Sun Kissed (Camp Boyfriend) (30 page)

“Are you bringing the boat up today to take this and the burnt stuff?” I asked, despite the banding around my chest that made breathing this close to him tough.

When he shook his head, blond curls caught the morning sunshine. “I think we should use what’s here first before we decide what can’t be salvaged.”

I lifted my eyes to his and got lost for a moment in their amber depths. “I thought you only wanted new stuff. Stable things that would last.”

Seth took a quick, deep breath and set his jaw. “Guess the fire blew that theory away. It was a crappy one anyway.” His fingers laced through mine, and he pulled me closer. “You were right. Nothing is guaranteed.”

My purple-polished toes touched the edges of his sandals. I could feel the warmth of him through his green T-shirt, smell the clean, boy-smell of him that always reminded me of nature, the outdoors, and my first and only love.

“Like us.” Defeat weighed down my voice and my chin dropped to rest on the base of my throat.

“Right.”

I yanked away at his acknowledgement that we wouldn’t work out. Have a future. But before I could stomp back to the work site, he said, “Trinity, wait.”

I whirled, my stomach curling. “Wait for what, Seth? For you to stop looking for a warranty on our relationship? A money-back guarantee? Because that’s not going to happen.” I bit down on the inside of my cheek before I said more.

But I wouldn’t accept his no-man’s land of a relationship anymore.

“I don’t need a guarantee. I just need you.”

His words scalded into my skin, that simple, desperate plea. And at his earnest, anxious expression, my heart expanded. It must have taken so much for him to have admitted that.

“Oh, Seth,” I whispered, and my knees weakened, making me sway. Relief felt like it had sucked out my insides.

His arm caught me neatly around the waist and lowered me to a log beside the rushing water where we sat, side by side, my skin glowing every time his shoulder brushed mine. Trees rustled across the river, and foaming white crashed around smooth gray rocks as it swirled around them then flowed downriver. The fresh smell of clear water invigorated me, and I sat up straighter, ready for whatever direction this conversation was about to take.

Was he just saying what I needed to hear, or did he mean it? Believe it for himself?

It was the only way this could work.

Seth blew out a long breath and behind the thick gold haze of his hair, his face was still, turned inward. “My mother was waiting for me when I got home yesterday.”

I looked at him, shocked.

“Are you okay?” I laid a hand on his muscular thigh, feeling the soft down of his hair then yanked it back. I had no business touching what wasn’t mine.

His chipped canine appeared as he smiled. “Definitely. At first, I was mad that she’d ambushed me like that.”

“I bet. She should have known not to come.” Though secretly, I admired her tenacity. Maybe she was late getting around to it, but at least it was something. Better than staying away, like she’d always done.

Like Seth did.

Seth pushed back the waves that were falling in front of his eyes and peered out across the water. “Yeah. I’d made it clear I didn’t want anything to do with her, but she wasn’t giving up.”

Something about his tone made me look at him more carefully. He’d always had a firm, sharp jaw, but now he held it with more confidence than ever. His broad shoulders looked squarer. Powerful back, straighter. He might not want his mother, but knowing she’d made the effort had healed something in him. I could sense it.

Was it enough for him to be the guy I needed?

“Did you talk?” I kicked off my sandals and dipped my toes in the clear water, scattering the little fish that hovered at the river’s edge. The air around us was a hot, sweet summer-white.

Seth cleared his throat. “Almost until sunrise.” He took out a knife and began whittling a thick stick, curls of wood dropping around us.

“Wow. I’m— uh— proud of you for giving her a chance.”

And I was. It was a huge step forward.

“Yeah, well. It wasn’t easy, but I kept thinking about what you said. About, you know, trying harder.” Seth’s knife moved faster as it scraped and sliced into the wood. “So I gave us both a chance. We’re going to try to work things out.”

“Seth. That’s amazing!” I threw my arms around him, but he angled away slightly, keeping me away from his knife.

I backed off quickly. Embarrassed.

Maybe Seth was right. I needed to stop living in the fantasy world and face reality. Just because he’d mended thing with his mom didn’t mean he was thinking more seriously about us.

“She left me because she loved me. She was afraid her drinking would put me in danger, and she couldn’t quit it long enough to come back.” His voice cracked at the end, betraying how much this meant to him.

“Of course she loved you. Who wouldn’t?” The words hung in the air between us, and I wished, with all my heart, that I could reach out and stuff them back inside my big mouth.

Seth’s topaz eyes slid up to meet mine while his hands continued working on his carving. “Not everyone feels that way.”

I flushed. “Maybe not Lauren, but—”

Seth shook his head hard. “Lauren was right to choose Matt. Or at least, I understand why she did. Matt was ready to love her for who she was, while I was still trying to make her be the same girl she’d always been. More importantly, I didn’t make her mine when I’d had the chance, breaking up with her at the end of camp even though I knew that hurt her…” He cleared his throat. “But I’m not that same blind guy anymore. I’m not scared to care about someone.”

Our hands brushed each other as I took the rose and, like a fool, put my head down as if to smell it. Inside, I was a mess. My heart pounded through me like a thunderstorm while my brain worked frantically to take in what he was saying.
     “We’ve been friends a long time,” I said cautiously, not sure which kind of caring he meant. Hoping, but not daring to hope at the same time.

He brushed the back of my cheek with his hand and looked tenderly into my eyes. “And I want to be more than that for even longer.”

My heart nearly burst from the emotions flooding it. I leaned my face against his palm. “As in boyfriend and girlfriend? Because you’ll be at college and I’ll be at home and—”

He stopped my anxious babble with a kiss that answered my questions better than anything he could have said. His lips moved against mine until they parted, his teeth lightly catching my lower lip in a way that sent shivers tiptoeing down my spine. My hands rose to his neck and encircled it as our bodies leaned against each other. One of his hands cupped the back of my head and angled it so that his mouth could slant harder against mine until I felt dizzy, waves of pleasure and happiness unmooring me until I could have floated away.

His tongue slid lightly against mine, and I moaned in the back of my throat, a surge of joy rising when he groaned in return and pulled me on his lap. His hands fell to my waist then rose again, feeling my heated skin beneath my tank. I loved his hard, callused palms against my tender skin and the insistent kisses that now travelled along my neck so that I arched backward, feeling so incredibly alive. It seemed surreal, otherworldly, a place and moment I would have created from my imagination, yet here it was— a reality more beautiful than anything I could ever have dreamed.

At last he pulled back, his chest rising and falling hard, his eyes on fire as he peered at me. “You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice husky and uneven.

“So are you.” I brushed a curl away from his temple, loving the feel of his skin, his hair, his smile, the way his eyes came up sideways to meet mine. The curve of his lip that made me want to bite it. I leaned back with a contented sigh, a dreamy sound in the cozy yellow light surrounding us.

“I was stupid to have shut you out. A coward. I felt so much that it scared the crap out of me.”

“It scares me too,” I admitted.

And it did, but the risk of falling didn’t mean you never tried to fly.

He blinked at me, a teasing light in his eyes. “Really? I thought you could see the future with all your charts and signs.”

“That’s the fantasy. And although I’ll always love it, reality, with all of its question marks, is much better. Especially since it includes you.”

“I’m not going to lose you.” Seth’s expression turned fierce, and his arms tightened around me. “Not going to run or give up.”

“I know. And I don’t need a reading to tell me that.”

He squeezed me tight. “So we’ve got the reality. The solid foundation.” He eased back to look at me again. “What if I wanted you to gaze into that crystal ball anyway? Just for kicks. What do you think you’d see?”

I tried to remember the last time I’d heard Seth be playful and realize it had been way too long. I was going to have fun finding my old camp crush inside this very real, very awesome guy.

“You really want to know?” I tipped my head against his strong shoulder and squeezed the wooden rose he’d carved. “I’d bet I would see us side by side strolling through camp and having a night time picnic in the kick-butt gazebo we’re going to build back there.”

He kissed the top of my head. “Really?”

I closed my eyes, imagining a future with Seth as I’d done so many times, only now it was clearer than ever.

“Yeah.” I smiled to picture it, knowing I was going to get my art teacher’s approval after he saw the gazebo. “And we’re going to laugh at all the new paintings on the floor since there’s going to be one of you as a kid with your backpack in one hand and a fat frog in the other.”

“I’m a biology nerd, girl. Get over it.”

I laughed, so happy I felt like I could float away.

“Right. And then you’ll tease me about the picture of me on the floor because I’ll have purple fairy wings, and I’ll be hugging my old journal.”

“You’re going to paint all that?” he asked, easing back from me so he could look into my eyes. “Even the journal?”

 “It helped bring us together, and I don’t regret any part of our story.”

I knew then that the vision in my head was real and true. Call it psychic or a wish I planned to fulfill, but it was going to happen.

“Me neither.” Seth cupped my face in his hands and held it. “The fantasy and reality are both pretty amazing.”

As he kissed me and I melted into him, I couldn’t have agreed more.

*******

Read on for an excerpt of the third full-length book in the Camp Boyfriend series,
Camp Forget Me Not.

CAMP FORGET ME NOT

Playing it safe and fitting in may have rocketed Kayla West into the In crowd at Camp Juniper Point, but it's left her lonely. The only person she's ever been herself with was her former best friend, Nick, an outsider that pushed her to join the most popular girls cabin two years ago. Too bad being a Diva meant pressure to break up with Nick. Of course, Kayla had her reasons, but Nick can never know the real one. She always thought she'd forget him one day and move on. Until he returns to camp a super-hot Olympian snowboarder. Now, every girl wants him and Nick seems determined to show her what a mistake she made. Or at least, she thought that's what he wanted. But when Nick starts sending her private notes--just like he used to--she wonders what kind of game he's playing. Nick's attention is making it tougher to stay in the background and play in safe, forcing Kayla to make a decision--stay on the sidelines and get overlooked? Or take a chance on trusting Nick and, maybe... herself.

Camp Forget Me Not

“
Damn
. Nick is gorgeous.”

“Definitely. He’s the hottest guy at camp.”

“Or anywhere.”

Holding my breath underwater, I peered through gray-blue murkiness at my cabin mates’ kicking legs. Despite my depth, their muted words found me when I’d hoped to leave my problems on Lake Juniper’s surface. This was my last day at camp, and I didn’t want Nick Desanti drama. I had enough other problems waiting for me at home. 

“He went here like three years ago, right?” Brooke, our newest Divas’ Den bunkmate, asked.

“Until Kayla broke his heart.” Brittany dodged Rachel’s kick. “What? It’s true. Everyone knows he left because she totally dissed him.”

I cringed at my name and that bad memory. It was the biggest regret of my life. Well— that and the bangs I gave myself before my fifth grade school picture.

I tucked my knee into my chest and turned over in a slow roll, lungs burning. For a second I emerged behind them, gulped air, then sank again before they, or Nick, noticed. The only good thing about Mom losing her job and not being able to afford the last half of camp was that I wouldn’t face Nick anymore. Since his arrival last week, he’d acted like I either didn’t exist or reeked.

 “Kayla?” Brooke’s shrill voice knifed right through the water. “But she’s so—you know. Forgettable. One of you guys should have hooked up with him.”

Forgettable? Who’d remember YouTube It-Girl Brooke White after her fifteen minutes of fame ended? I wished I dared to say that, but her “fans” and our friends might turn against me.

“He was different then.” Rachel’s no-nonsense voice found me like a heat-seeking missile. “Barely noticeable.”

“Gollum was more doable.”

I snorted a water bubble at Brittany’s joke about our camp director, then clapped a hand over my mouth. If I held my breath for a couple more seconds, Nick would swim past us. As a diver on my school’s swim team, I could ignore the fire scalding my lungs. Plus, it didn’t hurt as much as his rejection.

“Now he’s an X Games snowboarder,” Brooke said. “And an Olympic medalist. Lame to fame.”

“Don’t forget he’s the spokesman for Backcountry Gear. Lots of money.” As a professional volleyball hopeful, Rachel paid attention to endorsement deals.

“So he’s rich, famous, and gorgeous.” Brooke’s long legs crossed genie style while her arms twisted her back and forth in the water. “Like me. As of last week, I had three hundred thousand subscribers and more than fifty million views for ‘So Not Into You.’” She hummed a few bars of her home-recorded YouTube song. Another bonus for leaving camp…I wouldn’t hear her song for the millionth time. Or the crazy lyrics she came up with for her next “hit.”