Page 14 of Summer Camp with the Mountain Man

“Still not Kelly,” she grumbles, and even though she’s clearly pissed, her growl is the cutest thing ever. All I can picture is her doing that on top of me before nibbling on my ear.

Oh great, now I’m about to fight Georgie with a raging boner. If he runs at me I’m going to accidentally joust him out of his shoes.

“Your fiancée’s name is Rayne,” I say calmly, knowing raised voices only rile him up, like a rambunctious puppy.

“I thought we were using your real name,” he tries to whisper in Rayne’s direction but he has the subtlety of a nailgun in an elevator.

“Rayne is my real name, you just keep getting it wrong.”

“Oh, huh. Probably because it’s a stupid name. Why did I think it was Kelly? She musta been the chick I bagged last night. Vacation sex is the nastiest form there is, am I right?”

He puts his hand up for a high five she doesn’t give him, for obvious reasons, rolling her eyes in my direction because this idiot seems to have forgotten I’m standing here. Maybe I was too still for too long and in those two seconds, he forgot.

“Vacation sex with my fiancée,” he corrects with the grace of a squirrel who gorged itself on fermented fruits. “In the tent. Not the patio of a rental downtown. Damn I’m on fire.”

“It’s called chlamydia,” Rayne grunts with a full body shudder.

“I thought it was Rayne. How the hell am I supposed to keep up with all these changes? You need to pick a name and stick with it, preferably not one that sounds like an STI. Do I call you Clam for short? Or Midi? Kelly would be a lot easier if we’re gonna make this work.”

“Are you under the impression Cade can’t hear this conversation?” Rayne motions to me like an artist unveiling her masterpiece for the world to see. “Because I assure you, he can. Luckily he already knows the truth.”

“About the chlamydia?”

“About the fake engagement! He knows.”

“So I don’t need to kick his ass for trying to kiss my girl? Oh thank god, last time I did that I was sore for a week. He’s a gentle giant until you take a swing at him. Hold on,” he says, directing his vitriol towards me. “So you were checking her out yesterday, right in front of me? Bro, for all you knew, she was my actual fiancée. See, you’re always fucking with my life.”

“George-”

“It’s Giovanni, don’t try to undermine me.”

“Giovanni, it’s not like that. We met the other day on the pier. The story she used for how you two met, that was actually us.”

Underneath all the bravado, there’s a real person in there. I see him occasionally, glimpses of a vulnerable side that disappear quicker than his frosted tips the second he realized they’d gone out of style.

He’s always been like this, there really isn’t much substance, but we essentially grew up together and he can tell how I feel about Rayne, even if he doesn’t understand it.

“Dude, are you actually catching feelings for Kelly?”

“Oh my god, still not Kelly!” she groans, kicking up a pillar of dust from her outburst of angry foot stomping.

“Sorry, Chlamydia. Damn, don’t bite my head off. I don’t remember names of chicks I’m not sticking dick to. Or the ones I do. Can I get an amen?”

“What you’re doing for her,” I say softly, ignoring his comment right along with his fist waiting for someone to bump it, “paying off the loans on the campground, even if it is for selfish reasons, that’s really admirable of you.”

He pulls out his phone, eyes squinting like he’s staring at the sun. “Can you spell that?”

“It’s a really good thing you’re doing, even if it does involve deceiving your parents into giving you a buttload of money. At least it’s helping someone other than yourself.”

“So you’re not gonna out us just to embarrass me like you always do?”

It’s not worth arguing, I’d have more success debating politics with an alley cat. He’ll always think I fired him for my own personal amusement, and our family will continue to push that narrative. I’ll never get credit for all the times I saved him from embarrassment, I just got labeled a buzzkill. Over time I learned to accept that’s just the way it was always going to be.

If all those moments led us here, where I get to run a business, living on the road, doing something I love, while meeting the girl of my dreams, I don’t mind being the bad guy.

Every minute with Rayne makes every year I spent dealing with my cousin more than worth it.

“I’ll play along in any way you need, as long as it saves her campground.”