Chapter 14
Anson never had occasion to avoid one of his leaders before. Good thing, since youth group left him a sitting duck. Or, at the moment, a kneeling one. He reached under the couch to collect another remnant of the kids’ unauthorized jellybean war.
The students had picked up the majority before heading out. Because of an early shift, Nolan had jumped ship when the students left.
Blaze, however, lingered. “Hey, girls, can you check the gym for my phone?” There was a theatrical flair to Blaze’s voice as she addressed Hadley and Mercy.
Suspicious.
Likely happy to escape cleanup duty, the girls’ incessant chatter faded as they trotted off.
Blaze didn’t waste time once they were gone. “You can’t be this mad over the canoe thing, can you?”
Since she was so determined to be unavoidable, he sat up.
Her hands rested on her hips. She wore a graphite, long-sleeved top that looked softer than anything he’d ever owned. “You’re avoiding me,” she said.
Not well enough. He lowered his head and stuck his arm back under the couch.
“I’m focusing on my responsibilities.” Including his responsibility to Sydney.
His fingers touched a wrapper—one that didn’t deflate under his touch.
He dragged the item out. A granola bar, still sealed.
With another sweep of his arm, he brought out a stash of candy, granola bars, an apple, a sports drink, and a soda.
Nothing had been opened. Had someone stashed this on purpose?
“You never said thank you for the cookies.” Hurt wove through her tone.
“Thank you. They were unnecessary but good. The students said so too.” He scanned for other stray items. Something as large as a couch cushion blocked the light near his feet.
“The students said they were unnecessary?”
She had a point. He could keep his distance and still be polite. He abandoned his treasure hunt to smile at her. “Good—we all thought they were good.”
“You were stung by a wasp, Blaze.” She’d lowered the pitch of her voice. Was that supposed to be him? “What happened was completely understandable. And by the way, ADHD makes a lot of sense. I’m glad you’re pursuing the help you and Mercy need to thrive.”
He rubbed his forehead. Sure, he could’ve said those things. Part of him had wanted to, even. But how close was too close? She was a wildfire, after all. “Sounds like you don’t need me for anything.”
Blaze huffed. “One of Sydney’s friends made you out to be this insightful, evolved man, but you’re like all the rest, aren’t you?”
A pit of discomfort opened in his gut. “Why were you talking to Sydney’s friends about me?”
She sighed and straightened the chairs. “They were at The Depot wondering what you would do for your anniversary.”
“Anniversary?”
Her hands froze as she turned wide eyes toward him. “You didn’t forget, did you?”
He and Sydney had been dating since last September. Just over a year ago. He schooled his features and took the deepest breath he could without giving away his panic. How had he forgotten? If Blaze was to be believed, no one else had.
“One of them thought you’d propose. I guess Sydney was wise not to buy it.”
Propose? Shock rocked him forward. He covered by reaching under the couch for the final item. Given his intentions of eventually marrying Sydney, the idea should’ve occurred to him. He wasn’t about to dissect why it hadn’t with Blaze, of all people. He tugged at the large object by his feet.
An all-too-familiar wad of fabric slid out from under the couch.
“Is that a sleeping bag?” She left the last chair askew as she approached him. “What is all that?”
An excellent question. The only church activities that required a sleeping bag were retreats and summer camp, neither of which were any time soon.
“Has someone been sleeping here?” Blaze’s question echoed his own suspicions.
“Or hanging out. I found a bunch of empty wrappers a few weeks ago. I’ve been locking the room ever since. This sleeping bag was in the closet across the hall. I put it in lost-and-found. Someone claimed it almost immediately.”
“One of the kids brought it back here and hid it?”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair and surveyed the room from where he kneeled beside the couch. Disappointment and worry tightened his back. “I don’t know. I never leave this room open and unattended for more than ten or fifteen minutes.”
She crossed her arms. “That would be enough time.”
“To hide it. Not use it.” He lifted the sleeping bag. Looked clean. Didn’t stink.
“Which is good, because some of the Branching Out students are couples, aren’t they?”
He groaned and dropped the bag. No student would go that far at church, right?
She squatted nearby and picked up a candy bar and the apple. “What do we do about it?”
He braced his arm against the couch and ran possibilities.
“There’s an extra key in the spare key lock box, so I’ll start there.
If that’s a dead end, I’ll ask the students.
And the leadership board. They have keys to the lock box, so indirectly they—or someone with their key—could access the youth room.
” He rose to stand beside her. “Have any students expressed problems that might lead them to look for a place to hide out? Maybe Hadley?”
“Hadley?” Her eyes narrowed. “Why her?”
“She loves attention.” Lately, she’d been calling Anson Dad. It started when he instructed some students not to run in the hall.
“Okay, Dad,” an eighth grader had said.
Over the next half hour, a few of the others copied the boy. When Anson didn’t react, everyone except Hadley dropped it. Two weeks later, she still crooned it at him once or twice each Wednesday night.
Blaze frowned as she set the food down.
“She’s not acting out in dangerous ways,” he said. “I’m glad she’s coming to Rooted. But she goes out of her way to be the center of attention. Sometimes that’s a sign of a problem. I don’t know if it’s a sign of this problem.” He nudged the sleeping bag with his foot. “But we have to consider it.”
Blaze scratched her temple. “I hate to think of any kid feeling like they need a backup plan like this, let alone one of the younger students.”
“Me too. But we owe it to the kids to get to the bottom of this, and that means considering the possibilities.”
Blaze stared blankly toward the stash. “None of the girls have said anything in small group that leads me to believe they’re unhappy or unsafe at home. Have the boys?”
He shook his head.
“What about Carter?” Her brown eyes warmed with concern. “Drinking on a youth group trip is a much bigger warning sign than Hadley’s seventh-grade humor.”
“According to Eric, the drinking is just a sign of bad leadership.”
Her eyes and mouth opened like a fish. “What?”
He clenched his jaw. “Forget I said that.”
She side-eyed him like he’d asked her to forget witnessing a murder.
He probably ought to give some context. “Eric’s behind the initiative to double the youth group.
We’ve been butting heads. That’s all. Our differences aside, I talked to Carter on Saturday and he came back to youth group.
He hasn’t let on to anything. Plus, he’d stockpile a lot more food.
He eats more than I do. And how would he get in here? ”
“How would Hadley? Or any of them?”
They had more questions than answers, and posing them to each other wouldn’t get them anywhere.
Mercy appeared in the doorway. She’d earned a Rooted hoodie for bringing Amelia on the canoe trip, and she yanked the zipper up and down, up and down. “Looked everywhere. Couldn’t find it.”
Hadley edged in behind her, nodding empathetically.
“Hm.” Blaze crossed to the purse she’d left on the couch and produced her phone. “Sure enough, it’s right here.”
Mercy snickered. “At least it was easy to find this time. Remember when you left your keys in the bag of lettuce in the fridge?”
“I do.” She moved toward the door. “We should get going. We need to get Hadley home, and Anson has places to go.”
Right. The missed anniversary.
As soon as they left, he took a plastic bag from the cabinet and piled the snacks inside. Then, he wrote a note on a slip of paper—I’m here to help. Call me—and dropped it inside. He stuffed the whole collection back under the couch.
That done, he drew out his phone, but guilt and embarrassment stopped him from using it to contact Sydney. He should’ve remembered. He should be excited to propose too. Instead, picking a ring, talking to her parents, choosing a place, and figuring out the right heartfelt words felt like a chore.
That was stress talking. Once things settled down with the leadership board and they discovered the truth behind the sleeping bag, he could refocus on Sydney.
If he wanted proposing to still be an option when the dust settled, he needed to treat her with more care in the meantime, starting with apologizing in person.