Page 18 of One Last Summer
“It is; good memory, Millen,” Mack replied. “Do you want me to go stake some balls out there so you can play next to the corn?”
“Only if you want me to throw one of the balls at your head,” I snapped back.
“That’s number one on my list of things for us to do together while you’re here,” he said, reaching a hand across the middle seat and ruffling my hair, not missing a beat.
“Mack planted that whole garden himself, Clara,” Nick chimed in from the front. “He’s like Pine Lake’s Johnny Appleseed.”
“My pet project from a couple of summers ago,” Mack said nonchalantly. “I worked on it with a bunch of senior kids.”
“Wow,” I said. Even I could begrudgingly admit that this was, well, very cool.
“Yeah,” he continued. “The campers grow everything, and what we don’t use for meals, we give away to the community at the stand.”
“Mack’s being humble,” Trey said. “Didn’t someone write an article about it, and you? And how you brought the locals and Pine Lake closer together?”
“Just the town paper, not, like, the Boston Globe.” Mack waved Trey off, but it was obvious from the way his eyes glinted as he spoke that he was clearly proud of what he’d created. “But, yeah, I love working with the kids on the farm stand. I was going to keep it going this fall and try to bring schoolkids in to run it.”
“I bet they’d love that,” I said, marveling at the beauty of this once-empty slice of land that now bloomed full of life.
“Yeah,” he sighed, more wistful than I was used to seeing him. “Plans changed, though.”
Here it was again, that earnest side of Mack that disarmed me.
“What?” he said with a raised brow when he caught me staring.
“Nothing, you’re just sitting on a bunch of work stuff that I need,” I said, pointing to the manila folder peeking out underneath the edge of his thigh. Inside was fifteen-year-old Clara’s note, and I breathed a sigh of relief when he shifted and slid it toward me. The last thing I needed was Mack using my ten teenage action items to torment me. He’d probably try to cut my hair off in my sleep. And the lover thing? I’d never hear the end of it.
“Maybe this is Mack’s way of helping you take a break,” Nick said matter-of-factly as he leaned over the console to talk to us in the back seat. “Clara swore a sacred vow that she’d try not to work this week.”
Mack gave a shrug, his hair flopping down across his forehead. “I should probably keep sitting on your stuff then. For the cause.”
“Yeah, I’m sure my boss would love hearing that all my files got ruined because of some guy’s ass,” I huffed, clutching the folder tight in my lap. We rolled past the soccer field and the art barn, which was still covered outside in splatter paint, and almost surely overflowing with camper arts and crafts projects.
Three figures stood in front of Sunrise, the juniors bunk our group always made our home base during weeks like this. It sat in the middle of a row of identical cabins, painted a bright white with forest-green shutters. “Whoa,” I said, marveling at their shiny new colors. “Didn’t the cabins used to be gray?”
“Lotta big changes up here, Millen,” Mack said slyly.
Nick twisted around in his seat. “Mack convinced Marla and Steve to paint them a few years ago.”
“They look good,” I said, as the shapes in front of us began to take a clearer, human form. So clear that I could see as we approached that one of the people was very, very pregnant.
Holy shit.
“Sam!” I practically fell out of the car as Trey shifted into park. Tripping on my sandals, I raced to get to my oldest camp friend, who stood, hands pressed against her lower back, talking to Eloise and the tall, lanky man next to her.
Sam turned her head, awash in its usual crown of black curls, and shrieked. “Clare-bear!”
She opened her arms wide, which I knew was intended to end in a hug. Instead, I stopped a couple feet in front of her, gawking.
“Look, I don’t ever like to comment on people’s bodies, but I might have to make an exception here. You’re—”
“Yup.” She nodded, a smile wide across her face. “Big time.”
Eloise sauntered up next to her, her orange-red hair tucked under a baseball cap—her fair skin could burn even on the cloudiest of days—and braided tightly down her back. It shone like the last moment of a sunset, that explosion of color that occurred just before the sun slipped past the horizon. True to form, she was decked out in all black, her leggings and tank top somehow looking like formal wear on her.
“She’s peed like five times and we’ve only been here an hour,” Eloise said, leaning in to give me a peck on the cheek, and then tugging me in tight for a hug, which was more emotion than I was used to getting from her.
“That seems reasonable,” I said, still shocked. “Also hi.”
