Lucky Penny (6 page)

Marissa chuckled and stood up next to me. “You game?” She yanked her tank over her head and stood there in front of everyone in just her shorts and bra.

“Hmm, I don’t think so.” I pulled my arms tighter suddenly feeling self-conscious.

She shrugged, unbuttoning her shorts and shimmying them down her toned legs. “Suit yourself. Keep hold of my clothes for me. Last year, some jackass hid them, and I had to walk back to the cabin half naked.”

Marissa took off, catching up with Sheridan and Liam, who had already stripped down to their undergarments. I scooped up her clothes and walked down closer to the water, taking a seat on one of the overturned trunks. As I watched everyone swimming in the lake, a feeling of sadness washed over me. Here I was, one of the oldest counselors and yet, the most sheltered. I had never experienced this, right here. Never thrown caution to the wind and just let go. I was a prisoner of my past, and for all my progress over the last few months, I was still captive to my fears.

“This seat taken?”

My eyes fluttered shut and my breath caught in my throat as the person I’d been trying hard to avoid sat down beside me.

“You’re not going in?”

I shook my head, my fingers finding the edge of the carved-out bark. I dug them in feeling the rough edge bite into my skin, but I welcomed the sensation, needing it to ground me. My breathing became shallow as I concentrated on relaxation techniques to try to keep in control.

Blake’s presence brought out intense feelings in me, and I wasn’t used to feeling such confusion. On the one hand, I wanted to run far away again like the night I’d first found him across the fire, but part of me—the part that remembered—wanted to bask in him. To reach out and touch him to make sure this wasn’t a dream. To confirm that the guy I’d given my heart to such a long time ago was really here.

“I’m sorry about the other night,” he said staring out at the lake.

My eyes took in every detail of his face, a face I’d once known almost as well as my own. His brown hair was longer, falling over his eyes a little when it was damp, and he had a thick layer of stubble covering his jaw. Seven years had been good to him. He had filled out in all the right places. But despite his sameness, something about him was different. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. My heart had recognized him right off the bat, but after catching glimpses of him around the camp over the last couple of weeks, my head realized the guy I had once loved was changed.

But then, weren’t we all.

Lost in the lines of his side profile, I didn’t sense him turning to face me until two blue pools stared back at me.

“Okay, can we start over? As crazy as it is seeing you here, for as much as I’m trying to get my head around what it means, we have to find a way to be around one another.”

I inhaled another deep calming breath. Blake was right. We had to find a way to make this work.

“You’re right.”

His reaction to my words caught me off guard; I could feel the relief rolling off him as if he couldn’t believe I had actually replied…and agreed.

Blake cleared his throat, and I was sure I caught a nervous quiver, which made little sense. Things might have been awkward between us, yes, but what did he have to feel nervous about?

“Okay, I’d like that. To get to know you again, I mean. It’s been a long time, Pen.”

Seven years.

“Weston, get your ass over here,” a voice called out from the lake and Blake sighed. “I guess I should go join them. Are you sure I can’t persuade you?”

I shook my head feeling that earlier discomfort creep in. Blake opened his mouth as if to say something but didn’t. Instead, he smiled before leaving me. I watched him walk toward the lake. He hooked his hands under his shirt and pulled it clean over his head. My mouth instantly dried. The last time I’d seen Blake, he was sixteen. But as I watched the boy I’d once known slide his cargo shorts off his legs, causing tanned, taut muscles to flex across his shoulders, and start sprinting toward the dock in nothing but his boxer briefs, it was obvious he had been replaced with a man.

And I didn’t know how to feel about that.

“So tell me again. Exactly what did he say?”

Marissa and I stood with the rest of the counselors waiting for the new group to arrive. We could hear the approaching buses, but they hadn’t yet broken through the trees.

“He said he wants to get to know me again. What does that even mean?”

Marissa smirked. “I think you know what it means, Penny.”

Heat burned through me, and I knew my cheeks had a crimson stain to them. If I had learned anything about Marissa over the last two weeks, it was that she was comfortable with her body, and that included talking about sex.

“Marissa, can you stop? Please. It isn’t like that.” I leaned back against the wooden fencing that sectioned off the parking lot.

“I’m just saying. I’ve seen how he looks at you across the fire. Like he’s remembering.”

I groaned. Although she hadn’t pushed for details about the history Blake and I shared, Marissa had started to draw her own conclusions.

The buses came into view, and I stood upright, wiping my hands down my shorts, butterflies fluttering in my stomach. The first group had, for the most part, been easy. I knew I had gotten off lightly.

“Ready?” Marissa asked.

“As I’ll ever be.”

The buses rolled to a stop and dust sprayed around them as the driver hit the brakes.

“Fingers crossed we get it easy again,” Sara, one of the other counselors, said with a smile.

It went from calm to crazy as the doors opened and twenty-four over-excited teenage girls rushed off the bus.

“Okay, okay, girls this way,” Tina yelled over the chatter. “Counselors, you’re up.”

I rounded the crush to join Tina, Sara, and Sheridan. Tina started giving out instructions, and my eyes wandered over to the other side of the parking lot where the male counselors were meeting the boys.

Blake looked at eased as he goofed around with a small group of boys and something stirred in me.

“… Brianna, Lacey, Tonya, Jenny, Lucy, Erica, and Crystal, you’re going to be with Counselor Penny for the next two weeks.”

I raised my hand and waved, trying not to shrink into myself as I remembered one of the first things Tina had told us during our first training session.
‘These kids will smell your fear and use it against you. Even if you feel like you don’t have it under control, your body language says you do. Got it?’
Hearing her words replay in my head, I straightened and rolled back my shoulders looking right at the eight girls gathered in front of me. I smiled. “Hi, I’m Penny. I’ll be your camp counselor during your stay.”

A taller girl with cut-off shorts and a baggy t-shirt arched her eyebrow and huffed. “Awesome.”

“Erica, come on, give her a chance.” A smaller girl glared at Erica and then glanced back at me, smiling weakly.

“Okay, grab your bags and I’ll show you to our cabin.”

Once the girls had their bags, we started the short trek to the camper cabins, or cabin row as we called it, set further into the woods than the staff quarters. I alternated between walking forward and backward so I could talk to the girls. Erica and another girl—Brianna, I think—obviously didn’t want to be here. Their bags hung off their shoulders as if they were carrying the weight of the world on them. I only hoped their worries were the regular girl variety and not the kind I experienced growing up.

We hadn’t even reached the cabin when Erica dropped her bag to the ground and folded her arms over her chest. “I’m not sleeping in there,” she spat out.

“Bagsy top bunk,” a girl with long red hair yelled, running for the cabin door.

“Go ahead,” I said to the girls hanging behind, waiting for me to give them permission to enter.

“Erica, are you going to join us?” I didn’t approach her. She wore her hostility like a coat of armor, but I could see the cracks. Her hands trembled slightly as they hung at her sides.

“I’m not going in there.”

“Okay. When you’re ready to join us, we’ll be inside.”

I could try to talk her into it, but something about the hard girl in front of me told me it would do no good. She was defensive and unwilling for a reason.

Turning my back on her, I walked up the cabin’s steps. The sounds of chaos spilled out of the tiny cracks between the wood. Before heading inside to try to instill calm, I glanced over my shoulder at Erica. “You might not think it, but I’ve been in your shoes before. It’s okay to let your guard down once in a while.” I smiled softly. “I look forward to getting to know you, Erica.”

It was the truth.

Something about Erica called to me. Gut reaction, intuition—I didn’t know what to call it, but I saw some of me in her. I’d been that girl before—lost, scared, and alone—and someone had helped me. He had showed me that living in foster care didn’t have to be all bad.

Now, maybe, I could be that person for Erica.

“T
hat’s it, Lucy. You can do it. Just a little farther. Reach, REACH,” I yelled, willing her to stretch a tiny bit farther to grab the ledge. My words seemed to give Lucy the strength she needed, and with one last push, she extended her arm, stretching as far as possible until her fingers touched the ridge of the wall and she managed to get a firm grip on it.

“Go, Lucy! Pull yourself up.”

Her small hands held on for life as she tried to find a foothold in the wall to hoist herself up.

“Come on, Brannon, Lucy is almost over. We can’t have the girls beating us. We’re men, Brannon. Men.”

I shot Blake a questioning look, and he grinned across the obstacle course at me. This was the second time this week our cabins had been paired together to participate in activities. Although the cabins completed most of the activities individually, some—like raft building, the obstacle course, and games day—built teamwork by pitching one cabin against another in competitions.

Blake continued to shout words of encouragement to Brannon while pride settled in my stomach as Lucy kicked herself over the wall and tumbled down the other side into the mud pit. Her shrieks caused the other girls behind me to laugh. I turned to face them and said, “Is that how we support our teammates? Get over here and cheer our girl on.”

They joined me, yelling words of support to Lucy. Erica, although she had participated in the activity, stood positioned away from us slightly and didn’t join us to cheer on Lucy.

“Erica, we all cheered for you,” I said, hoping she would find it in herself to show Lucy some support.

She shrugged refusing to meet my eyes. “So. I didn’t ask you to.”

Unwilling to engage in her attempt at an argument, I ignored her.

Five days in, and I was still no closer to breaking the ice between Erica and me and the other girls. Brianna—Erica’s only friend—had even warmed up a little, participating fully in all the cabin and camp activities, although she still seemed wary of me.

Lucy reached the end of the course, and we all rushed over to her to celebrate her achievement. As the smallest and youngest girl in our cabin, the obstacle course had worried Lucy. The huge grin on her face showed just how important it was for her to be able to complete the course.

“Boys, what do we say?” Blake led his group of disappointed faces over to us.

Reluctant mumbles of ‘well done,’ ‘good job,’ and ‘congratulations’ came from their group. Blake stepped forward and bent slightly to address Lucy. “Good job, little one.”

He held his hand out for a high-five, and Lucy beamed as she swatted her hand down on his. “Now, who wants s’mores?”

A chorus of cheers deafened us, and Blake caught my eye in the crush. Something passed between us. I don’t know if it was the excitement of the activity or seeing Lucy beat Brannon on the obstacle course, but we were sharing a moment. The excitement I had been swept up in transformed into confusion. The same confusion I felt whenever our eyes collided. He was trying to tell me something. Or, at least, that was what it felt like, but I wasn’t ready to find out what. I was still adjusting to him being here. In my life.

My present.

Fifteen minutes later, Blake had the fire burning and sixteen happy campers were feasting on charred s’mores. I helped myself to a bottle of water out of the cooler and sat on the empty trunk, letting the kids have some time to themselves.