“I don’t know any grown man capable of replicating this,” he says, totally serious.
Isn’t this romantic? Nothing helps people get to know each other better than bonding over the rim of a toilet. I can smell the problem before we’re even in the very large bathroom. To accommodate the numbers of campers in the building, the attached bathrooms have multiple toilet and private shower stalls and, somehow, Kevin has supposedly managed to clog all of the plumbing.
Standing with my hand on my hips, I nod toward the offending stall and there’s a look of panic on Russ’s face as he realizes I’m asking him to do something. “You’re the engineer, Callaghan. Engineer us a solution.”
“Block up the doorway and never return. There’s my solution.”
“I’m going to flush it and hope for the best.”
“I’ve already tried that . . .” he says, holding my hips to stop me walking into the cubicle. He pulls me until my back is resting against his chest, his hands stay on my hips and my stomach flips. Damn bugs. “Maybe we should call maintenance now.”
I step out of his grasp, because we’re not having this cute as hell moment resolving a poop issue. “Calling maintenance is admitting defeat.”
“I admit defeat,” he holds his hands up as a gesture of surrender and moves to sit against the counter. “I was defeated before you even got here. Let’s call maintenance.”
“I’ll just flush it once to see what happens.”
“Aurora, don’t . . .”
“It’ll help me work out what’s wrong,” I say covering my nose as I step into the stall.
“Ror, you’re going to flood everywhere.”
“No, I’m not. It’ll probably just go down.”
I press the lever down and the plumbing makes a sound I’ve never heard before.
I can feel Russ’s eyes on me from across the kitchen counter, but I’m not giving him the satisfaction of looking at him.
“I did tell you,” he says smugly.
“Shut up. I don’t wanna hear it.”
After I flooded the bathroom and we had to evacuate the kids, we finally have them resettled in the main building. Thankfully, because we do movie nights in here, there were already mats for them to use and Cooper, the senior working tonight, was able to point us in the direction of sleeping bags.
I’d like to think that the kids sensed the stress radiating off me because none of them have tried me and they all lay down on their makeshift beds straight away. There’s a kitchen attached to the main room where we make drinks and snacks in the evening and that’s where I spend the next fifteen minutes guzzling whipped cream straight from the can.
Russ moves around the table until he’s standing beside me. He nudges me with his hip gently, so I nudge back and, before I know it, I’m on top of the counter with a huge man between my legs.
“What can I do to make you feel better?” he asks, tucking my hair behind my ears on both sides.
“Build a time machine and go back to before I flushed that toilet.”
“I could do that. Might take me a little bit of time though.”
I point the bottle toward him and he opens his mouth, letting me squirt whipped cream onto his tongue. “If you could go back in time and change something, what would you change?”
It’s a question I think about a lot, which is silly because it’ll never happen, but for some reason I love to torment myself with how I’d have done things differently.
His hands rub up and down my thighs gently and he concentrates on watching that instead of looking at me, until he eventually shrugs. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? You wouldn’t change mistakes you’ve made or even, like, exams you could have done better on or something?” He shakes his head. “Seriously, nothing?”
“Have you heard of the butterfly effect?”
“I am familiar with butterflies, yes.” There are currently one hundred of them living in my abdomen and they all come to life when you’re near me. However, I think he’s probably talking about the movie. “What effect do they have on my time machine?”
“Not butterflies, the butterfly effect. If I change one thing in my past, it’d cause a ripple effect and I wouldn’t chance not meeting you.”
Make that two hundred butterflies, all flapping at once.
My throat feels dry, but I force out the words anyway. “You know you don’t have to sweet talk me to get into my pants, right? You’ve already done that bit.”
“I’m not sweet talking you, but I’m never going to get bored of seeing your cheeks flush pink.”
It’s an overwhelming feeling, watching Russ step into the guy he clearly is deep down when you ward off the insecurities. I feel so fucking lucky that I’m the one watching.
My kiss catches him off guard but he settles into it quickly and I hope to God that nobody steps on a butterfly.
Chapter Twenty-Four
RUSS
Aurora hands me my second coffee of the day as we watch Xander and Emilia argue.
Several weeks ago, the words talent and show were mentioned in the same sentence in what I hoped was a joke. Then Aurora told me how important it is to her, emotional blackmail some would say, and because I can’t help but do whatever she wants because I’m obsessed, I’m now waiting to be taught to dance.
I knew that if I let her down after missing the first practice she would never learn to trust me, so I’ve been in our designated rehearsal spot before everyone, ready to go.
What Aurora didn’t consider when she told us we had to be prepared enough to do a good job, is that we would have to decide on our talent as a group.
I know what my and Aurora’s talent is, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to do it on a stage with an audience.
She stands beside me, occasionally bumping me with her hip, while Maya and Clay stand on my other side, and the four of us congregate together watching our two other counselors argue. Again.
“It’s a talent contest, Xan,” Emilia snaps.
“And I am brimming with natural talent,” he argues back.
“I’m a professionally trained dancer.”
“You can’t teach what I have.”
Maya folds her arms across her chest, tilting her head. “Should we intervene?”
“Nah,” I say, taking a swig of my coffee. “He’ll wear himself out eventually.”
“Emilia won’t,” Aurora says, taking my mug out of my hand and sneaking a sip. “She’ll never back down to a man.”
The kids were getting antsy about not having enough time to practice since we keep them busy all day, so we switched things up to give us all the morning before returning to regularly scheduled programming this afternoon.
I assumed Aurora was exaggerating when she said it’s a big deal, but she wasn’t. Everyone takes it super seriously, which makes me worry even more.
Rory steps closer to me, seemingly absentmindedly, her arm rests against mine as she continues to watch our friends fight like siblings. God, I’m pathetic for enjoying something as simple as her gravitating toward me.
“Hey!” she shouts at Xander and Emilia, making them both look at us all watching them. “How about you come up with something and you can just teach us when you know? If I wanted to watch two people fight over something pointless, I’d spend time with my parents.”
“Fine,” they both snap, immediately returning to arguing with each other.
“Go enjoy your day off,” Aurora says to Clay and Maya. “There’s no way they’re agreeing on something in the next two hours.”
“You’re a real one, Roberts,” Maya says, yawning and waving as she disappears in the direction of the cabins.
“I don’t mind hanging around here for a bit longer to help,” Clay says, sticking his hands into his pockets and shrugging lazily.
His smile is odd today. It’s forced and awkward and it’s making me want to stand in front of Aurora and shoo him. I can’t, obviously, because that would be rude, not to mention slightly unhinged.