“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” he said, swinging the buckets. How did he find the energy? “But on the plus side, camp will be totally feng shui!”
I grinned. “Well, there’s that.”
As we walked, a cameraman and sound guy scrambled to stay in front of us. Having people filming our every move would take some getting used to on my part. Normally I hated when people aimed a camera at me. I assumed that particular aversion stemmed from the embarrassing videos my brothers were always taking of me and then sharing with their friends in order, in seemed, just to laugh at me. I glanced over at Shaggy, who appeared blissfully unaware of the crew clambering about. The fact that he seemed exceedingly comfortable with the attention made me wonder about him. Who was this guy?
“How’s your arm?” I asked, rubbing my own in the spot his was bandaged. The guilt was eating me up inside. I needed to get the apology out of the way before I could move on with him.
“It’s fine,” he replied nonchalantly, as if he’d totally forgotten about the injury.
“Are you in pain?”
“Nah, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“I mean, if you wanted to slap me or something, I’d totally be okay with that.”
To his credit, Shaggy shook his head, smiling. “It’s all good.”
I was surprised and impressed by the ease with which he was willing to forgive. I’m not sure I would have been so generous.
Meeting his merciful eyes with my own remorseful ones, I said, “For what it’s worth, I really am sorry.”
He actually paused a moment before replying, “I know.”
I nodded, broke the eye contact, and we continued quietly on our trek. Feeling more at ease, I passed him a sideways glance and joked, “And I promise to share half of my worm stew with you for the rest of the show.”
His eyes lit up with mock excitement. “Pinky promise?”
My tense shoulders relaxed, and the feeling of dread I’d been carrying around since the boat fiasco began to fade. If this guy could accept me after our rocky beginning, maybe I wasn’t totally doomed with the others.
“So, Shaggy fromScooby Doo, I’m assuming?” he asked, with a crooked grin.
“Oh, yeah, sorry. I had to make up something since I didn’t exactly have time to introduce myself.”
Shaggy nodded. “No, I get it. You were preoccupied. I actually have a nickname for you too.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do.”
He grinned, sparing me the embarrassment of actually verbalizing it. We arrived at the well, and he set the buckets down.
“I’m Kyle, by the way.”
“Kenzie Williams,” I said, surprised at how easy he was to talk to. “So where are you from, Kyle?”
“California.”
“Me too. Which part?”
“The southern part.”
“I’m from the northern part.”
“Oh,” Kyle winced. “I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t help but smile at his diss. The rivalry between Northern and Southern California had been going for years, although I suspected we northerners made a bigger deal of it than Kyle’s people did. Perhaps we had a little inferiority complex going on up north. Sometimes it was hard being the forgotten little sibling to the larger-than-life Hollywood movie star.
Of course, I had no intention of letting Kyle’s slight go unanswered – no self-respecting Northern Californian would. “Well, if it weren’t for us northerners exporting all our water to you spoiled Southern Californians, you’d have nothing to fill your swimming pools with.”
Cringing, he dramatically replied, “No swimming pools? How would we live?”
