I’m helping Jade plop her curls when Emilia throws herself down beside me. “I need to go to bed. I’m getting my period and I feel like simultaneously crying, throwing up and fighting. The guys said they’d cover me tonight, is that okay? I’m sorry.”
“Of course it is. Do you need me to do anything for you?”
Jade looks over her shoulder to where we’re sitting behind her. “My mom makes all my sister’s drink peppermint tea.”
“Good shout, sweetie. Emilia, go to bed. I’ll bring you some tea when I’m done here. Do you want chocolate?” She nods and she’s significantly paler than she was a few hours ago. “I won’t be long.”
After I’m done with Jade’s hair, Clay promises to help round everyone up for bed while I grab the things to help Emilia feel better. By the time I’m approaching the kids’ cabin a short while later, it’s alarmingly quiet.
Pushing the door open, I’m immediately greeted by Clay, Russ, Xander and Maya, all staring back at me, panic in their eyes. All the kids are settling down nicely, the odd one still pottering around getting ready for bed. I look across the four of them. “What did you do?”
“I’m out, man,” Xander says, keeping his head down as he slaps Russ on the arm.
“I love you, Aurora, but I’m not strong enough for this,” Maya adds.
“God speed, brother,” Clay says, following the other two out of the door, not making eye contact with me.
Russ runs his hand down his face and blows out a strained sigh. “What did I miss?” I ask cautiously.
“Hi, Ror,” he says happily, sounding totally fake and forced. “I’m covering Emilia and I thought that might be nice for us, y’know. I had a cute plan. It involved snacks and—”
“Russ, did you lose a camper or something? Why are you being so strange?”
He sighs again and at this point I’m honestly preparing for him to tell me something dreadful—and he kind of does. “You look really pretty today.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” I drawl, gradually losing my patience.
“Kevin took the biggest crap I’ve ever seen in my life and he’s blocked the entire toilet.” He gags a little. “And when you try to flush it, all the others fill up and I’m sorry, but it’s horrible. I know we’re only supposed to call maintenance for things we can’t fix, but I don’t know if anyone can fix this.”
“Oh my goodness.” I can’t help but roll my eyes. “Okay, come on, drama queen. Lead the way. Surely you’re used to this? Didn’t you live in a frat house?”
“I don’t know any grown man capable of replicating this,” he says, totally serious.
Isn’t this romantic? Nothing helps people get to know each other better than bonding over the rim of a toilet. I can smell the problem before we’re even in the very large bathroom. To accommodate the numbers of campers in the building, the attached bathrooms have multiple toilet and private shower stalls and, somehow, Kevin has supposedly managed to clog all of the plumbing.
Standing with my hand on my hips, I nod toward the offending stall and there’s a look of panic on Russ’s face as he realizes I’m asking him to do something. “You’re the engineer, Callaghan. Engineer us a solution.”
“Block up the doorway and never return. There’s my solution.”
“I’m going to flush it and hope for the best.”
“I’ve already tried that . . .” he says, holding my hips to stop me walking into the cubicle. He pulls me until my back is resting against his chest, his hands stay on my hips and my stomach flips. Damn bugs. “Maybe we should call maintenance now.”
I step out of his grasp, because we’re not having this cute as hell moment resolving a poop issue. “Calling maintenance is admitting defeat.”
“I admit defeat,” he holds his hands up as a gesture of surrender and moves to sit against the counter. “I was defeated before you even got here. Let’s call maintenance.”
“I’ll just flush it once to see what happens.”
“Aurora, don’t . . .”
“It’ll help me work out what’s wrong,” I say covering my nose as I step into the stall.
“Ror, you’re going to flood everywhere.”
“No, I’m not. It’ll probably just go down.”
I press the lever down and the plumbing makes a sound I’ve never heard before.