He orders our cones and pays at the register. We wait for the worker to scoop our ice cream.
I lean back against the freezer case and eye Gage. “You haven’t found a flavor you like better in the last five years?”
“Well,” he allows, “I have branched out. I don’t always get blue raspberry anymore. It’s still usually a fruit ice cream, though. You haven’t either?”
I grin. “You can’t get much better than perfection.”
His expression turns suddenly serious as he studies me. “No. You can’t.”
My heart rate picks up when I clock his double meaning. The shop employee hands me my cone, so I take it and beat a hasty retreat to the white wrought iron tables on the other side of the room.
“So,” Gage asks as he joins me at the table, “other than Camp Prairie Star, what have you been doing for work since graduation?”
I feel my body stiffen involuntarily but try to hide it by flashing him a teasing smile. “Oh, a little of this and a little of that.”
He tilts his head. “Like what?”
Internally, I groan. I don’t really want to get into it. It’s embarrassing, especially after learning that he’s been working at his dad’s office for the last year and plans to go to graduate school this fall.
Resigned, I answer his question while avoiding his eyes. “Mostly coaching soccer skills classes for little kids. I also pick up shifts reffing for youth soccer leagues.”
“Sounds fun. Do you like it?”
“Yeah, actually I do. It’s fun to watch the kids’ confidence grow as they learn new skills.” My posture relaxes as I think about the group of kids I coached in the spring. I’m even smiling. “The hours are all over the place and the pay is lousy, though. I’m still looking for a more permanent career direction for my life.”
My barriers go right back up. Admitting how lost I am to Gage, who has his life totally together, is embarrassing. It’s evidence of why we would never work together.
“What did you major in?” he asks.
“Exercise science,” I admit. “I was thinking more about passing classes than job prospects when I picked it. I’ve realized since then that a lot of the careers for exercise science majors require more school, which I’m not willing to do.”
I grimace. The idea ofmoreschool, when I feel like I barely survived the schooling I’ve had makes me feel a little panicked. Exercise science was a safe major choice for me because it focused on how the body moves—which has always come naturally to me—and required less reading and fewer papers than most other majors. We had a lot of labs and hands-on work, which I enjoyed.
“What about something like personal training?” Gage suggests.
My shoulders lift. “Maybe.” I’ve considered that road before, but I’m not sure how much I’d like working one-on-one with clients all the time. I do better with a larger audience. But I’ve had enough of talking about my lack of direction in life. I steer the conversation toward Gage instead. “What does someone planning to be a pediatric occupational therapist major in?”
Gage considers a beat before answering. “There’s a range of possibilities. A lot do exercise science, actually. But my degree is in psychology. I took a psych course as part of my gen ed requirements and loved it. I declared my major, and it was only later that I decided to go into OT. But it’s a natural fit. Many of the kids I’ll eventually work with will have functional challenges that stem from differences in their brains. It’ll be helpful that I have an understanding of the mind and how it affects behavior.”
Man, he’s really got it together. My parents and sisters keep telling me that lots of people need time to figure out their next move after college, buttheydidn’t. Gage doesn’t. Maybe everyone in my life is better at this whole adulting thing than I am.
Not that Gage isinmy life, necessarily, but we’re trying to be friends again. I flash back to that moment in the bathroom at graduation when I realized how out of my league Gage really was. He still is. I’m glad that kiss in the store didn’t happen. While I can handle being friends—as long as I keep my physical distance and control myself—trying for anything more is as problematic now as it was in high school.
I need to keep reminding my body and my heart that we’re not going there.
When we get back to camp, Gage and I spend the rest of the afternoon working on my masterpiece. True to her word, Nina is not often around, so it’s Gage and I sitting on the wood plank floor of my cabin getting glitter everywhere.
For step one, I paint the stick a deep green color. Once the paint dries, I wrap the stick in purple ribbon, so it spirals around from the bottom to the top, leaving parts of the now-green stick exposed. I add a dab of hot glue every inch or so to hold the ribbon in place. Then, I add rhinestones here and there so the new sharing stick will sparkle in the firelight. Finally, I add a handful of green and purple ribbon to both ends in place of the lost tassels.
While I work, Gage helps where he can—holding the ribbon steady as I glue, cutting where I tell him to—but mostly he sits with his back against the bedpost, his long legs stretched out in front of him on the floor, and watches me.
At one point, I suggest he might have something better to do. He shrugs and says, “Not really.”
We play music through his phone and break open a family-sized bag of white cheddar popcorn to snack on while we work.
It’s nice. Really nice. I’d forgotten how much fun I used to have doing nothing with Gage. Hanging out. And if I secretly admire the taut definition of the calf muscles in his leg and the sexy tousled look his hair gets when he runs his hands through it, no one’s the wiser.
Once the new sharing stick is done and dry, I hold it up. “What do you think?”
