Chapter Text
Ravi brought the last of the supplies for the bonfire to the van parked beside the Camp Kikiwaka sign near the old dirt road. He handed it to Lou, who shoved it in the back with all the other gear. She slammed the rusty van door shut and dusted off her hands.
“That should do it,” she announced. “Everything we need for s’mores after the hayride.”
“Excellent,” Ravi replied.
They had volunteered to pack the van for the late afternoon trip to the farm on the other side of town. Emma had seen a flyer advertising the event when she was on mail duty last week and had suggested taking some of the campers for a hayride. Xander was the one to suggest making s’mores at the campground area available on the farm. Everyone loved the idea, but only Lou and Ravi were willing to pack the clunky, old van before the trip.
“Ooo, I love hayrides,” Lou grinned. “There’s nothing better than relaxing in a bed of hay and looking up at the evening sky.”
Ravi scrunched his nose. “But hay is so itchy. And won’t the tractor make the ride all bumpy?”
“City folks,” Lou murmured as she rolled her eyes and followed behind him.
They hadn’t made it but a few steps before Ravi stumbled over a fallen branch. He managed to keep himself from falling, but Lou hadn’t been paying attention. So, she bumped into him, causing him to lose balance again. He waved his arms and twisted backward in his struggle to steady himself. In the last second, before his tumble, he grabbed onto Lou in hopes of saving himself from falling. But instead, he pulled her forward and caused her own foot to trip over the fallen branch.
“Ow!” Lou whined. She spluttered. “Eww, grass got in my mouth!”
“You’re crushing me,” Ravi gasped for breath and frantically tapped on the back of her shoulder.
Lou rolled over onto her back to set her friend free. Ravi inhaled deeply but some of Lou’s hair was still in his face because they were so close beside each other. He swiped at his face to remove the strands. There was a pebble digging into his shoulder.
Lou flexed her ankle as she lay on the uncomfortable ground. She could feel a twig digging into the back of her neck. She turned her head to Ravi and said flatly, “Do you always have to be so clumsy?”
He gave her a light glare. He was about to say something when he noticed a leaf stuck behind her ear. He lifted himself slightly so that he was propping himself up on his elbow and leaned forward to remove the leaf.
“You’ve got something…” he started.
Lou hadn’t been paying attention to any of Ravi’s actions. She was still focused on the twig digging into the back of her neck even after she had turned her head. So, as he leaned forward, she leaned up slightly to stop the pesky twig from irritating her.
“Stupid stick…” she muttered.
And by complete accident their lips met. That’s all it would have been, an accident, if they had just leaned back. But instead, they both leaned forward and turned a brush of the lips into a full-on kiss. It sent a shock through both of them that caused them to scrabble away from each other.
“There was a leaf in your hair,” Ravi explained, half-shouting as he tried to stand, but lost his balance and fell back down.
Lou had done better getting up from the ground, but she was leaning against a tree trunk like it was keeping her grounded. “Yeah! There was a twig,” she explained, pointing at the ground.
“Yeah!”
“Yeah, that’s all!”
Silently, Lou moved away from the tree, kicking up grass and staring at the ground. Ravi slowly stood up from the dirt and dusted himself off. They were both trying to make sense of what had happened. Lou fidgeted with her hands as she looked over at Ravi, who was tapping the toe of his shoe against a mossy rock.
“Do you think we should say anything? About… that?” She asked.
Ravi looked up from the rock like he was surprised she was talking to him. He thought about what she said and asked, “You mean like to our friends?”
“We should, right? I mean, I can’t lie to Emma. And Xander’s my best friend,” Lou said as she frantically messed with the ends of her hair.
“You’re right,” Ravi said with wide eyes as he moved closer to her.
“So we tell them.”
“No way! We can’t,” Ravi said, looking around the woods as if Emma or Xander would pop up any moment. “Emma always gets mad whenever Luke kisses one of her friends. I mean, I’ve never considered if that rule applied to me, but I don’t want her to hit me. She hits hard!”
“So, we’re just not supposed to say anything?” Lou asked as she continued to fidget with her hair. “I don’t know, Ravi…”
Ravi really didn’t want his sister to punch him. He wasn’t the fighting type. And he had no idea how Xander would feel about him kissing his best friend. He was normally a pretty chill guy, but what if he was the protective older brother type?
“It was just one kiss. And it was an accident,” Ravi reasoned.
“Right,” Lou said with a quick nod.
“Right. Exactly. And we won’t do it again,” he said.
Lou was silent. She stopped fidgeting with her hair to gaze at him. Her eyes lingered on his lips. Ravi noticed and nervously looked over her shoulder to a butterfly fluttering near a tree.
“Unless, we do…” he said.
Lou’s focus shifted to his eyes. She looked shocked as she stammered, “But why would we do that?”
“I don’t know,” Ravi replied. Internally he cringed at his lack of a more intelligent response, but he didn’t feel very intelligent at the moment.
“Well, I don’t know,” Lou said. She winced. “Omg. We sound…”
“Dumb?”
“So, dumb,” she chuckled.
Her laugh made him feel lighter. He chuckled along with her. When the moment was over, he looked down at the ground and saw another fallen branch.
“I better watch out for that,” he said, pointing at the branch.
“What?” Lou asked, stepping sideways and looking at the ground.
She accidentally bumped into him again, but this time neither of them tumbled to the ground. She only stumbled slightly and he helped balance her with his hand on her back. And that should have been it. Another accident. Lou could have quickly apologized and stepped away. Ravi could have asked if she was alright and let go of her immediately. But that’s not what they did. What they did do was kiss again.
“What the heck, Ravi!” Lou whisper-shouted as she backed away from him. She looked around as if someone had seen them.
“Me!” Ravi moved closer to her and huffed, “It’s not my fault that we...”
“We kissed again!”
“It was an accident,” he said with a stiff shrug. He knew he was being loosey goosey with the phrase because he couldn’t honestly say either kiss were true accidents.
Lou pulled her fingers through her hair as she gave him a worried look. “Now we definitely have to tell our friends.”
Ravi winced as if he was already being punched by his older sister. What if Xander didn’t get upset? But then he knew that Zuri was more protective of Lou than she was of her own brother, so what if she hit him too?
“No, we don’t!” Ravi replied.
They both heard footsteps coming up the path through the woods. Lou pushed Ravi out of her way as she distanced herself from him and leaned against a tree. She tried and failed to look more casual, crossing and uncrossing her arms.
Ravi spun in a circle, trying to decide where to stand. He ran out of time when Jorge and Emma approached them from behind the overgrown shrubs that blocked the end of the path.
“Hey, guys!” Jorge greeted the counselors. He was dressed in flannel and cowboy boots. “I can’t wait for my first hayride!”
“I can’t believe how well he’s rockin’ this look,” Emma chuckled as she patted the camper on the shoulder. She smiled at Lou and asked, “Is the van all packed?”
Jorge grinned as he looked expectantly at Ravi and added, “Yeah! Can we go now?”
“Uh, yep,” Ravi nodded as he fidgeted with his jacket. “We’re all packed up and ready to kiss.” His eyes widened at his words. He added quickly, “Go! I meant we’re all packed up and ready to go!”
Lou’s face heated with embarrassment as she looked up at the sky through the trees.
“Dude, that’s a weird mistake to make,” Jorge said, raising his eyebrow at his friend. He shrugged and turned his attention to Lou. “Hey, do you have a hat I can borrow to go with these sweet cowboy boots?” He lifted one leg and showed off his footwear.
“Please say yes,” Emma said as she nodded approvingly at his boots. She looked up at Lou and continued, “He needs to accessorize.”
Jorge and Emma waited for an answer from her, but Lou kept staring up at the sky. Ravi chanced a look in her direction but immediately regretted it because his palms started to sweat.
Jorge cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Earth to Lou! I need cowboy boots!”
His shouting awoke Lou from her stupor. Her gaze drifted down from the sky and landed on Ravi’s eyes staring back at her. Her breath caught in her throat. She blinked and looked away, wondering how a few pecks on the lips had left her so frozen and why she wanted to do it again.
Emma and Jorge looked from Lou to Ravi, who were sneaking glances at each other between staring at the ground. Jorge sniffled; the only sound heard except for some birds in the trees that towered over them. Emma wondered what was going on with her friends and if it would have any impact on the hayride. She really wanted to go. For one, she appreciated Jorge’s great outfit. She would always respect fashion coordinating with an outing. But she also wanted to romantically lean into Xander’s shoulder as the tractor pulled the cart under the pretty evening sky.
“So… are we playing the quiet game or something?” Jorge asked, rocking on the heels of his boots. “Cause I’m not very good at this game.”
“Oh! Is that what they’re doing? Ugh, I’m not good at that game either,” Emma said. “Come on, Jorge. They said the van’s packed, so let’s go get the other campers. And if Lou doesn’t have a hat, then maybe Clyde from Eagle cabin does.”
Lou finally regained her senses and spoke, “Uh, wait.” She carefully stepped over a fallen branch and said, “I’ve got a hat to match, Jorge.”
“Awesome,” Jorge cheered. He high-fived Emma, who chuckled.
Lou glanced over her shoulder at the packed van and remembered that they were on a schedule. She went into counselor mode and started giving out instructions. She said, “Emma, you grab the list of names from our cabin that has ever camper and CIT that’s going on the trip. After, you and Xander can round everyone up and bring um over this way. Jorge, you and I will get my hat from Hazel in the Weasel cabin. She stole it last week when she was trying to lasso Xander.”
“That was funny,” Jorge giggled as he nudged Emma’s arm with his elbow.
“Not for him,” Emma said with a sympathetic frown for her boyfriend. “His legs get tired from out running her all the time.” She smiled. “But his calves look great!”
Ravi, Jorge, and Lou all nodded in agreement.
“Alrighty,” Lou said happily. She clapped her hands together. “We’ve got our marching orders.” She smiled at Ravi, confident that the weirdness was over. She said, “All we need from you now Ravi is to get the keys from Gladys. Other than that. We’re all set because we already kissed.”
Both Ravi and Lou’s eyes widened.
Ravi pleaded in Emma’s direction, “Don’t hit me!”
“That’s not what I meant!” Lou shouted. “I mean we’ve already kissed!” She shook her head and stomped her foot. “Dang it! No, I mean we’ve already kissed! Gah!”
Ravi waved his hands frantically as Jorge looked amused and Emma looked confused. He tried to explain, “She means we kissed! Darn it! Now, I’m doing it too.”
“We packed the van!” Lou yelled, finally getting her words straight but looking completely frazzled.
“That’s right!” Ravi said, snapping his fingers and pointing at Lou. “We packed the van!”
Emma stared at her friends like they were completely crazy. She leaned sideways and whisper-talked behind her hand to Jorge, “So, they kissed, right?”
“I’m pretty sure. I kinda got lost in all the word vomit,” Jorge replied with a shrug.
At that moment, Zuri and Griff walked up the path to where their friends were. They were holding hands and laughing about something Zuri had said about the cafeteria food. They paused when they got to the group. Lou kept flipping her hair over her shoulder and then swooping it back over her shoulder. Ravi was fanning himself with his hand and looking everywhere but at his friends.
“What’s going on? Is it time for the hayride, yet?” Griff asked.
“Yeah, I want s’mores. The only decent food around here,” Zuri commented.
“Yep! Lou and Ravi have the van all packed up,” Jorge said as he made his way over to Lou. He took her by the wrist and tugged her to follow along behind him. “I just need a hat to go with my sick new threads.”
The action made Lou remember what she was supposed to be doing. “Griff, Zuri, you can help Emma round up the campers,” she instructed as Jorge pulled her along. She looked over her shoulder at Ravi and said, “Don’t forget the kiss!” Her face flushed. “Keys! Don’t forget the keys!”
Ravi’s face heated. For a moment, it was like he could feel the spark on his lips again. He murmured, “I won’t.”
Once Lou and Jorge disappeared behind the shrubs, Emma walked up to Ravi and punched him in the shoulder.
“Ow,” he whined. “That hurt, Emma!”
“I told you no kissing my friends, Luke,” she fussed. Suddenly, she unfurrowed her brows and gasped. “Oops! My bad, Ravi. Habit.”
Ravi was still rubbing his shoulder when Zuri let go of Griff’s hand and punched her brother in the other shoulder.
“Ow! Zuri!” he shouted.
“What? Emma got to do it,” Zuri shrugged. Griff chuckled as Zuri walked back up to him and held his hand.
“Fair is fair,” Emma said to Ravi before turning and sauntering down the path back to camp with Zuri and Griff. She called out loud enough for her brother to hear, “Just so you know, there’s a Lou Exception that only applies to you in that rule!”