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When the pencil was moving over the paper, lead scratching, Abi forgot everything else. Because really, what else was there? Nothing mattered until she got the images out of her head and into her sketchbook. Sometimes it drove her crazy—the things she imagined, the things she saw when she looked at the world around her. It felt like her mind was too small to contain it all, like the images were going to build and build until her brain popped like a balloon, and then she might lose it all forever.
It was why she made sure she always had her sketchbook. She felt naked without it. And without it, her hands itched, her fingers tingled—she wasn’t whole if she couldn’t translate her thoughts into drawings.
She often lost herself to her own little world. Like now. She didn’t even realize that she was alone in the lodge until she wasn’t.
“There you are!” Emma slammed her hands on the table to startle her.
It worked.
Abi even gasped.
And even as she realized it was only Emma, instinct had her yanking her book to her chest like it would somehow shield her from an oncoming assault.
Emma laughed.
Abi rolled her eyes.
“Sorry, sorry—I couldn’t resist,” Emma said.
“Yeah, yeah. I guess I’m just lucky you didn’t have your mask on you.”
“And I guess I’m lucky knowing that I don’t need it with you. Scaredy cat.” Emma stuck her tongue out at her. It was picture perfect. She was picture perfect. Girls like Emma didn’t even have to try to be beautiful. Abi always wondered what Emma saw in the viewfinder when she was filming her vlogs.
Abi couldn’t even take a single, filtered selfie without her mind zeroing in on everything she’d ever been self-conscious of in her entire life.
“What are you doing in here, anyway?” Emma asked. She leaned a hip against the table and crossed her arms over her chest. “Dinner’s been over for, like, two hours by now.”
“Really?” Abi asked. She looked around. Sure enough, the other tables had been emptied and cleared away. She hadn’t even noticed how dark it’d gotten outside—she’d been too distracted.
“How could you not notice that it got insanely quiet when all the kiddos rushed out of here?” Emma teased. “My mom always used to say if you live your life with your head in the clouds, you really need to make sure to keep your feet on the ground, too.”
“Didn’t you say your mom also said that if you ate a lot of carrots, it would help your eyesight?”
“And I’ll have you know that my vision is nearly perfect,” Emma said in a sing-song voice.
“Just a shame so many turned your skin orange, too.”
Emma laughed and smacked her on the shoulder. “So what’re you working on that’s got you so ‘in the zone,’ huh?”
“It’s—it’s nothing.”
“You don’t want to show me?” Emma pouted.
“You know I don’t like showing you my unfinished stuff.”
But Emma gave a melodramatic sigh and tossed her head a little, ponytail swinging. It was so over-the-top that Abi couldn’t help but laugh, which earned her an impish grin from the taller girl.
Abi sighed. It was hard to say no to Emma—at least, it was for her. “Alright, alright. But for the record, I’m not looking for constructive criticism.”
Emma tutted. “All artists need constructive criticism.”
“This is just ‘for fun’ stuff, okay?”
She held out her open sketchbook, and Emma took it happily. But as Emma looked over it, her smug grin faltered. Instead, her eyes widened and her mouth fell open in surprise. She looked back up at Abi, eyes gleaming in excitement, and then down at the drawing again.
“Abigail.”
Abi felt heat crawling up her neck. She shifted in her seat a little, embarrassed. “What?”
“This is amazing, what the hell?”
“Oh, it’s—it’s okay.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure, ‘okay.’ Seriously, you don’t need to be humble all the time, Abs.”
She looked back down at the sketchbook a final time, her eyes roving over it appreciatively, and then she set it down on the table in front of Abi. And as Abi looked down at it, she thought that maybe Emma was right. This time, at least. Because the page she’d been working on for the past four hours was a little more than okay. But that could have been because of the subject matter, really.
A portrait of Emma looked back at them from the page. Abi had drawn a bust of her, front-facing, with her hair loose and framing her face—the way it did in the mornings when Emma woke up like a Disney princess, all perfect skin and perfect hair and perfect perfection. She thought she’d even managed to capture the quirk of Emma’s lips when Emma was teasing you—a little arrogant, but playful and gentle at the same time.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s too good,” Emma remarked thoughtfully.
Abi snorted.
“You made me too pretty.”
“Oh, shut up,” Abi said with a laugh.
“No, really. Like, I can tell it’s me, but it’s too… impeccable. It’s a catfish to the max.”
Abi stared at her. Emma glanced away from the drawing, and when she saw the incredulous look on Abi’s face, she almost looked… embarrassed.
“What?” she asked.
“Are you wanting me to tell you how pretty you are or something?” Abi joked.
“The catfish fishing for compliments? Maybe.” Emma grinned.
“Think about what you see when you’re editing your videos, and multiply that by ten, okay? You’re a babe, Em. Face it.”
Emma’s grin softened a little. And was she blushing? “By ten, huh? I mean, I’m no Margot Robbie or anything.”
Abi rolled her eyes. She lifted her right hand and said, “Okay, here’s Margot Robbie.” She held it at about chin level. Then she took her left hand and said, “And here’s you.” She raised her left hand until it was right above her right and held it there. Then she looked pointedly at Emma and said, “Like I said: babe.”
Emma laughed. Abi’s heart squeezed at the sight.
But then Emma ducked her head, uncharacteristically sheepish, and she said, “You’re always so good to me, Abi.”
“Everyone’s good to you.”
“But it feels… different coming from you.”
Abi’s brow furrowed a little. “What do you mean?”
“Guys are usually nice to me because they want me to take my top off. Girls are usually nice to me because they want me to give them a shoutout or collab with them or something. It’s like everyone wants something from me and their niceness is conditional.”
“I’m sure not everyone’s like that.”
“Oh, yeah, of course. I do have friends back home, you know. I know people are capable of being good. I just… wanted to call out your goodness.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Well, you’re welcome.”
Abi met her gaze and Emma smiled, which made Abi smile back almost right away. So what had it been like on Abi’s first day at Hackett’s Quarry Summer Camp? Had she taken one look at Emma Mountebank and thought, ‘oh no, I’m in such trouble?’ Had she known right away that she was going to spend the rest of the summer fantasizing about her and doodling about her and dreaming about her?
Yes. A hundred percent.
When you meet someone that sets your insides on fire like this, you just know.
Suddenly Emma grabbed the sketchbook again. For a moment, Abi felt only the sort of panic that an artist or writer knows—the panic that someone is going to flip through your work and see all the unfinished, unpolished pieces you’re not ready to share with the world. Her stomach clenched and she sat on her hands to keep herself from lashing out and grabbing for the book.
Emma simply flipped to the next clean page, and scooped up the pencil that Abi had left on the table. She looked back at Abi with a grin. It was very Cheshire Cat.
“What are you doing?” Abi asked.
“I’m going to draw you,” Emma said.
“Oh, that’s okay—you don’t have to—we should probably get going.” And Abi could feel the heat pooling into her cheeks. She knew she was probably bright red, and she reached for her pencil as though she meant to pluck it from Emma’s fingers.
But Emma twisted away from her. “Nope. You’re going to let me draw you, missy.”
“Ugh, why?”
“Because I want to. And what I want, I get. I’m kind of persistent, Abs—don’t know if you’ve noticed.”
“Maybe a little.”
Emma got comfortable on the table, looking down at Abi and holding the pencil above the paper. She paused for a moment, like she was getting her bearings, and then she started to sketch. Her pencil strokes were wide and flowy, but there wasn’t any finesse to the way she drew—it clearly wasn’t something she did often. Abi didn’t know what to do with herself. This wasn’t the first time someone had drawn her—various art classes over the years had often had her posing for partners—but this was so different.
It was so intimate.
She sat straight, hands folded in her lap and head held even and level, but she didn’t know what to do with her eyes. She looked all around the lodge, finding the paintings and photographs of the Hackett family and earlier counselors who’d helped to make the camp what it was today. What did her hair look like? Was it sticking up? Did her forehead look too big? Should she try to smile a little bit? What did she look like to Emma in this moment?
She was too nervous to even breathe normally. She found herself breathing so slowly it was like her chest wasn’t even rising—like the time she and her friends had tried to figure out who best in their group could play a dead body in a true crime reenactment on the ID channel.
Every minute or so, Emma would look back at Abi, analyze something, and then go back to sketching. Her eyes were intense, and it felt like they cut right through Abi to her core—like she could see into Abi’s mind. And just in case she could, Abi tried to make herself think about totally inconsequential things.
Like the song Dylan had told her to listen to that day; she’d asked him how exactly she would be able to do that when Chris Hackett had their phones, so he’d written the title on her arm. Otherwise, he’d forget, he’d said. It had already rubbed away. Abi couldn’t even remember the artist. She thought next about Nick, who she was pretty sure had been flirting with her at dinner. She wasn’t sure how to tell him she wasn’t interested. She’d always hated confrontation. She hated telling people ‘no’ and disappointing them. She didn’t necessarily need people to like her, she just… didn’t want to be disliked. She wanted to be useful and to make people happy.
“You should relax a little,” Emma suddenly said.
“Easy for you to say,” Abi murmured. She took a deep breath and wriggled her shoulders, trying to ease the tension out of them.
For as self-conscious as she felt, she grew more comfortable with it as the seconds wore on. It was just her and Emma in the lodge—she was safe with Emma; she knew she wasn’t going to make fun of her or get bored of her company. Emma was… different when it was just the two of them. She didn’t pretend so much. She smiled more—her real smile, not her Instagram one.
The windows were open, and the warm, late summer air that poured into the lodge carried with it the scent of trees and the sounds of the crickets and other nighttime insects. All day, Kaitlyn had said it was going to rain that night—she’d insisted on it, on some sense she’d inherited from her grandmother, and Abi was sure she could even smell it on the air. She thought about laying in bed and listening to the raindrops on the roof of their cabin.
It was a good night.
“You have a cute nose,” Emma said suddenly.
A nervous laugh tittered out of Abi. “What?”
“You heard me. It’s like…a cute little button.”
“Uh… thanks, I think.”
Emma flashed her a grin and chirped, “You’re welcome.”
She erased something, studied Abi for a moment that felt like an eternity, and then she went back to drawing.
Abi tried not to overthink it. ‘Cute’ had a lot of meanings, and most of them were totally platonic and totally innocent. Kittens and puppies and axolotls were cute. A drawing of a fat frog using a mushroom as an umbrella was cute. A toddler wearing a snow parka that made them look like a little fluffy starfish—cute.
Emma hadn’t meant anything by it. Unless she had.
She didn’t even call me cute, she thought. And I doubt she’s attracted to my nose.
It was nothing.
Emma suddenly groaned, pulling Abi out of her thoughts. She erased something again, this time a little harder than before. “Ugh, why is drawing so hard? I know exactly what I want to do, but it’s like my hand is stupid and doesn’t want to do it.”
Abi laughed a little. “Yeah, that’s how I feel sometimes.”
“And you keep drawing anyway? And producing good shit? You are so strong, Abi. This is awful.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad. Let me see.” Abi started to lean up, craning her neck to try and see the page.
Emma flattened the open sketchbook to her chest, shooting Abi a wide-eyed look. “It’s not done! Sit back down!”
Abi held her hands up defensively, settling in her seat once more. She felt a little better, at least, and she was able to relax more than she had before. Silence fell over them as Emma worked. Abi loved moments like this with Emma, when she wasn’t trying so hard to be what she thought other people wanted her to be. When Emma was just being Emma and Abi was just being Abi.
Well, Abi with a secret, all-consuming crush, but Abi nonetheless.
Emma heaved a sigh. She looked between her drawing and Abi, her eyes narrowing and her brows coming together in concentration. She tossed the pencil onto the table, frustrated, and shook her head. “Alright, yeah, I’m clearly not cut out for this. I think I’m just making it worse the longer I work on it.”
“Can I see it now?”
“Can’t I just tear out this page? Throw it in a campfire? Oh, or we could give it a viking funeral in the lake.”
“I pride myself in my book having zero pages ripped out, okay? So that’ll be a no from me.”
Emma sighed again, this time far more dramatically. With an air of nonchalance that Abi didn’t believe for one second, Emma held out the sketchbook.
Abi kept her expression as neutral as possible. The drawing she was looking at was… well, it was certainly a drawing. Emma’s skills were slightly above stick figure art, but if Abi hadn’t known exactly what she was trying to draw, she would’ve had no idea what she was looking at. Her head looked like a lima bean with curly strings protruding from the top. Her neck was so long it was almost like Emma had wanted to turn her into a giraffe. She’d drawn, erased, and redrawn Abi’s eyes so much that it looked like she had at least eight different eyeballs all over her lima bean head.
“Oh, wow…” Abi said.
“Oh my god, just laugh and get it over with.”
“It’s—it’s interesting,” Abi said, tossing a grin up at her.
Emma laughed. And only then did Abi allow herself to laugh too. She knew that this was a moment that only she could have shared with Emma. She couldn’t see Emma showing off her drawing to anyone else at camp, and she certainly couldn’t see her laughing about it with anyone else. She would have been too proud, too focused on maintaining her image. This was a special moment. Could Abi draw it later?
“I guess there’s one thing I’m not good at, as loath as I am to admit it,” Emma said,
“You’re not good at roasting marshmallows either, actually. So there’s two things.”
“You dirty liar, my marshmallows are amazing. Extra char is just extra flavor.”
Emma moved to close the sketchbook and set it aside, but Abi quickly reached for it. Emma gave her a bemused look, one of her perfectly manicured eyebrows raised just slightly higher than the other.
“You should sign it,” Abi said. “I like to sign and date all my pages.”
“Oh, god, I’d be happy if no one ever knew this was me,” Emma said. But she picked up the pencil again, and as Abi watched, she wrote her name in a cute, swirling hand. She wrote the date under it, and then, under that, she even drew a little heart. Then she snapped the book shut and held both it and the pencil out to Abi. “Thanks for indulging me.”
“Happy to indulge.” Abi shoved her things back into her bag and sighed a little. She looked around at the empty lodge. “Guess we should head back, huh?”
Emma watched her for a moment. Her eyes were unreadable, but thoughtful. Abi started to wonder whether or not Emma had even heard her when Emma looked around too, shrugging her shoulders.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Yeah, it’s nice here, right?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure.”
“And I like being alone with you.”
Abi bit down hard on her tongue. Both to keep from uttering an embarrassing and high-pitched noise, and also to make sure she hadn’t fallen asleep somewhere and was actually dreaming all of this. Emma was still looking at her, almost like she was waiting to see what Abi’s reaction would be, and Abi felt a sort of panic start to rise in her.
She needed to respond to this the right way. She needed to not mess things up.
Because this felt significant. This felt… cute—and not in the way that kittens and puppies and axolotls were cute.
“Oh, uh, me too,” she said awkwardly. She blushed and hurried to add, “I mean, I like being alone with you too, not that I like being alone with me, hah.”
Emma’s face softened. Her smile lost a little of its playfulness and grew more tender.
And even though Abi didn’t really want to say anything else, she found the words bubbling up inside of her. It was like champagne, ready to pop, and she couldn’t stop herself from adding, “I really like it, actually. Most of my favorite moments here have been being with you.”
“Really?” Emma asked, but then she frowned a little. “Why?”
“What do you mean?”
“You deserve so much better than me, Abi. I’m so…. God, I’m kind of a bitch.” Emma stood and paced away from her. Abi turned to watch her, but before she could say anything else, Emma added, “You hear how I talk about Jacob.”
“I guess I do think you’re a little… unfair to him. He’s more puppy than human; I don’t think he understands things unless you really spell them out for him.”
“I just—it’s so stupid—I just want the people around me to smile and have a good time. And with Jacob, it’s so easy to give him that. He’s simple and his wants are simple. And I know it’s not nice, I know I’m just being a manipulative asshole, but it’s like I don’t know what else to do to keep things afloat. It’s the only way I know to keep us smooth sailing, you know?”
Abi nodded. People pleasers—that’s what they were.
“I’m trying to tell him. Every time I’m with him, I drop hints.”
“Puppy,” Abi reminded her.
Emma groaned and rolled her eyes. “I hate to admit it, but when you’re right, you’re right.” She plopped down in the seat next to Abi, so close that Abi could smell her shampoo. It was fruity. Apple? “I wish I could ask you to end things with him for me, but we’re supposed to be young adults now, right? No more silly high school stuff.”
“He probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
“Fair point.”
“You could write him a letter?” Abi suggested.
“I think I’ll just do it tomorrow. After breakfast or something. Fast like ripping a bandaid off—but not so fast that he doesn’t get it. ‘Jacob, this was fun, but I’m not interested in taking it any further.’”
It hit Abi all too suddenly that if Emma didn’t want anything serious from Jacob, she probably didn’t want anything serious from anyone at camp. She swore she could hear the audible crack of her heart as the realization took a hammer and chisel to it.
“What do you think?” Emma asked.
“Huh?”
“Is that too harsh?”
“Oh, uh, I don’t know. I’ve never—I’ve never needed to break up with anyone before. This is so far out of my wheelhouse,” Abi added with an awkward little laugh.
“Oh, Abs—you’re always the one getting dumped? What kind of assholes have you dated?”
Abi’s face went hotter than it had all night. “No, I mean—I’ve never really… been in an actual relationship. There haven’t been any break-ups because there haven’t been any girlfriends. Er, or boyfriends!”
Emma smiled again, and even though there was nothing malicious in it, it made Abi blush harder. And then Emma was reaching for her and it felt like time slowed to a crawl—she froze in her seat, eyes wide and surprised, heart pumping and mind swimming. Surely there was just something on her face that Emma wanted to wipe away, or maybe there was a piece of scrap paper stuck in Abi’s hair—that had happened before.
As Emma’s fingers played with a lock of Abi’s hair, then tucked it back behind her ear, Abi felt like she’d been electrocuted. She took in a quick, shuddery breath, afraid to move too much or make too much noise. Where Emma’s fingers had ghosted across her ear, her skin tingled.
Still smiling, Emma said, “You’re really sweet, Abi.”
Abi took another breath. A nervous laugh left her. “Oh, uh, thanks.”
And then Emma was leaning in. She was actually leaning towards her. Her apple-scented shampoo washed over Abi and Abi’s whole body felt like it was igniting. Her eyelids fluttered, wanting to close so she could just give in to what was coming, but her brain wouldn’t stop. She wished she could turn it off and enjoy the moment, but it was like an alarm was going off somewhere in her mind.
Not interested in taking it any further, Emma had said. She had plans—plans that didn’t involve summer flings from camp. And as much as Abi wanted this, as much as she wanted Emma, could she handle this? She was ready to give her heart in its entirety to this silly, dramatic, charming, and beautiful girl—but if this was just going to be over in another week, could she really handle the heartbreak?
Jacob was probably never going to recover. Could Abi?
At the thought, she made up her mind. She ducked her head away from Emma, avoiding the attempted kiss, and Emma sat back, surprised. She took her hand back. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. She looked at Abi with wide eyes—hurt eyes—and a pink tinge swept across her cheekbones.
“Oh—wow, okay—Abi, I am so sorry. I thought you were feeling it, I thought…. It doesn’t matter.”
“I was feeling it.”
“Oh.”
“That’s the problem.”
Now Emma looked confused. “Oh…?”
Abi sighed. This was not the way she’d seen her night going. And she’d certainly imagined her big confession happening in a million other ways—far, far more romantic ways. But if this was how the universe was going to make it happen, she would just have to roll with it.
And if she had to spend the rest of the summer hiding from Emma out of shame, well she’d find a way to do that, too.
“Em… I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first time I made you laugh.”
Emma blinked. Her eyes went soft again, and her mouth quirked very slightly—not quite a smile, but the hint of one.
“You probably don’t even remember the joke,” Abi said, “But Mr. H was giving us that tour, and he was trying to tell us which trees were which even though he couldn’t remember some of them, and we were all starting to feel kind of awkward, so I turned to you and said, ‘Hey, how can you tell if a tree is dogwood?’”
Emma beamed at her. “Oh god. And I thought you were about to drop some serious knowledge on me, but you just looked at me and said, ‘By its bark, tee hee.’”
“I did not say ‘tee hee.’”
“You so did. It was adorable. Of course I remember it—I heard Mr. H using that line on some of the kids a few days later and it made me laugh all over again.” Emma paused, but her smile remained. “And you wanted to kiss me?”
“You are so pretty, Em. And the joke caught you off guard, it was such a genuine laugh, and the sun was still coming up but there was a beam of sunlight coming through the branches of the trees, and it fell across your hair and made you glow.”
“You remember all that?”
“It was the one time I didn’t have my sketchbook on me. I was so mad—I just wanted to draw you.”
Emma bit her lip like she was trying to force her smile away. She dropped her gaze and asked, “But you don’t want to kiss me now?”
“I do. Like, a lot. But then I’d want to kiss you tomorrow, too. And the next day, and the next day.” Abi sighed. “And then camp would be over. And you don’t want to be tied down, I get it, but—I’m not—it’d be more to me than it would to you, I think.”
“Well, I think you’d be surprised,” Emma remarked quietly. Abi’s heart squeezed—she didn’t want to get her hopes up. “Do you know why I let Jacob pursue me? Because on the surface, we go together. If people had taken one look at the nine of us, they’d have instantly assumed me and Jacob were a thing. So I went along with it because, well, it wasn’t like anyone else here was flirting with me. Max and Laura are practically married, Dylan’s completely gaga for Ryan, Ryan’s like some kind of robot or alien who’s still learning how to blend in with humans, and Nick, well… he seemed to have his eye on someone else. And Kaitlyn’s just not my type—we’re both too bullheaded.”
“And she could kick your ass,” Abi said.
“And she could kick my ass,” Emma agreed.
“So you don’t like Jacob at all?”
“He’s… sweet. Sentimental in a way that most guys aren’t. But I never looked at him and thought, ‘wow, I can’t wait to introduce this hunk of man to my parents.’ He’s not… partner material. I want someone I can have fun with, get in trouble with, do spontaneous things with, but also someone I can just sit and enjoy the quiet with. Jacob always has these grand plans that just don’t jive.”
Abi nodded and looked down at her hands in her lap. Only half-joking, she said, “Would you… ever introduce me to your parents?”
When Emma didn’t answer right away, Abi looked back at her. Emma smiled and nodded quickly. Abi’s chest tightened and her heart seemed to flutter. This was going a lot better than she’d thought it would. A whole lot better.
“So Nick…?” Emma asked. “You’re not into him?”
“I thought I was. Or maybe I just wanted to be because, like you said, it just seemed to be what people would expect. He’s… nice.”
“Kind of plain.”
“Maybe.”
“Probably into totally vanilla stuff, right?”
Abi flushed, but she laughed and said, “Emma!” like she was chiding her.
Emma giggled.
And in that moment, Abi made up her mind. Because it would suck to have to say goodbye to Emma, but it would suck a hell of a lot more to think about how she’d had this opportunity and allowed it to pass her by. She’d lived a lot of her life being passive and letting life do what it wanted with her.
She leaned in and pressed her lips to Emma’s.
A surprised noise left Emma, but she didn’t pull away. Her lips were soft and tasted sweet, like whatever lip balm she’d applied earlier. Both of her hands immediately came up to Abi’s face, cupping either side of it gently, and Abi’s heart almost felt like it was going to explode.
This was really happening.
When she pulled away to look at Emma, she was blushing again, but unless the lighting in the lodge was playing tricks with her eyes, it looked like Emma was a little pink too. And her dark eyes sparkled and shone—like starlight.
“I should’ve just done that after my joke,” Abi said.
“Probably. But at least now I can do this.”
Emma was a lot stronger than she looked. Or maybe Abi was just caught so unawares. Emma grabbed her by the arms and tugged, and Abi nearly fell out of her chair, stumbling to her feet as Emma pulled her closer. Emma didn’t stop pulling until Abi was in her lap, sitting sideways and facing her, and Abi was breathless and laughing because she hadn’t expected it.
And because it was Emma. It was always Emma that made her feel like this.
As Abi placed her hands on Emma’s shoulders for balance, Emma pulled her in to kiss her again. Her kisses were quick and sweet and teasing—she would kiss Abi just long enough to make Abi slant her mouth against hers to deepen it, and then she would break off only to return a second later. Like a cat toying with a mouse, Abi thought. But she was a happy mouse. And she could feel Emma’s smile each time their lips touched.
They broke apart again. Emma grinned at her, eyes still sparkling. Her hands settled on Abi’s hips.
“Tell me another camping joke.”
“Wh-what? Now?”
Emma pressed her lips together and nodded, looking excited and eager and so fucking pretty.
Abi wracked her brain. It was hard, because all she could think about was Emma and how warm Emma was and how strong her thighs felt underneath her and how her hands felt on Abi’s waist and how she was holding her in a way that made it seem like she never wanted to let go and—
Joke. Think of a joke, she thought.
“Uh… what do you call a group of bears just yucking it up and cracking up at something?” she asked.
“What?”
“A bear-rel of laughs.”
Emma’s grin widened. Playfully, she said, “Tee hee.”
And then she kissed Abi again.
But it didn’t last long.
The door opened and there were heavy footsteps. Quick footsteps. So quick that the girls barely had time to pull away from each other.
It was Chris Hackett. He sounded tired, ready for another long day of camp to be over. “I thought there was someone in here. Alright, guys, it’s almost time for lights out and—oh.” His voice went from weary to stunned, and he said, embarrassed, “I didn’t see anything! I’m not looking!”
And sure enough, as Abi jumped to her feet and turned to face the door, Mr. Hackett had his back to them and had a hand thrown over his eyes for good measure. She’d never blushed so hard in her life, but a glance at Emma revealed Emma looked cool and collected. Like she got caught in this position all the time—no big deal.
“It’s, uh, it’s getting late, you know,” Mr. Hackett said.
“We lost track of time, Mr. H.” Abi scrambled to grab her bag and swing it over her shoulders, and she added, “Sorry—it won’t happen again.”
“We’re done. You can look now,” Emma said on a sigh that sounded disappointed. She swept to her feet gracefully, passing Abi a conspiratorial grin.
He was cautious as he darted a glance their way. He relaxed. “Hate to interrupt you ladies, but—you know the rules. Lights out at ten.”
“So we can be up and at ‘em first thing at the crack of dawn. We know,” Emma said. She grabbed Abi’s hand, her fingers linking with Abi’s instantly, like that’s what they were made for, and she added, “We’ll put a sock on the door next time.”
Mr. Hackett blinked and seemed to struggle with his words for a moment. “No—please, do not put a sock on the door. It would be better for you to find somewhere else—somewhere private, maybe like the dock, or the treehouse, or….”
“Your office?” Emma asked with a mischievous grin.
“Good lord, please just go turn in for the night, Mountebank.”
As they made their way out of the lodge, leaving Mr. Hackett to do his final sweep and get any open windows or left on lights taken care of, Emma was still smiling, though it seemed to be more to herself than anything now. Abi’s face was so warm she almost wondered if she’d developed a way to glow in the dark, but she felt… great.
She felt kind of wild and a little free. She felt like by taking the chance that she had, she’d leveled up—like a character in a video game.
“He couldn’t have waited like… ten more minutes?” Emma asked as they walked, following the trail that had become familiar to them.
“What would have happened in ten more minutes?” Abi asked.
Emma flashed her a wicked grin. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Abi’s throat felt tight. Emma laughed and squeezed Abi’s hand, pulling her in so that she could kiss her again. This time, she kissed her on the jaw. And this time, before she pulled away, she let her teeth scrape the skin in a playful nip. A jolt of something hot and electric shot through Abi and she stumbled over her own feet.
Emma laughed again, using her hold on Abi to keep her upright. “Whoa there, cowgirl,” she said. “Come on—before we get in trouble.”
But Abi was already in trouble. Her knees felt like jelly and she was tingling all over. Her clothes felt like they’d shrunk—or maybe she’d grown, like Alice in Wonderland after she’d eaten the cake. This was even better than she could have ever imagined it. So what if there was only another week of camp left? At least she could make it the best week of her life.
“So, what you said…” Emma said.
“Huh?” Abi asked, kind of dazed.
“About wanting to kiss me tomorrow—and then the next day and the next day….”
“Oh. Yeah?”
“Is that a promise?”
Abi glanced at her. Even in the dark, the hopeful look on Emma’s face was evident. Maybe she felt safer in the darkness—maybe she felt like she didn’t have to hide her true feelings or wear a mask. And like always, Abi knew she was the only one who got to see this side of her.
She held out her other hand towards Emma, with her pinky raised.
Emma caught on immediately. She hooked her pinky with Abi’s.
“It’s a pinky promise, see?” Abi said.
Emma’s grin returned. With her pinky still hooked onto Abi’s, she pulled Abi’s hand up and kissed her on the knuckles. Then she released both of Abi’s hands entirely so that she could throw an arm over Abi’s shoulders as they walked.
Abi took a mental picture of this moment. She had so much she wanted to add to her sketchbook.