“What? Now you’re just bringing me down, dude. I only like happy love stories.”
“It just seems a very unlikely pairing,” I say.
“Aw, don’t count her out. If she’s really in love, she should go for it, y’know? Get back in there, take out the competition or dive over the obstacles, and win.” He pauses and gazes at the fire, the flames reflecting in his eyes. “I think … I think love is special, especially for us queer people, but we have to try harder. Even if it seems unlikely. Because if you feel a connection with someone. If someone makes you feel special … we don’t get that so much. We don’t get it as much as straight people. So … it has to be worth it. Even if it is doomed or whatever. You just gotta go for it.”
I grin into the fire. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Hey, babe.” Hudson’s beau comes over. “Is my s’mores done yet?”
“S’more,” I say. “Singular.”
“Right,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I just want something sweet in my mouth.”
“Well, I can give you that,” Hudson says, grabbing his boyfriend around the waist and pulling him in for a kiss. My marshmallow starts to crackle over the fire, the skin turning black. I pull it out.
“Later,” I say to them. They don’t even notice as I walk away.
EIGHT
“You are officially in the most ridiculous situation of all time, darling. And I am HERE. FOR. IT,” George says, fanning himself on his bed back in the bunk after our visit to the tree. “I mean, I knew this would be ridiculous, but I didn’t realize how much fun it would be to watch.”
“This is not the plan,” I say, grabbing a baseball cap and a sweatshirt.
Ashleigh snorts from the bunk above me.
“Would you stop?” I ask. “It’s fine, though. I mean, so, he’s pretending he’s not this big …”
“Playboy,” George says. “I’ve decided we’re bringing it back.”
“That just works in my favor,” I say. “It means he’ll try to get close to me.”
“I guess your makeover really made the right impression if he pulled that story out of nowhere,” George says. “Who knew little boy butch was a closet drama diva? I mean, can you imagine what he could bring to the stage with those improv skills and that level of commitment?”
“I don’t know how he thinks we won’t tell you,” Ashleigh says.
“After your giggling fit, I wouldn’t be surprised if he thinks you’re too amused by it,” George says. “Or he doesn’t think we know about his love life enough to comment.”
“Are you really going to go through with this?” Ashleigh asks, her voice a little hoarse from laughing. “I mean, you playing Del, him playing Hudson-not-Hal? Neither of you will get to know each other.”
“I already know him,” I say. “And he’ll know me. Just me in different clothes.”
“With different mannerisms and interests,” Ashleigh says.
“Plus a very slightly lower pitch to your voice and a slower way of speaking—nice touch, by the way. Oscar worthy.”
“Thanks,” I say, feeling a little proud, though I’m trying to be annoyed at how much they’re making fun of me. I put the baseball cap on. I feel my smile trying to force its way off my face, it’s so big. I let out a little shriek and stomp my feet. “It’s going perfectly. He can feel how right we are for each other—that’s why he doesn’t want me to know it’s him on the tree.”
George and Ashleigh stare at me like I’ve just told them about the joys of breasts. George nods.
“Look,” Ashleigh says. “I don’t want to be the downer here, but just keep in mind, he’s a player.”
“Playboy,” George corrects.
“Sure. Playboy. And maybe he’s just saying he’s not Hal to get in your pants because he thinks you want someone who isn’t a playboy.”
“Or maybe he just was waiting for someone he felt a real connection with,” I say.
Ashleigh sighs. “Sure, maybe. But … you told me not to drive headlong into heartbreak again this summer, so I’m telling you the same.”
“It’ll be fine,” I say, checking myself in the mirror. I brush a stray hair. Do I put on the sweatshirt or carry it? I’ll carry it for now. It’s not that cool out. “Okay, I have to go. I said I’d meet him by the flagpole after I grabbed my sweatshirt. I’ll see you guys at the talent show.”
“He probably needed time to tell his cabin about his new identity,” George says. Ashleigh snorts again.
“This is great,” I say, heading for the screen door out of the cabin. “See you later!” I push open the creaking screen door and run out to the flagpole for my date.
I’m there first, but I’m happy about it. I wanted to get out of the cabin and have just a moment to enjoy what’s happening. Hudson already likes me enough that he’s pretending to be a romantic! George and Ashleigh might think it’s funny, and okay, it is, a little, but it’s also sweet. He’s being the guy I know he always wanted to be, and would be, with the right guy, and it’s like he already knows that that’s me. It’s not about just trying to get in my pants. That would be way more work than it’s worth. He’s doing this because he feels something. And that means that this was the right idea, that all the work over the year, skipping the show this summer, it’s all exactly what I needed to do. It has to be. It just has to.
I look up at the sky. The sun is mostly down now and the horizon is blue and orange and purple, but right above me, the sky is dark and the stars are aligning perfectly in the sky. They wink down at me.
“Hey,” comes Hudson’s voice behind me, a little softer than it needs to be. I turn around. He’s put an old green sweatshirt on over his T-shirt, but it’s tight enough that it hugs his stomach and shoulders, almost more revealing than the tee was. I have my sweatshirt in my hand, I realize, and I suddenly wonder if I should put it over my shoulders or my waist, or is that too femme? I should just wear it, so I put it on quickly as he walks toward me, but I knock my hat off, and as I pull the sweatshirt down over my face, suddenly Hudson is close, in front of me, and kneeling to pick up my hat. He offers it to me and I have to bite back a joke about him being a prince and this being a glass slipper, which would definitely result in me singing some Cinderella (Rogers and Hammerstein, not Disney).
“Thanks,” I say, and shove the hat on. “Sorry, I just got cold.”
“Yeah, it can get chilly here at night,” he says. “I don’t know if you have that in the summer in Ohio. It’s like really hot during the day, but sometimes at night … cool.”
“Yeah,” I say. We stare at each other in silence and I wonder if he realizes we’re just talking about the weather like two idiots or if he’s looking into my eyes and wanting to kiss me. I’m feeling both.
“So, tour time,” he says, smiling that big, kind of wolf grin he has. When he does it, his tongue is just barely visible, poking between the small gap in his teeth at the top corner of his mouth. “Obviously, this is the flagpole,” he says. “There’ll be a bonfire here in like fifteen minutes. People will roast marshmallows and make s’mores and stuff. That”—he points, and steps closer to me, to line up his finger with my eyes—“is cabin fourteen. My cabin. Just in case you want to visit sometime.”