18. Saturday
CHAPTER 18
SATURDAY
M aggie redeemed herself by winning their race on Saturday morning. Though she had to admit, it was still closer than she would have liked.
At 7 p.m. sharp, she boarded a bus full of excited campers and was immediately attacked by an aggressive combination of the various floral body sprays the tweens and teens had all doused themselves in. Thank god the ride up Whippoorwill Hill was short.
It was the annual S’mores Social, a liability nightmare Maggie had been calmly expressing her professional concerns about to Becker via text for days.
“Deep breaths. It’ll be fine,” he said as she disembarked five minutes later. “Have a long pointy stick.” He slipped one from the grasp of the counselor next to him, who was methodically handing them to each camper getting off the bus, and passed it to Maggie.
“The situation feels safer already.” She accepted the cooking utensil slash weapon and headed for one of the larger boulders, hoping she’d be better able to spot the beginnings of any long-pointy-stick and open-fire-pit-related catastrophes from higher ground. She spotted Nurse April across the bustling field, caught her eye, and shared a grimace. Their stated shared goal, which felt less attainable than you might hope, was for the number of functioning eyeballs per camper to remain constant over the course of the evening.
Maggie had already made a note to have a lawyer look over the camp’s liability waivers before sending them out to families for next summer.
Having climbed to the boulder’s highest plateau, she wiggled herself into her portable folding camp chair (gracefully, she assumed) and took in the scene. It was still pretty light out, but the five large bonfires cast a flickering glow over the several hundred campers and counselors jostling for roasting space and testing their skills in the universal quest for a perfectly burned marshmallow. Daniel was in what she’d come to think of as his “fun uncle” mode. She watched as he showed a group of younger kids the finer points of marshmallow spearing. She couldn’t hear what, but he’d clearly said something that appealed to the refined sense of humor possessed by nine-year-olds because after about thirty seconds they all burst into laughter. She smiled, even though she wasn’t in on the joke. Sue her. It was fucking cute.
An hour and fifteen miraculously injury-free minutes later (they were not counting splinters as injuries), Becker strode over to Maggie’s lookout, two marshmallow laden sticks in hand.
She knew he was handsome, like, objectively. Strong jaw, broad cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and a wide mouth that seemed always on the verge of a smile bringing his otherwise carved-from marble perfection to life. But somehow, up close, day-to-day, she had kind of gotten used to him. He was goofy and funny and reliable, and, against her better judgment, she’d let him insist on being her friend. And, somehow, all of that made her periodically forget that he was also, like, really, really hot.
As he walked toward her in the dusky glow of the now-smoldering bonfires, she was forcefully reminded. His skin seemed lit from within, like it had absorbed the heat of the day and was gently releasing it back into the cooling evening. When he moved between Maggie and the nearest fire, the backlighting turned his eyes bottomless. You could fall into them and keep falling. Forever, maybe.
Jesus, how many hazards were there at this damn event?
“Lightly roasted or burnt to a crisp?” Daniel asked, snapping Maggie from her, frankly, embarrassing musing.
“Burnt, please.”
He handed her the longer of the two long-pointy-sticks, on the tip of which were speared three blackened marshmallows.
“Perfect. I’m more of a lightly roasted man myself.”
“Blasphemy.”
“Maybe.” And he turned the full force of his smile on her, letting it crinkle the corners of those hazardous eyes. “The yellow Starbursts are also my favorites.”
“You’re a monster,” Maggie said.
“But a monster you’d be happy sharing a pack of Starbursts with.”
Maggie turned her focus to the marshmallows, the only things so far that evening that seemed to pose no danger, and took a big bite out of the middle one like she was eating corn on a very long cob.
“Mmmmm,” Maggie closed her eyes to better appreciate the mouthful of burnt melty goodness. When she opened them again, she saw Daniel watching her. It might have been just a physical response to the encroaching darkness, but his pupils looked blown wide. His expression had, she thought, turned serious. But before she could be sure, the easy smile was back.
“You’re welcome,” he said, sounding pleased with himself.
“Thanks,” she mumbled messily.
“The amount of willpower I am currently using not to lick that smudge of marshmallow off your cheek…” They were twenty feet from the nearest camper, but he spoke low, drawing her closer.
“This one?” Maggie asked, wiping at it with her free hand. She held the offending smudge out on the tip of her forefinger and then, meeting Daniel’s gaze, slowly sucked the sugary goo into her mouth, taking more of her finger with it than was entirely necessary.
“I’m not saying I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize, but…”
Maggie smirked. “Maybe a Presidential Medal of Freedom?”
“I mean, what’s Barbra Streisand done that I haven’t?”
“I ask myself that every day.”
Maggie held the long-pointy-stick off to the side where it couldn’t cause any accidental puncture wounds and scooted her camp chair over a few inches to make room on her boulder. Daniel turned and sat next to her, not touching, not in a way that would raise suspicions among any watchful campers, but close enough that she could feel the heat of him nearby. She took another, somewhat smaller, bite of marshmallow, and he followed suit.
“Do you know how many marshmallows you can fit in your mouth at one time?” Maggie asked.
“Sixteen,” Becker said, not missing a beat.
“Damn.” She glanced sideways at him. “Thirteen.”
They sat there, savoring their summer delicacies, surrounded by tweens on a sugar high, watching the sun dip below the hill. And it was…nice. Ok? Maggie didn’t hate it.
At some point, Daniel set down his pointy stick, laid his palms on the rock behind him, and leaned back. His left hand crossed the invisible boundary line between them, and his arm pressed up against the fabric of her camp chair, firm and solid. And she didn’t shift away.