10 Weeks Read Free

be a little true.

Chapter Three
    I’m lacing up my shoes at way too early o’clock in the morning when I’m nudged from behind.
    Alex.
    He came. With a goofy grin and a ridiculous hat and hiking shoes on. Hiking shoes for a two-mile walk.
    “You’re overdressed,” I say.
    He eyes my tank top and runner shorts. “You’re underdressed.”
    I wink. “Hoping I might get lucky.”
    He shifts his eyes to the gaggle of campers behind me. “Careful, Kay-Kay.”
    I shrug. What are they gonna do? Fire me? They barely pay me anything to sleep in a cabin for nine weeks with six ten-year olds and teach archery five hours a day. Good luck finding my replacement.
    “Are you ready, girls?” I call out. I move to the parking lot at the bottom of the hill. “It’s exactly two miles from this spot to the end of the camp road and back. Jo’s gonna be at the back of the group so if any of you get tired, just hang with her and you can loop back with those of us in the front.”
    Jo’s in her Women Who Run Rule The World tee and I can tell she’s pissed that she has to take the tail end of the group. I don’t care. If Alex and I lead, we’ll get to have a real conversation. The girls won’t be able to keep up with us.
    I strap on the first aid pack and start the hike up the hill. Alex is next to me and within five minutes, the girls have fallen behind. I slow my pace.
    “How come you changed your mind?”
    He shrugs. “Sounded like you could use the help.”
    “That’s not why you came.”
    He doesn’t say anything, just stares through the trees tunneling the camp road. Finally, he nudges me with his elbow and asks, “Were you serious about maybe not coming back next year?”
    “Were you?”
    He grins and a part of me wants to drag him in the woods and straddle him. This is bad. I know this is bad , but the thought is already in my brain. There’s nothing I can do about it now.
    “Yeah. I’ve about outgrown girls’ camp.”
    “How come you started in the first place?”
    I’ve always wondered this. He and I started the same year. I remember one night when I was so homesick for my mom and dad and my cat I thought I might run away, he took me in a ride in his golf cart and told me he missed home too. He was thirty then. Seemed so old and wise. The next day, he left me a whittled wooden cat on my bunk. He never said anything about it. Neither did I. But I still have it.
    He clears his throat and looks behind us. The campers are still at least fifty feet back. “I didn’t want to be alone that summer. Or any summer really. They needed help. Seemed like as good a place as any to work.”
    “Huh.”
    There’s more to this, but Alex isn’t exactly the most forthcoming guy. I’ve known him long enough to realize the other parts of his story will trickle out on his time frame, not mine .
    “I might get my teaching certificate after I major in English,” I say because I don’t know any other way to keep him talking.
    “Yeah. You’d be a good teacher. I mean if you can gain control of that mouth.”
    I grin. “I think you like my mouth just fine.”
    He grunts and I bump into him. He bumps me back , and I both love and hate the butterflies fluttering around my stomach. When he’s next to me, it’s everything. But when I’m in my cabin or with the girls, all I can think is: He’s twice your age, plus two. I am so far out of my league, it’s not even funny. But it doesn’t matter. I can’t stop watching him. Bumping into him.
    The girls catch up to us , and Alex moves away from me. One of the girls, a precocious twelve-year old named Rachel, starts to give Alex crap about being the only guy under fifty at an all girls’ camp. He plays along and it occurs to me that he’s probably heard this for ten years. Now, I’m even more intrigued about why he would sign on for this as opposed to summer school or some other job he could get for the summer. Or why he wouldn’t work at the boys’ cam p on the other