8
“HOLY SHIT,” NICKmuttered from the passenger seat.
“They finally decided to do it.” Trey’s voice was almost reverent. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
Nick squeezed his boyfriend’s arm while keeping his gaze out the window. “Babe, pull over,” he demanded, his chipper voice now stern and insistent.
I wasn’t quite sure what to say. I knew this place intimately, like a lover’s body. But I’d also avoided it, let life keep me away, prioritized other things, and pushed returning to camp and seeing all my friends to the bottom of my to-do list. I’d just always assumed Pine Lake would be here, waiting for me when I needed it.
The feeling stirring inside of me felt distinctly like sorrow. But I hadn’t been to Pine Lake in so long; I wasn’t quite sure I was even allowed to be upset about Steve and Marla selling the place. A long list of shoulds ticked through my head, the first one being that I should have come back here long before now.
Following Nick and Trey out of the car, I raised a hand to my brow to shield my eyes from the sun, which was still shockingly bright in the late afternoon, even with sunglasses on.
“We figured if we stood here long enough, eventually you kids would show up,” Steve joked as we walked toward him, a calm smile on his face, hands on his hips. He looked skinnier and just a bit more crooked than the last time I saw him, his trimmed black hair now fully gray.
He had the weathered, rough complexion of a white person who had spent 90 percent of his life outside in the sun. His exterior was all hard edges—a crooked nose broken skiing in his twenties, thick, furrowed brows that almost always appeared knitted in thought. His quiet demeanor could often be misinterpreted as sternness, but he operated from a place of kindness. He’d figured out how to keep Pine Lake in business while offering up more financial aid than other camps in the area, making it possible for kids like me to attend.
Marla, on the other hand, was soft inside and out, her dark brown, apple-shaped face youthful and bright despite the hint of lines that creased her skin. In all the years I’d known her, I’d only ever seen her gray hair pinned back in a twist, and she was always good for a hug when a camper was homesick. But Marla had a hunch to her posture now, and she also looked thinner than I remembered. Still, she was eyeing us with that familiar, gentle face, as if she was ecstatic to see us.
“Oh my god, you’re seriously selling camp?” Nick spat out the words even before eking out a hello. He was the first to reach Steve and Marla, and he leaned in to hug them as Trey and I hovered behind him.
“Hi to you too, Nicholas,” Steve said playfully as he pulled away. “Trey!”
Steve wrapped him in a one-armed hug, just as Marla stepped forward and pulled me into an embrace. She barely came up to my cheek, and her hug was warm and comforting in a way I didn’t know I was craving until I was wrapped up in it.
Marla had always looked out for me as a kid, something I never fully grasped until I was an adult and able to rewind through moments of my life with a grown-up’s perspective. She must have intuitively sensed that my life at home was lonely and strained, my parents distant with each other and only slightly more present with me.
“We’re so glad you’re here,” Marla said, and gave me a smile I knew was genuine. “We’ve missed all you kids, of course. But it’s been so long since you’ve been able to make it up here, Clara! What a lovely surprise.”
“I’m downright shocked,” came a voice to my right.
It was Mack, of course. Even though I hadn’t laid eyes on him in ages, I was certain he was biting his bottom lip in a smirk, which caused his right eye to shut almost completely. He always did this when he wanted to prove a point or get his way.
Marla gave me one last squeeze before releasing me, and I turned to find him there, lips pursed and eye crinkled just so. And around his neck hung a familiar talisman: the circular wooden medal, Color Week Winner 2004 scrawled on it in black ink, looped through a red ribbon that had faded to salmon pink over time.
He’d worn it, of course, to do what he did best—needle me. And so I returned the favor and pretended I didn’t notice.
“Millen,” he said as he showed off his charming, mischievous grin, with that little gap between his two front teeth. The one that said, I’m innocent! But you know I’m really not, in all its slightly arrogant, crooked glory. “I never thought we’d see you back here.”
“Hey,” I said, giving him a smile and a quick once-over as I smoothed out the rumples in my linen sundress. His hair looked like it had been permanently styled by one too many windy rides out in the camp waterskiing boat, slightly shaggy and tousled still.
“Work stuff changed at the last minute,” I said with a quick shrug of my shoulders. “So here I am.”
“Are you sure you didn’t come dressed for the office?” He leaned forward and ran a finger over the edge of the strap of my dress, and even though he barely touched my skin, my stomach still fluttered, warm and wanting. “You know we get messy here.”
“I’m aware,” I said, narrowing my eyes slightly and swatting his hand away. “It hasn’t been that long, thanks.”
“Good,” he said, tan arms crossing in front of his faded, threadbare Pine Lake Camp T-shirt that looked almost as old as Steve. “I was worried you’d forgotten your roots.”
“That’s so weird,” I said, reaching out to tap on the evergreen logo on his shirt, reminding him that I still knew how to play this little game between us. “Because it looks like you haven’t changed at all, including out of the clothes we wore when we were kids.”
“Oh, sick burn, Millen!” He scrunched up his face in exaggerated pain, before pulling me in for a quick hug. His arms were warm against my bare shoulders, and yet inexplicably I felt goose bumps prickle up at his touch.
“I really am glad you’re here, you know,” he said, his lips grazing dangerously close to that sensitive spot just below my earlobe.
For a second the teasing in his voice was gone, and I could hear traces of the other Mack I knew, the gentle, earnest one who’d nervously kissed me back when we were fifteen.
“Admit it, you’re excited to see me,” he said as he pulled away, and then that dumb, perfect grin returned. He shook his head, hair flying in every direction, before he ran a hand through it, looking back at me.
“Oh, very,” I replied, sarcasm hanging on every syllable. To torment him a little more, I averted my gaze to dig around for a hair tie in my bag as if it was the most important task of my life.
“I almost forgot,” he said with a smack to his forehead. “I’ve had this for too long. Time to share.”
He lifted the medal from around his neck and placed it over my head, straightening it out with a gentle tug. “Perfect.”
My eyes desperately wanted to roll to the back of my head and never return, but I just gave him a blasé smile. “I’ll have it back to you shortly.”
“Oh, no, take your time, Millen, please.”
Our snarky back-and-forth was interrupted when Steve came over and gave me a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. “Hey, kid. It’s been too long.”
“I know, I’m sorry it took me forever to get up here. And to think, I was going to try to buy this place!”
He chuckled at this, a low rumble, and then cleared his throat and shuffled back a few steps to look at our group.
“So,” Steve started with an awkward nod. “You saw the sign.”
Next to me Mack started humming the Ace of Base song loud enough for everyone to hear. I turned to give him a “not now, you dipshit” glare, and he met my face with a wink, almost like he knew what I was about to do even before I did it.
“I would have thought our dear old friend Mackenzie Sullivan would have said something,” Nick said, sounding hurt.
“Hey, I just found out this week!” Mack raised his hands in the air defensively. “I’ve been dealing with some shit with my parents and their business. I’ve been distracted.”
This caught my attention. Mack’s family ran a successful music licensing business out in Los Angeles. He’d always been upfront about the trust fund they’d set him up with, and how he refused to touch it. Nick once told me Mack had never even taken a dime from them after he graduated college, which definitely earned my respect. Not that I’d tell him that.
“And we wanted to tell you ourselves. We didn’t realize the real estate agent was going to stake that into the ground this morning,” Marla explained, pointing at the sign. “We just finalized our plan a couple of days ago,” she added.
“So, what, you’re selling it to someone random?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light, even though I was suddenly agitated, all the shoulds of my life bubbling to the surface. That heavy feeling of time lost, with nothing to show for it, circled back through my body, gripping my shoulders.
“Glamp Camp. They’re a company based out of Denver; they have a bunch of glamping resorts all over the country. Our friends who used to run Green Mountain Camp in Vermont sold to them a couple of years ago.”
“Glamping?” Trey said without trying to hide the horrified skepticism in his voice.
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Marla said with a chuckle. “You know, nice big tents with bathrooms attached, linen sheets, that sort of thing. They want to put in a pool, offer massages. You kids should come spend a weekend here when they open!”
Our bodies weren’t even touching, but I could somehow feel Mack stiffen next to me, and a quick glance revealed a worried crinkle at the edge of his eyes, his lips twitching briefly into a frown before turning back upward. But there was no playful edge to his smile now. We were both silent, no doubt each of us living out our own terrible version of Pine Lake Camp 2.0: The Glamping Years in our minds.
Thankfully, Nick was there with the save, like always.
“Yeah, I just always assumed you guys had a plan for… this.” Nick gestured up the road toward camp. “And for it to stay Pine Lake forever.”
“Our plan was to keep doing this until we got tired,” Steve said, a softness to his voice, which still rang with the long r sound of a Maine accent. “And we’re tired.”
“We can’t quite keep up like we used to,” Marla added, wrapping an arm around Steve’s waist. “And we’ve got plans to travel. I want to see South America. And then we might relocate. I’m sick of the cold.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Mack said, and then turned toward us. “We got, like, two feet of snow here in April,” he explained.
“That definitely helped move the conversation along.” Steve nodded. “And that they offered all cash.”
Considering the cost of lakefront real estate, it was a logical assumption that someone would swoop in and grab the place. I shuddered at the thought of Pine Lake Camp getting divided up into plots, the beautiful old buildings razed to the ground to make room for fancy yurts and a pool.
Nick sucked in air through clenched teeth. “Well. I guess we better make this one last week extra special, then.”
I dug my teeth into my thumbnail, a nervous habit I’d picked up somewhere in childhood. One week. This was the only time I had left at Pine Lake, period. I had to make it count.
“Why don’t you all head to the bunks and get settled in? Sam’s up there with Eloise and her new beau.” Marla gestured toward the pickup parked along the road. “We’re heading down to Portsmouth for the night to visit some friends, but as usual you’re in good hands with Mack.”
She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and tugged him close to her, his tense face shifting into something boyish and sweet.
“Forgive me for asking, but it’s been a while,” I said, digging into my bag for my phone. “Can you give me the wireless code? I still have to check in with work while I’m here.”
“No working!” Nick reminded me with a poke to the ribs.
“Check-ins,” I said, jabbing back. “Short, quick check-ins.”
“I’ll give it to you,” Mack said, reaching out to tap my forearm. “I have it written down in the boathouse. Come grab it after you get unpacked.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled. I could have sworn Marla shot Steve a confused look, but I was too flustered to give it much thought.
Annoying Mack was easy to handle. But kind Mack always left me oddly at a loss for words.
And somehow that bothered me more.