Say You Still Love Me(29)

Ashley rolls her eyes. “We don’t have time for this.” She gestures at the little trailer attached to our hitch, stocked with Tupperware bins full of plastic trash bags, toilet paper, hand soap, and flashlights. We’ve been tasked with stocking the girls’ cabins and shower room before the campers begin arriving.

“Forthwith!” He takes a step forward. “Tout suite!”

I bite my tongue against the urge to correct him, as Madame Monroe’s squeaky voice fills my head. My French teacher drilled the proper phrase into our heads by yelling “Tout de suite!” at the beginning of every class to rush us to our seats.

Meanwhile, Ashley’s nose crinkles with confusion. “What?”

Eric tosses the stick to the ground and reaches in to scoop Ashley from her seat. As tall as she is, he still manages to throw her over his shoulder with surprising ease.

“Put me down, Eric!” she squeals, but she’s giggling as she thumps her fists against his back.

Kyle suddenly appears from behind another thicket.

“Don’t you dare . . .” I begin, my hands in the air to block him from any attempt to pull me off. Meanwhile, my heart is leaping in my chest with the thought of his hands on me.

But he slides into the driver’s seat instead, reaching back to smoothly unfasten the hitch, releasing the wagon. “Hark! A captive!” he yells, and then throws the cart into forward. The electric engine whirls as we speed away, leaving Eric and Ashley behind with the trailer of supplies.

“What are you doing?” I say with a laugh. “We have to deliver those!”

He glances at his wristwatch, and I can tell that it’s all for show. “You’ve got tons of time. Plus it’s right there.” He nods toward the girls’ cabins as we pass the turnoff.

“Where are you taking me?”

“For a tour. Why? You worried?”

“About getting fired on my first day? Kind of.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “You’re not gonna get fired. And, don’t worry, Eric and Ashley will be done in no time.”

“But if Christa sees that we’re not—”

“Christa’s busy driving people crazy in the rec center.” Suddenly we’re whipping around a bend in the path and I’m squealing with a mix of glee and fear, my body pressing against Kyle’s.

“You’re going to roll us!” I warn.

“These things don’t roll. Trust me, I’m an expert.”

“My brother broke his arm rolling one of these.” Rhett and his buddies—drunk—decided to take a shortcut down a steep hill at the thirteenth hole and ended up putting the cart into the country club’s duck pond. He’s lucky it wasn’t worse, though the tongue-lashing and financial penalties my father laid on him more than made up for the lack of serious injuries.

“Well, I’m a better driver than your brother.” We wind around another bend and this time, instead of continuing along the path, Kyle veers off onto a wooded one.

“Seriously. Where are we going?”

He settles back into his seat, gripping the steering wheel casually with one hand, his lips curled up in a secretive smile.

I try to match his calm ease; meanwhile inside, my nerves are going haywire. Wherever he’s taking me, it’s away from the rest of the campground.

I train my gaze on the trees as the forest grows denser and the trail grows narrow. It stops altogether in front of a bramble of bushes and a sign that marks Camp Wawa’s property line. Beyond it is a “No Trespassing” sign, indicating government land. Kyle shuts the cart off, hops out, and begins walking ahead. He pauses just long enough to look at me and call out, “What are you doing?”

“Uh . . . following you, I guess?” I climb off my seat. On impulse, I grab the brown candy bag from the storage container and then begin trailing him up a steep footpath, wincing as the evergreen branches scratch at my bare legs.

We finally break through the dense bush and are suddenly out into the open.

“Wow,” I murmur, shielding my eyes from the blinding sun as I take in the vast expanse of blue water and trees below. We’re on the edge of a rocky cliff. “This lake is bigger than I thought.” From this vantage spot, it looks like it might go on forever.

“It has a lot of little bays.” Kyle pulls a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and tosses it on the ground nearby.

He smokes? I’m not sure how I feel about that.

His phone, wallet, and sunglasses follow closely after. “If you can get in the boat on waterskiing day, you should do it. You’ll get to see more of it.” He kicks off his running shoes and socks.

“What are you doing?” I ask warily.

Reaching over his head, he peels off his Camp Wawa T-shirt, giving me a good, long look at his lean torso, cut with muscle and decorated with swirls of ink over the ball of his shoulder and along one side of his collarbone. “It’s hot out.”

I try not to stare at the way his board shorts hang off his hips, but I fail miserably.

And then Kyle takes a running leap over the cliff.

I gasp and rush for the edge just as he breaks through the water’s surface, his body disappearing into the murky darkness with a small splash. He surfaces a moment later, his groan of content loud. “Oh, yeah. Damn, that felt good!”