‘Like Heath Ledger looks at Julia Stiles in that marching band scene,’ Lyla fills in the blank.
‘Ten Things I Hate About You.’ Stephanie adds an extra gut-punch.
Now my jaw has definitely come off its hinges. I scoff and do the most dramatic hand throw I possibly can. ‘How in the world do you know that? You’re literally, what, Gen Alpha—?’
‘Let me continue!’ Lyla cuts me off. Okay, sass. I step back and cross my arms. It doesn’t really have the intended loomingeffect when I have to crouch down so the rest of the girls can start putting their freshly picked flowers in my hair. ‘It’s my fourth year at camp, Coach Jordan. Coach Rod is really nice. He does a lot for everybody in Whittaker. Camp is really cool and stuff. But he’s never, ever had as much fun at camp as he’s having this summer.’
‘With you here,’ finishes Stephanie ultra-helpfully.
Standing in the shade of the trees in my arcade-ticket crown with flowers all over my hair, the word of these middle-schoolgirls freezes me in my place.
I know my eyes go bewildered, because I’ve been told by my mother. It’s what my face does when people get emotional. ‘Too many feelings,’ she’ll joke, ‘for your hard-shell self.’ This is so much, though. This is: what have I even done to affect Rod so deeply? In such a positive way? I have done zero things.
‘He woulda never let us canoe,’ Lyla hums as she stuffs a bouquet that looks an awful lot like cheer pom-poms into my hands. ‘Not before this year.’
The more she talks as the girls give me various odds and ends to complete my couture look (my something blue is literally somebody’s Nike headband wrapped around my wrist), the more it hurts, way, way more than the judgey twelve-year-old up-down. The truth often does. Every story is real; it’s evidence that Rod and I have begun to tiptoe into territory in our lives best described as ‘way more than friends’. Attention is nice. But crossing the line is my sign to run. Isn’t it?
Before I can consider bolting from this impromptu camp wedding, Mavis gets started at volume fifty, ‘DEARLY BELOVED. WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY. TO CELEBRATE THE WEDDING OF COACH JORDAN. AND COACH ROD.’
I am coaxed to the centre crease by a pack of giggling girls, clutching my pom-pom bouquet for dear life. I’m face to face with Rod, our officiant, little Theo, between us, and his eyes reflect mine. Unsteady. Unsure. Taken aback.
Nevertheless, we manage wobbly smiles that break into real ones when Theo starts, ‘If anybody does NOT want Coach to have a wedding to Coach, you can say no NOW.’
No complaint from the seated rows of campers, all decked out in daisy garlands. I spot Jake sporting his like it’s a twenty-four-carat gold chain.
‘Coach Rod, do you do?’ Theo asks, throwing a tiny arm towards Rod.
Unfazed, Mr Charisma gulps. They have somehow got him a bow tie and suit jacket (no doubt stolen from someone’s dad). He looks like his Pinterest inspo was ‘dapper Adam Sandler’. And yet it wrenches at a soft, exposed part of my heart. In this moment, we are both no longer bluster, flirty jokes and avoidance. Yeah, it’s a fake camp wedding. But I feel myself faced with something way more real.
‘I like your …’ He gestures to his head and the empty space beside it. Hair, maybe? Whatever it is, I’ll walk with him. We can cut this with humour.
‘Not an answer,’ quips Theo. Jeez, who let Lyla teach this kid his lines? The potential shaky laugh I’d been holding in escapes, and Rod, across from me, looks like he breathes a little more easily. His eyes finally meet mine.
‘Sure, I do.’
My heart thuds like that marching-band scene from the movie. What is going on with me? A fucking camp wedding, Jordan? No sort of wedding – fake or otherwise – is supposed to be inmy best-laid plans. Theo’s ‘do you do’ is muffled in my hearing as I take stock of the deadly butterflies in my stomach. The nervous smile that crosses my face.
‘Why not,’ I say. ‘I do.’
Rod and I swap very loosely folded candy-wrapper rings that we have to work overtime not to destroy, and I do my very darndest to plaster all my attention there.
As for the rest of it? I know I am so totally and completely gone because, even after the day’s camp is over, I tuck that stupid crown away in my bag. My fingers gloss over the purple gemstone, and I allow one very small smile, for only me to know.
Girl, what are you doing to yourself?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Grow A Pair
Rod
‘Hey Siri. Text Colt: I think I am delirious.’
‘To Colt: I think I am delirious.’
‘Add a crying emoji.’
‘I think I am delirious. Crying emoji. Send?’
