The days flew by with the turnover of new campers every two weeks. I ate every meal with Dutch, Darcy, and Brecken. As a person who once survived on vending machine drivel, I never complained about the lack of gourmet food while the others ripped the shit out of the mess hall staff.
Several nights each week, my new friends held an invitation-only party on the docks. I stayed clear of the drugs even though it was tempting to fade into the smoky escape. Those nights offered a relaxing time in the summer away from our kid duties.
Darcy taught me how to play quarters and I got pretty good at a few drinking games. Other nights, the group gambled cleaning duties by playing Texas Hold ‘Em. I cleaned the toilets for days in a row until Brecken taught me how to cheat.
Sometimes we just chilled out on the dock drinking, or in the case of the others, smoking. Once in a while, we hooked up Darcy’s iPod. She liked to dance all swanky and nasty in the humid air. I danced with her a few times. My father would have yanked me right off those wooden boards if he saw me. Dutch, on the other hand, liked to watch us.
I knew these people were crazy and unconventional as hell, but they were nice to me, with minimal pressure to partake in their recreational drug use. I preferred to think of it that way instead of the reality; my friends were high more often than sober but they made me feel welcome. That’s what mattered most at camp.
Everyone lived by Dutch’s unwritten rule of Rochellas. Never talk about the world outside the red arched sign because it ruined the high. I didn’t know majors, hometowns, or even the colleges attended by most of the staff. I didn’t know their families or even if they had siblings. The most important piece: they didn’t know a single thing about Alex Tanner.
One night as I sat on the boat dock, it occurred to me; most of these people assumed I really was Lexie. I never bothered to correct the nicknamed dubbed by Dutch’s attempt to flirt on the day we met. This summer, I could be someone else. The idea felt new and invigorating, like an Etch-a-Sketch shaken until clean.
At Rochellas, this Lexie never lost a mother to cancer. She never watched the world pick through her belongings as the sky fell all around her. This fun-filled girl was never dragged to another town, only to be homeless. She never experienced the glares, taunts, or pity from a place that survived on gossip. Most importantly, this camp never heard of a Mason and this Lexie owed them absolutely nothing. I was free of everything.
I spent most of that free time at the pool, laughing at Dutch. I wasn’t under the delusion our friendship was exclusive. My intensions were strictly platonic, which blurred occasionally as time went on at camp.
Friends with flirting benefits, at least that’s what he called it. Every time he kissed me, I enjoyed it. Dutch was just so damn good at sucking me into his irrational thoughts; a seamless transition from laughing to flirting to being touched by a guy who was intoxicating with experience.
Deep down, I knew he didn’t care about me. He just liked having fun and pulled you along for the ride. That’s all I wanted too, but I made it very clear; friends with flirting benefits included absolutely no sex.
Even with that one little rule, I still had fun with Dutch, at least until my past invaded my present. Those were the days when I called Jess and my problems came right back to haunt me. We didn’t talk much while I was at camp since it required a short hike to a clearing in the swampy woods to get cell phone reception.
He was always sweet on the phone; his familiar voice grabbing me right in the chest. Most of the calls were much of the same. Jess said Arlis sucked without me. The town’s notorious were up to their usual. Skeeter Rawlins got drunk in the middle of a Tuesday and fell off Nickel Bridge, breaking an arm and a few ribs. My father’s proposal to Caroline over Memorial Weekend, still traveled around in some circles as the latest news. The residents counted down the days to the fall wedding and the lucrative invite to a party at Sprayberry.
The grass fires north of Arlis, filled Jeeter’s and the feed store with ongoing conversations about those affected by the blaze. Jess promised he was nowhere near the area with fireworks. He ran into a few of our classmates, including Ashley. She was driving down Main Street one afternoon, and he flipped her off just because it made him feel better.
Every time we talked, the warmth of his voice and familiarity of our words became harder to bear. It was inevitable I would miss Jess, but I didn’t expect it to be this difficult hearing him on the phone. I knew him too well. I knew the words that caused his eyebrows to wrinkle up. I knew when Jess sounded frustrated; he pushed the hair off his forehead. I knew the exact way his tongue absently licked his upper lip when he talked about eating a hamburger from Jeeter’s. I knew the way Jess smiled as he teased me from hundreds of miles away.
Sometimes I think it was just easier when the bars on my cell phone showed no service. I didn’t have to deal with the awful pain he caused in my chest.
The weekend after Fourth of July, I left with Dutch and a few others for a much needed sabbatical and my first trip to New Orleans. Bourbon Street looked exactly how I imagined; fun and booze and sex. We hit the strip, crawling between the bars, leaving a trail of alcohol tabs for those twenty-one or in the possession of fake IDs. My plastic Texas license held a picture of twenty-three year old Lexie Carter from Nacogdoches. Dutch set up my new ID two weeks ago when he mailed a picture, along with my two hundred bucks, to someone he knew in Houston.
As we entered a small club, I was already drunk from the shots I pounded in the last two bars. Dutch pulled me to the middle of the cramped dance floor. He smiled an intoxicating grin as we intertwined in a dirty grind.
Usher’s smooth voice drifted through the bar as I pressed my back into Dutch’s chest. He leaned in, kissing my neck as his fingers slid across my stomach and over my hips, pulling me hard against his body. We danced under strobe lights; it was hot and sweaty and sexy. I turned around, tasting his rum coated lips as he slipped his tongue in my mouth. The alcohol moved through my body and the room got a little hazy, making me forget people could see us.
Dutch dipped me low to the floor, slowly grinding against my hips to a Timberlake song. “Lex…you have to stay with me,” Dutch whispered in my ear.
I shook my head, no.
“Come on, baby. It’s our night. You can't leave me hangin’ like this. You want it too. I can feel it.”
“I'm staying with Darcy. You know that already.”
“Darcy is not staying in your room tonight. She’ll be tied up with whoever the hell has his hand up her shirt over there.”
“Matt.”
“Good for you. More than Darcy will bother to know. Come on, we shouldn't both be lonely. I could just stay in your room and talk, Lexie…” His soft, caressing use of my nickname always made me feel a little wilder. Dutch inched his hand over the back of my jeans, his fingers tracing the edge of the pocket.
“Is that what you’re calling it now? I’m not talking with you tonight.” I pulled back, watching his face turn into a pout. “Come on, let’s keep dancing.”
“Maybe I should find someone else who really wants to dance.”
“Maybe you should. There's a whole room full of them.” I let go of his body and gestured out toward the floor. “I’ll find someone else to entertain me.”
Turning in the opposite direction, I walked toward the counter and sat down on the wooden barstool. Brecken would be back soon and I could just hang with him for the rest of the night. Dutch was fun, but I was not caving to his pressure. I felt a set of hands go around my waist and flatten across my stomach. His thumbs rubbed back and forth over the sides of my breasts.