Gage
Chapter twenty
Another week of camp with another group of wild, hilarious ten-year-olds passes.
We’re about halfway through the summer already, and though those first couple of weeks seemed slow paced, the time is flying past now.
I’d like it to slow down again because I need this time with Olivia to last as long as possible.
This weekend, Matt invited me to drive to New Braunfels with him and a group of several other counselors to spend Saturday at Schlitterbahn Waterpark, stay overnight, and come back to camp Sunday morning before the new batch of campers arrive.
Saturdays are my days with Olivia, and I’m not about to give up even a single one, so I extended the invitation to her and hoped she’d agree to come.
She didn’t need a lot of convincing. Olivia loves water parks. We used to go to Schlitterbahn all the time growing up—it’s only about an hour from where we live in Austin—and in high school, Olivia, Annie, and I spent a lot of time there during summer breaks.
We head out early on Saturday morning, hoping to get to the park around nine. The drive is about two and a half hours from Camp Prairie Star. We take Brynn’s crossover SUV, the group winnowed down to Matt, Brynn, Olivia, and me after a couple more coworkers ditched last minute.
Brynn’s driving, with Matt beside her in the front seat. Olivia and I are in the back, and, according to Matt, are way too animated for this early in the morning.
“It’s annoying,” I insist again to Olivia, “how in soccer games you never really know when it’s going to end because the timer counts up instead of down.”
“You know when it ends! Each half is forty-five minutes. When the clock gets to forty-five—”
I interrupt, “It could still be another ten to fifteen minutes of this stoppage time. Nobody knows!”
She laughs. “Yes, the referees know.”
“But they don’t share that information. There’s no timer of the stoppage time that adds it up throughout the game for the spectators to see.”
“At least we have timers. In baseball, y’all don’t time anything. That’s why the games are so damn long!”
“We do now! There’s the pitch clock,” I say smugly.
She lifts her sunglasses onto the top of her head to make sure I can see the incredulity in her eyes. “You actually like the pitch clock?”
“Yeah, I do.”
She shakes her head. “I’m surprised, especially with your stance on the designated hitter.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. She’s bringing the DH into this? “Okay, that’s a whole other thing—”
“Here he goes—”
“Back in the day—”
“Oh lord, when he starts with ‘back in the day’—”
“—every baseball player had to be good at their position and at bat, even pitchers.”
“Wow, I really got you going now, didn’t I?”
“Don’t talk to me about the designated hitter, Olivia. You know better.”
She pats my thigh. “I do. I do know better.”
We grin at each other, and I’m tempted to kiss her right here in the back seat of Brynn’s car.
Matt turns around. “You two have the weirdest dynamic. If you’re not making out, you’re arguing.”
“We don’t argue,” I protest.
“We debate,” Olivia finishes.
“Well, whatever you call it, can you keep it down please? I’m trying to nap before we get there.”
“Sorry,” Olivia whispers.
She lays her head on my shoulder and shuts her eyes.
I smooth a hand over her shoulder. “You going to rest, too?”
She yawns. “Maybe a little.”
Putting my mouth close to her ear, I tease her. “What, did you stay up too late last night or something? What were you doing?”
She smiles, her eyes still closed. “Like you don’t know what I was doing.”
I chuckle. Making out with me, that’s what she was doing.
Once Skit Night finished and all the campers and their families went home, I took Olivia into town for dinner.
It was raining when we got back to camp, so we curled up in my bed and watched a movie on my phone—no fancy sheet screen and projector this time.
The screen was small, meaning we had to crowd each other a little bit, and even then, I don’t think I could tell you much about the plot of that movie.
Though that’s probably more to do with the fact that I was paying more attention to Olivia than to it.
In a low voice, my mouth still next to her ear, I say, “You could remind me.”
She opens her eyes, a wicked glint in them that makes me think she’ll do just that, even with Matt and Brynn a few feet away in the front seat. I can’t seem to make myself care about their presence either.
I lean in as Olivia’s phone starts ringing, my sister’s name flashing on the screen.
Olivia pulls away from me and sits up. “I better get this.”
She accepts the call. “Hi! What’s going on?” Olivia says into the phone. She listens. I can hear Annie’s voice, but not what she’s saying.
“Same old, same old here,” Olivia responds. “How about you? Oh! You never told me how that date went with the IT guy a couple of weeks ago.”
Hold on. Annie didn’t tell me about any date with an IT guy. I tap my hand against Olivia’s thigh to get her attention. She looks up at me. “What guy?” I mouth.
She waves me off and focuses back on her conversation with Annie. She squeals. “He didn’t!”
I tap her again. “What did he do?” I whisper.
She glares at me. “No, no. I’m on the way to Schlitterbahn with a few of the other counselors.” I try to get her attention again to tell her to shut up, but she ignores me.
I hear Annie’s voice pitch louder on the other end of the phone. Olivia freezes and looks up at me, her eyes wide. “Oh, uh, yeah.” She rubs her forehead. “I guess Gage is one of the other counselors going. He told you about that, huh?”
I groan.
“Yeah, it’s a bunch of us, so…” She listens, then smirks at me. “Yes, I’ll make sure he wears sunscreen.”
“Unbelievable,” I mutter.
“You know, he hasn’t been hanging out with me very much…” I scowl at her. She’s going to get me in trouble with my sister, making me sound like I’m not keeping my promise to try to be friends this summer.
“Uh, yeah, he’s in the same car as me. Yep. Oh, you want to talk to him? Yep. Give me one second.”
Olivia mutes the call and hands me the phone. “Play it cool,” she warns me.
I take the phone from her and unmute the call. “Hey, Nini.”
My sister’s voice comes through the phone. “Gage, tell me you haven’t been ignoring Delaney.”
I give Olivia a dirty look. “No, I haven’t been ignoring her.” I smile smugly. “If anything, I think she’s been ignoring me.”
Olivia smacks my arm. “Ow!” I say involuntarily.
“Are you okay?” Annie asks on the other end of the line.
“Yeah, fine. Sorry about that.”
“Listen, do me a favor and make sure Delaney has fun today please.”
I grin. “Oh, you want me to make sure she has fun today?” I waggle my eyebrows, which makes Olivia stifle a laugh. “I can probably handle that.”
I can make sure Olivia has all sorts of fun at the water park today, though I’m not planning on telling Annie the details.
“Okay, thanks. Love you, Gage. Can you give me back to Delaney now?”
“Yeah, here she is. Love you, too.” I hand the phone back to Olivia.
The girls chat for a few more minutes. When Olivia hangs up, I ask her, “What was that about Annie dating some IT guy?”
“Oh, a date she went on a few weeks back. She says they’re not going out again.”
“I still don’t know why she and Spencer had to break up. I liked Spencer.”
“You liked Spencer? Why?” She stares at me incredulously. “He was so boring.”
“Yeah, that’s why I liked him.”
Olivia scoffs. “No. Don’t do that caveman thing. It’s not attractive. Your sister can decide for herself who she dates.”
I raise my eyebrows. “So, I guess she doesn’t need your help either?”
“That’s different. Best friends are supposed to give dating advice.”
I scoff. “Oh really? So, should I call my best friend back and get her opinion on my romantic situation this summer?”
Olivia glares at me. “Stop. You know why we aren’t telling her.”
But I don’t really. I know the reasons Olivia told me why she doesn’t want to tell Annie. Those reasons don’t make sense to me.
Annie wants Olivia and me to get along; whether that’s as friends or more, I don’t think she minds. Unless Olivia is anticipating some disastrous ending to our “fling” once the summer ends, I don’t really get the secrecy.
My goal is to prove to Olivia that we’re so much more than a summer fling so that when camp ends, our relationship doesn’t. Already, the way we are together and how she acts toward me suggest that this is much more of a boyfriend-girlfriend thing than only a physical situationship.
But I don’t want to pick a fight this morning. I push down my annoyance, and the fear behind it, and close my eyes. I rest my head on top of hers and snooze the rest of the way to the water park.
Schlitterbahn is busy, as is to be expected on a Saturday in the peak of the summer season. We bought our tickets online earlier in the week, but we still have to wait in line at the entrance to the park. Once we’re in, we head straight to the lockers and rent a large one to share.
We strip out of our cover-ups and pile everything in the locker.
Olivia wears the same swimsuit she had on for our night swim last weekend.
It’s a red two-piece with a top similar to a sports bra but cut low in the front.
The bottoms are high-waisted, hitting right above her belly button.
All along the edges of both pieces is a white trim that accentuates the golden glow of her skin.
Olivia pulls a tube of sunscreen from her bag and quickly applies it to her exposed skin, rubbing the lotion all along her arms, legs, stomach, and chest. The tips of my fingers tingle with the desire to touch her like that.
“I can get your back,” I offer.
She hands me the sunscreen. “Sure. Thanks.”
I squeeze lotion into my hand, then tuck the container under my arm to scrape my hands together, spreading sunscreen on each one.
Slowly, I press my hands against Olivia’s back and gently coat her skin with the lotion.
I get the stretch of skin between her swimsuit top and bottoms and work my way up to her shoulders, sliding my fingers under the straps of her swimsuit.
“Gage?” Olivia turns her head to look at me, still holding her ponytail out of my way.
“Yeah,” I respond, my voice rough.
“I think you got it.” She grins, and I drop my hands sheepishly.
“Don’t want you getting burned,” I defend.
“I appreciate that.” She smirks. “Let’s do you now.”
She takes the sunscreen from me and squirts a small amount onto her fingers. “Come here,” she instructs. “Crouch down.”
I stand in front of her and bend my knees so I’m closer to her height. She uses her fingertips to softly brush sunscreen across my cheeks and forehead, down around my chin, and even the shells of my ears.
She watches her fingers while she works, while I watch her eyes. The pretty green color, the depth, the concentration—I could get lost right here and wouldn’t want a map to find my way out.
With a final pat to my cheek, she meets my gaze. The air between us is heated, and not from the Texas humidity.
“I promised Annie I’d make sure you wore sunscreen,” she reminds me in a soft voice.
I start to answer when Brynn groans loudly. “Come on, you two! We get it, you’re into each other. Put on the dang sunscreen, and let’s get in the water.”
Olivia blinks, her cheeks turning red. “Sorry, not sorry,” she teases, smirking in Brynn’s direction.
She passes the sunscreen back to me. “I think you can take it from here.”
I chuckle and finish applying the lotion, though I notice Olivia watching longingly as I spread it over my chest and ab muscles. When she meets my eye, I wink at her.
“Let’s hit the Raging River first,” Brynn suggests.
“What’s that?” asks Matt, the only one in our group who hasn’t been to Schlitterbahn before.
I slap him on the shoulder. “Come on, my friend. Let me introduce you.”