27. Autumn
twenty-seven
Autumn
“Did you hear they arrested the devil? Yeah, they got him on possession.”
Mixed laughter and groans emanated from the crowd during our last campfire as Lamar delivered dad jokes like he was a stand-up comic. He did this every other week to raucous applause and eye-rolling. Most of them were pretty funny.
“A friend of mine didn’t pay his exorcist,” Lamar said to literal crickets. “He got repossessed.”
Most of them.
We’d learned a long time ago that the last night of camp was filled with mixed emotions, most of them sadness.
That was why we did a talent show on Wednesday nights.
It was a great distraction from the inevitable.
And man, did I need that distraction. So, what qualified as talent?
We weren’t picky. If you had some sort of skill, weird or not, we extended an invitation to make yourself look outstanding or silly.
We saw plenty of contestants, but typically, the best performances of the night were from the staff, who’d honed their crafts over dozens of talent shows throughout the summer.
Hazel and Leo always took part, and as for the counselors, we split off doing the talent show and alternated, with three of us going each week.
This week, I was off, thank god, because I had plenty of things to think about, and I didn’t want to be distracted by winning the whole damn thing as I deserved.
Okay, maybe not winning. The voting was biased toward the campers. It was a rigged system.
“What kind of drink can be bitter and sweet?” Lamar asked the audience.
“What kind?” someone shouted.
“Reali-tea.” Lamar looked pleased with himself as the crowd burst into laughter. At this point, they were just laughing at him and not his jokes, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. He thrived on both applause and boos.
Our emcee, Sawyer, waved goodbye to our opener and moved through the rest of our participants.
We saw multiple singers, a very impressive doo-wop group, and two jugglers who used hacky sacks to juggle with each other.
Braxton and Peyton, one of this year’s returning couples, did a surprisingly good hula hoop routine, but my personal favorite had been a group of dads who somehow knew the dance moves to NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” to perfection.
Hazel also did a magic show where she made cups disappear and ended her set sawing through a pink-wig-clad Leo in a box.
He wore the wig every time, and she never asked him to do it.
We still didn’t know where he’d gotten the damn thing, but he brought it out frequently.
Jack was on the docket this session, but he wasn’t in the front with the other contestants, so I assumed he’d discussed skipping this week with Sawyer.
I found him sitting in the back row with his elbows on his knees, watching one of his pod members singing a fairly decent “Music of the Night” as the Phantom.
“Oh, come on, you love Phantom of the Opera .”
“That was before I died inside.”
I fought back a laugh because he didn’t look like he was joking. There was no light in his eyes, no laugh lines on his face. I realized then that most of the time, even the way he sat was funny, as if he were ready to deliver some joke or was bracing himself to laugh. He loved to laugh.
“Is this because you’re sad about being broken up or because you get angsty when you watch musicals?”
He turned to me with a half-hearted smile. “Can’t it be both?”
“Yes, it can.” I lifted a yo-yo in front of him. “You know, if someone asked me what I’d like to see most tonight, it’d be yo-yo master Jack Hawthorne.”
“Ooh, I like that.” He clearly approved of his new moniker with as close to a Jack grin as it seemed I was going to get.
“You can use it. Tonight, even. I don’t know if you know this, but I have an in with the emcee.”
Jack forced a chuckle.
“I know you’ve been knocked down, but you always get back up again,” I tried. “But if you don’t feel like getting back up again right now, you don’t have to.”
“You think I can get back up again?” The disbelief in his voice cut deep.
“Of course I do. But you can also just be sad.” He nodded without looking at me.
He tossed his yo-yo between his hands. “I don’t want to be sad.”
The theme of the night.
I didn’t want to be sad either. I wanted to use my time wisely.
Wasting it got me nowhere. Sitting in my sadness got me nowhere too.
God knew I was going to be doing it for the next week.
No, month. Months. It didn’t matter. I wanted to be with Jamie, not sit apart for appearances or because he wanted time with others, whether or not I was being selfish. I wanted to get the hell out of here.
By the time Crispin was done singing “Call Me Maybe,” Jack was on stage, and he was amazing.
Doing tricks we’d never seen before, including one using multiple yo-yos.
He looked both amused and focused, great at getting laughs and applause from the rest of us.
But no matter what, he was in his element.
It made me want to do what I was good at too—sleeping with my ex-boyfriend.
Just not on a stage.
Cheers and applause broke out, echoing off our little slice of nature to where I wondered if we were spooking the horses at the camp next to us. Maybe we were about to have our first noise complaint from Marty and Joy.
Slips of paper and pens went out with a reminder that staff were (unfairly) not on the ballot.
I sought Jamie out again, finding his eyes as he both looked at me and whooped with the crowd.
He met my gaze with an intensity that had me hot and wishing I could take off my flannel and fan myself with it.
I tilted my head away from the campfire, and he nodded, not even indicating to his friends that he was leaving.
We met at the back of the wooden bleachers, garnering the notice of nobody, and he took my hand.
We didn’t speak as we made our way through the woods to my cabin. I didn’t even know when we decided that was where we’d be going or who was leading, but that was where we ended up. I fumbled with punching in my door code. I’d done this a thousand times, but it didn’t matter. I was too nervous.
He touched my hand again, calming me, and I managed to remember the code, opening the door as though nothing crucial was about to happen. Just a friend helping a friend.
When we got inside, I was hit with a wave of lavender from my favorite wax melt, but it was overpowering. All I wanted to do was rest my nose on Jamie’s collarbone. I didn’t want to smell like me. I wanted to smell like sex and sweat and him.
Suddenly, the air felt heavier.
That was the best way to describe it. Like the tension had wrapped itself around both of us, and we had to push through it to get to my bedroom.
We didn’t even turn the lights on. The third time we bumped into something, I felt his smile against my lips.
“You’ve accumulated a lot of clutter in this place.”
I would have been mock offended at his jokingly judgmental tone, but then he kissed my neck.
“Clutter? Like furniture?” He was sticking his hand up my shirt, and I barely got the words out.
“If this were an open area, I’d already have your clothes off.”
“I’m getting rid of it all tomorrow,” I said feverishly.
Since we were getting nowhere like this, I decided to take fate into my own hands and turned around, grabbing his fingers to lead him to my bedroom. The lack of lips on mine was killing me.
He paused at the door. “So this is your room?”
“Less talking.” I tugged at the hem of my shirt and tore it off. “More getting naked.”
He threw his shirt at me, and it landed on my head. Damn lack of night vision. I threw mine at his head to even things out.
“You are so sassy. Have I ever told you I like you this way?” Jamie’s voice deepened as we came back together, reaching for each other’s pants, only to realize that they couldn’t be removed at the same time thanks to clashing limbs. I let him take mine off first. I was generous like that.
“I’m always sassy.”
I heard his zipper going down, and the sarcasm disappeared as the sounds of him pushing jeans down his legs overhauled my brain.
My eyes had adjusted enough to see him kick them off.
Reaching his hand out to pull me to him, he kissed the inside of my wrist and blew on the wetness there.
I had no idea that was an erogenous zone, but it set my body alight.
He sat on my perfectly made bed, tugging me onto him, grinding my hips against his cock and making me wish there was no fabric between us. He ran a hand up my throat to the back of my neck, pulling me to him for a consuming kiss.
In the years we’d been apart, I’d forgotten how overwhelming his kisses were.
When his lips were on mine, nothing else existed, not homework or friends or parents.
He could kiss me in a hallway, and I’d miss the bell.
But the way he cradled the back of my head as he kissed me soft and slow, as if we had an eternity to gratify each other’s needs…
It wrecked me. Tore me from the inside out and turned me into a blathering, needy mess.
I spoke between breaths. “Jamie, I—”
He ignored my half-spoken plea, pushing my hips against him. I had to be soaking through my underwear to his boxers, but I didn’t care. He was bound to find out what he did to me sooner or later.
Jamie reached behind my back to unhook my bra, sucking gently as each clasp released. The straps fell down my shoulders, and his grip tightened around my back.