S'more of You (Summer Lovin' collection)(4)

Chapter Three


Margot

This confession isn’t going well at all.

At least Dean noticed the lipstick, I guess?

But he seems to think I wore it for someone else.

“Uh, Dean—”

“All right, Camp Firefly, gather around. It’s time for me to announce the mystery challenge. Stay with your cabins, please.”

“Can I talk to you for a second?” I stage-whisper to Dean over the sudden pandemonium, four age groups’ worth of cabins shouldering their way into a circle around Dean—and me, by default. I’m still here, wondering where things went wrong.

2018, probably.

The tension around Dean’s mouth is more pronounced than usual, and he’s avoiding eye contact with me, using height to his advantage and refusing to see me way down below. I hate when he does this. “Now’s not a really good time, Margot.”

“I know. I . . . know, but . . .” Oh just get it off your chest. You promised yourself you wouldn’t waste a single day of these precious three weeks playing games. You’re twenty-one now. Act like it. “Actually, I wore the lipstick for you, so . . .”

Cue the gasps.

Followed by a camp-wide whoooo that might have embarrassed me if (a) I had the ability to be embarrassed and (b) If I wasn’t more interested in Dean’s reaction to my confession. I’ve been dreaming of telling him he’s my crush for eight years, and I hoped he’d drop his clipboard and get down on one knee and produce a ring, because I am nothing if not an unrealistic dreamer. Instead, he looks kind of shocked. Maybe even a little . . . hurt?

“I was wondering how you’d prank me to kick off the summer.” A line snaps in his cheek. “Funny, Margot. The lipstick was a nice touch.”

Dread fries the lining of my stomach. “Wait, no. I’m being serious.”

“Do you guys maybe want to talk about this later?” drawls Aiken. “Like where there aren’t a hundred and fifty kids listening?”

“Thank you,” groan the boys.

“Shhhh,” hiss the girls.

Hands that I would know anywhere close around my shoulders, and Isabel drags me backward to the edge of the circle. “Girl, you’re doing too much. Let’s regroup.”

“Regroup.” I swallow hard. “Right.”

“We need a new tactic.”

“The point was not to have a tactic at all,” I say, sounding more than a little dazed. “Just to be honest with him.”

“It was a noble effort, but it’s time for plan B.”

“There was no plan B!”

“There’s always a plan B.” Isabel chews her lip for a second. “You have to flirt with him. Make him believe you. My mom is always saying that men need to be told something ten separate times before they absorb it.”

“Dean isn’t like that. He’s thoughtful and a great listener. He’s got an old soul.”

“Even an old soul responds to flirting from a pretty girl—and I’m not talking giggles and wimpy shoulder punches. I mean, adult-content flirting. We’re old enough to drink legally in bars now, Margs.”

“Yeah, that still doesn’t seem real.”

“I know. But it is. And maybe someday we’ll actually do it.”

“Okay.” I firm my shoulders. “Flirting. The hardcore kind. I can do that. Probably.”

“You can do anything. But first, we must win this battle. If we lose and the boys get to plant their flag on Firefly Mountain—which is really more of a hill—we’ll have to listen to them brag for the next three weeks.”

“Right. That can’t happen.”

“Let’s go.”

Isabel and I turn around to find our entire cabin of girls looking at us with rapt expressions. “This is so romantic,” one of them whispers.

“Did anyone listen to the rundown of the challenge?” I ask, wincing.

“Nope,” they say in unison.

“We’re toast,” Isabel says glumly. “Again.”

And we prove her right.

There’s always next year.



Hardcore, adult-content flirting.

I got this.

Or at least, I’m going to act like I got this. I’m a summer camp kid and a theater nerd. Committing to the bit is not a problem for me. Although, this is the furthest thing from a bit, isn’t it? If I fail to convince Dean that my intentions are pure, I’ll have to suffer through a whole year before I’m given another opportunity to try. I hate going a whole year without seeing him—and I know hate is a strong word, but it’s accurate.

He’s been my home away from home for eight years.

Sure, he’d probably refer to our acquaintance as a roller coaster, but we’ve bonded too. During the summer between eighth and ninth grade, Dean and I got stuck in a thunderstorm and had to huddle together under the outcropping of a cliff for an hour. I was so irrationally worried my braces would attract a bolt of lightning; he wrapped my head in his arms and kept me huddled into his body the whole time. I can still feel the steady, reassuring beat of his heart against my ear.

There was also that recent summer after his mother passed away, where I sat next to him in the dining hall every day for three weeks, giving him the marshmallows from my box of Lucky Charms. Lining them up on the wooden table and ranking them from worst to best, just to take his mind off the loss that was visibly wearing him thin. Maybe he thought that was annoying or he just wanted to be left alone, but I was helping the only way I know how, by being silly, and he didn’t ask me to leave.