‘Every year,’ he sighs, ‘we play a cross-camp match at the end of the summer, on the Fourth. It’s kind of big. Huge barbecue. Fireworks. Town lore. It’s us … versus Boston. Very well-funded. Led by some …’ He clears his throat. ‘Awful person. Named Declan. We do not like Declan. And Rod really doesn’t like Declan. However, we have lost to Declan four years running. And although it isn’t explicitly stated anywhere … loser usually takes a funding cut. Winner, well … you get it.’
It doesn’t take a sip of chai to pique my attention with that one. An enemy? Stakes are high? I lean in conspiratorially. ‘A rival, you say?’
‘Basically.’ Benny gulps. ‘We’ve been waiting for the right moment to tell you because it’s kind of a rough time of year the closer we get to the match. The kids start to go wild right when we need them in line. Rod gets all tense thinking about losing to Declan. It’s not good. We just didn’t want to—’
‘Run me out of town? Because of a kids’ camp championship?’ A smile spreads across my face, and I take a swig of chai. ‘Benny, you couldn’t if you tried. In fact, you got yourself a promise. We’re beating Declan this year. You just wait. And actually,’ I raise my cup to him, ‘if this comes with chai, I’m not complaining.’
He exhales a sigh of relief. ‘Well, that was a soften-the-blow chai, so I’m not sure I need to grab you any more.’
‘Blasphemy!’ I recoil with a dramatic hand to my chest before setting my cup on the bleachers. ‘Help me grab this tub. I hope Rod’s not drowning in peanut butter back there. This thing’s heavy.’
It takes two of us to manoeuvre a massive tub full of water balloons, which we filled up well before the day’s camp, over to the left corner of the field. I stand up and blow my whistle twice. ‘CAMPERS! We’re going to be doing a fun little drill I like to call Cradle the Baby. Y’all familiar?’
They shake their heads. They’re definitely not familiar because this is not, in fact, a drill. It’s completely something we made up back in Prosperity to pass time on especially hot days out on the field. With today’s scorching eighty degrees, more like ninety, I figure it’s called for. Rod and Benny didn’t fight me.
‘You will get one water balloon. Just the one.’ I raise a balloon, all air-hostess. ‘Your job is to cradle this balloon very carefully before absolutely whipping it at the goal. Mind you, this is theonlysituation in which I will allow whipping of your stick during a drill. If you make your goal, you will get another balloon. If your balloon pops before you shoot, that’s an out. Winner is the last camper standing.’
A colourful assortment of pre-teen exclamations emerges from our campers.
‘Whip respectfully, please,’ I shout over them, hands raised. ‘Deal?’
‘Deal,’ they chant at varied paces.
‘I refuse to miss this.’ Rod and Jake rejoin us with perfect timing, just as I crouch down with the water balloon tub to arm everyone one by one. Jake runs off to meet his friends in line, and Rod reaches down to grab a balloon. ‘Where’d you get this idea, again?’
‘OKC.’ I drop a balloon in a kid’s stick, turning to shoot Rod a smile. ‘Tried and true.’
‘Oh, yeah, for sure,’ he says with that fake, strangled voice people use when they’re clearly struggling to address you normally.
I raise an eyebrow. ‘Now, you’re the one who wanted me out Saturday morning, and I did that, but suddenly I’m scarin’ you away?’
Rod’s eyes go wide, and by the time I’ve popped a balloon in yet another stick with a warning to handle carefully, he’s still taken aback. ‘It’s nothing like that—’
‘It’s something like that, I’m afraid.’
He takes a knee next to me and starts to help with balloons as if stirred out of his stupor. ‘Okay, a little. It’s not you, though.’
‘Fair. I like to know it’s not me.’
We pass off balloons until every camper has one in the head of their stick, and Benny’s got them all lined up at the goal. Up on my feet, I give my whistle one good toot. ‘GO!’
It’s a frenzy of balloons flying either into the net, as far away from it as possible or, my favourite, popping before they even leave the stick head. The kids have good fun, and by the end of it, the last one standing is all giddy with excitement, we’ve all been blasted with cold water at least once, and everybody is happy and maintaining normal body temperature. We send them all to drop-off with their parents with no shortage of relief all over our faces.
‘About before,’ Rod says as we’re unlacing our cleats at the bleachers after picking up way too many water balloon shreds, ‘I think that came out wrong. It’s definitely not you. Whatever it is, it’s fully me.’
I nod, and I don’t expect it, but a ball of nerves starts to tie itself into knots in my throat. I mean, it’s so simple. We had a moment. A fling, fuelled by lots of burgeoning tension. That tends to happen when you eye each other for a couple of days straight. Why am I nervous?
‘It’s been a while … you know, with Tali and everything.’ He slides on his street shoes and sits back on the bench with a sigh. ‘A lot of people in my life have been telling me what they think’s best, but I need to figure it out. Step by step.’
‘Yeah. Makes sense,’ I say, but the knots aren’t loosening, even as I sit down beside him and will myself to calm down. ‘Listen, it’s really not … it doesn’t have to be that deep.’ I finally find my words, hands practically pressed into my knees. ‘We’re grown-ups. We had a moment.’
My fingers twitch. Not so sure about him, but I know that Friday definitely wasn’t just a ‘moment’. That was the kind of sex you have once in a blue moon. That was actually the kind of sex I’ve never had in my life. Maybe that says more about my questionable college taste in men than anything else, and yet I know that’s not the case. It was different. I felt it in the way my body knew. Recognized him like I’ve known him all my life.
I watch him calculate his next sentence. ‘Jordan, for the record … I don’t totally know what’s what. But, like … maybe we let the cards fall where they may. You know? It’s the summer.’
‘Sure.’ That tangle of weird feelings undoes itself – finally – but something still hangs on. Sometimes it manifests itself as jealousy: a tightness in my chest when I see the way May and Colt are, the way that people are so committed, so easily. Sometimes it’s a yearning, a nagging tear at the corner of myeye during a tacky romance movie. But I’ve accepted that’s not for me.Let the cards fall where they may.Playing a game. No matter how far I run from work and lacrosse and every obligation, it always comes back to playing the game. It’s the only way to guarantee a safe outcome. A sure outcome.
The silence between us is deafening after the last word out of my mouth. I finally slide my feet into my Birkenstocks and shoot Rod a smile. Forced? Not necessarily. I’ve just got good at pushing smiles over the past twenty-three years.
