We’re all quiet for a minute, the sound of an old clock on Kit’s mantel ticking, and I start fidgeting with a loose thread on my skirt.
“Oh, boy,” Greer says, quietly. “You slept with him.” My head jerks up, my skin flushing anew. While Kit and I were fighting, Greer waspaying attention. She always does.
“Youwhat?” shouts Kit, and damn. These two—I guess they reallydoknow me well, if this is how easily they read me. There is not one single shred of hope I have for trying to get out of this conversation.
I shrug, borrowing a gesture from Aiden.
“You see,” Kit says, turning to Greer. “This isexactlywhat I mean.” Greer flushes guiltily, sending an apologetic glance my way. But the truth is, I know they’ve been talking about me. I know it by the way they’ve been talkingtome, ever since this camp thing started—pointed questions, furrowed brows back and forth between them, worry over whether I’m getting too involved in this. Kit sits down again, gives me a look that means business. “Let’s hear it.”
“Wait,” Greer says, standing up and scurrying into the kitchen. I hear the frosting knife clatter into the sink, and when she comes back, she’s holding an open bottle of wine. Kit takes the glass of water from me, dumps it on the spider plant on the sofa table behind us, and Greer tips a serving of wine in before Kit hands it back to me. “Okay,” Greer says. “Dogo on.”
This routine we’ve performed is comical enough to lighten the mood. Some of the starch has gone out of Kit and I feel less like I’ve got to sit here and plead my case. I curl up, tucking my feet to the side, which leans me closer to her, and already it feels better.
“You don’t want to hear more about Legal Aid?” I say, batting my eyes dramatically.
“I kind of want to hear if he has chest hair.”
“Greer, jeez,” says Kit, butshe’s laughing.
“He looks like he would. Have it, I mean. He looks…you know. Manly.”
“He does have chest hair,” I say. “Exactly the right amount. Just enough so you can feel it on your—”
“All right,” says Kit. “Don’tmake it weird.”
I laugh, take a sip of wine. “Really, you guys. It’s fine. We’re attracted to each other, and we made a deal. This is something we’ll have between us, while we’re at camp. It’s not going to go anywhere,” I say, repeating words I’d determinedly repeated to myself in the dead of night last night.
“Oh,right,” says Kit.
“What’s that mean?” I ask her. “Let’s face it, it’s not all that different from how my previous relationships have gone.” Sex, plain and simple. Stress relief, a break from reality. I hadn’t had time for anything else, hadn’t allowed myself anythingelse, in years.
“You’re forgetting that we sawyou with him.”
“Please,” I say, waving a hand through the air. “That was forever ago. I barelyknew him then.”
“It wasn’t even a month ago,” says Greer, because she’s been exceptionally helpful tonight.
“You look at each other like...” Kit begins, tapping the side of her temple. “Protons and electrons,” she finishes, and I groan. “I can do better. Like neodymium…”
“How do you ever get laid?” I say.
“Plenty.” She smiles. “Plenty more after tomorrow.”
“It did seem like there was something there, between the two of you,” says Greer. “You should have seen him look at you while you threw darts.”
“It was like you were titanium and he was—”
“Kit, God. Don’t try again.” I laugh. “It’s just chemistry. It’ll burn off.”It has to.
“Invite him to the party,” says Kit, interrupting my thoughts.
“Uh. What?”
“Nowthat’sa good idea,” says Greer.
“No, Kit. I’m trying to keep my distance. Keep it at camp.”
“You can keep your distance,” she says. “You can stand in the corner. We’ll talk to him.”
