Page 16 of Camp Help Falling

“Is it off?” Oliver drifts in a circle as he kicks and reaches to pull at the lake weeds that are no longer stuck to his life jacket.

“They’re gone.” I grab his arm to slow his movements. “Oliver, you can chill out now.”

When he finally calms down, I let go and swim to collect our two paddles that have drifted away from us and the canoe in the aftermath of our tumble. Oliver is bobbing with a hand on the overturned canoe when I make it back. I dip the hand not holding paddles into the water and grip the edge of the canoe.

“Okay, let’s get this thing back to the shore and we can unswamp it.”

I begin kicking toward the beach that seems so far away now that I have to swim there while dragging the dead weight of the canoe.

“Can’t we just flip it over out here?” Oliver asks as he begins to swim with me, the weight of the canoe lessening with his help.

“Sure we can,” I say, looking over my shoulder at Oliver, whose face brightens just a little bit, “if you have a second canoe and a little know-how. But seeing as how you can’t obey the first rule of being in a canoe, we’ll just take it to shore and do it the easy way.”

Oliver’s bright smile immediately falls, and I wink. I don’t know what’s come over me—it must be the frigid water—because I shouldn’t be winking at Oliver. The line between teasing and flirting with him is getting far too thin.

He mumbles and grumbles about the cold water and the heavy canoe, but eventually we make it to shore. I toss the paddles above the water line and stand, my sopping wet clothes clinging to me and making me feel sluggish. Once Oliver is standing again, I wave him over to my side of the canoe. Instead of walking through the thigh-deep water, he trudges up the beach, around the tip of the capsized canoe, and back into the water. Each squelching step of his tennis shoes makes me smile a little wider.

“Okay, so we just grip it by the side and lift.”

“It’s that easy?” Oliver squats down and grabs the edge with me. He begins to lift without me, and as soon as the edge clears the surface, water rushes in, nearly ripping the canoe out of his grip. I catch it, and we both haul and tip the canoe until the opposite edge clears the water and we can flip it upright.

Oliver drags the canoe the rest of the way onto the dirt, and I finally step out of the water, taking my own squelching steps to the rack of life jackets. I peel mine off and leave it to dry before turning around to tell Oliver to do the same thing.

Oliver shakes his head, drops of water flying from his soaked hair, as he strips off his life jacket and drops it into the canoe. The water in my shoes may as well be glue because I can’t move as Oliver peels off his shirt, revealing a torso that should be carved into marble for posterity.

Goosebumps pebble his skin, and the muscles in his arms flex as he wrings out his shirt. A flash of color draws my eye to the tattoo that covers one of his pecs and travels up and over his shoulder. Streaks of blue and orange and pink and green move as he flips open the shirt and finds the bottom opening to pull it over his head again.

I know I’m staring. Oliver hasn’t seemed to notice yet, so I don’t stop.

I know I should. But I don’t.

Oliver’s head pokes through the neck hole, and I finally find it in me to move and look away. One half of my brain tells me to run, get away from him and his brain-numbing physique, but I don’t listen to that half of my brain. Instead, I step closer, swiping Oliver’s life jacket out of the canoe. I try to tell myself that I’m just being helpful, but a greedy part of me—the part of me that winked at him earlier and ogled him like the statue of David—knows it’s because I want to be closer to him.

Oliver smiles down at me as he struggles to force his arms into the sleeves of his wet shirt and tugs down on the fabric to cover a torso that will make the girls drool and the boys jealous. Nothing in his demeanor shows that he was bothered by me watching him, or that he’s smug about my staring.

I look away from him, out toward the lake, where more than one canoe is full of gawking occupants. “You can’t take your shirt off in front of all these teenagers, Oliver!” I whisper, a fresh wave of embarrassment warming my cold face. By the time I look back at him, he’s done tugging at the wet fabric and his shirt is once again covering his torso. Not that it's leaving much to the imagination. The near-see-through white fabric is clinging indecently to all those muscles. Even his colorful tattoo is nearly visible, but still obscured by the translucent fabric.

Oliver glances back to where I was watching canoes knock into each other because their paddlers got distracted by the man in front of me. He grins and shakes his head, spraying water into my face, as he turns back and gives me a cheeky grin.

I roll my eyes, despite the flare of attraction that always comes with one of Oliver’s smiles. He’s so quick to fall back into the easy flirtation we had the day we met, and even though I should be shutting down all of it on the chance that it could lead to any purpling later on, I let it slide because it’s not purpling…yet.

Glancing down at my watch to check the time to make sure we’re staying on schedule, I sigh when a bubble of water bobs from one side to the other inside the face. It’s not anything fancy, just one I picked up for ten bucks a few years ago, but apparently my swim to shore was too much for it. I’ll have to go into town and get a new one this weekend.

“It’s almost lunchtime,” I announce to Oliver, who’s oblivious to my nonfunctional timepiece. “We might as well get this,” I tap the red canoe with the toe of a squelchy shoe, “put up and get ready to call the kids in.”

He looks me up and down, I’m sure taking in how my own clothing is clinging almost indecently as I crouch down and drag the canoe farther up the shore. One short glare, and he averts his eyes, scooping up our sopping wet life jackets from the bottom of the canoe and hanging them up with the others that were unused by the group. While Oliver puts away the paddles, I go to find Austin, the waterfront director, who is perched on a lifeguard chair on the end of the swimming dock.

He gives me a once over as I loudly step up behind him. His eyebrows are raised and his mouth is pinched, trying to hide the majority of his smile. I jerk my thumb over my shoulder at Oliver, who is waiting back at shore, his arms now crossed over his chest.

“Oh, I saw the whole thing,” Austin says before I can blame my current state on the man behind me. “Trey and Alec got him good.”

I sigh, crossing my arms across my chest, trying to ward off the slight chill from the breeze blowing across the small lake. “Do you have the time? My little dip killed my watch.”

“11:45. You want me to call the group in?” I nod, and he brings his shiny silver whistle to his lips and blows three short bursts, the signal to bring the boats back to shore.

“Thanks, Austin.” I turn to walk back down the dock.

“You might want to change before lunch!” he calls at my retreating back. I wave a hand over my shoulder in acknowledgement.

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