Page 38 of Past Tents

The next morning, I’d felt a glimmer of hope when she jerked her hand away. The crackle of electricity when our fingers brushed hit me like a meteor. If she felt even a fraction of the surge of heat in my veins, it was something worth knowing.

Even if I wasn’t a fairy-tale prince, if she felt the same way about me as I felt about her, maybe I could be someone halfway worthy. Maybe it was worth trying again.

But after the way she darted from my house, I felt certain I’d come to work and hear she would no longer be my co-chaperone. If she wanted to badly enough, she’d make an excuse to Pindich for why she couldn’t go on the retreat.

If she did, so be it. That would make my life all that much easier. I could go back to darting around campus like the greyhound she thought I was and spending minimal time around her. My heart would eventually give up on the possibility of anything more with her, just as it had done in the past.

After she left, I’d plunked myself down into one of the camp chairs, sipped at my coffee, and allowed myself to entertain the wild thought that maybe the intense attraction I felt just being near to Ally might not be one-sided. And what if that were the case?

Well . . . it would change everything.

On Monday morning, just for good measure, I ran a few miles before school, even though I barely had time. My hair was still damp when I arrived, so I combed it into place with my fingers. I’d grabbed a cherry muffin from home and made a quick pot of coffee instead of stopping at Donner Bakery like I usually did. The coffee needed reheating by now, and the muffin was too dry to eat.

Walking down the hallway of the main building, I headed for the teachers’ lounge. Had to do something about the lukewarm coffee. Before I reached the door, Principal Pindich intercepted me.

“Clay, how are you?” He smiled a little too brightly. He only did that when he wanted something.

“I’m okay. You?”

“Good, good. Listen, I know plans are underway for the carnival and I wanted you to know I’ve got your back. Just like I imagine you have mine.”

“Meaning?”

“You and I go way back—you may not know this, but I worked on your grandmother’s estate plan back at the law firm, so I consider you a friend. Your vote in there counts, is all I’m saying.”

He clapped me on the shoulder without my making sense of anything he’d just said. I watched him disappear into his office and made my way to the lounge. A peal of laughter rang out fromthe room, followed by a breathless admission. “Half the women in Green Valley would line up at the kissing booth for him—you don’t need to ask twice.”

As I got to the doorway, the conversation stopped, and several pairs of eyes turned to me. “Hey, guys. What’s up?”

After some throat clearing and mumbling, Witty filled me in. “Spring carnival. Students want to have a kissing booth.”

The spring carnival had been a source of debate for months, with half of us agreeing that the students should be free to plan it as they wanted—within reason—and the other half wanting to give them strict guidelines. I was of a mind to let the students’ imaginations run wild and tame them only when things crossed lines of decorum or safety. This was their event, after all, and most years there were few variations on the theme of game booths, a mechanical bull, and a dance-off.

I rolled my eyes. “Of course they do. Lemme guess—the quarterback and head cheerleader are the ones fetching top dollar?” It’s how it had been in the past. Every senior class came in brimming with “new” ideas, and every few years, we ended up with a dunk tank and a kissing booth manned by the homecoming queen or some version thereof. They generated the most income for the school and proved to be harmless fun, so I never objected.

“No, you are.”

Now it was my turn to be silent. A dozen pairs of eyes watched my reaction, which so far was befuddlement. Were we talking about the same thing?

“Come again?” I asked, my voice cracking on the second word. A sheen of sweat gathered on the back of my neck, and I itched to take off the chambray button-up shirt I had on over my T-shirt.

“The student council wanted to shake things up this year, so they proposed having teachers in the kissing booth instead of students. Same with the dunk tank and all the other games.”

“Um, why?” The whole point of the carnival was that it was an event run by the high schoolers for the high schoolers. Teachers were only there for supervision, if that.

I looked from face to face, finally landing on Ally. I initially hadn’t noticed she was here, and just catching a glimpse of her wide blue eyes calmed me and rattled me at the same time.

The amusement on her face told me I’d missed an important part of the discussion. As if that wasn’t becoming dangerously clear.

“This year, we have a bigger mandate,” Nick said. “The carnival is supposed to bring in double what it did last year, which means we need to expand our reach and get more people to come.”

I still wasn’t understanding. Running a hand through my hair, I entered the room and shoved my coffee into the microwave. Maybe if I finished the cup, my brain fog would clear.

While I watched the mug spin on the carousel inside, I tried again for an explanation. “Where are we getting these people? The school is only so large.”

“Exactly. The kids figured that having adults running the carnival games would attract other adults,” Witty explained, hands out like he was offering me alms. “So, you in the kissing booth, Principal Pin Dick in the dunk tank...”

“Well, that’s reason enough right there,” I said. “Did Pin Dick agree?”

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