Bookishly Ever After (28 page)

“‘There is no try. Just do.’” He put the sticks, rock, and bow together in a setup and then came around to cup his hands around mine to teach me the motions. His chest
pressed against my back and his chin almost rested on my shoulder. “If people in ancient times could do this, so can you.”

Having Dev this close was actually painful. My heart beat erratically and my fingers moved clumsily, almost dropping the rock/stick setup. Scarlet wouldn’t even blink at a guy when she was focused on a task, but combining my total lack of skill with the unshakeable
awareness
of Dev behind me made my hands useless. Even with his help, I didn’t get much more than a little bit of smoke and embers that would blow out the second I tried to make them grow into a flame.

“Try again.” Dev’s breath brushed my cheek, starting a different sort of fire across my skin. I fought the irrational urge to turn towards him and, frustrated with his closeness and the whole fire thing, dropped everything and pulled away until I was back standing by the compasses.

I crossed my arms to hide how my hands were shaking. “I guess I’m not as good as people in ancient times. I’ll stick to modern technologies like matches.”

“And bows and compasses?” He shot back. He looked disappointed in me. “You don’t seem like the type to just give up on things, Phoebe.”

I shrugged, adopting a Maeve-like nonchalance. “I guess you don’t know me that well.” The first campers started coming down the path from the mess hall and I picked up one of the compasses. This group was made up of our kids, and some of the girls from my cabin were whispering amongst themselves, looking from me to Dev with frowns. I
ignored them and turned back to my co-counselor. “I guess

I’m back on orienteering.”

Dev stared at me for an uncomfortable moment before shaking his head and turning to greet the campers. “Who here wants to learn how to set stuff on fire?”

While the girls were out swimming, I dug through my duffel, pushing aside sweaters and extra socks until my fingers curled around the familiar edges of my notebook. I’d almost chucked it into the lake after my disastrous kiss with Kris, but couldn’t do it, and was thankful I hadn’t. I needed every page of bookish advice I could get if I wanted to survive the rest of camp.

I flipped through, looking for the strongest Maeve and Marissa excerpts I’d pasted inside, and started reading. I’d be a warrior—unafraid, strong, and beautiful and completely immune to any of my old feelings for Dev.

“Group eight, welcome to the low ropes course.” Mr. Hamm stood at the center of a pair of ropes that were attached to one tree on one end and then spread into a wide V where they attached to two trees on the other side. “Just like the trust walk, the purpose of the course is to learn teamwork.”

“I’m starting to see a theme,” one of the boys from Dev’s cabin muttered with a barely audible groan and Dev made a shh-ing sign at him.

Ms. Forrester looked up from checking the ropes and nodded. “Yes, there is a theme, Nathan.” She stood and wiped her hands on her cargo pants. “Teamwork is important, and the first exercise is going to teach you how to work with a partner to get to your goal.” She pointed to the ropes. “This is called the wild V. In this exercise, you’ll need to partner up with someone close to your height. You’ll start at this end,” she pointed to the tree with both ropes attached, “and, working with each other for balance, you will try to go as far as possible without falling off the ropes.”

“You need to find a partner who is about your size. Try to partner with someone you really don’t know as well.” As the kids scrambled to grab their friends, Mr. Hamm walked
through the group and mixed up the pairs, to the groans of the whole group. Once he was satisfied with the pairs, he stepped back into the middle of the V. “Who wants to go first to demonstrate for the rest of the group?”

“What about Phoebe and Dev?” Eliana grabbed my and Dev’s hands and started pulling us forward. “I think they should demonstrate for us.”

“No, that’s okay.” I shot a death glare at Eliana. “These exercises are for you guys. We already did this back when we were going into sixth grade.” I looked over at Dev for help, but he just shrugged.

“Which is why you’ll be perfect demonstrators,” Diana said, reaching over to poke her partner’s arm until he nodded in reluctant agreement. “See? Even Mark agrees.”

Mr. Hamm nodded thoughtfully and gestured for Dev and me to come to the front with him. “That’s actually a great idea.”

Ms. Forrester gestured at us to get moving towards the narrow end of the rope V. “Don’t worry, Mr. Hamm and I will talk you through the whole thing. And you’ll have spotters.” She nodded at the four kids Mr. Hamm was organizing around the ropes.

“Why don’t you say anything to try and get us out of this?” I whispered to Dev as we made our way to the tree. “You’re good at convincing teachers about anything.”

“It sounds like fun.” Dev looked over at me with an amused grin. “Or don’t you trust me?”

“I don’t trust trust exercises that involve being off the
ground, even if it’s only a little bit off the ground.”

“You’re not instilling confidence in the campers,” Dev pointed out, nodding over at my cabin and how they were watching us with wide eyes and huge grins. Little stinking mini-Em wannabes.

“Believe me, my campers don’t need help when it comes to confidence.”

Eliana made a whooping sound and Dev snorted. He nodded at me, conceding how right I was.

“Ready?”

“Not really.” Maeve would hop onto the rope like it was nothing—heck, she’d probably find a way to do this whole ropes course on her own in a way that would make Aedan marvel yet again at her skills. But Maeve was actually athletic. Meanwhile, there was a massive chance I’d break my ankle. I climbed up onto the rope, hugging the tree with my left arm to keep my balance. “Remember, you’re the coordinated one.”
Forget that fear exists.

“You’re the one with insane hand-eye coordination.” Dev jumped onto his rope and took my right hand like he was pulling me into a dance. My chest pressed against his and it really was like we were dancing. “It’s okay. I got you,” he said, and his breath tickled my cheek in a way that made a shiver run through my whole body.

Suddenly, breaking my leg or trying to be like Maeve flew to the back of my mind and I had to work on breathing, instead.

“On three, let go of the tree, grab my hand, and start
shuffling down the rope.” He tested his balance and wobbled, swinging his body as he tried to balance. “Whoa.” He let go of my hand and tumbled off the rope, but thanks to my death-grip on the trunk and his instinctive grab at my waist to keep me upright, I stayed on my rope. “Sorry, lost my balance,” he said, sounding out of breath. He brushed up close against me, setting every one of my nerves on fire as he stepped back onto his rope and got back into position.

One of the campers let off a wolf-whistle as he took my hand again, and I heard Diana say, “I think he just touched her butt.”

That made me look up at Dev, whose face was growing redder by the second. “I didn’t, um, did I?” he asked, haltingly.

I wanted the ground under us to turn into quicksand so I could jump in and disappear. “No…no, you didn’t.” Ms. Forrester was saying something about balance and planks and working together but neither of us was paying her any attention.

His entire body shifted with a relieved exhale. “Good. Because…” he broke off and cleared his throat before putting on his serious game-face. “Okay, let’s get this over with. On three? One, two,” and with his three, I let go of the tree and fumbled for his other hand as we wobbled like we were trying to balance on jelly.

“Lean into each other,” Mr. Hamm called out.

I choked back a laugh. If we leaned any closer, the kids would have even more stuff to giggle about.

“Lock your arms and keep moving,” Ms. Forrester added as she joined Mr. Hamm in the center of the V to catch us in case we fell.

I fought the urge to lean back and away from the buzz that ran across my skin he closer I came to Dev and forced myself to lean into him while pushing against his hands. Dev kept his eyes trained on the ground while I split my attention between his face and his feet.

The thirty seconds of moving down the rope took a lifetime. Before we got to the point where we were leaning at over forty-five degree angles to each other, Dev stepped off his rope. He held his grip steady until I was back on solid ground, then quickly let go of my hands. “Let’s stop while we’re ahead,” he said.

“Good idea.”

“See? Easy, right?” Ms. Forrester didn’t seem to notice our awkward shuffling and, without waiting for a response, turned to the campers. “Now, it’s your turn. Any volunteers?”

Mr. Hamm clapped Dev on the shoulder and nodded at me as he passed us. “Good job. Take a break, you two. We’ve got them from here.”

“Thanks.” I picked my way over to a fallen log behind the rope tree and sat, trying to ignore the possibility of crawly things on it. The log was the perfect spot to watch my campers without getting sucked into another demonstration.

Dev followed, looking down at me with a quirky smile. “See? I told you it would be okay. We make a good team.”

Something in my chest warmed at that last line, but I
tried not to let it show on my face. “Except for the whole falling thing.”

“I was the one that fell, not you. You’re better at a lot of things than you think you are.”

I picked at a mushroom-y thing growing out of the log. Hopefully it wasn’t something poisonous that would go through my skin and kill me on the spot. “Not fire making.”

“We can work on that,” he said.

“Or I can just carry around matches all the time in case I’m ever stranded in the wilderness without,” a flirty line popped into my head, reminding me to be more like Marissa, and I threw caution to the wind and said it before I could chicken out, “a big strong scout like you.” I fakebatted my eyelashes, and put my hand to my chest in a mock-swoon. Marissa always threw those kind of harmless, cute, funny lines to Dan after they became just friends. Friends could totally flirt-joke with each other.

“Ha. Nice.” He sat down next to me with only an arm’s breadth of space between us and propped his elbows on his knees. “I actually used to suck at wilderness things, if you’d believe it.”

“You?

“Don’t let my perfect veneer of confidence fool you.” He shrugged, then continued, “This is going to sound stupid, but I had to trick myself into believing I could actually do things like build fires.” He looked down at his hands, his fingers picking apart a piece of bark, his lips turned up the tiniest bit. “One thing I’m really good at is acting.”