Page 14 of Class Clown

“That’s Gina,” Kristy said as she waved back. “We were counselors together my first year and have stayed in touch. Last year she was mad at me for ditching to be in the health center, but we’ve worked through it,” she laughed.

I followed her to a long table in the back, and took my seat across from Gina while Kristy sat next to her. Gina was, in a word, tiny. She could pass as one of the campers. Half her weight had to have been from her hair. My friend Aryn had red, curly hair, but Gina’s was out-of-this world beautiful, trailing down her skinny back in waves of auburn. I wondered if she was part fairy, because being at a camp and keeping your hair looking that way definitely required magic. I met her gaze as I sat, and took note of the hazel color of her eyes, with swirls of brown and green, and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Gina was adorable. Her entire vibe was playful and giddy, and I liked it.

“I’m Ruby,” I said as I squeezed into the small bench area. “The camp nurse this summer.”

Gina nodded. “Cole’s sister, right?”

“Yep.”

“I can see the resemblance.”

I smiled. We got that a lot. And we both agreed it had very little to do with us actually looking alike as it did with us both being half-Chinese. People lumped us together, and since we liked each other, we didn’t let it ruffle our feathers.

“She’s the one rooming with Nico Crawford.” Kristy leaned close and wiggled her eyebrows at Gina.

Gina’s eyes danced as she bit her lips together and looked at me with a grin. “You are so lucky. There’s a rule here against any kind of dating, and co-ed cabins are not allowed, but you somehow end up bunking with two hot guys. I want to live your life.” She wiggled her shoulders a little. “They are princes and I’m prepared to be their princess.”

“It’s more like Snow White and the Two Dummies. You do realize that one of thosehot princesis my brother, right?” I replied, amused. “Kind of takes the shine off it.”

Kristy and Gina laughed, before Kristy piped in. “We’ll give you that, but Nico more than makes up for it.”

I unwrapped my sandwich, and gave it a look. “Eh, I’ve known Nico since he was fifteen-ish.”

“Wait, you’ve known him for that long?” Gina whispered. “Have you two ever, you know . . .” Another eyebrow wiggle.

I took a bite of soggy sandwich and played it cool by not laughing at the very idea. Nico was the assistant director and I didn’t want to drag him and his personality through the mud with two of his employees, even though the temptation was strong. I’d learned a few lessons in my younger years, and one of them was not over-sharing with people I’d known for five minutes.

I settled for saying, “Nico? No way. He’s myyoungerbrother’s best friend.”

Also, he was a ghost who I never thought about unless he was in the same space as me. I’d never, ever wanted to grab his face and plant a kiss on him the way I had so many other guys. I’d have maybe felt a prickle of guilt over thinking so poorly of him if I didn’t know Nico absolutely agreed with me. He looked at me like I’d crawled up out of the drain and needed to be studied by the National Alien Institute. (It probably exists).

Kristy and Gina exchanged a look, and I read them perfectly. Relief. The woman sharing a cabin with Nico wasn’t going to be a speedbump in their road to fantasy love. In fact, I’d basically just handed them a permit to hunting season. Their joy was so hilarious I had to take another bite of sandwich and settle for curling my toes in my shoes in order to keep from smiling. They were making my day. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d be a party to all sorts of romantic entanglements this summer. I couldn’t wait.

“So.” Kristy turned back to me. “You probably know a lot about him.”

I knew nothing about him, really. I did know he was a child of a military father, that his mother had passed away when he was a toddler, and that was about it. And those few facts had come from my mother. Oh, wait, today I’d found out he didn’t have any sisters and that he’d been in the Marines until recently. These were all impersonal facts though, so, yeah, I knew diddly.

I shook my head because while I could have fun watching them crush, I didn’t want to lie to them. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know that much, really.I wasn’t living at home when Cole and Nico started hanging out, and he’s pretty quiet.”

Kristy and Gina shared another look. I’d disappointed them. They’d seen me as a drip-line of information, and I’d flopped. Then Gina’s expression shifted to calculating and she leaned forward.

“You could do, like, reconnaissance for us though, right?”

Oh, ho, ho, I’d arrived in my element. I was the empress of reconnaissance. I nodded and leaned closer to them. “What do you want to know?”

They mimicked my posture until our faces were closer than should have been comfortable as Kristy said, “What time does he leave the cabin in the morning? Are there regular places he goes? Give us a few hints.”

“Ah, the age-old coincidental run-ins game, I like it. I’ll keep my eyes open,” I said with a smirk and zero guilt. Maybe one of these girls was his true love and who was I to stand in the way? What could it hurt? If I couldn’t be in a love match, I could open the door for others. Look at me, so magnanimous! I dropped my voice to a whisper. “But we’ll have to play it cool. He’s military. Trained to watch for people acting out of the ordinary.”

They nodded rapidly at me and then we all leaned back as they turned to each other and gave a mini-squeal before their eyes flew to the other side of the room. My back was facing that direction, but I knew without looking over my shoulder that the topic of our discussion had just entered.

“He’s so dreamy,” Kristy sighed, her blue eyes seeming to glaze over.

“How tall do you think he is?” Gina asked. “He’s huge.”

Nico was not huge. He was shorter than Cole and taller than me, which probably put him at a very normal height of just under six feet. Gina, however, was a forest sprite, so everyone would appear huge to her.

“How often do you think he works out? Look at those arms.” Kristy sighed and propped her head on her hand.

---