Chapter Five
Sadie
The parking lot hottie disappears as soon as he goes through the lodge doors. I’m only a few minutes behind him, carrying the box of t-shirts, but when I pull open the door, he’s nowhere to be found. Tyler is just wrapping up “Oh Helena” with the last verse: as loud as possible while miming dying. When he collapses onto the floor, the rest of the staff applauds at his theatrics, their voices finally quiet.
A second later, Tyler pops up, dusting off his hopelessly dusty shorts. “Alright, everyone. I’m going to turn the time over to Sadie for some last-minute camp business before we put the finishing touches on the campfire programs.”
Tyler moves to sit down next to his wife, and I take my place at the front of the room, setting the massive box on one of the tables in front of me.
“Okay, guys,” I project to the room in a voice that feels loud, but sounds like a whisper compared to “Oh Helena.” “This is our last meeting before participants start arriving in the morning. So let’s start with a run down of tomorrow’s schedule. Wake up call is at 6 am sharp. Someone will be coming around,” I gesture to the adult staff, “at 6:30 to make sure everyone is awake. We’ve got our food truck coming in to drop off our order, and it’s all hands on deck to get it unloaded. While we’re doing that, the lovely Danielle is going to be prepping breakfast. The faster we empty the truck, the sooner we get to eat.
“Participants won’t be arriving until 9 am at the earliest, but we do need to do a full sweep of the activity areas and cabins before their arrival. Hailey and Landon,” our two lead counselors, “will be in charge of those assignments. And I need four volunteers to lead the ice breaker games on the field as participants start arriving.”
Nearly half the youth staff raise their hands, but I pick four at random.
“Thanks, guys. I’m sure y’all remember some easy games from last year. Keep them simple. Keep them fun. And keep them engaging.”
I quickly run through the rest of the camp business we need to cover before excusing everyone to get a good night’s rest. As I come to the end of my mental list, I pause. It’s something that we’ve already gone over this week, but it never gets any less awkward bringing it up.
“And the last thing before I have you guys come get your staff t-shirts,” I pat the top of the box in front of me and clear my throat. Quick and easy. Rip the band-aid.
“Just a reminder about the Purple Rule.” Groans echo back to me from the youth. “It’s for your safety, it’s for the camp’s safety, so please just follow this one, guys. No holding hands. No kissing. While you’re on Camp Brower property—no purple.”
I scan the room, attempting to make eye contact with as many youth staff as I can so they understand the importance of this rule. My gaze gets to the back of the room and snags on a striking pair of blue eyes.
Parking Lot Hottie.
He’s standing at the back of the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. And smirking. And that little tilt to his head, paired with a raise of one eyebrow is saying, no purple?
I blink and look away, noticing Linda pulling Landon aside at the edge of the room. Come to think of it, she wasn’t in the room when I began the meeting, so maybe she was in the camp office with him. He did say he was looking for Paul and Linda, after all.
Landon stands and Linda slips into his seat as he heads to the back of the room, passing in front of the tall drink of water who is still staring at me.
“Okay, staff shirts!” I exclaim, busying myself by pulling out my pocket knife and opening the box of shirts. I fold back the flaps and start pulling the stacks of folded shirts out. This year, they’re teal with “STAFF” emblazoned across the front in white, and “Camp Brower” across the back like the name on one of Ava’s lacrosse jerseys.
Youth staffers start to stand and move, aiming for me and the shirts, but I hold my hands out like Chris Pratt in Jurassic World to stop the teenage raptors. “Hold it. I changed my mind. I’m going to lay these out by size while we go over the campfire programs. When we’re done with that, come grab your size and cross off your name as you leave.”
I shove the shirts back into the box and move to the side, leaving room at the front for Tyler and his portable whiteboard. Earlier in the week, we brainstormed skits, songs, and run-ons for the two campfire programs we put on for the participants—one on Monday night and one on Friday night. A hello and goodbye to camp. Now, Tyler has all of the acts listed in order on the board. As he starts going over the blocking for the program, I start laying out the staff shirts.
Linda quietly gets up and moves the few feet down the table to help me get the shirts organized by size before giving me a quick side hug and returning to her seat.
Any doubts I had about Paul and Linda as replacements for Mr. and Mrs. Brower were easily put to rest this last week as we prepped the camp for participants. Both of them have been so hands-on and willing to get a little dirty to make sure they know how to do things, where equipment is located, and they’ve already picked up a handful of camp songs. Watching Linda, laughing with the staff as they practice some of the run-ons, leaves me feeling like I’m leaving Camp Brower in the right hands.
I grab my size off the top of a pile and move toward the back of the room.
“What was all of that about purpling?” Parking Lot Hottie’s voice is low and deep, a voice that should be recorded and listened to. Frequently.
I slowly turn, trying to make it look like I’m unfazed that he’s moved away from the wall and is standing behind me, ducking his head so he’s speaking closer to my ear. I glance up at his flirty smile and return it with one of my own. What? This guy isn’t a staffer. He’s probably going to leave tonight. And I’m not purpling with him. I’m just…flirting.
I tilt my head toward the wall he vacated, and we walk over, two of my steps matching one of his. I mimic his positioning from earlier before looking up and explaining in a low voice, “Girls are pink. Guys are blue. Here at camp, there’s no purple.” I raise my eyebrows at him, hoping he understands without me having to go into more detail. It’s awkward enough when I have to explain it to teenagers.
“I still don’t get it.”
I sigh. I don’t know why I’m doing this, other than it gives me an excuse to keep talking to him. “When you mix blue and pink, you get purple. Holding hands? That’s mixing pink and blue. So there’s no hand holding, kissing, or…other stuff.”
I glance back up, only to be met with his perfect lips pressed together, holding in a laugh. He gently bumps my shoulder with his arm, sending a wave of excitement through me. Get it together, Sadie.
“I’m messing with you,” he says, his eyes sparkling. “I understand what purpling is.”
“Oh, good,” I respond lamely, trying to focus back on the end of the staff meeting instead of this still-mysterious guy beside me.
“What’s your name?”
I turn at his unexpected question. He tips his chin to his chest to look down at me. Oh my gosh, I must look like a child to him. How tall is this guy? Now that he’s here, right next to me, he feels even taller than he was in the parking lot.
I reach out the hand that isn’t holding my staff shirt. “I’m Sadie.”
His much larger hand closes around mine, and electricity zings where our skin touches. Out of habit, I grasp his hand in a firm handshake, which he returns. As my hand slips out of his, I mentally facepalm myself. I just shook his hand like a dude. Was he expecting some demure girl’s limp-fish handshake? Did I just ruin the whole sparks-fly-when-we-touch moment with a bro-strength grip?
But his eyes spark as he says, “Oliver.”
Tonight, I will remember the way his name rolls off his tongue until I fall asleep. Oliver.
It feels a little silly, getting this twitterpated over a guy I’ve seen twice and just barely introduced myself to, but I’ll be honest: this is the most attention I’ve received from a guy in…four years? Five years? Ever since I broke things off with my high school boyfriend to move to Denver, I haven’t really been able to catch the eye of anyone. The whole crazy-camp-girl thing, plus the fact that I spend three months out of the year nearly unreachable, doesn’t exactly bring all the boys to my yard.
“So how long have you been doing the camp thing?” he asks, facing forward again, pretending to pay attention to the campfire program planning. I should be paying attention, since I’ll be participating in both of the programs, but at this moment, I’m more interested in the man next to me. The man who leans into me, pressing our arms together.
“Ten years. Twelve, if you count the years I was a participant.”
“Impressive.” He nods, not saying anything more. But instead of the loaded silence behind a guy not knowing what else to say, it’s oddly void of any judgment.
“What about you?”
He laughs softly, his eyes glancing around the room before looking back to me, but before he can answer, a commotion down the hall draws my attention, and I pull back, creating space between me and Oliver.
Landon rushes past me, mumbling a barely intelligible, “I’m sorry,” before half-running to the door, Paul hot on his heels. Linda looks back at the disturbance with concern, but smiles when she sees me standing next to Oliver. The youth staff ignore the slight interruption, but Tyler looks at me with a question in his eyes. I shrug, unsure of what’s going on, and he goes back to discussing how we’ll be ending the campfires and dismissing the participants back to their cabins.
“This is my first time at a summer camp, actually,” Oliver says quietly, once everyone’s attention is back on Tyler.
“I definitely couldn’t tell.” I shoot a sideways smirk at him, and he shakes his head, chuckling quietly.
“What gave it away?” The laughter in his voice does funny things to my heart, sending it pitter-pattering away like an Irish dancer.
“You’re the first person I’ve met who’s showed up to camp in business casual.” I tilt my head toward him and briefly run my eyes down to his toes, ignoring the way my heart does double-time when his eyes flare with approval.
“You’re telling me this isn’t standard camp attire?” Oliver leans closer, pressing our arms together again as his voice drops in volume and pitch.
I open my mouth to answer with another witty comeback, but Tyler loudly wraps up the meeting, and the commotion of the staff heading back to their cabins breaks the moment between me and Oliver.
As the youth staff exit the lodge, chatting animatedly about tomorrow, Tyler helps Danielle with their two kids, who fell asleep during the staff meeting. I give them both a small wave as they head down the hall to the stairs that lead to one of two sleeping rooms above the main lodge room. Danielle looks at Oliver with the slightest widening of her eyes, and I give her an almost imperceptible shrug.
I’ve got no deets to spill to her about Oliver.
The other two adult staff members, Mia and Austin, the archery and waterfront directors, also wave goodnight and head out to their own cabins. As soon as all the staff are gone, Linda makes her way back to me and Oliver with a bright smile on her face.
“I see you’ve met Sadie, our wonderful camp director.”
I smile and blush at the compliment. Linda is always so kind with her words. The only people who have ever been this open with compliments for me are the Sunny Girls.
“And you’ve met Oliver?”
I nod and smile, glancing between Linda and Oliver, waiting for someone to make the connection on how they know each other. Linda is a few years older than my parents, and Oliver looks to be only a few years older than me. He could easily be—
“My son.”
Oliver rolls his eyes, his grin growing into a smile, revealing those dimpled cheeks, before he turns back to me with a sheepish shrug.
“I didn’t realize—” How was I going to finish that sentence? Because now that I know the family link, I can see bits of Linda and Paul when I look at Oliver. Linda’s hair color. Paul’s face shape. And now that they’re both smiling at me, I can see they share the same cheek dimples.
“Oh don’t worry about that, Sadie.” Linda steps closer and bumps my shoulder with hers. “He doesn’t come around much when we’re at home, either. It’s a wonder I remember that I have a son!” Her jesting is lighthearted, and the way Oliver blushes and shakes his head, this is something he’s heard from her before.
“I’m here now, aren’t I?” Oliver slips one of his hands into a pocket, and I quickly look back to Linda before I start ogling him. It’s bad enough that he’s freakishly attractive, but now he’s the son of my bosses. Isn’t there a rule or something about that? But with the way Linda keeps looking back and forth between us—with hope in her eyes—maybe that rule isn’t as universal as I thought.
The main lodge door swings open slowly, and a tired Paul steps in, rubbing at his forehead. Linda is immediately at his side, concern etched on her features. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and steers her back to me and Oliver before speaking. He rubs his hand down his face, and when he opens his eyes and his mouth, he’s looking at me.
“Landon has a family emergency. His parents need him at home, so he’s packing up his things to leave now.”
It’s my turn to rub my hands over my face. I push my fingers into my hair, knocking loose even more strands before returning them to my temples.
What am I going to do?
We have participants arriving tomorrow. It’s late. I don’t have the time to find a new lead counselor. Even running through my mental list of the handfuls of people I’ve worked with over the last ten summers, I can’t come up with a name of someone who would be able to immediately drop everything and fill Landon’s spot.
But instead of saying that to Paul and Linda, I say, “I’ll go through my contacts and see who I can talk to on such short notice. I’m sure I can find someone.” Because I have to. I can’t let Paul and Linda down like this, not when they were so confident in me to begin with. “It might take a few days, so we’ll have to run short-staffed until someone can fill in, but we can do it.”
“There’s no need to worry about finding anyone, Sadie.” The evenness of Linda’s voice has me looking at her with What? written all over my face. But she’s not looking at me. She’s looking at Paul, and the two of them seem to be having a quick silent conversation of raised brows and pursed lips. Paul nods, and Linda looks at me.
At Oliver.
“Oliver can fill in.”
Oliver walks behind me, huffing and puffing, as we walk across the field to the far side of the lake. The boys cabins—including the male adult staff—are on the east side of the lake, while the girls cabins are on the west side. I offered to take one of his bags, but he waved me off and slung a duffle bag across his body, slipped on a backpack, and hefted a garment bag over one shoulder.
I don’t know why someone would need a garment bag—most likely full of button up shirts and slacks, maybe even a suit, if what he’s wearing right now is any indication—out here in the trees and the dirt and the wide open sky. But Oliver is still wearing dress shoes as we follow the dirt path to the cabin he’ll be sharing with Austin now that Landon is on his way back to Ogden to help his family.
I was skeptical when Linda offered her son as a replacement for one of my lead counselors. The guy doesn’t look like he’s ever done anything outdoors beyond walking between his car and the building he’s walking into. But I’m short on time—Camp Brower’s summer program starts tomorrow. Forty-eight participants will be showing up shortly after breakfast. There’s no way I’ll be able to find a replacement that quickly unless I have a miracle.
And that miracle’s name is Oliver.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to take one of those bags?” I ask over my shoulder, stopping long enough for Oliver to catch up.
“I’m…fine…” he puffs, hoisting the garment bag higher on his shoulder.
Either this guy doesn’t do much cardio, or isn’t used to the higher altitude, or both, judging by the way he’s breathing. I hold out a hand, waiting for him to give me a bag. I don’t care if the guy wants to “be a gentleman” and save me from carrying this, I’m taking something so we’ll make it to the cabin without him passing out.
“Give me the garment bag.”
If anything, Oliver clutches it tighter.
I step toward him and close my hand around the handle, ignoring the way my body reacts to our fingers brushing, giving it a little yank. I don’t have to fight hard for him to relent. He exhales in relief, and I don’t wound his pride more by pointing it out. Instead, I lift the bag over my own shoulder and continue toward the cabins.
I set the bag down when I get to the front step of the male adult staff cabin. The light is on, and the sounds of Austin moving around inside filter out through the open windows.
“Okay, Oliver, here’s the rundown. Set your alarm for six o’clock. I come around and do a wake-up call at six-thirty for the stragglers. We’re meeting up at the lodge by seven to unload the food truck. Breakfast is after that, and then it’s go-time. The participants will start showing up between eight and nine.”
I hold up the staff shirt I picked up off the table as we left the lodge, and he cautiously takes it from my hand. Oliver’s eyes are wide from the barrage of info I’m dumping on him, and I instinctively want to reach out to assure him, but I catch myself and lower my hand to my side before I let it linger on his arm or something.
Oliver is on staff now. No matter that we were flirting less than half an hour ago, he’s completely off-limits now. And with the way he’s looking at me with big, panicked eyes, I sort of hate the purple rule.
“Just get yourself up and to the lodge tomorrow morning. I’ll be your shadow tomorrow and show you the ropes. You’ll catch on quick, and you’ll always have the help of the youth staff who lead the participant groups.”
He doesn’t look comforted by my little pep talk.
“Look, you’re sharing a cabin with Austin, the waterfront director. I’ve known him for years. If you have any questions, just ask him. And I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”
I look up at Oliver with a soft, encouraging smile. He takes two deep, steadying breaths and pulls out a smile for me.
It does all sorts of things to my insides that I ignore.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Sadie.” Oliver picks up the bag I set on the ground and walks up the two creaky stairs to the old cabin door. Pushing it open, he gives me one last smile before disappearing inside.