Return to Sender (8 page)

Stevie shoots a glare at me before turning it on TJ. “You didn’t even warm up.”

TJ snorts back a laugh. “That was my warm-up.”

I take my spot much closer than TJ ran from since I’m only doing three skills, not eight. I work through my Arabian double front, then watch Stevie perform the tucked double double that she’s famous for.

On TJ’s next turn, he does the same pass as before, except his double tuck is exchanged for a double pike and his double pike is replaced with a perfect—pencil straight body and all—and super-high double layout.

“Nice,” I can’t help saying despite Stevie’s animosity and expectations that I take her side. Good tumbling is good tumbling. “So you’re a power tumbler? Do you compete on tramp, too?”

He levels me with a look. “I don’t need a tramp to get high.”

Stevie bursts out laughing. “That’s like the anti-public service poster. An anti, anti-drug campaign. Good job.”

For a second, I could swear TJ almost looks offended, but he spins around quickly and takes another turn.

“Hello?” Stevie says, “My turn?”

For the next thirty minutes, the three of us work in silence, TJ studying us shamelessly. Finally, he nudges me in the shoulder. “Where’s your double double?” He nods at my teammate. “You aren’t gonna let her have the edge, are you?”

I glance over at Nina Jones. She’s got her back to us. Before she can spot me, I take off, jumping into my hurdle and putting everything I’ve got into the new double twisting double back. I can’t conceal the triumphant smile that takes over my face when I land with my chest up, my feet firmly planted on the stacked mats in the pit.

Stevie’s jaw tenses and as soon as I’m out of the pit, she’s sprinting in this direction, throwing her new double twisting double layout—which is practically a universe above my same skill in the tucked position. The skill Stevie has been well known for since winning the gold at World Championships a few years ago.

“Oh!” TJ says, throwing his hands in the air. “And she just wiped the floor with you.”

“You, too,” I point out, already annoyed with this guy’s relentless efforts to state the obvious. “She saw your double layout and raised the bar with two extra twists.”

TJ’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh yeah? I’m not done yet, Campbell.”

Stevie’s breathing hard by the time she gets back to the far end of the tumbling strip, but both of us are glued to TJ. He does a round-off back handspring, double layout, two whip backs, another back handspring, and then finishes with a triple back somersault.

“Holy shit,” I mumble.

“Who
is
this guy?” Stevie says, still panting.

“Power tumbling National Team member,” Ariel, an eighteen-year-old three-time National Team member from Arizona, says from behind us. “He’s trying to make the World team this fall, too.”

“How do you know?” I ask, turning to face her.

She holds up her phone. “Google.”

“Girls!” Nina shouts. “No cell phones!”

“Sorry,” I say to Ariel, who smiles and shrugs like she’s not worried about Nina’s wrath.

“Karen, Stevie,” Nina says, “Move on to beam.”

Stevie and I take a quick water break and head over to the balance beams.

“I’m totally doing the double double layout at Nationals,” she says. “It’s exactly what I need to win again.”

I glance sideways at her and then hop up on the beam, smiling to myself. Interesting, because
I’m
planning on winning Nationals this year.

I
wake up to TJ shaking me so forcefully I’m sure he’s been doing it for the last ten minutes. My head is throbbing, the glands in my neck swollen and painful to the touch. Goddammit. I hate being sick.

“What time is it?” I ask him.

“Quarter after nine.”

I toss my sheets aside and roll out of the bottom bunk. “Shit! I overslept.”

“Your alarm was going off when I came back.” TJ looks me over. “Were you drinking last night? Up until all hours with your girl? If it’s the second one, she’s got stamina because she didn’t look even a little bit like you do this morning.”

It bugs me that he’s already seen Karen today and I haven’t. Nina must have let him work out in their gym. It also bugs me that he’s showered and dressed for coaching. But I’m digging through my trunk for a staff polo shirt and gym shorts so I don’t bother answering. I’m in and out of the shower by 9:20 A.M., my teeth brushed and clothes on by 9:23 A.M. and then my roommate and I are hauling ass to gym two.

“We’re practicing for today’s exhibition right after lunch,” TJ says.

I’ve just gulped down four Advil and they’re half-lodged in my throat so all I can do is nod. This is TJ’s first exhibition for campers and from what I’ve seen of his training, he and I might be able to do some cool shit.

If I can get my tired ass moving. I must have the world’s worst immune system.

***

“I really think the guys in leotards doing the maniac routine from
Flash Dance
is the best idea so far,” someone says, her voice rising above the chatter in the dance gym.

“We wore leotards two years ago,” says Joe, another coach I work with a lot here.

“If dudes in leotards is the best idea we’ve got, then this show is gonna suck,” TJ says.

Everyone quiets down because he’s hardly made himself stand out in two weeks. I rub my forehead and force myself to take a drink from my Gatorade bottle. I’ve haven’t eaten anything all day and it’s catching up to me. Normally, I’m all about the staff exhibition, but right now, I’m just not in the mood.

There’s a unanimous sigh amongst the thirty or forty coaching staff the second Irina, the fifty-something-year-old dance teacher walks into the gym. She snaps her fingers and we all scramble to our feet.

“First of all,” she says with her thick Russian accent. “No boys in girls’ clothes this year.”

“Thank God,” TJ mumbles beside me. “I was ready to hitchhike home.”

“Wearing a leotard isn’t that bad,” I say.

He stares at me. “You owe me
that
story and the one that involves you and the hot blonde.” He glances around the room. “Where is she, anyway?”

“She’s a counselor, not a coach. She’s with the campers whenever we’re not coaching them.”

“Oh right.”

“We are doing hip-hop tonight,” Irina says, “That requires rhythmic ability. If you don’t have it, hide in the back and try to move in the same direction as everyone else. Where are my dancers? Don’t be shy, front and center.”

Before I’m able to slink toward the back, since I don’t have the energy to meet Irina’s exceptional expectations, she’s spotted me and made eye contact.

“Mr. Jordan Bentley, move it!” Irina orders, and she plucks another three coaches from the group.

We only have about thirty minutes to learn the choreography and fifteen minutes into the session, Irina has fallen in love with TJ, well, his rhythmic ability, anyway, and he gets moved from the middle to the front.

I manage to forget about my headache long enough to come up with some pretty cool stunts for me and TJ and a couple other coaches to do following the choreography. After we get done, I stop by gym three, where Karen is having her second workout of the day, but I only watch for about five minutes because Nina gives me the evil eye the entire time.

There are a few hours until it’s time for dinner and the only thing I want to do is collapse into my bunk and take a nap.

I look down at my dinner plate. It consists of a tiny chicken breast, a small pile of rice, and small salad with no dressing. “The food here is awesome, why do we keep getting these crappy meals served to us?”

Ariel is seated beside me, staring at her own plate. “I think Nina actually had crappy food catered in just for us.”

“Karen?”

I glance up and see a tiny Asian girl standing in front of me, a T-shirt lying flat on the table and a Sharpie clutched in her hand. “Hi.”

“Can you sign my camp shirt?”

A blond counselor with five little girls trailing behind her rests a hand on the Asian girl’s shoulder. “Sara, autograph sessions are tonight, remember?”

I shrug, my face heating up. “It’s fine.”

“Really?” the counselor says. “You don’t mind?”

Honestly, I didn’t even know I’d have autograph sessions. I’ve never had autograph sessions in my life. I take the Sharpie from Sara’s hand and hesitate for a little too long, trying to decide what to sign. No one prepped me for this.

Go for the gold? No, that’s so cliché. Aim high? Work hard? Dream big?

“Anything you write is gonna make them super happy,” the counselor girl says, reassuring me.

I finally decide on doodling a picture of the uneven bars and then signing my name. Of course the other four little girls ask to have their shirts signed, too, and once they’ve run off to show the others, the counselor girl sits down across from me and sticks out her hand, “I’m Liberty, by the way.”

Liberty?

Oh no, it can’t be
that
Liberty, can it? Jordan would have told me, wouldn’t he?

The polite gymnast in me sticks out a hand and shakes hers.

“Based on your expression right now, I’m guessing Jordan has mentioned me before,” she says.

When I don’t respond, Ariel elbows me in the side. “Right… yeah, I think he did, um, mention you. Once.”

She gives me a tiny smile. “So you guys are together now? How did that happen?”

A pair of hands land on the table beside me and then I hear Jordan’s voice “My dad is her coach.”

Her face tightens but she holds on to the smile; either she’s pissed or hurt that he’s moved on.

God, I hope he’s moved on, because Liberty is way hotter than me. She’s more like a woman and I’m just a girl.

“Hey, Jordan,” she says, “How’s it going?”

“Good.” He slides into the seat beside me.

“It was nice meeting you, Karen,” she says, “and thanks again for breaking the rules for my impatient campers.”

“No problem.”

I wait until she’s out of sight before snapping around to face Jordan. “Where was the warning, huh? Talk about awkward.”

“I’m sorry.” He gives me that adorable, dimple-filled, wary smile. “I was avoiding her myself, so I hadn’t had a chance to bring it up with you.”

A guy from the kitchen comes over to our table and plops a plate down in front of Jordan. There’s a huge steak, a baked potato with butter and sour cream and cheese, plus a big pile of grilled veggies.

“Somebody likes you,” Ariel says, leaning over me to admire Jordan’s plate.

“I helped him in the kitchen the first week.” Jordan studies our dinners. “What are you guys eating? It looks like leftovers from a generic lean cuisine.”

I roll my eyes. “Dinner of champions, courtesy of Nina Jones.”

“She put you on a diet?” he asks, sounding shocked.

“We’re always on a diet,” I remind him.

“Yeah, but you have choices, and you usually eat more than what you’ve got there.” He shakes his head, picking up his fork. “Doesn’t matter, you can have some of mine.”

He slides his plate toward me, but I don’t make a move to touch it. I’ve never been one to cheat on diets and I’m not about to start now. I pick up my own silverware and cut off a piece of my chicken, stuffing it in my mouth.

Jordan leans in closer to me and whispers, “I really am sorry. Are you okay?”

My dream from the other night drifts into my head again and I refocus on dinner, my face getting more red by the second. “I’m fine, I swear. Do you have any more ex-girlfriends around here I should know about?”

He grins, relieved. “Nope.”

“What are you guys doing for the exhibition tonight?” Ariel asks him.

“It’s a surprise.” A piece of paper crinkles against my knee underneath the table. Jordan winks at me, kisses my cheek, and says, “I’ll see you later, Karen,” then he gets up and walks away, abandoning his dinner.

Ariel busies herself with her own food, so I pull the paper out and read Jordan’s secret note.

Meet me at the lake in 15 min? Wear a swimsuit.

I shove the rest of my food into my mouth over the next five minutes and then take off for my cabin.

***

The early evening temperature is still pretty hot when I spot Jordan by the lake, wearing bright orange swim trunks, so I assume we’re going for a private swim or something along those lines, but he grins when he sees me and nods toward a Jet Ski behind us.

“Wanna go for ride?” He doesn’t even wait for my answer. He’s already slipping my arms through a red life jacket, fastening the buckles.

“I’ve never been on a Jet Ski before.” I wait for him to put on a blue life jacket, take his hand, and allow him to lead me out on the dock. He preps the Jet Ski, lowering it completely in the water, and gets on first, instructing me to sit behind him. The engine rumbles beneath us. I wrap my arms around Jordan’s waist and hold on tight. My hands are tucked underneath his life jacket, resting on his incredibly warm bare skin. He must have been standing in the sun for several minutes before I got to the lake.

We’re zipping around the water, Jordan making expert sharp turns and pivots as we reach each new bank and he does this right at the point that it looks like we’re going to collide with something, causing me to scream a couple times. After a few minutes, I’m completely soaked and gymnastics camp is nowhere in sight.

He stops in the middle of the lake and glances over his shoulder at me. “Want to drive?”