“Eeesh, Schafer. Well, his lucky night.”
Elliot got out of bed and found his trousers. He gritted his teeth and committed to the superhuman effort of getting them on by himself.
Adara sounded like she was smiling. “You think so?”
“I know so,” said Natalie. “I also know you’re going to have trouble with that one. Look how he followed Chaos-of-Battle around for years like a pathetic puppy on an even more pathetic leash.”
“You’re right, as usual,” Adara said, sounding resigned. “My own fault for slumming. I’ll have to make it clear to him.”
“I’ll make it clear to him, if you like.”
“Who’s making what clear to me?” asked Elliot, emerging from the cabin. He figured he was rumpled enough to do a fairly convincing impression of having just woken up.
Adara and Natalie spun around. Adara was still in her pajamas, but she clutched at her own damp costume as if she were naked. She’d washed off the paint: Elliot wished he’d had the chance to do so.
“How do I put this? Congratulations, you’ve been dumped by another one,” remarked Natalie. “The word that comes to mind is ‘loser.’”
“Yes, you got me, how embarrassing, I’ve slept with two beautiful women,” said Elliot. “The words that come to my mind are . . . self high-five.” He raised an eyebrow at Natalie, then turned to Adara.
She hadn’t said anything she’d meant him to hear, and she wasn’t responsible for any hopes he might have had this morning. He thought she might have liked him a little last night.
“Thanks for a funky time,” he said, and smiled. “I mean that mostly sincerely.”
He plucked Luke’s jacket, which was a charred, caked object he would examine more closely later, off the door handle and jumped off the steps of the cabin, taking the winding path through the trees towards his own. With luck, he would make his walk of shame without anyone seeing him.
“Wait!” Adara called out.
Obviously Lady Luck, like everyone else, was not all that fond of Elliot. Elliot turned around, shivering in the early morning air, wishing for a shirt and also dignity. Adara had run after him barefoot in her pajamas: Elliot looked at her dusty feet and her tousled hair, at her still being beautiful. He suspected his own hair required a different description: maybe tornadoed.
“What you heard . . .,” said Adara. “It wasn’t just about Luke. I was—I like someone else, too. It isn’t you,” she added quickly. “I know I don’t have any hope with either of them, and I was trying to make myself feel better. Can you understand that?”
I’m not a bandage for your wounds, Elliot wanted to snap, but he bit his tongue before he spoke. She had come after him. That was kind of her.
He had kissed her fresh from being rejected by Myra, and before that by Jase, and before that by Serene. Natalie was right: he was a loser, but that was not Adara’s fault.
“I can understand,” said Elliot.
Adara dropped her gaze toward the forest floor, tangling her hands together as if with his understanding she had lost her confidence.
“Thanks for telling me—what you told me, last night. I won’t tell anybody.”
“I don’t care who you tell,” said Elliot, but Adara had spoken as if the promise meant something to her.
That was kind of her, too. Elliot took a step forward and looked at her in the clear cold morning light.
Then he leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks again,” he murmured, soft as the breeze ruffling her hair, close enough to feel her warmth and feel her tremble, for the last time.
“Elliot?” said Luke’s voice. “Adara? I don’t believe this.”
“Awesome,” said Elliot, stepping back from Adara. “This is a great day. I cannot wait to see what else happens. I think I might go live in a hole. What do you want?”
Apparently Luke wanted to stand among the trees and gape like an idiot.
Adara glanced at Luke and blushed, looking completely mortified. She was the one with the crush on Luke: Elliot had a moment of pity for her crushing horror.
“Well, it’s seven in the morning, so I gotta go practice the javelin!” she said, and ran.
The moment passed. Adara was the one who got to leave, mortified at being seen with Elliot, and Elliot was the one who had to stay.
“I guess I don’t need to ask where you’ve been,” said Luke.
“Guess not,” said Elliot. “So let’s not talk, shall we? That seems best. We have a manly bond, which means not talking . . . very much . . . at all. Ever. And I think that’s beautiful!”
“I knew you liked her.”
“You’re letting me down, loser,” said Elliot. “You’re letting me down about our bond. That’s hurtful.”
This was like some terrible emotional game of Clue, he decided. Who is going to most comprehensively ruin Elliot’s day? Will it be the school’s queen Adara outside the cabin, ashamed to have wasted her time with him? Or will it be everyone’s preferred suitor Luke leaning against a tree, being blond and judgmental? Could there possibly be another contender? Will it be secret option everybody?
Elliot glared. Luke glared back.
“I was looking everywhere for you.”
“Well, not everywhere,” Elliot pointed out. “Obviously.”
Elliot did realize his smart mouth was a serious character flaw which would prevent him ever having a mostly silent manly bond with anyone.
“Last night I thought you might be upset about Myra getting with someone else,” said Luke, a tinge of spite in his voice. “Obviously not.”
Elliot stopped glaring in order to stare incredulously. “Who did Myra get with? You?”
Luke was the one Myra liked, after all. She’d said as much. And Luke had been upset last night.
“Er, no,” said Luke, doing some incredulous staring of his own. “Did you hit your head and suffer some kind of memory loss? Do you understand what liking men romantically even means?”
“No, not at all,” Elliot said blandly. “You’ll have to explain it to me someday. Who did Myra get with?”
Luke looked thoughtful. “Something like Paul. Or maybe John.”
“George,” Elliot suggested. “Ringo.”
“I would obviously have remembered a peculiar name like Ringo,” said Luke. “No, I think it was a name starting with P.”
“Peter?”
Luke nodded. “Do you know him?”
Elliot had referenced knowing Peter approximately one thousand times, also introduced them many times, and tried to fix them up that one time. It was clear to him that Luke’s accusation of other people having memory problems was rich.
It was also clear to him that Peter, who Elliot had cheerfully pitied for having no chance with Myra, was much better at romance than Elliot himself. Myra had said she didn’t like Peter that way: how had Peter changed her mind? Could Elliot have got Serene to change her mind?
Elliot looked away from Luke’s smug face, down to the tents and the towers. There was a lot of activity going on for this early in the morning. Elliot would have to investigate it, once he got a change of clothes.