Looking behind me, I find Clay, the third guy in our group standing barefoot in the sand, holding two beers. “Not right now, but she’ll be back soon.” I point in the direction of Emilia, chatting with someone on the dock. “Take a seat.”
Sitting beside me, he holds out one of the beer bottles. “Beer?”
Although Orla does her best to enforce the no drinking rule, short of inspecting everyone’s bag when they arrive, there isn’t a way for her to stop people sneaking it in for training week. I assume she knows, but is less strict as there are no children around currently. What she does take very seriously is campers sneaking in alcohol, which I found out the hard way when I was fifteen. “No, thanks. I’m, uh, I’m trying not to break all the rules on day one.” Or massively piss off Jenna.
Clay shrugs as he puts the spare beer in the drink holder. “We never get caught. I’ve been here before. But you’re right, we have plenty of time to break the rules.”
He launches into a tale about being a counselor and I’m struggling to follow along. Not because I’m not smart enough, just because it’s really, really boring. By the time he’s moved on to talking about playing basketball at Berkeley (or was it USC?), he’s totally lost me.
It’s not his fault that my mind is elsewhere and I’m sure he’s not used to women zoning out when he’s trying to talk to them. He’s attractive by conventional standards: tall, sharp jaw, nice eyes and smile. Not a huge fan of the amount of gel he uses to slick back his hair, but mainly because there’s so much, I’m concerned there’s going to be a pollution incident if he jumps into the lake. And I could do without the way his eyes drop to my chest when I’m talking, but he’s not the worst guy who’s ever tried to befriend me.
Normally I’d take the attention he’s showing me and run with it, but I find his confidence off putting and his proclivity for bragging hard to listen to. I hook up with one quiet guy and suddenly I don’t like confident basketball players? The matrix is glitching.
My eyes wander across the beach and the dogs look super comfortable as Maya brushes something from Russ’s shoulder, smiling at him sweetly. The puppy on his lap doesn’t even stir when he shuffles in his seat and rubs the back of his neck with his palm.
“I will have that beer actually,” I say, interrupting Clay telling me how much he can bench.
“Oh, sweet. Here . . .”
At least it’s still a bit cold. “Thanks. Nice chatting with you.”
I don’t hear if he responds as I stand and rush over toward Emilia on the dock. Her eyebrows pinch together as she sees me approach. “What happened to our seats?” She spots the beer in my hand. “And becoming a changed woman?”
She accepts it from me, taking a sip as I take the seat beside her, dipping my feet into the water. “I’m starting tomorrow. Too many things to be irritated about today to overhaul my life.”
“He’s just shy, Ror,” Emilia says carefully, handing me back my beer.
I turn to look at her, confused. “Clay is not shy. Shy people don’t talk to your breasts.”
Her eyes roll. “You know who I’m talking about. The one you keep looking at.”
Looking over my shoulder back toward the beach, Russ is still talking to Maya and Xander has joined them. “I’m looking at the dogs,” I argue. “But, if you’re talking about Russ . . . well, he’s not too shy to talk to other people, is he?”
“Just go over and talk to him.”
“And let him ignore me with an audience? No thanks.”
“Maya is homesick, he’s probably just trying to make her feel better.”
“I know, I chatted with her while you were on the phone to Poppy. She lives near the Fenrir UK base but a few of her friends from home are here too. Look, it’s not important, he can talk to whoever he wants, I’m not trying to be that person. It just sort of sucks that I seem to be the only person he doesn’t want to talk to, y’know? I’m beginning to think maybe I got played and he’s not as nice as he seems.”
“You didn’t. But if you did, who cares? You hooked up, you’ll move on like you always do.” Emilia wraps her arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer, resting her head against mine as I swallow a glug of the now warm beer. “If you make me listen to you complain about a man all summer, I will tell your mom you’re moving back home.”
“I won’t. I told you, from tomorrow I’m going to be a new woman.”
Chapter Nine
AURORA
Why is saying you’re going to work on yourself easier than working on yourself?
I want to leave my self-destructive habits behind and yet here I am—day one of Project Aurora, cellphone in hand, watching Norah’s story knowing it’s going to upset me.
And it is upsetting me. My manifestation technique requires some work because Dad’s team smashed the Spanish Grand Prix and he’s super happy about it. Which I know from the sweet videos Norah posted of him celebrating with her daughter at his house.
Stuffing my cellphone into the back pocket of my shorts, I try to forget about the perfect family I’m not part of and speed walk in the direction of the fire safety training, which I’m already running late for.
While the team building exercises take place in larger groups across roles, all our specific training is done in our group of six, making it impossible to sneak in undetected.
“You are’—Jenna looks at her watch—’six minutes late, Rory.”
Normally I wouldn’t care about being late, but feeling everyone’s eyes on me is making the blood rush to my cheeks. Well, all but one person. I mutter a “sorry” quietly and keep my head down as I fill the empty seat between Emilia and Clay. He leans in, lowering his voice. “You haven’t missed anything. Basically, fire is bad.”
“I’ll try to remember that.” I fight the urge to chuckle and try to concentrate on Jenna starting with the evacuation drill procedure. He offers me a grape from the bag in his hand, which, after yesterday, feels a little like a gesture of goodwill.
Jenna is busy explaining the campfire rules, when I feel a tugging on my foot. Looking to the floor, there appears to be a ball of fluff chewing on my shoelaces. Picking up the chubby puppy, I turn the tag toward me. “Which one are you?” Salmon. “Where’s your brother, little girl?”
As soon as I look up, I spot Trout cradled like a baby, snoozing on Russ’s chest. Oh man, this is not fair. I can’t drag my eyes away from the cuteness, which is a mistake, because when Russ finally looks up from the sleeping dog, he looks right at me.
We stare at each other and it’s as awkward and weird as it sounds, right until Salmon decides to chomp on the ends of my hair, distracting me. When I look back at him, he’s focused on whatever Jenna is saying.
The rest of the training flies by without any further staring contests and by the time we’re all walking across the main lawn on our way to our teambuilding activity, I’m feeling better than I was a couple of hours ago, snooping where I shouldn’t be snooping.
“I’ve decided I don’t care,” I announce to Emilia.
“That’s good,” she says nonchalantly, trying not to trip over Salmon who’s weaving around our feet as we walk, trying once again to eat shoelaces. “What are you talking about exactly?”
“Everything.”
“That feels healthy and definitely not like it’ll backfire on you in the future.”
She expertly dodges my elbow when I try to poke her in the ribs. “I’m going to delete my spam account and lock my cellphone in my suitcase. If I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.”
“I support it. I’ve said it before, nothing good can come from putting your faith in a man. Let Chuck and Norah play happy families online and you concentrate on you.”
“Jesus, it was like being with my mom for a second,” I tease.