I nod through the echo of well wishes, thanking them and saying nothing more about Dad. They might not know exactly what the situation is, but they know there’s something not right with my life outside of college. As much as I love my teammates, I don’t think I’ll ever be in a place to explain how embarrassed and frustrated I feel about the whole situation.
“Does Jenna still work there?” Bobby asks with a weird smirk on his face. “Everyone was obsessed with Jenna.”
“You were obsessed with Jenna,” Kris says through a mouthful of pizza. “He was convinced he’d have a chance as soon as he turned eighteen. We only went for one summer but he talked about her for, like, three years.”
“Yeah, she’s my boss. She’s great, super nice. She kind of hates being in charge of people, so as long as you’re not doing something wrong she stays out of your way.”
“Is she still hot? I don’t know why I’m asking because I know she definitely is,” Bobby says. “Shit, maybe I’ll work there next year.”
“What’s your group like?” Mattie asks, rolling his eyes at Bobby.
“Honestly they’re pretty great. There’s one guy, Clay, he’s a bit of a douche but he isn’t unbearable. Xander, the guy I share a cabin with, is really cool. Maya is great, she’s on one of those Camp America international work things with her friends. She tends to hang out with them when we’re not working, so I don’t know her well yet. Emilia and Aurora are nice.”
“Back up,” Kris says.
“Aurora?” Henry follows. “That girl who left you in the middle of the night?”
I rub the back of my neck to ease the nervous prickling happening as I nod a yes. We need to come up with a new way to identify her because things have changed a lot since she was that Aurora.
Cheering erupts, jumping and hugging, a few high fives as they celebrate . . . I literally don’t know what they’re celebrating. “What’re you guys doing?”
Mattie is the first to stop jumping. “She’s the F1 girl, right? Can you get us paddock club passes?”
“There’s no way you two have been together for a month and haven’t fucked,” Bobby says expectantly.
“We haven’t.” They all stop celebrating. “They’ve got this no fraternization rule and to be honest I pretty much avoided her the first week. We’re fine now though, we’re friends.”
I have an audience of confused faces staring back at me. They look between themselves, silently nominating a leader, who turns out to be Kris. “You know no one will be sticking to that rule, right? A bunch of twenty-year-olds stuck together for two and a half months with a rule not to do something? Screw that.”
“I wouldn’t last the week,” Mattie mumbles, taking another bite of pizza.
Henry scowls at him. “Because you have no respect for authority.”
“Let’s see about that, Captain,” Mattie grins.
Henry’s eyes roll, like they do every time his newly appointed title is referenced. “Russ is following the rules.”
“Fuck the rules,” Bobby counters. “We could all die tomorrow.”
“I need the job, guys. Sorry to disappoint. She’s fucking great though, like as a friend. She’s . . . great.”
“Swallowed a whole dictionary,” Mattie laughs, dodging the napkin I throw at him.
I’d need a whole dictionary to describe just how great Aurora is. My mind wanders back to camp and what they’re doing. The kids will have eaten dinner by now; they’re probably drinking hot chocolate by a campfire. Aurora will be complaining her mug isn’t big enough to fit the excessive amount of marshmallows she adds and Xander will be daring her to try and beat her record for the amount she can fit in her mouth.
I wonder if anyone will walk her back to her cabin tonight and if they’ll wait to watch her go in.
Kris downs the rest of his beer, shrugging nonchalantly as he puts it back on the counter. “You won’t be the only guy crushing on another counselor, buddy, and they can’t fire you all.”
It’s bittersweet leaving home for the second time.
After the guys gave up trying to convince me to start living my life to the max, they moved onto telling us about Miami and all the wild shit they got up to. I stopped after the one beer, but by their fourth, Bobby and Kris were reenacting the moment Mattie was mistaken for a famous movie star and they all ended up in the VIP area with Tristan Harding, the guy from all those romance films Stassie and Lola love.