Page 63 of Class Clown

“Of course,” Kristy gushed, oblivious to the fact that he’d been speaking to me.

I quickly nodded. “Yeah.”

He looked around me to Kristy and Gina as they greeted him, politely greeting them in return, and I watched his mouth move as he spoke with them. Maybe he hadn’t meant to kiss me and hold me close to him. Maybe I was still that girl who made him feel shy, and I was reading a lot into a little.

“You taking requests tonight?” one of the girls behind us called out, and I snapped out of it as the guitar players looked to whomever was talking. “Let’s hear something .”

The three guys talked together and then readied their guitars and started playing. The crowd around us let out a collective, ahhhh, and I smiled to myself. Seriously, was there anything better than guitars around a campfire? I was aaahhhing all over the place too.

The talking ended as people tuned in. Those roasting marshmallows fell silent, their eyes still on their roasting sticks as they listened. I hadn’t heard the request, but the chords sounded familiar as the song started, and when the first guy began singing, everything inside of me melted into a puddle in the dirt below me.

I couldn’t breathe as the words whipped right into the center of me.Let It Beby the Beatles. Nico started humming along and suddenly I could imagine him in a dangerous place, weary after a mission, hearing this song and feeling the truth of it. In his face I could still see the young man I’d known ten years before, the one with the seriousness in his gaze as his big eyes followed my movements. My chest grew tight, wondering what he’d seen in those years . . . what he’d seen before then that had given him that serious way of moving through life.

The singer’s voice was mellow, deep, smooth. Beautiful and expressive. It washed over the group and put us into a trance. Without meaning to, we all leaned a little bit forward as though to get closer to the source of the emotion he was creating for all of us.

A few other voices joined in when the second verse began, and Nico was one of them. I could hear his above the rest, and it was as though he were singing it for me alone. He leaned into my side, our thighs pressed together as the song wrapped up, and I grew warm and soft, leaning back, wanting the contact.

My heart was in my throat by the time the song finished. It seemed as though the very mountain felt it, and all the echoes of animals and nature had grown quiet during those few minutes. I understood why Gina and Kristy had dragged me bodily down here. I understood why the group had chosen to stick around this weekend. It was magic.

I’d felt more genuine emotion in the past few days than I had in years. I’d sometimes wondered if I were a shallow person compared to the rest of the world. Where others found angst and sorrow, I’d found sadness that didn’t take too long to work through. I’d never been able to hold grudges, and I usually I took things at face value. I rarely asked hard questions or dug deep, and lived my life in the easy breeziness of optimism.

And now, well, now I felt like all those latent emotions were shifting and I was about to become that guy with laser eyes from the X-Men movies. How would people feel when it came shooting out of me like an unleashed flood of feeling? It was terrifying.

The campfire area burst into applause and I joined in, my heart in my throat. The singer gave one nod acknowledging it before more requests were thrown their way. This time the other guys sang too, and together they were even better.

“How many songs will they play?” I managed to ask when I could speak again.

“I’m not sure. Depends on when they feel done,” Kristy responded.

“They’re amazing.” I gushed.

“And now you know why we insisted you join us tonight,” Gina nodded with a smirk.

“You’re welcome.” Kristy patted me on the back.

“Yeah. Thanks.” I breathed happily.

And they both laughed as Nico’s foot rested against mine.

Nico was called away just before the song playing ended, and when my stomach had settled enough, I made my way to the s’more buffet to check it out. The variety was pretty amazing. I settled on a cookie that was striped with fudge, rather than a graham, and figured I’d roll my cooked marshmallow in the chopped up peanut butter cups when it was ready. I didn’t think I’d be able to eat more than one of the decadent treats, so I was going to make it count.

The group was mellow and happy as the last of the magical music ended. The meadow felt peaceful. Someone handed over a roasting stick when they were done and I made my way to the coals, sitting down on an empty log.

There’s a precise way to roast a marshmallow, and it’s all about timing. A little farther from the heat and it won’t burn, but will get nice and brown if you can be patient. I began a slow rotation, moving at a consistent speed, and watched with satisfaction as my marshmallow started to swell and brown.

“You and Cole, with your perfect marshmallows,” Nico teased as he came to stand next to me, holding his own roasting stick. “Every time I’ve camped with him, I’ve wanted to grab his stick and plunge his marshmallow straight into the coals to get it over with.”

I looked up with a smile and it faltered at the warm contentment on his face. It transformed him into someone tempting and intriguing, and basically my kryptonite. I was not going to go all Lois Lane for this guy. I was obviously losing it. It was probably altitude sickness at this point.

Zings can lie, I reminded myself. I wasn’t falling victim to this again. I wasn’t interested in another summer fling, ever again. Nico lived in Texas, and I lived in Utah. End of discussion. We’d sat so close tonight because of the shortage of seating, nothing more.

Rather than the comment I’d been about to make about us Jenkins and our perfect roasting abilities, I blurted out nonsense.

“Marshmallows can help protect an astronaut’s nasal passages during lift-off,” I said.

“Hmm. So they, what, stuff them up their noses?”

I looked back at the fire. “Uh-huh. The mini ones, obviously.”