Kota led me to the tables and sat on top of one, his feet on the seat. I climbed up beside him, scanning the area, noticing the ashes inside the fire pit, and the black trash bag that fluttered a little in the breeze.
For the first time all day, I let out a long breath. I was finally alone...with Kota, but away from all the new people.
I absently combed my fingers through a loose lock of hair, suddenly nervous. I’d wanted to talk to him all day, and I had so much to tell him, yet nothing wanted to come across my lips. My brain was tired. My body was a little sore.
I leaned into him, at first without thinking, and then pressed my cheek to his shoulder. “We leave tomorrow, right?”
He chuckled, put an arm around me and held tight, dipping his head to kiss the top of my forehead. “Do you not like camping?”
“It’s fun,” I said. “But...I don’t like...I feel...” I struggled to explain. “I felt like I was sort of on stage all day today.”
“You’re in front of new people who are looking to you for help,” Kota said. “I was wondering if this job was right for you. I’m glad you’re helping out, but I know you’re shy and how hard it is. From what I’ve heard, you seemed to do an amazing job, though.”
I smoothed my cheek against his shoulder. “I hate to admit it, but I’m with Lake; I wish Carla hadn’t insisted we have to stay in the girl tent.”
“Might be better in the end,” he said. “Give it a try.” He kissed my forehead again and then shifted to rest his cheek against the top of my head. “You’ll be able to say you gave it a royal effort. And who knows... maybe...”
“I’m not switching teams,” I said. “I don’t want to.”
“It wouldn’t have to be for forever,” he said.
“Today felt like forever,” I said. “It’s not even over yet.”
He pulled back to look down at me and I sat up a little. He kept his hand on my back, smoothing over my spine. “Was it really that bad?”
How could I tell him? They weren’t bad, but they weren’t for me. It was more than just missing the boys. Throughout the day, I had grown more uncomfortable being around the girls who seemed to be looking up to me. While I was sorry to disappoint them, I was also terrified of them. The hug that was supposed to be normal, had made me panic. Even thinking of being in the bathroom around them was making my insides tremble.
Lake had been the exception and the only explanation I really had was that she was really a boy. Why did that make a difference? Kota watching me wash up hadn’t bugged me at all nor had being in there with Lake. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Weren’t girls supposed to be more comfortable with girls?
Kota massaged my spine but remained quiet as I shifted through my thoughts. His lips dipped slightly into a frown. “Sweetheart, if we need to take you back...I mean I can go if you...”
“No,” I said, sucking in a breath. I shook my head. I was going back home with them no matter what. That was what mattered. “It’s nothing,” I said. “It’s a few days. I just wish I could spend more time with you all—with the guys. I know some of you are teaching classes and I’m helping out so we’re busy. I guess I thought I’d see more of you.”
“You’ll see us more this week,” he said. “Things start to relax after the first couple of days when new groups learn the ropes more and start to check out other teams. A few more days and we’ll be packing up before you know it.”
“I’ll live,” I said. “Been through worse.” The words slipped out, and it wasn’t until I’d said it out loud that I realized how terribly dark the joke was. I sensed how I was complaining about things and really shouldn’t be. I should be grateful to be there at all.
His free hand reached around, touching my cheek, drawing me in. He hugged me, kissed my brow and held tight. “Try to have some fun,” he said.
I held onto him. “I will.”
He started to let me go, but when I still clung to him, he chuckled and wrapped his arms tighter around me. “I missed you, too.”
I had missed him. I missed all the guys. Now that I was here, I didn’t want to go back to camp, because it meant I’d have to let them go.
I tucked my head down against his shoulder. “Sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be,” he said softly. He slid his hand up my back to hold the back of my head.
“I’ve been trying to go over what to say,” I said. “When I’m asked what group I want to join. I want to make sure I say it right, politely.”
“I wish I could tell you.”
I backed up this time, realizing now that I did need to talk to him about the plan. If I said I wanted to be on their team, they had to be behind me, and it was only right if he knew the truth. “Kota, I want to stay with the team,” I said, trying to sound confident. “All of us together.”
He smiled weakly. “I thought that was the goal, but I know it’s tough.”
“I saw another team today,” I said, “this morning at the interviews. A girl with four or five guys. She insisted right away that she wanted to stay with her team from the start. They let her.”
His eyes went wide. “Is she a member?”
I paused and then slowly shook my head. “I don’t...she was with the new people on the stage.”
He frowned slightly. “Oh,” he said, shoulders slumping. “Then they just brought her in.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t...I think they are like us.”
“That doesn’t mean she’ll stay with that team,” he said. “It’s kind of normal for new people to want to stay with the team that brought them in, even if it’s not for the best.”
“Is that like us?” I asked in a quieter voice.
He sighed, looking away from me and toward the fire pit. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. This feels different.”
“They seemed different,” I said. “Maybe they’ve got a strategy. Maybe we should compare notes.” I wondered if they might have talked to Lily and Liam. They had told us that they got approached sometimes with a girl wanting to join a guy team.
I suddenly wondered where they were. It was the first day of camp so I could have missed them, but I hadn’t seen any of them. Were they not at camp this week? Maybe they were busy.
“Maybe,” he said, still staring at the fire pit. “I was kind of thinking...”
I pressed my lips together, waiting for him to finish. I was waiting to tell him about Lily, and to see what he’d say to learn about them.
“I don’t know,” he said, breaking his stare and looking at me. “I’m torn on the idea. Never mind.”
“What?” I asked.
He shrugged. “If they give us a hard time, I was thinking about...about the couple teams...”
I stared at him, waiting for him to continue. “A...couple?”
“You and me,” he said. “If we had to. If you...wanted...”
I was warmed by his train of thought—that he’d even consider it—but at the same time, fear crept in. “But the others...the guys...”
“I don’t think it would change us at all,” he said. “I could still work with them. They’d still be around.” He sighed. “Only I still haven’t graduated and you’re just starting, which would mean we’d need a manager.” He paused. “They told you about managers, right?”
I nodded. “Couldn’t Mr. Blackbourne do it?”
“No,” he said. “They pick someone for you. We might not even get Dr. Roberts, who was Mr. Blackbourne’s and Dr. Green’s manager. The only reason our team doesn’t have one is because they’ve already graduated and are guiding the rest of us. It wouldn’t be too terrible to have a manager, I guess, but you never know who you get. I don’t know...maybe I’m so used to Mr. Blackbourne that I’m biased...”
“I’m biased, too,” I said. “And I don’t want you to have to give up your team...our team.” The secret plan we had was on the tip of my tongue. “Kota, we can’t give up. We...”
“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “I was just thinking...last
resort...”
If they insisted for whatever reason that I needed to try out other teams, Kota was willing to give up his team for me.
My throat got tight as I thought about it. Deep down, I knew I could never make that decision. I couldn’t pick him over the others, draw him away from his team. Could I ever be the reason they split apart? Would doing so cause some jealous war? I thought of North, who had told me he’d take me away somewhere if any of them tried to run off with me. The faces of the others swam in my brain. They struggled with the idea, but in the end, they wanted to try to carry out the plan, because they cared about each other like they cared about me.
However, if the Academy insisted we couldn’t have one girl on an all guy team for whatever reason, maybe...if it was our only solution. “We’d still be near their team?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m not sure how it would work. I might...I might have to talk to my mom about letting you stay with us. I would have to tell her more…then I’ve already told her.”
I assumed he meant my family situation and how I didn’t live at home anymore. “I couldn’t stay with Nathan?”
“How would it look if we claimed to be a couple team and a manager was coming around to check on us?” he asked. “We’re still underage. We’d have to have my mom confirm it’s okay and supervise us. Besides, I wasn’t sure you’d want to.”
This was so complicated, and it felt like I was betraying the guys just by thinking about it. It must have been what the other guys had gone through, considering their options: leaving the Academy, the thing they loved or splitting from the team they loved, just to keep me.
“Or,” I said softly. “Or, I opt out of joining.”
Kota’s hand smoothed down to my lower back. “I’ve been trying to warn you.”
I nodded, realizing how long he’d fought the idea of letting me inside the Academy. The Academy promised so much, a future, a place to belong, a feeling of being important as we helped our families and our communities. I’d thought it was the only way to really be a part of the team.
But Kota had been right all along. Bringing me in forced me to see that I was risking splitting their team, not to mention the dangerous situations I could be put into. Kota hadn’t begged me to give up the idea of joining the Academy because he didn’t think I could do it. He was doing it to keep me safe. He knew if I remained on the outside, we’d never have to defend our team to the Academy.
Was I willing to give up my chance at the Academy, at this thing that they all loved, a place I could belong? Would I be able to ignore it when the boys disappeared into the night, unable to ask what was going on? Could I live through years and years of them coming home with baffling scars and broken bones, without asking questions?
“I can’t tell you what to do,” Kota said. “All teams have mutual agreement that we’re together and everyone wants to be in. However, the way they question us...they have ways to ensure we’re making the right choice for us, forcing us to look at every nook and cranny, every little skeleton in the closet. They strip us bare to expose our doubts and fears about our team members.”
I bit the tip of my tongue, wondering if that was what that exit interview was like. Maybe that was what they were worried about. They’d ask me questions from many different angles. If I wasn’t sure that this was the best answer for us, then that doubt would come to the surface and the Academy might ask me to try something else.
He rubbed my spine slowly. “Sang, you’re not the only one who has to be sure. I know Mr. Blackbourne has ideas about you joining, but I’m afraid he just sees all your potential and how good you could be for the Academy, but not how we would work this out.”
He was wrong. Mr. Blackbourne did have a plan, but what was holding him—all of us—back was that it involved something the guys were still unsure about. If the Academy quizzed them, would they support me joining the team regardless of what the future held? It didn’t help that we were all young and like they said, we could change our minds later.
“But if you want to be in the Academy,” he said. “No matter what, we’ll always be a team. As long as you want.”
His words warmed me through. “I want to try, Kota,” I said, still determined. “If it came down to it, I’d decline to join if I had to. Dr. Green might have been right saying it was too soon. I don’t want to split the team. We’re too...it’s too...”
He nodded, but his face was unreadable as he kept his lips pressed tightly together. I hoped he didn’t think I wasn’t picking a couple team because I didn’t want him. However, I knew the truth if the Academy questioned me about it, and how North and others had said they might not be able to take it if I split from the team. It still wouldn’t work.
I reached for him, desperate make him understand. I touched his cheek, looking straight into his eyes. “I need you to promise me you’ll do whatever you can to keep all of us together, though. All of us. You, me...”
In my head, I was gearing up to tell him why. I just needed him to make the promise first.
I was leaning into him, my hand on his face, so close.
His eyes dropped to my lips.
I lost everything in my brain the instant his eyes lowered. I was familiar with this look now. The guys did it just before they kissed me.
Only, Kota wouldn’t move. Everything in him stilled, his lips slightly parted like he was ready, but it was like he didn’t dare lean in.
The stupid rule. He was still holding to it. The others had jumped in, willing to break that rule.
Maybe he still assumed I didn’t know about it. He’d been waiting for me.
I leaned in. My face was on fire. My nerves shook. It was a little strange to be the first to kiss, but I knew as soon as I did so, he could and I wanted to get to that point.
My lips brushed his very softly. How far did I have to move in before it counted?
Suddenly there were footsteps and voices.
We pulled apart, glancing at each other with wide eyes. He looked over my head, and then I pulled away a little more so I could lean back and see what was going on.
A small group of girls and guys were walking along the path, heading from where I assumed the cabins were toward the latrines.
They passed by, waved to us. We waved back, although my heart was still thundering a mile a minute. Had they seen who we were? What we’d been doing? I didn’t recognize any of them but their faces were shadowed.
Soon they were gone and I breathed out a slow breath. I looked at him sheepishly. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know why. It feels like...school? Like we’re not supposed to...”
“I know,” he said and smiled. “I pulled away, too.”
He had. “Were you worried it was Mr. Blackbourne?” I asked, assuming he was thinking about the rule and worried he’d get into trouble.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
I blushed, realizing I’d let slip what I knew. “Because...because you’re not supposed to...there’s a rule...” How had the others put it? I covered my mouth with my hand. “Sorry,” I said. “I found out about it. The others told me about how I was supposed to...” I stopped, realizing if I said more, it would come out that I had been kissing the other guys, not what I wanted to bring up right now.
Kota remained still for the longest moment. I couldn’t speak and held my breath waiting for him to say something, anything. My heart raced and my entire face felt so hot. I was sure he could reach into my brain and would simply know the truth.
He frowned and reached out, drawing my hand my hand from my mouth. I was trying to come up with some quick explanation, but I never got the chance to say anything before he tugged me forward.
And his lips met mine.
I don’t know what I was anticipating for a kiss, but in that moment, I was relieved. Memories flooded in my brain of all the times he’d gotten so close, how he’d looked at my lips, how he kissed my cheek.
All the times he’d tried to encourage me, being so pati
ent, waiting for me to make that move.
It took me a moment to realize I wasn’t moving my lips at all. He remained still. Slowly, he started to back away.
My hands fluttered up, finding his chest, and I clutched at his sweater. I responded, parting my lips, brushing them against his.
A long sigh escaped his mouth and his lips returned fully, kissing me in return. His warm hands slid up my neck, and he held my jaw with a steady hold. His glasses occasionally pressed against my cheek as he turned his head to kiss me.
His kiss was fresh air and relief. There was a strength behind it, the sort I felt when he was nearby and made me feel brave simply being around.
He stopped, leaned away from me and breathed out slowly, looking at me through slightly smudged glasses. “One,” he said quietly.
I didn’t understand and was about to ask when he leaned in again, giving me a short, gentle kiss, parting my lips, sucking a little on my lower one. I still had my eyes closed when I heard him whisper, “Two...”
He was counting our kisses from the very first.
We continued and he occasionally whispered numbers under his breath, making me smile. I held onto his shoulders, feeling the muscles, remembering how strong he really was. I breathed in the sweet spice over and over. My insides warmed. All I wanted was to stay there for as long as possible and kiss him.
At number seven, he finally pulled back a little. The smile on his face was wide, his cheeks red. “There were times I thought it would never happen,” he said.
My cheeks burned and I was sure they were as red as his. “It took me a while to learn what the rule was. I thought it was like the Academy wouldn’t allow you and then I found out it would cost you a favor.”
“I would have given them all up,” Kota said. “But I didn’t have any left. I didn’t want to ask Mr. Blackbourne for any more than I’d already borrowed.”
I thought of some of the others. Had someone said they had some left? “Why? Why are you so low?”