Page 44 of The Falcon and the Foe

“Don’t expect anything nice,” he said.

“I’ll keep my expectations low.” There was a toilet and a shower. I could muddle through with the rest.

The van wobbled down a narrow path, deeper into the woods. Russ pulled up to a parking post labeled 24, and just beyond was a small clearing among the trees with a fire pit at the center. That patch of dirt would be our home for the next forty-eight hours.

I could do this. I’d stayed at dingy motels. This wouldn’t be that much different.

Russ turned off the van. “I always like to pick these kinds of spots so it isn’t as crowded with the other campers.”

“You want the real stranded-in-the-woods feeling.”

“I wouldn’t say stranded. The RVeres can make their presence known. I smell a lot of pot wafting from over there. It’s like a Phish concert.”

“Oh, I see.” I nodded my head knowingly.

“What do fish smell like?” Quentin asked, jutting his head between our seats.

Russ and I traded a knowing look.

“Like nothing you want to be sleeping near,” Russ said with another boyish smile splitting his face in half.

I pulled open the van door, and children tumbled out into the crisp air of nature. My lungs breathed deeper, clearer, but maybe that was in my head. Birds chirped around us while the faint gush of a river gurgled in the distance. Okay, nature was pretty. I’d give it that.

“All right.” Russ whistled through his fingers and assembled the troops. The boys and girls circled us, waiting for instruction. “Chase, you can put your phone away.” Chase tried taking pictures to load onto social media. “The reception is terrible here, so it’s not worth it. And besides, we don’t need our phones. We have our grit and imagination.”

“But there is an emergency phone if we need it? For emergencies?” I asked.

Russ grumbled under his breath as if I were ruining the fun. “Yes, the campsite does have an emergency phone.”

“Perfect. All I needed to know.”

“Let’s unload the gear and put up our tents. Then we can make some dinner.” Russ turned to me. “I’ll help half set up their tents. You can help the other half.”

“Yeah, sure. I got this.”

Did I have this, though? I had sorta helped kids put together tents during our training at a previous meeting, but my memory of that night was mostly around Quentin exploding at his dad.

“You know, why don’t I watch you just to make sure I have it right.”

“Fine. Okay,” Russ said, with an unintentionally sexy crease of his brow. “I thought you practiced.”

“I thought I did, too.”

“It’s going to take longer to help everyone if there’s only one of us helping.”

“Should we be helping them at all?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow to emphasize my point.

Russ whistled through his fingers again. How was he able to do that? When I tried, I made a fart noise with my hand. The scouts crowded around him, me included. Russ carried a duffle bag over his shoulder, then laid it on the ground.

“I’m going to do a quick demonstration refresher on how to pitch a tent.”

I stifled a laugh, which he totally caught.

“You should all remember how to do this from our past meeting, and you should have practiced it at home like we discussed.” He said this to me more than them.

Passive-aggressive point taken.

Russ squatted down and removed the tent rolled up from the packaging. The rods fell out, too. He bent over and demonstrated threading the rods through the holes. I found myself blushing.

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