”

April laughed, smoothing the sleeve of her brown shirt. “They let brothers on the same team?”

“Stepbrothers,” North said. “But we’re still family.”

“That’s rare,” Ian said. “And you’ve got such a big team.”

“There’s actually two more,” Kota said. “They’ll be here tomorrow.”

“I barely recognize some of you,” he said. “But then we couldn’t make it to the camp last year. You all must have grown some.”

“I remember you,” Taylor said, nodding toward Gabriel. “You had the same hair and earrings last year, but you were shorter.”

“There’s always so many people to meet at once, you easily forget faces,” April said, absently twisting her coffee lid.

“I think that’s why it’s so many of us in one place at one time,” Kota said. “It’s not always good to remember all of our faces. There’s some security in that.”

The others introduced themselves. I was half paying attention, more aware of the girls across from me. I was studying them, imagining they knew so much about the Academy. They were a team. What did they do?

April took a long sip and then wiped her lips on the sleeve of her gray sweater. “This is good. I was about to get the headache.”

The third girl, Emma, who had already downed half a bottle of water finally spoke. “We’ve been walking forever,” she said. She was chubbier than the other girls, with round cheeks that made her square face appear softer when she turned her head. She had bright blue eyes, a striking contrast to her brown hair. “This camp is huge and the map isn’t great. It’s outdated and wrong about some things.”