Chapter Five Margot
Chapter Five
Margot
It’s hard to be down when I’m surrounded by giggling.
I know from experience that a camp counselor’s mood can infect an entire cabin.
My failed love affair with Dean is not the first romance to go south at Camp Firefly, after all, and it won’t be the last. My third year at camp, the Unicorn Cabin counselor—Remy D’Angelo—was so depressed over her ex-boyfriend that she read passages from The Bell Jar out loud to the campers every night.
That was the summer we all became poets.
We wrote sad poetry about everything from half-empty ketchup bottles to dead leaves.
Stole Remy’s mentholated cigarettes and smoked them in the woods while talking about the apartment we’d all share in New York one day.
Trust me, I ate that drama up.
But I’m not about to let my sadness trickle down to the girls.
Not when they only have three weeks to make memories.
So I lace up my boots and dab a little concealer under my eyes to hide the fact that I cried buckets last night, and we sing a repeat-after-me song on the way to breakfast. It’s a beautiful summer day at Camp Firefly.
The air smells like bug spray and sunscreen; the sun breaks through the gently swaying branches of the trees overhead.
Birds call to one another across the campground.
We’re scheduled to go canoeing this morning, followed by Pop Paint, an arts-and-crafts activity I made up two seasons ago that involves listening to pop music and applying body paint. It’s going to be messy.
Which is good. I need messy today.
I want to be distracted from the tear in my chest.
Every time I stop moving, I hear Dean said you’re a catastrophe waiting to happen.
That’s what he really thinks of me, isn’t it? All year long, I construct these fantasies about Dean secretly pining for me. Stalking me on social media too. Counting down the days until he sees me again.
Maybe he is counting the days until he sees me again, but only so he can beef up the camp’s liability insurance.
When we reach the entrance to the dining hall, I swallow hard, not sure how I even feel about seeing Dean on the other side of the door.
Normally, the sight of him makes me interminably happy.
Of course it does. He’s Dean. Grumbly, reluctantly amused, quietly humble Dean, with his pocket map and travel mug.
My heart tries to lift and beat faster at the mental image of him that I hold on to all year, but it’s too heavy, so it just gives a flat thud as I lead my cabin into the dining hall, Isabel bringing up the rear.
My stride hitches as soon as I clear the threshold because there is a buzz of excitement in the big, airy hall. More than usual.
Campers are huddled around tables, pointing and conferring.
About what?
An electric current tickles the side of my face, and I turn my head to seek out Dean, something my body is conditioned to do, only to find him watching me with an expression I’ve never seen on his face before. At least not while he’s looking at me.
It’s . . . determination.
My pulse snaps into a jog, but I distract myself from that involuntary response and organize the girls at their assigned table, though some of them have already left to track down their breakfast at the back of the dining hall, where assorted cereals and hot plates are waiting to be pillaged.
Okay, Dean probably just wants to say he’s sorry for calling me a catastrophe.
I’ll accept his apology and move on. I’m not going to punish him for an opinion that is admittedly true, in a lot of respects, right?
“The rainbow is better than the horseshoe,” says one of the boys at the neighboring table, though he’s quickly overruled.
“The heart is perfect. It’s definitely number one.”
“This one is last place. You can’t even tell it’s a pot of gold.”
My back straightens. Are they ranking their Lucky Charms marshmallows?
Curiously, I scan the dining hall.
Every single table is doing the same thing. They all have big piles of Lucky Charms in front of their group, marshmallows separated from the boring stuff.
Oh. They’re . . . playing my ridiculous game.
The one I used to play with Dean when he needed a boost after his mom passed.
“Remember, we’re judging based on a well-defined shape and good color,” Dean calls over the cacophony of high-pitched voices.
“Braiden, don’t eat them yet,” he says in an aside to a camper.
Then, “Once you have your ranked lineup of the ten best marshmallows, each table needs to bring their number one pick to Margot. She’s the final judge.
Cabin with the best marshmallow gets first dibs on the diving board later. ”
The fever pitch increases, along with the stakes.
Along with my heart rate.
He remembered my silly little game.
My gaze travels over the heads of the campers to find Dean again, and he’s watching me steadily, his head tilted to one side. I’m sorry, he mouths. I’m sorry.
I have lost feeling in my legs. That’s the only reason I don’t dance on the table.
Or drape myself over the strewed condiments and silverware in a full swoon.
As it is, I’m already beaming at him with my hands clasped tightly beneath my chin.
Last night, I went to bed thinking the guy I’ve loved for eight years doesn’t know or understand me at all.
But this ridiculous game and the fact that he’s made me the judge, proves the opposite.
Maybe Dean Ingram gets me, after all.
I don’t have a chance to think about it too hard because marshmallow shapes are being lined up in front of me.
Clovers, hearts, balloons. My own cabin got in late on the game, but they’ve rallied and offer their own colorful shape for judging too.
A dining hall full of campers watches me expectantly, and I make a big show of studying each marshmallow from all angles, framing them with my fingers and tapping my lips thoughtfully.
“Each and every cabin has brought me a fine choice. A fine choice, indeed, but I think there is a clear winner here.” I pause for effect. “The June Bugs take first place.”
The dining hall erupts in a clashing chorus of boos and cheers, followed by marshmallows being shoveled into mouths faster than lightning.
But I’ve only got eyes for Dean, because he’s dodging victorious fist pumps and scurrying campers on his way to me, and my stupid heart is bouncing off the walls of my throat.
Prickles of warmth spread down my back when Dean walks down the row behind my bench and leans down to speak in my ear. “Can I talk to you alone, Margot?”
I almost knock the bench over in my haste to get up.
Wow. Apparently, I am so easy.
Who cares, though? Because when I stand up and face Dean, he stares down at me long and hard before holding my hand. Holding my hand. And leading me out of the dining hall in a sea of gasps and whispers.
Oh my God.
I throw a shocked glance over my shoulder at Isabel, who is bouncing in her seat, fluttering her hands around like she’s going to explode.
Same.
All I can hear is the rapping in my temples.
Dean guides us around the side of the dining hall, the camp noises growing quieter.
More distant. Finally, we’re standing in the shade beneath the eaves, frogs and crickets providing a gentle soundtrack from the nearby woods.
Once again, Dean’s attention is zeroed in on my face—my face that flushes wildly when he strokes his thumb across the harried pulse in my wrist.
“You’re not a catastrophe. You . . .” He shakes his head slowly and pulls me closer, brushing his lips against my forehead. “You’re the heart and soul of this place. For me, you’ve always been that. You are the summer, Margot. You are this entire season.”
My stomach flies up into my mouth. “Wait. D-does that . . . mean you like me?”
That earns me an are you serious eyebrow raise. Well deserved. This man just told me I am the summer, and I ask if he likes me.
Holy hell, he just told me I am the summer.
“I more than like you.”
“I more than like you too,” I whisper back, my voice trembling.
“I know.” Regret clashes with the adoration in his eyes.
“You were trying to tell me. I’m not sure I deserve you after being too dense to figure it all out.
The frog, the snakebite, the trees . . .
the countless other stunts you pulled. All of them had meaning.
A purpose.” He dips his mouth to mine and breathes there for a second.
“Margot adds drama to everything. I won’t forget again. ”
I’m not cut out for this.
I thought I had the soul of a romantic, but now that I’m being presented with the most romantic gestures and words and touches that a girl could ever hope for, I have forgotten how to speak or think or breathe. “Okay,” I manage dreamily.
Dean laughs. “Okay?”
“I wasn’t prepared for your romantic side.”
“I see,” he says solemnly. “How long do you need to prepare?”
“Couple of years, give or take.”
He hums in his throat, as if he’s having a think.
“Yeah, I don’t think I can’t wait that long.
Can you speed up the process at all?” He swaps our positions and slowly walks me in reverse until my back is against the building, his forearm propping itself over my head. “I want to take you out tonight.”
My knees are going to give out. Is this real? “Take me out where?”
“I was thinking that grove of laurel trees you sent me to, trying to be thoughtful.” His mouth is rubbing over mine, dragging right to left and back again, and oh boy, that twisting and tugging beneath my navel is something. “I want to appreciate them, like I should have done the first time.”
“What would we do . . .” I begin, my question partially muffled because his lips persist on mine, right there on the edge of kissing. “. . . in the grove of laurel trees?”
He uses his jaw to nudge my chin, tilting my head back, his mouth slipping up the side of my neck, and now I’m wet. I’m actually wet out in the daylight with Dean Ingram’s mouth on my neck. It’s a moment so much more potent and dizzying than I could have imagined. “I have some ideas.”
“Kissing?”
“If you want me to, Margot, I’ll kiss you until the sun comes up.” He lifts his head to peer down at me, and I notice his pupils have expanded, his breathing getting a little choppy. “We’ll only ever do what you want.”
That. That turns me on the most. Because I know he means it. “Thank you.”
“Mostly, I was thinking I could show you my Scout badges.”
My gasp is embarrassingly loud. They probably hear it in the dining hall. “Really?”
I hear him swallow, something a lot like misery dancing in his gaze. “You’ve wanted to see them that badly?”
I nod.
His chest rises and plummets. “I have a lot to make up for.”
“We’ll call it even if you kiss me.”
He exhales on a shudder, and then I’m just surrounded by gold.
That’s what it’s like to kiss Dean Ingram in the summer sunshine.
His body presses into mine, a slow and secure pinning against the side of the dining hall, his lips coasting over mine one final time before he tilts his head slightly and comes into me with a hot marriage of our mouths, a pulling and inhaling of texture and taste, his tongue licking in and convincing mine to join him, a groan rumbling in his chest, tension building in his hard body as the tempo of the kiss picks up. And oh, it really, really picks up.
I’m not sure if it’s my whimper that flips the switch, or if it’s the way I acknowledge his erection with a deliberate brush of my tummy, but he breaks away, studying me long and hard, before diving back in, and suddenly we’re making out, as opposed to kissing, and oh yeah, I love it.
I love it. The hungry pace. The way his hands find my thighs and scrub up, down, gripping the hem of my shorts to yank me onto my toes, his hips fastening mine to the building so securely that I have an easy time wrapping my legs around his waist.
When I do that, his head falls back on a rasping sound, and the hem of my shorts is now being used to tug, tug, tug me against him while he grinds upward. There.
I’ve never experienced this eager gathering of moisture between my thighs. It’s almost uncomfortable. Or it would be if that accompanying clench didn’t feel so good. It happens every time his hips move, and all I can think is faster.
“Margot,” he rasps, glassy eyed. Breathing fast. “We have to stop.”
“No.”
He closes his eyes as if my denial turns him on, refocusing on my face a few seconds later. “I can do this to you tonight. Grind on you until you come.” He wets his lips, and need digs into my stomach. “Or I can put my mouth on it. My tongue.”
Those words, so intimate, make my legs open wider.
He notices, curses, surging forward one more time. Sliding me up and down the wall, leaving both of us fighting back moans.
“Are we going to have sex tonight?” I whimper.
Again, those pupils seem to throb bigger. “That’s up to you.” He kisses me softly. “Are you a virgin, Margot?”
I nod.
A muscle snaps in his jaw. “You decide when,” he says, more firmly, razing his teeth against the patch of skin beneath my right ear. “You decide how deep I put it. How fast I use it. How often you want it. And this grateful man just gives it to you. We on the same page?”
“Yes,” I choke out, positive his statements are going to play on a loop all day. Maybe for the rest of my life. “Can we fast-forward to tonight?”
“That’s the one thing I can’t do,” he says, easing his hips back with a wince and letting me slide down the wall. Catching me. Holding me close while we attempt to even out our breathing. “Actually, there are two things I can’t do.”
I’m an exposed nerve, sensitive all over my body, so my voice is unnaturally hushed when I ask, “What’s the other thing you can’t do?”
He strokes my hair, kissing my temple hard. “Be without you another summer.”
Heat burns behind my eyelids. “I can’t do that either.”
A gruff sound in his throat. “Good.”
I’m floating on a cloud for the remainder of the day, willing time to move faster so I can be with Dean again. Just the two of us. I try not to get ahead of myself, wondering and dissecting what he said. That he can’t be without me for another summer.
But what about the other three seasons?