“I’m just getting some water for me and Xander.”
“Water is good,” she says far too enthusiastically for the topic of conversation. “Water is, uh, hydrating.”
Tucking the bottles back under my arm, I clear my throat. “Aurora, did something happen?”
“Nothing that I shouldn’t expect at this point. It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is peachy,” she says. I’m not sure who she’s working hardest to convince, me or herself. Before I can ask anything else, she takes a big step back, fake smile still in place. “See you at training.”
She’s gone before I even have time to respond.
The solar powered fans pointing toward the six of us as we wait for our instructor are useless in the face of the exceptionally hot afternoon sunshine.
“I can’t live like this,” Xander groans, fanning himself with his hand. “Why couldn’t we have done this inside?”
“How do you think I feel?” Maya says, wafting her Brown Bears staff t-shirt. “We don’t get sun in England.”
“I’m more worried that the resuscitation dummies are going to melt,” I say, nodding toward the pile of plastic.
“Hello, hello. I’m here. Sorry everyone, I’m Jeremy and you should be,” he checks his clipboard, “Alexander, Aurora, Clay, Emilia, Maya and Russ? Yes? Perfect.”
I’m a fan of Jeremy straight away because he immediately complains about how hot it is and moves us and the equipment into the shade. He also doesn’t pick me to do the demonstration, which also scores him points.
Emilia is fully sweating and panting by the time she manages to get Xander into the recovery position, but when she’s done, she sits back and admires her hard work with her hands on her hips, like a proud dad.
“The rest of you pair up and practice, please,” Jeremy announces. “I’ll be watching, please shout up if you’re struggling with anything.”
Clay immediately moves toward Aurora, but I’m closer to her. “Come on,” I say, gesturing toward one of the empty practice mats. “I’ll do you first.”
“Oh, okay.” I think this is the quietest I’ve seen her since we arrived a few days ago and I know I shouldn’t expect anything better after avoiding her for forty-eight hours, but I still don’t know what upset her earlier and it’s bugging me. “Thank you.”
We both get into position, her on the mat and me beside her, and I suddenly can’t remember how to do this. I’ve done first aid training before because Coach Faulkner makes us do it every year, telling us we’ll never know when we’ll need it—and yet here I am once again, clueless.
I watch Xander moving Emilia and it suddenly comes back to me. Gripping the back of her thigh, I start to lift her leg into the correct position. “You should tell him you don’t like it when he touches you.”
Thankfully the task in hand gives me the perfect opportunity not to look at her face, but I can feel her eyes burning into me. “And you know that how?”
“Your entire body language changes when he’s near you.”
She scoffs. “You seem to have noticed a lot about my body for someone who’s barely looked at me since we got here.”
Her words make me freeze, but only for a second before I push through it, gently moving her arms to the right angles and rolling her onto her side into the recovery position. “Just tell him, Aurora.”
“Are you jealous?” she asks, rolling onto her back and moving into a sitting position. She’s leaning back onto her hands, her hair ruffled from the mat, light freckles beginning to decorate her cheeks. She’s fucking beautiful, but there’s something different about her today. Of course I’m jealous of it being so easy for Clay to just talk to her and touch her without caring about any potential consequences. “No, I’m not jealous.”
She looks sad. “Then you don’t need to worry, do you?”
“Aurora, I—”
She stands before I can say anything else. “Excuse me, I’m going to use the rest room.”
I nod and watch her walk away, lying down on the mat so I don’t have to watch everyone else getting along and moving onto the next task. Five minutes pass before she reappears, dropping down onto the grass beside me.
She tucks her hair behind her ears and hugs her knees close to her chest, offering, “I’m sorry for being weird. I’m having a bad day. It’s my dad’s birthday and, well, we have a really shitty relationship. To call it a relationship at all is actually a huge stretch andddd now I’m officially oversharing. Can we start over? I really want to recovery position you.”