Chapter Six
“Sir?” A nervous voice snaps my attention away from my current project, making sure I have all the campers’ health history forms uploaded for Sherri, our camp nurse. I peer up from my laptop to find Colton Waters in my office doorway. “Do you have a second?” he adds.
I really don’t, but I lie anyway, “Sure. Come on in.” No matter what, I always make time for these kids. Even if the kids happen to also be staff now.
I gesture at the plush, papasan chair in front of the window that overlooks the lake.
I felt it was best suited there—so that during sessions, my clients didn’t feel like they were confined in a shrink’s office.
It perturbs me to be referred to as a shrink; I don’t want to be so clinical.
My job as a LCSW suits the mission I had in mind for the camp just fine, without having to go through all the extra, costly, schooling to become a psychiatrist. Also, while I do believe that medications can oftentimes be helpful—necessary, even—the process to becoming a licensed prescriber is long and arduous.
Best left to someone who has more time and resources than myself.
Colton fidgets, but then takes a couple steps in and sits.
“You settling in alright?” I ask him.
He nods. “Y-yeah,” he stammers. “I mean, I think I’m going to like it here…”
I smile and pull off my thick-rimmed readers—my ‘Clark Kent glasses’, as Morgan calls them, adding that they do indeed make me look like a dork, who is secretly a superhero baddie—setting them on the desk in front of me.
I sit back in my chair and cross my outstretched legs at the ankles, hoping he’ll read my body language and relax a little himself.
It works, because he goes from resting on the edge of the chair to sinking into it.
“You’ve put in a lot of hard work these past couple of days,” I tell him, noting the way the praise perks him up. Briefly, I wonder if his parents ever do the same. “You fitting in with the others, so far?”
He nods more assuredly now. “Yeah. The other counselors are pretty chill.” He shrugs. “They haven’t given Petro any shit either, which is nice.”
I nod. “I vetted all you work-campers to make sure everyone would be respectful and accepting of him being trans ahead of time. In fact, because I’m gay myself, I would never hire anyone here that wasn’t an ally to the gay community.
We have a good bunch,” I assure him. On his insistence, Nikolas’ mother was another parent who reached out to me ahead of time to make sure this would be a safe place for him.
“Good.” Colton nods. “I wish Petro had that back home…” he sighs sullenly, but doesn’t seem to want to elaborate more.
I don’t pry. I don’t really think I have to, because I get it.
I know places like Alder Notch don’t exist everywhere.
It sucks that not every place can be as accepting as it is here.
I change the subject, because that’s just a whole different whirlpool I don’t want to get caught up in.
“You seem to have hit it off with Morgan, too,” I note with a chuckle, having observed them the last couple of days spending a fair amount of time together, as the group gets the camp ready.
Dare I say, they appear quite twitterpated with one another.
“Or is she bullying you into being friends with her? She’s pretty good like that,” I tease.
His cheeks get pink, and I’m growing even more convinced we have a little crush going on here. “She didn’t bully me, no,” he says, biting back a grin. “She’s nice.”
I nod. “I agree, though you know I’m a little biased.”
“She calls you ‘Dad’,” he remarks, “but on the tour, you said she’s your niece, right?”
I chuckle, because we get that a lot. “I did. She is biologically my niece, yes, but I’ve been ‘Dad’ to her since she was eight. Her mother, my sister, passed away, so I adopted Morgs.”
“Her mom died, too?” he asks, his blue eyes—a stunning match to Evan’s—alight with sudden piqued interest.
I make a mental note of the ‘too’ in that statement. Sounds like Colton and Morgan have that in common.
“Yes,” I tell him. “She’s pretty open about it. You might reach out to her to see how she’s handled growing up without her mother, if that’s something you think might help you,” I offer.
My baser instincts want to prod him for more information, but I doubt that’s why he’s come to my office.
This isn’t a session; he isn’t one of my clients.
Besides, am I curious about this because I’m trying to gain a little insight into the brusque, stoic man who has managed to stay more than one night, and who has been quietly noting and fixing more things around camp than is even necessary?
Maybe.
Ok, definitely.
But not because he’s got me going to bed these past couple nights confused and swooning over him, having been watching him stalk around here, putting Kai in his place.
It’s because I want to know what’s making the sexy grump stay.
He’s piqued my curiosity, nudging my inherent need to be a solver, a healer.
Has Evan got nothing or no one else to go home to? If not, why the wedding band? Is it Colton’s mother’s?
The more I’ve seen of him, and the few times I’ve conversed with him, he’s definitely not what I expected at first glance. Looks like Ma was right not to judge. There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to Evan Waters, and I want to know more.
Specifically, why I constantly am catching him watching me, when he thinks I don’t notice. What’s with those looks, the ones that make the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention? The ones that cause me to pause, and my cheeks to flush, like I’m acutely aware of his eyes on me.
I shake those thoughts from my head. “So, what brings you to my office? Anything I can help you with?” I ask Colton.
He gnaws at the inside of his cheek, peering down into his lap where he’s picking at his cuticles. “How long is my dad staying for?” he asks, not making eye contact with me.
My eyebrows shoot up. “I really don’t know.” I shrug. “He’s kind of taken it upon himself to start making repairs around here…”
He does look up and meets my gaze now. “You didn’t, like, ask him to stay to keep an eye on me or something? I know he talked to you before coming here; I’m sure he must have told you all about what a fuckup I am.”
“He didn’t put it like that,” I assure Colton, then I follow it up with, “I’m pretty sure he’s just worried about you, truthfully.”
That much I can say earnestly, because, since meeting him in person, it’s become clear I was wrong about his level of concern toward Colton as well.
He cares deeply. He loves his son wholeheartedly.
I was initially wrong about that too, I suppose.
Emailing is such a hard way of conversing, when you can’t tell the tone and watch body language.
Evan’s oceanic blue eyes, while captivating, yes, give away much more than his emails—or even his mouth—ever would dare to.
That much, I know for sure. All I got from Evan in the emails was several warning flags, before we moved onto other topics, like the camp itself.
Now, however, Evan alluded to having some life-altering experience of his own at a summer camp years ago—I feel like he’s worried the same will happen to Colton, and since the two don’t interact healthily, he’ll be out of the loop.
Colton’s eyes fall to his lap again. “I wish he wouldn’t worry so much,” he mutters. “He’s overprotective. He makes me feel smothered. Like I can’t be trusted.”
I dip my head until I get his attention again, and ask him, “Be honest with me, did you ever give him a reason to make you feel like that?”
“I got in trouble a little…”
By the correspondence I had with Evan, it was far more than just a little over the past two years, but I don’t pry because it would be disingenuous to tease the info out of him that way.
It sounded like mostly petty stuff, anyway.
Likely cries for attention. Even if it was negative attention, it was still attention.
I sigh. “It’s going to sound cliché, but I’m going to tell you this anyway…
parents, good parents, worry about their children constantly.
What may seem overbearing to you is likely just his inability to be able to admit to himself that you’re growing up on him, and that terrifies him.
Trust is an earned object, not a hand-me-down.
Is there a reason you’re wondering how long he’s here for? Do you feel unsafe with him present?”
He shakes his head aggressively. “No, nothing like that. Dad’s never been”—he looks up, like he’s searching for the word—“abusive or anything like that. I just don’t think he gets me, you know? I don’t think he ever will…”
“Do you guys communicate much?”
He shakes his head. “Dad doesn’t really do the whole talking thing.”
I snort. “I noticed.”
He smirks.
“Well, I guess the answer to your question is this: no, he’s not here because I asked him to stay, but I really do appreciate the help he’s given me over the last couple of days.
I’ve been able to do more of the administrative stuff I was backlogged on.
I imagine once the weekend’s over, he’ll be leaving to go back home, anyway. ”
Colton shrugs. “Dad doesn’t really like working on the boat with Gramps.”
“What does he do for work?”
“He’s a lobsterman for now, but only because I got him fired from his last job,” he murmurs. “He had to leave too many times to make sure I went to school and to pick me up at the police station when me and my buddies got caught tagging…”
I nod. “I suppose that explains the overprotective thing, huh?” I question him.
He squirms in the chair and nods. “I know he thinks I did it on purpose, but I swear I didn’t. I know since Mom died, Dad struggles to make ends meet. He had to sell our house, and we moved into a cheap apartment in town.”