Page 41 of Lady and the Camp
“That’s so sweet. Thank you.” The woman appeared close to my age with impressively sculpted brows. Sporty clothes, kind of like me, but brand name, unlike me.
I smashed the hat on and left the bathroom feeling energized. I loved giving things away. That was the slice of my influencer life I enjoyed most. Connecting with people with products they might not have found without me.
At the table, I sat at my spot across from Lucas. “Tell me about the other camp.”
The rest of the table appeared fully engrossed in a discussion on conspiracy theories tied to Taylor Swift’s latest album, so we were in the clear.
Lucas shook his head, but a faint smile appeared. “You’re persistent. Probably waited until I had a few drinks in me.” Looking at his frosty glass, he glowered. “Wait,isthat what you did?”
I tossed out a playful smile. “Maybe. Hey, I went all in for the full camp experience and I’m drinking your beer choice. It smells like stinky socks and doesn’t taste much better.”
“Why are you drinking it if you don’t like it?”
I shrugged. “I figured it’s more of an acquired taste.” Like some other things I’d been exposed to this week. Possibly including the person sitting across from me. “I’m experiencing so many other new things, why not expand my horizons to craft beer?”
“You’re trying to butter me up.” He sighed. “It’s working. Okay. What do you want to know?”
Thank you butter and a bit of patience. “How did you end up running a girl’s summer camp?”
His jaw ticked, just the slightest movement, and something stirred deep inside me. He had that rugged tough exterior, but I’d seen him talk with passion about shrubbery. To children. A compassionate gentleness lurked beneath the sandpaper he presented to the world.
“I was hired as a guide, before the split,” he said. “Pretty much everything about the state of things can be defined because of the split.”
I already had the dirt from Bianca about the owner’s evil son breaking the camp in two. But not how Lucas ended up carrying the weight of the old camp. “Why not stay with them? Or leave for something else? It seems like you’re, well, more than a little miserable.”
His eyes cast downward. “That obvious, huh?” He tipped back his glass and took a beat before answering. “I hope the kids don’t notice. Not that they care what I’m doing. It’s not their fault.”
Not exactly an answer, but it showed me he cared how his grump waves might affect those around him. Twila seemed impenetrable.
He tapped the side of his pint glass. “He was my friend—Brycen. The guy who runs the other camp.”
Hmmm. I sat on my hands, willing myself not to stop his flow. He seemed to do better with a little space to speak.
“He’s the one who got me the job,” Lucas went on. “I met him on a weekend survival training course, and when he told me he ran a camp with his family, I signed on. He had all these connections through his family. People they’d hired over the years to do wilderness trips and things. We had a plan. After a couple years at camp, then he’d get me into, well, where I wanted to be. I needed experience in a camp setting to build the right job experience.”
I nodded. “Wow, fascinating.”
His gaze shot toward me and I realized he may have thought I was pandering. “No, it’s actually fascinating. I had no idea a job hierarchy existed for wilderness guidance. Okay honestly, I only know about summer camp from that old movie with the estranged twins who set up their divorced parents and conspired about it at camp.”
“The Parent Trap.”
I grinned. “You’ve seenThe Parent Trap?”
“I was a kid once too, you know.”
And had he been this much a grouch? Or had he been carefree? A dreamer, like me, but with dreams of forest brush and tree bark instead of world domination by video streaming?
I’d had so many dreams and ideas as a kid, I could never pick one thing. Beauty tutorials came easily to me, and got high views if they were done well, so I kept on making them. I’d done so many, and connected with so many people about skincare and wellness, it became all I did. Other than my usual side hustles to stay afloat.
“So this guy, Brycen,” I continued. “He was your friend. He helped you with a plan. But something happened and it blew up.”
Lucas grunted. At least I hadn’t heard any words resembling English. Or Italian, in case he was bilingual.
“Money,” Lucas finally stated. “It always comes down to money for some people. Maybe all people. He met some investor types and saw dollar signs. That’s when—” He stopped and his attention shifted.
A commotion of happy voices grew louder behind me. This town really kicked into gear on a Friday. I turned to see what caught his eye. A group of adults in pricey athletic gear and outdoorsy type clothes gathered at the front of the restaurant, waiting to be seated. Attractive adults. Fit, confident, loud and—oh. Oh no.
I whipped around. Lucas’ hands balled into fists. At the other end of the table, our coworkers exchanged glances between each other, then to the loud group, then to Lucas.
