Page 10 of Cisco

“Lead the way,” he answered genially, but she hadn’t missed the confused look he sent her way at her returned sourness.

Hilly tried to mitigate her pissy mood, knowing he was perplexed by it. “As you probably noticed, the structure we just left is not only our dining hall, but the place where we hold meetings, have craft time, and where the kids put on shows, writing and directing the things they star in.”

Cisco snorted. “I might have to sit in on some of those sessions,” he chuckled. “I’ve never been much of an actor or a writer.”

“Don’t let the kids hear you say that,” Hilly grunted, not liking that this modest side of Cisco was charming. “You’ll find yourself in a wig, spouting soliloquies if they think they can con you into it.”

“They’d dare do that?”

Hilly let a bit of a real smile peek out. “Don’t let their bullied status fool you,” she told him. “Most of these kids have extremely high IQs, and when they feel comfortable in their environment, they’ll use their brains not only for good, but for the most devious kinds of evil.”

Cisco grinned. “Now that I can relate to. I remember a few pranks I participated in when I was at camp.”

Probably “pants-ing” the nerds, or giving “swirlies” in the boys’ toilets, but Hilly didn’t ask him to elaborate on his misdeeds. She was trying to see him as an uninteresting adult, not the clueless golden-boy she’d crushed on from afar.

She walked him toward her cabin and gestured. “This is where I live and maintain an office during the season. It’s pretty much just a place to sleep and do paperwork, as I spend most of my time helping out and supervising around camp.”

He nodded, taking everything in.

“The big structure next to my cabin is our equipment barn. It houses all our boats, floats, and sports paraphernalia.”

He moved away to take a quick gander in through the large, open doors, then his footsteps carried him around to the long side of the barn.

“What are the closed wooden doors here where windows ought to be?”

Right. That was a task that remained on her agenda for later in the day. “It’s a separate part of the bigger building that houses our camp store, or commissary. It’s still closed up, but we’ll be airing it out this afternoon and doing inventory to see if critters have done damage to our souvenirs over the winter. We don’t keep food in there off-season. Fresh candy and snacks will be delivered early Monday morning so we can offer the kids items that aren’t available in the dining hall.”

“Got it.”

Cisco then turned his attention to the picnic tables that had already—with help from her counselors earlier—been taken from the barn and placed all around the area. “This is a nice cool spot under the trees.”

“Right,” she agreed. “And if you look over there…” she turned him toward the lake then walked him to another structure that sat twenty feet back from the beach. She’d had the open-air edifice built just last fall, and was proud of it. “This is our new outdoor arena where our campers can play when the weather is bad and they don’t want to be sequestered inside.”

She stepped onto the as yet unmarked concrete, with Cisco a step behind, looking around with satisfaction.

The structure was a forty-five by seventy-six-foot slab, covered by a roof held up with wooden poles. There were basketball nets hung on either end, with soccer nets also standing at the ready beneath them. As much as Hilly had hated sports in middle-school—they’d always been angst-ridden events; being chosen last to play, having two left feet and getting jeered at—she’d erected this place on purpose.

“We help our campers learn to navigate interactive games without the pressure of peers who might be looking down on them for not being as athletic as they are.”

Cisco walked over to a basket of balls that had been put out just this morning, and plucked out a soccer ball, dropping it to the ground where he proceeded to expertly juggle it with his high, polished boots.

Hilly wanted to say, “like that” but when she looked at Cisco’s face, she could see he wasn’t trying to show off, it was more like…he was going through the motions unconsciously, in the same way someone would bite their nails.

“I could help out with soccer drills,” he offered, then laughed, which made Hilly’s heart pump a little erratically. The man was fine to look at, but when his face lit up with a smile, he stole the sun from the sky. “Just a caveat, though. I’m not all that good at basketball.”

Hilly would bet that was a lie. There probably wasn’t a sport in which the man didn’t excel, post middle-school. But she wasn’t the kid she’d once been, either. During her late high school and college years, she’d had the right mentors and coaches, and was now more than proficient on a basketball court. A little one-on-one with Cisco might…

No. She needed to shut that fantasy scenario down. Even though the one-on-one she’d just imagined was vertical, it could still be dangerous.

Hilly tried to ignore Cisco’s ongoing, fancy footwork, and turned toward her right. “I’ll show you our guest cabins,” she offered crisply.

With one practiced flip of his foot, the ball went right back into the basket.

Of course it did.

“Each of our ten cabins,” she schooled as they approached, “holds five bunkbeds for ten campers, and a twin bed for the cabin counselor. The girls’ quarters are the five cabins to my left, and the boys’ are to the right. The two long buildings you see in the middle of the cabin clusters are our washrooms. Not coed. The boys room has a green door, the girls’, purple. Something you need to remember in case you have need of the facilities while you’re here.”

“Good to know,” Cisco replied, then pointed left, just before the lake. “What’s that big cabin there?”

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