“Jack?”
“Sorry. I’m really good at an egg carry,” I tried.
They looked at me as if I were speaking gibberish, probably because I’d missed their entire conversation. The egg carry would be the first obstacle, and it was set up at the volleyball nets in the sand. There were four other perfectly good activities that I wouldn’t mind doing, and yet the one I wanted to avoid was casually tossed my way. But I was prepared to plead for anything other than the mud pit crawl.
“I’d also crush that balance beam.” It was a walkover, crisscrossed two-by-fours. “I’m really good with wood.”
My pod member Bethany burst out in a surprised laugh, and the others gave each otherwhat the hell did he just say?looks.
“Okay, that came out wrong. But look at these big feet. Perfect for balancing.”
They didn’t appear convinced.
Bethany gave me a curious look. “I’ll be doing the two-by-four walk for our team, weirdo. We need you to do the crawl.” Her finger was on the front office of the map, where the two-by-fours I’d screwed together last week were set up.
Said crawl meant I’d be trudging through the mud on my stomach under the woven net rope that Nat and I had set the posts for. Any other day, I’d love this obstacle, but now that Nat was doing it, I’d be experiencing déjà vu. Seriously, just my luck.
“I think there’s a missed opportunity here. You’re from the beach, Sue. Dirt is basically sand. It’ll be just like you’re home. You know you want to switch with me.”
She shook her head, not budging. “I spend enough time cleaning dirt off my four kids, Jack. I like to be clean on my vacation.” She was going to be doing the tire shuffle, which was the fourth obstacle set up at the meditation meadow, so it wasn’t like she wouldn’t be eating grass herself. Hypocrite much?
I pointed to the next activity, which was here at the mess hall just outside this building. “I can Hula-Hoop,” I continued, eventhough I had never Hula-Hooped in my life. But we only had to hula ten times. How hard could it be?
Unfortunately, predictably, my pod wasn’t persuaded, which made me the designated chump going into that ill-fated pit. Stupid frog.
A smile pulled at my lips as I turned the keychain over in my pocket. I’d taken Bernice from the hook that Nat had installed in her cleaning frenzy. For some reason, I liked having the cursed little critter, even if it had yet to be lucky for me.
“You’re missing out,” I said as everyone split up to go to the starting position for the obstacle they would be competing in.
I caught a glimpse of Nat still huddled up with her pod, no doubt doling out their own assignments. Maybe she’d walk over to the mud pit with me. I rubbed the little frog and realized that part of me didn’t hate that idea as much as I should when my brain decided to bombard me with images of Nat in the mud. Her flushed cheeks and pouty lips lived rent-free in my brain.
My subconscious didn’t stop there, though. I pictured our muddy make-out on repeat. I wanted to kiss her again. I pictured moving into her space, reaching out and threading my hands through her hair as I pulled her against me. Cherishing every moment of her soft, surprised moan as I pressed my lips to hers. Would it be an apology? Perhaps a declaration. No matter what it would mean, I pressed on the little frog and willed it to happen.
I wanted to do the mud pit now, as insane as that sounded. I watched like a falcon, but too soon, I found Nat laughing with one of her campers. For some stupid reason, my heart only sank further. I chided myself. My dumbass fantasy of Nat and me kissing after this relay wouldn’t happen, especially not in front of campers. Focus on the competition.
Now that my initial reluctance to do the mud pit was assuaged, I was able to direct that feeling of want into winning.Then she was walking next to me. Fantasy back on. Shit. We didn’t make eye contact. We didn’t say anything. Luckily, there was so much commotion around us that no one noticed.
I checked on my campers to make sure they’d fanned out to go to their places, and I homed in on Sue, who was walking in the direction of the tire obstacle. Those tires had been painstakingly retrieved, just as I expected them to be. Herman had forced me to sell candy bars door to door for his grandniece’s dance team fundraiser. He’d made me take a twirling ribbon with me, and the people of Wildwood had been happy to make me use it. I’d thought about buying the candy myself, but he’d stood on the sidewalk watching like a parent making sure their kid was safe.
Once the counselors and campers dissipated, Nat and Felicia joined me and the four other campers on the walk to the mud crawl.
Lola was monitoring the finish line and listened as Leo told us that the race had started over the radio. The quietest person in our pod, Tavis, would be kicking us off, but I couldn’t see how that went, and it was killing me. I wished I could be there to cheer my campers on before they ran to the next obstacle, but I could only hear secondhand what was happening.
The events went quickly, and I found myself secretly glad my team hadn’t taken me up on my doing the Hula-Hooping skills challenge, after Autumn had radioed that it was taking forever. On second thought, that shit sounded much more difficult, and I could only imagine how bad I’d do with these uncoordinated hips.
Someone finally emerged from the woods, and good sports that we were, our group cheered on the camper, who was on Lamar’s team. When I moved closer to Nat during the hubbub, she subtly moved away and put Felicia in between us, pointedly ignoring me. Which was fine. I didn’t want to hash anything outwhile we were competing anyway. Even if her silence felt like an open wound that needed cauterizing.
Tyler from Lamar’s pod was the first of us mud-pitters tagged. Tyler army-crawled as if he were training forAmerican Ninja Warrioror something. I was next after Sue came over the hill. She practically threw the baton at me, and I left Felicia, Nat, and the three other campers behind. I dove to my stomach and began the arduous crawl, the mud squishing and clinging to me as I made my way to the finish line on a mission. Tyler was still ahead by a fair bit, and I gave it everything I had, trying to pass Tyler, crawling my heart out. There was no more time for fantasies or looking back for beautiful counselors. I focused and held on to the competitive spirit, certain that Nat was right behind me. Tyler made it to the finish line first, and I was just behind him.
The rest of camp had arrived. My teammates jumped and cheered before taking two large steps back from me, despite my open arms snarkily searching for a muddy group hug. I cracked up at their looks of disgust. Their loss.
Then Nat was there, covered in mud and gorgeous. I couldn’t help it. I was just drawn to her, and I hated how we’d left things last night. Hatred and competition were familiar defining characteristics in our dynamic, but now, there was another layer to it, a new distance between us that I didn’t like.
Last night, I’d witnessed Nat’s moment of clarity that, more than ever before, I wasn’t someone she wanted to be around. The tender openness she’d tentatively shared with me before had closed down. When she had turned away from me, I hadn’t pressed it because I was giving her space. But it still hurt more than I expected. I wanted to hear her voice, even if it was just to curse me out for the assumptions I’d made and the way I’d made her pay for them every day since.
I was captivated as she sliced through that mud pit. It was hard to ignore the determination in her gaze as she exhibited the same grit that I had. I couldn’t help but cheer for her anyway.
Just yesterday, I’d been convinced she’d deserved everything I was putting her through. But today, everything shone in a new light. Nat hadn’t known, and now I had to account for the very real fact that my actions had hurt her. I felt awful.
