First Kiss: The Ghost Bird Series: #10 (The Academy Ghost Bird Series) (17 page)

His ears had three black rings on one side, the pink ring on the other, and a pink and orange crystal stud in each of his lobes. He’d worn the earrings the same every day since Christmas.

I thought he was going to tackle me and braced myself for it, but instead, he caught me up in a hug, picking me up off the ground. He held me like that as he staggered forward.

“Sang’s
my
camping buddy,” he said to Kota.

“This isn’t the cub scouts,” Kota said. “We don’t need to assign buddies. There’s eight of us. As long as you’re near someone, you’re fine.”

“Hi Meanie,” I said, hugging him back, smelling the mix of the new car smell from the BMW, a bit of Victor’s berries and moss, and Gabriel’s own mix of flowers and sweet scents.

“Hi camping buddy,” Gabriel said. He dropped me, finding my hand with his. His palm was warm and I held on while he addressed Kota, “Let’s go.”

“We just need to load up Victor’s car,” Kota said. “And figure out who is riding with who.”

“Sang’s my car buddy,” Gabriel said, picking up our hands over our heads as if we were tied together, even though we were just holding hands.

I grinned, glad that Gabriel was being a little silly and lightening the mood a bit. Maybe Kota needed that.

Kota rolled his eyes. “Let’s load up the cars and we can figure it out.”

Taking his direction, I carried my bag and a couple others over to Victor’s trunk. Kota knew exactly what would fit where, and helped us jigsaw piece it together the way he wanted.

When the cars were loaded, we all gathered around Kota, waiting for instructions.

Kota passed North some papers. “Here’s a copy of our reservation for the campgrounds, the address, and a map I printed off from the website.”

North glanced at the map. “Hunting Island? Not sure if I like this place.”

“There’s no hunting going on where we’ll be. There’s a campground near the beach that I hear is quite nice.”

I perked up. “Beach?”

“It’s winter, Sang,” North said. “No swimming.”’

I huffed.

“Who’s riding with who?” Kota asked.

“I’ll take Sang,” North said. “Easier to keep an eye on her.”

I glanced at Nathan, but he said nothing. Maybe the ride over wouldn’t be a big deal. It was just a car ride—I had all week to get closer to him.

Dr. Green and Mr. Blackbourne were coming along on their own so we didn’t need to wait for them. In the end, Gabriel, Luke, Silas, and I ended up with North. Kota, Victor, and Nathan were going to take Victor’s car.

“Neener neener,” Gabriel said to Nathan. “We get Sang.”

“It’s two hours,” Nathan said. “All three of you will be cramped in the back of the Jeep.”

“We’ll be fine,” Luke said.

I giggled, excited about being on a vacation with them for a whole week. No school. No Volto. Just us in the middle of nowhere. I was having fun already, distracted by what was going to happen this trip. It lifted some of the doubt in my heart.
Remember what Mr. Blackbourne said
, I repeated to myself.
Just tell them, at the end of it all, I want to stay with them.

Silas rode shotgun while North drove and I sat between Luke and Gabriel in the back of the Jeep. It was tight in the back, with our thighs touching and our butts squeezed together. It got warm quickly, and we stripped off jackets and sweaters down to the T-shirts we wore underneath.

It made me wish I’d worn jeans instead of thermal pants.

Soon, we were off. I saw little of the trees as the Jeep flew down the roads. No one said much at first. Luke and Gabriel were gazing out their windows. Silas had his head against the headrest and appeared to be snoozing. North was focused on the road. Since it was early morning, the roads were pretty clear as we followed behind the BMW.

I was worried that the stuff on top would slide around, but North took turns with caution and braked early around stop signs.

The moment we were out of Summerville and on an interstate headed south, Luke yanked out his phone. “Hook me up, North.”

“I don’t want to hear that techno shit this early,” he said.

“I loaded up a bunch of songs that Sang likes.”

North huffed, tensing his hands on the steering wheel as if he wasn’t going to say anything.

Silas sat up and opened up the center console, finding a cord that was hooked up to the stereo system. He passed it back to Luke.

“You guys spoil her,” North said. He slid a glance at Silas. “You know that, don’t you?”

Silas shrugged. “It’s her vacation. Let her have fun.” His phone started to ring. He answered it, listened, and hung up. “We’re stopping for coffee.”

“Fuck yeah,” Gabriel said.

Victor took the next exit, pulling into a Starbucks. North followed.

We weren’t there long, but in that time, I downed a mocha Frappuccino, a half of a slice of pumpkin bread that I split with Luke, half a coffee cake that I pinched from Kota and a bite of North’s egg muffin when he begged me to eat something with protein in it.

By the time we were on the road again, I was bouncing.

Luke flicked through different songs to find one I’d recognize. I hung over his shoulder, watching as he flipped through lots of music. “Got us covered for the whole trip,” he said. “Won’t have to use Internet once.”

“No Internet on the island,” North said.

“I said that,” Luke said, and turned the volume up on his phone.

Soon, Gabriel, Luke and I were bouncing around in the back seat to Korean pop music.

North made a face, and then stuck his finger in his ear, wriggling. “What is this?” he bellowed back at us.

“K-Pop,” I said loudly over the music.

North gave me an eyeball in the rearview mirror. “You like this?”

“I like a lot of things,” I said. I started shaking shoulders. It was really the only move I could do in the limited space. Luke and Gabriel echoed my moves.

“I don’t know if I can take this the whole way,” North said, reaching for the volume control.

Silas’s hand shot out, blocking North before he could touch the volume. “No. Please,” he said. “Don’t make her stop.”

North frowned. Silas nodded toward the rearview mirror. North gave Silas a questioning look, then glanced back at us in the mirror before returning his gaze to Silas. “You fucking pervert.”

Silas raised a dark eyebrow. “What? Pervert? Do you see her face? She’s so happy.”

“Oh,” North said and sat back. “Never mind.” He moved to adjust the mirror.

Silas put a hand over North’s to stop him and grinned. “If you don’t mind, leave it. It’s my vacation, too.”

North rolled his eyes, but he didn’t touch the mirror again.

My cheeks were already warm but they were on fire after listening to this. I stopped bouncing around so hard in the back seat, but it was hard to completely stop when Gabriel and Luke were still having fun.

“Sing,” Gabriel told me, mouthing the words.

“I don’t remember the lyrics,” I said. “Maybe the next one.”

The next one I did know. I blushed, unsure if I should start singing when North was already annoyed with the music. When Gabriel and Luke started singing next to me, I started low. It was another Korean pop song with fast lyrics. I’m sure I got most of the words wrong though no one could hear me because Gabriel and Luke seemed to be making up their own lyrics. Eventually, I was laughing so much, I had to stop.

Between the laughing and all the coffee and sugar, my heart was racing.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. We were having fun and no one seemed worried.

We were going on vacation.

I’d never been on vacation and was suddenly determined to make the best of it.

HUNTING ISLAND

A
fter another thirty minutes, North couldn’t handle the noise anymore and switched the music to rock, but turned the volume down.

We were already sweaty in the back and had stopped bouncing around. Luke had his shirt off. Gabriel had stripped down to a tank shirt. I wished I could take my T-shirt off like one of the guys. North did his best by rolling down the windows to give us fresh air.

“Maybe I should wear jeans,” I said. “I’m all sweaty.”

“You’ll want the thermal pants tonight,” he said. “Maybe even over the jeans.”

It was taking longer than I expected to get there. At the beginning, I didn’t think it would feel like such a long car ride and started to wonder if I should have joined the other car and be around Kota. I wanted to have fun, but I still had something I needed to do.

Victor’s car was ahead of us and we were following. North poked his finger at his phone, but the GPS kept losing us, despite us staying on the same stretch of the state road for several miles. He focused on a map Kota had given him instead.

I leaned forward a little, propping my elbows up on the middle console, studying the map and trying to figure out our location. “Why did we get a map if we’re following Victor?” I asked.

“Just in case we have to stop for gas. Although I don’t know why we bother. Kota likes to keep the caravan together. I’m just using the GPS to count down the miles.”

There was a long stretch of nothing in front of us. There were trees along the side of the roads and the occasional cutoff. We passed by farms and over some bridges as we traveled further south. “Are we going to Georgia?” I asked.

“We’re getting close,” North said. “But we aren’t leaving the state.”

“I’ve never been this far south,” I said.

“You’ve never been anywhere,” Silas said. “One day, we’ll go to an Atlanta game.”

“Maybe this summer,” North said. “After we get out of this school in the spring. We won’t have time before then.”

I smiled to myself, liking how they were thinking of the future with me around. I kept an eye on the map, trying to pinpoint Hunting Island without moving it from where North could see it. “Do we need to follow Victor? Do you know where to go?”

“We’re headed to the same place,” North said. “I’ve got directions. Just sit back and relax. We’ll get there soon.”

“But they’ll get there first,” I said. I leaned over the console more to check his speed. He was going just under the limit. “And they’re taking forever.”

“Kota really likes the speed limit,” North said. “He’d fuss at Victor if he went any faster.”

Silas grinned. “I think she’s in a hurry to get to the beach.”

“I just want to get there before Kota,” I said for no reason. I thought it would be a silly way to have fun with Kota. Maybe it’d help him relax if we were having fun before we got there.

North grunted. “I can fix that. Sit back and make sure your seatbelt is on.”

I sat back and made a show of snapping my seatbelt at my waist.

North checked his rearview mirrors and then stomped on the gas. The Jeep raced ahead, nearly meeting Victor’s bumper. He cut around Victor when it was safe and zoomed off ahead, weaving in front of him, and then continuing at a higher speed down the lane. The Jeep’s engine roared, making my heart race along with it.

North’s phone rang. Silas picked it up and answered it. “Sorry,” he said. “Sang wanted to beat Kota.”

I turned and looked back at Victor’s car. There wasn’t anyone along this stretch of road so no one was behind him now. It followed behind us for a moment, but suddenly the car slowed a lot.

My heart stopped. “What’s wrong?” I asked in a panic. “Did something happen to the car?”

Silas laughed, poking at North’s phone to hang up. “Victor heard you wanted to beat Kota there. So he’s helping.”

I laughed and turned to face forward. I leaned against Gabriel. “Victor’s cheating for me.”

Gabriel had his eyes closed and nudged me with an elbow. “You’re Trouble for him, too. Kota’s going to give us all a lecture later.”

I avoided looking at North’s dashboard, though when I did look, the speed remained at ten over the speed limit, keeping us way ahead of Kota and the others.

I was leaning back, staring off and daydreaming when Luke finally elbowed me. He pointed to a sign outside, a brown one with white lettering: Hunting Island.

“Is there really hunting?” I asked quietly. They’d said not at the camp, but I was wondering where the hunting would be happening and if we’d hear gunshots at all.

“Only for Sangs,” Luke said with a grin. “Good thing I brought a few Nerf guns.” He reached for my hand and held it, his fingers weaving between mine, squeezing as we shared our excitement.

Once we crossed a river onto the island, we were surrounded by trees. Eager to see a beach and what a campground would be like during the winter, I kept looking out the side windows, leaning against both Luke and Gabriel as I did. I had pictured a field that just ended at a beach, not woods like what I was seeing.

I struggled back into my jacket, sure that we’d be hopping out of the car into the cold at any moment. I scanned between the trees; all I could see was more trees and the road in front and behind us.

“I don’t see a beach,” I said.

“It’s somewhere around here,” North said.

He followed the signs that led the way to the campgrounds. Soon we approached a gray building, nestled in a cluster of trees. There was a barrier in the way, cutting off access down the road.

North pulled up, talked with the attendant in the booth and showed him our reservation, telling him there was another car following. The attendant passed him a map of the campgrounds with our camping spot circled in red.

“Your group has the campgrounds to yourselves this week,” the attendant said. “It’s low season, so we let the canteen and other attendants have the week off for the holidays, although someone should always be here at the security office, and one of our rangers lives on the property. Some visitors come for the open parks, but probably not this week.” He tipped his brown hat our way. “Enjoy. Come see me if you need anything. And don’t feed the bears. There’s information on the back of the map if you need it.”

“Bears?” I whispered as North eased the Jeep forward and made a left as the map directed.

“He’s kidding,” North said. “There’s no bears.”