Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)(77)
Checking out of the corner of my eye to make sure Dev was still busy doing bonfire-y stuff, I tore open the bag of marshmallows and started handing them to the girls as I spoke.
“Start toasting marshmallows so it doesn’t look weird while I’m talking.” Some of the girls waved away the marshmallows, grabbing doughnut holes from the box behind us and started toasting those instead. “Oooooh-kay, whatever floats your boat. Anyway…” I closed my eyes for a second. I couldn’t believe I was going to do this. “Once upon a time, there was a geeky book nerd.” The boys from Dev’s cabin started making torches out of their marshmallows and I spoke faster. He’d be back any minute now, or I’d have to rush one of the boys to the first aid station. Either way, I didn’t have much time. “This nerd also happened to be a knitter who taught knitting classes to pay for her yarn and book addictions. She was very happy crushing on cute guys who looked like book characters, until her best friend messed it all up.”
“I like crushing on book hotties like Evan,” Bethany Two said softly around a mouthful of marshmallow. I smiled at her and nodded. I loved my mini-me book nerd camper.
“Her friend had to ruin her perfect bookish happiness by telling her that a non-book-boyfriend-y boy was the perfect love interest for her. And knitterly girl, after much protesting about her shyness, agreed to try to woo him. This knitter tried smiling, being nice, and even acting like her favorite romantically successful book characters, but the boy never asked her out. Instead, he teased her, always asking her to knit him a pair of socks. So, what was a shy, knitterly girl to do?”
“She asked him out?” Genevieve asked, eyes wide.
I tilted my head and gave her a grin. “No. She knit him socks.” I said it like it was the most natural thing in the world, though it really did sound ridiculous.
“Ohmigosh, you are such a wimp.” Came a voice from the group, overlapping with someone else’s “What happened?”
“He ended up dating another girl, who was a lot bolder than knitterly girl and actually kept hanging around him instead of knitting and reading books. So, knitterly girl went back to reading books about cute boys and they all lived bookishly ever after. The end.”
“Telling fairy tales? Or leprechaun stories?” Dev asked teasingly as he passed us, but he didn’t wait for the answer as he rushed over to where his campers were building a multimarshmallow torch by melting and sticking marshmallows together until they made a giant blob on the end of one of their skewers.
I froze, cold dread washing over me like an early fall wind on Prince Edward Island’s cliffs. Giselle took in my expression and shook her head.
“I don’t think he heard anything important.”
“And what if he did?” Bethany One asked. “Maybe you’ll finally get together because of it.”
“He has a girlfriend, Bethany,” I said tiredly.
“We’ll see about that.” Lilliana practically skipped over the invisible line the boys and girls had drawn and looked up at Dev while he was busy confiscating the bag of marshmallows. Before I could stop her, she drew up by his elbow and smiled innocently at him. “Dev, do you have a girlfriend?” I dropped onto the closest wooden stump and prayed that no one could see the abject horror that had to be written across my face.
He smiled distractedly at her. “I think you’re a little bit young for me, Lilli.” He pulled another bag of marshmallows from a hole in one of the log benches. “Where the heck did you guys get all these?” he asked the boys, only to get innocent shrugs.
Lilliana giggled. “I don’t want to date you, silly, I’m just curious. All the girls are, because you’re really good looking. The girls at your school have to think you’re cute, too.” My jaw dropped at how sugary-sweet she made her voice, freakishly innocent and younger sounding.
Dev fell for it. “Sadly, no,” he winked at her. “You can tell the other girls that I’m not dating anyone, but I only date tenth graders and up.”
“Like Phoebe?” I was going to kill that girl. Strangle her. Or throw her in the lake. Or roast her over the bonfire.
Dev looked across the bonfire at me, but I couldn’t see his expression in the light and shadows of the fire.
“Oh, Phoebe is too smart to date a guy like me,” he told Lilliana lightly.
I wanted to melt into the sugar sand under my feet as Lilliana turned and gave me a thumbs-up.
46
“Phoebe… Feebs, wake up.” An insistent voice broke through my dreams and my eyes shot open. The wood and screen walls around me registered as unfamiliar to my brain, as did the shadowed face that seemed to be hovering just at my side. I started to scream but a hand reached through the screen and covered my mouth. “Feebs, it’s me. Calm down.”
Oh, right. Dev. And camp. And he had just used my nickname for the first time ever, which my sleepy brain hadn’t expected. I pushed his hand away and fumbled for my glasses. No longer blind, I sat up, checking to make sure none of the girls had woken up because of us. When I was satisfied they were still asleep, I turned back towards the window. Dev pulled his arm back through a hole between the screen and the wooden frame. Some protection that turned out to be. “What?” I mouthed at him, gesturing to the sleeping cabin and giving him the universal sign for “What the heck?”