11
“SLOW DOWN, YOU’REcoming in and out.” Lydia’s voice crackled through my phone and then got drowned out by loud cheers erupting around her. “The Red Sox just scored, so people are going nuts.”
“Sorry, sorry,” I said, tromping through the grass down to the waterfront in my ratty old Northeastern sweats. “It’s just kind of important.”
“You called at the perfect time,” she said, and the noise around her calmed. “How’s the list going? Check anything off yet?”
“Not a thing,” I said, tucking my free hand into my pocket to make sure the letter was still there.
“You come home next Saturday, right?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, fingering the pointy edge of the folded paper.
“Well, hurry up, the clock is ticking. Better start having a shitload of fun.”
“Very funny,” I grumbled, pausing a few feet away from my friends, lingering on the outskirts of their circle of camping chairs centered around the fire pit. “Listen, I just wanted to see if anything new came out of the Creative meeting today.”
“Clara!” Lydia scolded. “I definitely don’t remember ‘check in with work when you’re not supposed to be working’ being something teenage Clara wanted you to do.”
“I know, I know, I’m only going to ask about this one meeting.” Our team had a three-hour brainstorm on the calendar for today, complete with catering, which was Amaya’s attempt at being generous while still forcing people to work on a weekend.
“Not unless you count Delilah trying to sell us on the idea of creating tiny mascots named Barley and Hops, and recounting the time she did a keg stand while tailgating at a Harry Styles concert as ‘anything new.’”
I let out a groan. “Ugh. We’re fucked, aren’t we?”
“Hold on a sec, boss.” Lydia’s voice was muffled, and I paced as I waited for her. Mack stood at the edge of the flames, which spotlit him against the shadows of dusk creeping across the sky. He looked perfectly content, an easy smile on his face as he held a beer in one hand and used the other to poke at the sparking logs with a giant stick.
I shuffled a few steps closer as he lifted the bottle to his lips, the Alewife logo unmistakable in the bright light of the fire. Jesus Christ. Work had followed me here whether I wanted it to or not.
Mack shifted to say something to Nick and caught my eye, the edges of his lips curling up ever so slightly. He gave a small nod as if to say “come here,” and suddenly I was fifteen again, walking back to the junior bunks after campfire with Mack, only to feel his hand slide into mine, tugging me behind a tree.
“I should have sabotaged your laptop before you left,” Lydia said, her voice, still choppy from the terrible phone service, jolting me back to the present. “Listen, try not to worry while you’re up there. It’s a brewery, for fuck’s sake. We’ll figure it out.”
The swoosh of a toilet flushing echoed in the background.
“Are you peeing with me on the phone?” I asked, laughing, still watching Mack.
“Hey, you called me and said it was urgent!” she protested. “Now, can you please go relax? We have two weeks to figure this out.”
“Thirteen days,” I corrected.
“Please don’t ‘well, actually’ me about this,” she said, chuckling.
“Sorry, it’s just been a weird day. Marla and Steve—who own this place—sold it, and we all just found out.”
“Oof,” Lydia grunted.
I cleared my throat, lowering my voice as I backed up a bit so no one could hear me.
“One more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“My friend Sam—the one we talked to yesterday—she’s pregnant.”
“That’s cool!” Lydia said enthusiastically.
“No, like, almost about to pop pregnant. She wanted to tell me in person over FaceTime months ago, and I forgot to find a time for us to talk. So she never told me. Until today.”
Lydia sucked in a breath on the other end of the line. “Yikes.”
“I know,” I groaned. “I need to figure out how to make it up to her.”
“You’re a good friend, Clara. You literally created a calendar for the office to track every person’s birthday at work. And you’ve somehow coordinated regular cupcake deliveries off of that schedule. That was extra labor you definitely did not need to do.”
I laughed at her assessment. “Sam’s birthday isn’t ’til November, though.”
“I’m not saying you need to go get cupcakes. Just focus on being present up there with her this week,” she said. “Do things that help you reconnect.”
A firefly flashed its light off in the distance, signaling the arrival of nighttime, and I took it as a sign. “You’re right. You’re the best, Lyd.”
“So are you, boss. Now go get drunk or hike or whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing this week. Those are on your list, right?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m about to have a beer and—you’ll love this—Mack drinks Alewife.”
She said something that sounded like a garbled, “Of course he does.” And then the line went dead.
“Hello?” I said. “Lydia?” But the call was dropped, cursed by the lack of cell towers here in northern New Hampshire. Defeated, I stuffed my phone back in my pocket and turned my attention to my friends, admiring the scene in front of me. Nick pontificating, holding his drink like a microphone. Trey’s mouth open, mid-laugh, as Sam watched over everyone, perched like a sage in a camping chair. Eloise and Linus hovering by the picnic table, her arms wrapped around his waist, while Mack lingered over the fire attentively, in the center of it all.
The water behind them carried their voices around the lake, echoes of chatter and laughter, the most comforting sound. There was nothing special about this moment, other than how much I had missed times like this: all of us together, talking forever about absolutely nothing.
“Hey,” I said, finally joining my friends on the small sliver of sand. “I’m all unpacked. I took the single bed next to Sam.”
I turned toward Nick and Trey, who grabbed a bottle from the six-pack at his feet, twisted off the top, and passed it to me. “You guys seriously want to share a bunk bed? Why don’t we push two beds together for you, make up the old camp king?”
This was how I’d always remembered their bed set up at our friend reunions before, and I’d been surprised to see their stuff neatly stacked on a top and bottom bunk instead.
Trey shook his head. “My snoring has been driving Nick nuts,” he explained. “Hopefully I won’t keep all of you awake.”
“I can always go sleep with Eloise and Linus,” I quipped, intending it as a joke.
But Nick just nodded adamantly. “Honestly? I’m considering it.”
Trey swung around to look at him, a sharp crease between his brows. He sat there for a second, as if he was deciding on exactly what to say. Nick watched him expectantly, almost like a challenge, and I realized there was a silent conversation going on between the two of them that had nothing at all to do with my stupid crack.
Eventually, Trey hopped up and headed in the direction of the picnic table, which was covered in pizza boxes and ripped-open bags of chips. Nick simply let out a sigh and turned back to the fire, where Mack was crouched on his heels, crumpling newspaper into tiny balls and shoving it under the stack of logs.
“Reliving your rope burn glory days, Mack?” I needed to deflate whatever tension this was that had invaded our fire circle, and ribbing Mack was an easy solution. And I couldn’t resist reminding him that I had kicked his ass in the rope burn in our final Color Week competition.
He swiveled around with a bemused look on his face, his knees hitting the ground as he caught my eye. But just as I settled confidently back into my seat, he lifted the hem of his T-shirt to his brow, wiping away the sweat on his forehead and offering up a look at his stomach, which was just as sun-kissed as the rest of him. The muscles of his abs shifted as he moved, and when he bent forward again I caught a glimpse of the edge of gray boxers, and a trail of hair, and I was off-kilter once again.
“Oh boy, here we go,” Nick cackled, rubbing his hands together. “I love that you just rolled in here after years away, Clara, and you’re already giving Mack crap about Color Week.”
“I’m just remembering how hard he worked to get the fire lit under the Blue Team’s rope, and, I dunno, how easy I found it.” I glanced down in an attempt to nonchalantly study my fingernails, anything but look back at Mack’s dewy skin, his shimmering eyes.
“Ohhhhhh!” Sam taunted, hooting at me through cupped hands. “I give that dis a seven out of ten.”
I shimmied my shoulders, forcing myself to loosen up, and then did my best impression of a runner prepping for a race, stretching an arm in front of my chest. “I’m just getting started.”
“And here I thought your shit-talk would be rusty.” Mack threw back another sip of his beer from where he now sat on the ground, elbows propped up on his knees, and then raised the bottle toward me, a nod of respect.
“Some things just get finer with age,” I said, mimicking his toast before taking a small swig, the sharp iciness of the beer a delicious relief.
He pointed at his chest, his brows suggestively high, and my gaze landed on his eyes, amber and green flecks in the firelight, the color of sea glass. Had his lashes always been this long?
“Well, welcome back, Clara.” He gave a sweeping gesture. “Dinner’s on the picnic table, and there’s more beer and seltzer in the cooler. And I’ll be sure to find some new ways to remind you that our team kicked your team’s ass.”
“Can’t we just settle this like adults?” I leaned forward in my chair, enjoying the banter much more than I should. “The World Series doesn’t end in a tie. Let’s just say my team won, and that I was the better captain, and move on. Ties don’t exist in the real world.”
“Aw, but I’d tie with you anytime, Millen,” he said, that cocky, pleased-with-himself smile appearing, half lit up, half covered in shadows of darkness.
“Oh, really? Is that why you were walking around here wearing a medal that has been around since before the invention of the iPhone, goading me into a swim race?” I challenged, fiddling with a strand of hair between two fingers.
“There’s nothing I love more than two adults fighting over something that happened a billion years ago,” Eloise chimed in, swirling the wine in her plastic cup, which was the same shockingly bright red as her hair, before bringing it to her lips with an eye roll in my direction. I learned long ago not to take it personally; she rolled her eyes so often that it was practically a reflex.
“Just making up for lost time, El,” Mack said, his eyes back on me. I decided to give the pizza table my undivided attention, and walked over to the food, slapping two greasy, no longer hot slices onto a paper plate.
Eloise was now perched on Linus’s knee, her body pressed against his chest, arm wrapped around his neck. Mindlessly, she started running her fingers along the nape of his neck, and he moved his hands on her hips in an echoing rhythm. Jesus.
I dragged my chair over next to Sam and scooted it until I was practically sitting in her lap, so I wouldn’t have a front-row seat to their foreplay.
“Favorite camp memory,” Sam said, pointing at me. “Go.”
“Oh, crap, um. Winning the senior girls’ swim race during my last summer.” The words came out garbled, my mouth full of pizza. “Sorry, Eloise.”
I’d kicked her butt by a few seconds, and later that night she’d cried over her loss. Tonight she just waved me off and went back to canoodling with Linus. I’d worked so hard that summer, showing up to swim laps after each day’s activities were done. That feeling of winning by the skin of my teeth had been downright euphoric, a high that had numbed my worries for a day or two until the reality of my parents’ split settled back into my brain.
“Oh! Wait, I’ve got another one,” I said as a memory flashed brightly in my head. “The night we raided the kitchen for cookies and almost got caught by Marla. I think we were twelve.”
“By we, you mean you led the way, and our entire bunk followed.” Sam shifted in her chair, her hand holding her bump. “You were always leading us into precarious situations.”
“That was back before I knew better.” The words came out sadder than I intended. “I also gave the entire bunk lice that year.”
“Like I said.” Sam swatted my knee. “Precarious situations.”
She pointed at Nick. “Nicholas. Go.”
“Capture the Flag my first summer, when that kid with the blue hair—”
“Wilson Frank,” Eloise interrupted.
“Yes, Wilson! When everyone forgot he was stuck in the other team’s jail and left him there forever, and when we finally figured out we needed to rescue him he had his pants down and was peeing behind the goalpost because he was too committed to the game to leave and go to the bathroom.”
Eloise let out a huge laugh, leaning forward on Linus’s lap. “Oh my god, yes. That was the first time I’d ever seen another person’s genitalia. That gets my vote.”
“He was so embarrassed!” Nick could barely get the words out, he was laughing so hard.
“He’s an attorney now,” Sam said, looking down at her phone. “According to LinkedIn.”
Finally catching his breath, Nick added, “And every play and musical I ever did here. I never had the confidence to do theater before coming to camp. And now it’s my whole life.”
“You should have seen the production of Newsies he directed last year,” Trey said proudly. “The kids were amazing.”
Nick offered him a wistful look in return as a quiet lull fell over our group, the fire crackling in the wake of our silence.
“Mack?” Sam asked, shifting in her chair to get comfortable. “I mean I know you work here, so you have a wealth of moments to choose from.”
“Worked, you mean. Pretty sure I’m about to be unemployed and moving back in with my parents.” Mack’s mood shifted for a moment as he dragged a hand through his hair, his smile now a tight line.
A dull throb pulsed in my chest, an actual, honest-to-god ache, as I thought of Mack this afternoon, lighting up at the sight of his garden, the spark in his voice as he’d talked about his dashed plans for next year.
It was obvious that he loved it here. Pine Lake was Marla and Steve’s, of course, but Mack’s touch was all over this place. It was a loss I hadn’t fully considered until this very moment.
He studied the ground in thought, tracing a circle in the sand with his index finger. Then he looked up with an earnest smile. “This.”
“Oh my god, you’re so full of shit,” Sam moaned, digging a marshmallow out of the bag in her lap and lobbing it at his head.
“Hey, what?!” Mack ducked defensively, and the marshmallow landed with a plunk in the fire. “I’m serious! I look forward to this week all year. And I’m glad we’re all here for the last one.”
His eyes darted toward me, just for a second, but it was long enough to fill me with fifty different dirty thoughts, all of which involved his mouth pressed against various parts of my body.
Mack’s teeth grazing the soft skin of my forearm, or his lips pressed against my thigh.
It wasn’t the first time my mind had traveled to the Land of Naked Mack Thoughts. But now, with him just a few feet away from me, the fact that they could actually happen in real life felt both terrifying and thrilling, like the moment you get buckled into a roller coaster before it rockets up that first hill.
It was the same thing I’d felt the first time we’d met as kids, when we’d kissed at fifteen, and every time he draped that medal over my neck again and again with satisfied glee. When it came to drawing me in, like a moth to a flame, Mack always won.