18. Autumn
eighteen
Autumn
Most campfire nights had an agenda, but Mondays were chill hangouts at the bonfire. This wasn’t out of laziness on the camp’s part. We’d just learned that people liked to unwind on their timeframe after a long day in town.
I stood victorious in a pile of giant Jenga pieces, holding back my fist pumps as Lamar shrugged in defeat.
We bent over to pick up the pieces, and I used that time to covertly look around for a familiar face.
Luckily for me, he wasn’t here yet. Did I want him to show up?
No. No, that was definitely not what I wanted.
I just wished things didn’t have to be so awkward.
I’d been ruminating on everything since our near-kiss, and I’d decided to put some distance between the two of us.
It wasn’t like I’d been trying to spend time with him before the almost-kiss fiasco.
Okay, maybe I’d sort of tried a couple of times, but other than those, I’d been working like I normally would.
It wasn’t my fault I was intercepted by his gravitational pull like a planet orbiting the…
Actually, that was a terrible metaphor. That would make him the sun, and he wasn’t that important a presence in my life, previously or otherwise.
Dammit .
“Round two?” Lamar asked. When had all those pieces been put back together?
“If I spank you twice in front of all these people, I look like an asshole, Lamar.”
He didn’t argue. Instead, he rolled his eyes at my cockiness.
We were a competitive bunch at this sweet little camp, and we tried to harness that when guests were around.
Lamar looked for a new contender. “You.” He pointed at an unsuspecting Ian, who promptly finished a s’more and stood up, brushing the crumbs from his shorts, determination in his gaze. This was shaping up to be something interesting.
I loved the atmosphere around the campfire.
People were either relaxing or goofing off, and my pod was no exception.
Laughter came from across the seating area.
Kell-i, Kell-y, and Janna were having a good time, pointing at the clear alcohol-looking mess down the front of Kell-i’s shirt.
Then Janna snorted as she finished patting her shirt dry, and they were busting up again.
I scanned my surroundings and found my target behind the stage. He was standing in a group of women, their eyes rapt as he told some wild story.
I grabbed the bag that Jack had given me and pulled out the foot tambourine, dropping it to the ground.
Leo’s head whipped around so fast I thought he might go full exorcist. I swear his ears went up like a dog hearing a squeaky toy.
I pushed it behind me to block it with my foot as he made a beeline for me.
“Autumn…”
“What?” I feigned ignorance as his eyes darted around. I backed my heel into the thing so that he heard a small jingle.
“I heard it. The call of the siren.”
God, he was a nerd. I couldn’t hide it any longer and bent down to retrieve the bright blue foot tambourine.
Leo’s face was the epitome of happiness. “You found one!”
He tapped his foot, playing with it, dancing to the jingling beat. I began clapping to match his rhythm as we acted like kids at our first barn dance. We linked arms and started a little do-si-do, kicking out our heels and giggling together.
Once our dance was done, Leo threw his arms around my shoulders and gave me one of his famous squeezing hugs, nearly taking my breath away.
“Now I’m going to win the talent show,” he whispered manically into my ear, and I’d be afraid if I were competing this time around, but thankfully, this wasn’t my week. “No, really, thank you.”
He kissed my cheek and turned to his original location, kicking the tambourine up into his hand as he arrived, to the delight of his adoring fanbase. I rolled my eyes. Just what Leo needed: groupies.
Too bad for them. He didn’t hook up with campers.
“If anyone could make a tambourine hot, it’s that man,” Emerson whispered beside me.
Sometimes, I forgot about Leo’s allure, but I had to admit, the man was attractive. I’d probably notice it more if he didn’t feel like my brother.
I turned back to giant Jenga and found Lamar flirting with his competition and wondered if this was a diversionary tactic and then thought better.
I’d known him for the two years he’d been here and had quickly learned that he was the flirtiest of us all, but I never knew if he was looking for follow-through or if that was just his way.
The air felt heavier, more than just the smoke hovering around us.
Or maybe it was just the weight on my chest. I sighed and couldn’t figure out if I felt melancholy or relief.
I’d had a good day today, but I still felt like I was drifting like embers in the fire.
Smoldering wood and evergreen scents tickled my nostrils, the enchanting sounds of laughing campers and crackling logs my ambient noise.
It still felt like something wasn’t quite right.
The warmth overtook me and I noticed the fire was bigger than usual. Sawyer was in charge of the wood, what a surprise, and I was about to go tell them to tone it down when an unusually despondent Jack walked my way.
He sat next to me. “Hey.”
“Hi, buddy. How’re you doing?”
“I’m… Not great.” His whole body sighed, and he looked as though he was deciding whether to tell me something. “Gia and I broke up.”
“What?” I blurted a little too loudly, garnering the eyeballs of several campers before lowering my voice. “How did she go from having a migraine to breaking up with you?” That must have been a really nasty migraine.
“Actually, I broke up with her.”
Oh.
Wait.
What?
How did I proceed when my best friend dropped a bomb like that?
Jack had been making plans. He talked about Gia like she was his world. There were times I’d seen them together when I was filled with this longing feeling, as if something in my life was missing. Like maybe I wanted… More. But if they couldn’t make it, who could?
“Are you making s’mores?” he asked me as if the four components of a s’more in my hands weren’t a dead giveaway and like he hadn’t just flipped my world upside down.
“Yeah, you want me to make you one?” I asked, keeping my tone calm and sweet like a parent offering their kid a Fruit Roll-Up after a particularly bad day at school.
When he didn’t respond, I loaded up a stick and stuck it in the pit, making sure to keep it along the outskirts so it didn’t catch fire, the way he liked. “You wanna talk about it?” I tried.
“I’m a little shell-shocked.” He didn’t continue, so I didn’t pry.
I pulled his marshmallow out and built a s’more for him. He ate it as if it were an obligation. I’d never seen him like this.
Jack didn’t operate by putting up facades.
He was a lighthearted guy. He was the one everyone went to when they needed cheering up, not the other way around.
This was new territory, and it was almost as if he didn’t know how to be this way either.
The only time I’d seen him down was when he’d been sick with the flu, and even then, he’d still made cracks about how he sounded like a foghorn every time he rasped, which made him laugh and cough harder.
We sat in a comfortable silence, watching people with their craft cocktails, talking and laughing as if it was a normal Monday night and someone’s world wasn’t falling apart around them.
I truly didn’t know how to proceed. I thought their relationship was going in a completely different direction, and the fact that he was the one to end it… It felt wrong, ominous.
So I did the only thing I could think of.
I shoved a marshmallow in my mouth. “One.” Then I shoved three more in, struggling to get out a “Four.”
Jack rolled his eyes. Chubby Bunny always worked with him, and it was going to work now. I counted three more and put them in my mouth.
“I don’t want to play that stupid game with you,” he said, waiting a beat before shoving five in his mouth.
I held up seven fingers and barely spewed out a “Chubby bunny” to prove I could still talk.
He topped me with eight, easily pulling off the same thing, but I was a competitive loser, no matter how many times he’d proven himself the victor.
I added two more and spewed a barely audible “Chubby bunny” causing a muffled laugh to break through.
The only thing keeping the spit in my mouth was the wall of marshmallows, probably on the verge of blocking my airway.
Then a marshmallow plopped into my lap. I stared down at my legs as though it might have come from somewhere that wasn’t my mouth.
Jack gave me a poor excuse for a laugh before raising his hands in victory, said “Chubby bunny” one more time, and popped one more in his mouth to be a jackass. Then he started chewing, his jaw looking like overstretched elastic.
There were no real winners in Chubby Bunny. Not when everyone ended up looking like an idiot.
Once he was finished chewing, he looked at me with a smile he couldn’t conceal. He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. He was grateful for his amazing, brilliant, gorgeous best friend. He was in awe at my ability to bring joy to others, and my humility—my greatest characteristic.
He took my hand and squeezed, looking into the fire. I chewed quickly, prepared to ask him what happened, maybe about the logistics of her being here when they were no longer together, but he changed the subject.
“How are things going with Jamie?” Obviously, he didn’t want to talk about his situation. Choosing to question my soft spot wasn’t my preference, however. I’d call him a jerk if he wasn’t so heartbroken. And why was he heartbroken if he’d broken up with her?
“There is no me and Jamie.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s too bad.”
“You know I have a difficult relationship with him,” I reminded him. “We broke up, remember?”
“Yeah, but you’ve grown. Both of you from the looks of it.”
I wanted that to be true, but the only way we’d truly know if he’d grown up was by waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for him to break up with me again for no reason.
Either way, breaking up with me wasn’t even possible since there had been no discussion of our past or even a whiff of potentially dating.
It was beside the point anyway because I wasn’t willing to put myself through that again.
“We haven’t grown much, Jack. He’s still cocky as hell.
” I thought back to the night before, him stepping toward me, me staying still, waiting to see what he’d do next.
But the truth was, I’d wanted him to do something.
These were feelings I didn’t even want to have, but there were little reminders of them prickling inside my chest. “He’s still arrogant. ”
“In a funny way. You like that. Next.”
“He’s unreliable,” I tried. Like when he’d forgotten to pick me and my friends up from a concert because he fell asleep.
How he’d always bailed on my friends but would make time for his own.
Or on our first-year anniversary, when he’d forgotten we had plans and went snowboarding instead.
“You know how he bailed on craft night—”
Now I sounded like a child.
“That’s a stretch.”
“That wasn’t the first time he’s bailed on me.”
“You’re right, he did do that a decade ago.”
“Fine. What about the fact that the man still only thinks of himself?” Okay, so what if I was being a little bit harsh?
“Come on, Autumn. You know you don’t believe that.
” He placed his fingers to his temples as though he was at the end of his rope.
He dropped them and turned to look me in the eye, more seriously than I was used to seeing him.
“You may not realize, but I’ve noticed things.
I see the way he is around you and his friends, and selfish isn’t a word I’d use to describe him.
He has no stakes here, but he still… Look, if he’s only thinking about himself, if he had no reason to do something except in his own self-interest, then why didn’t he use the information to further his chances with you? ”
“What are you talking about?”
“Jesus, I’m going to break his confidence, and it took less than three hours.” He shook his head, facing ahead of him, firelight dancing in his eyes.
I moved so that I could see him again. “Jack?”
“Gia cheated on me, Autumn, and that’s why we broke up.
Jamie witnessed it and had no motivation to tell me, someone he doesn’t even know, other than to be a good guy.
He even told me not to tell you it was him, probably because he’s trying not to sway you one way or the other.
That doesn’t sound like someone who’s selfish or looking out for his best interest. That sounds like a good man. ”