“Now Imightbe promoted, yeah.”
“You’ll get it.” It may not have been my place to say, but I had this gut sensation. I’d been fighting this persistent feeling that I still understood him, yet I couldn’t possibly. I had to remind myself that we’d had just a few interactions, and no matter how familiar things were, that meant nothing.
“What about you?”
“Well, I did the Stanford thing for long enough to rack up the down payment on a house…”
“And how long is that?”
“A little under three years. I dropped out, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. I worked random jobs for a few years, and then this came up.”
It made me uncomfortable to be talking about myself this way. To show him I’d made the right choice, to demonstrate my success.
He beamed at me, a twinkle in his eye. “I’m happy for you.”
He looked at me with an intensity that had me sinking into myself, and I immediately blabbered on to take away its power because I straight up couldn’t handle it. “I just didn’t fit there, you know? I was getting good grades and all, but despite making friends, I still felt so alone. Coupled with the fact that I just didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life and it was a recipe for disaster.” Not that being in school blew up in my face or anything. That came later, after I told my parents. “I think I knew that the doctor path wasn’t for me by the end of freshman year. But I kept on going to the point that I—”
“Burned out.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
He nodded slowly, almost as if he were putting a puzzle together, and I wanted to pick his brain so badly. Was he happy? I kept getting a mixed read on him. He was on his way to achieve his goal, but it sounded like, apart from Ren, he was living in Seattle alone. Back in school, he’d thrived when he was surrounded by other people. It was like it powered him. Now his energy felt… Off.
I stared deep into his eyes, and he opened his mouth to say something, but there was yet another commotion. We both jerked our heads toward the noise. I wanted so badly to know what he was about to ask, but I knew what those sounds meant. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they were absolutely coming in our direction. Several of them, if I heard right.
“Goddammit.” I sighed in frustration. “Do none of you go to your cabins when you’re supposed to be in bed?” I sounded like I was talking about a group of wild youths.
Jamie swam under the dock, holding his hand out to pull me closer so that I could grab the ladder next to him.
Please don’t let them come here.
“I think most of us are used to being allowed to be up as late as we want,” he whispered as my wish was dashed.
“Dammit.”
He moved his hand down the ladder, grabbing the one rung below the water. There was a high likelihood they would see our hands if they came to the edge. I moved closer to him and overlapped his hand by accident, disentangling them as if I’d been burned. There was space a few inches away, and it’d have to be enough.
He avoided looking down, as though seeing my lower half would turn him to stone, and I would have laughed if not for our potential audience. His gaze went up as the campers sat on the dock, beer bottles clinking together, placed on hard-worn wood.That was when I realized we were going to be stuck for a while. I imagined the spirited group of them diving into the water, joining us unknowingly, and cringed. Them jumping in wasn’t even my worst worry. The paranoid part of me worried that the wood from above might collapse on us, but I kept focusing on the fact that our pinkies were touching on the rectangular wooden pegs.
“Okay,” one said, I assumed gulping beer. “Favorite counselor. Go.”
Jamie’s legs drifted into mine, our thumbs barely touching.
“Nat’s the hottest,” another voice chimed in. Several voices grunted in agreement. There had to be at least six of them based on the feet hanging over the edges of the dock. “Did you know Nat’s last name is Breckenridge? Like, one ofthoseBreckenridges.”
“What? I thought she was just insta-famous. You know I followed her before I got here?”
“We’re getting off-topic here. I asked who everyone’sfavoritecounselor was.” Another voice joined in. “But in response to that ignorant statement, I sayhell no, it’s no contest. Autumn is the hottest by far.”
“Fuck, she is gorgeous,” another voice—this time a woman—lauded.
It was weird hearing people pointing out my attractiveness, but if it was going to happen, I wasn’t complaining that it was right in front of my ex-boyfriend. In fact, I preferred it to go down that way.
“Did you see those biceps? She looks like she can bench press me, and I can only imagine her stamina—”
My heart rate picked up in anticipation of what else they might say. Jamie looked like he was ready to climb out of the water and shut down the conversation, but I squeezed his hand to stophim. It wasn’t getting obscene yet, but I really hoped it stopped there.
“So wait, you want a woman to bench press you?” A fresh bottle was opened. “That’s what you’re looking for in a love interest?”
