Page 55 of Puck Your Feelings
I'm trying not to laugh—I am! I swear!—but it's a losing battle. Kane looks up just in a fighting mode.
"You think this is funny."
"I think it's hilarious."
"Traitor."
"You're the one who said no editing!" I protest. "Itoldyou we should cut the sneeze!"
"You two might actually survive the rest of camp without killing each other," Wall observes, cutting into his chicken with surgical precision. "I'm shocked."
"Does this mean we have to pay up on the bet?" Petrov asks Ace.
Ace shakes his head. "Nope. Bet was about them hooking up, not about them becoming friends."
I choke on my water. Kane goes very still beside me.
"We canhearyou," I manage once I stop coughing.
Kane's face is doing something complicated—red creeping up his neck, jaw tight. "Do you ever stop talking about our personal lives?"
"Absolutely not," Wall says. "It's the best entertainment we have."
Groover and Mateo appear at our table, trays in hand. "Mind if we join the circus?"
"Please," I say. "Maybe you can talk some sense into these degenerates."
"Unlikely," Mateo says cheerfully, sitting down. "I've been trying for months. It doesn't take."
"Welcome to being a Wolves couple," Groover tells Kane. "Even when you're not actually a couple. They had a betting pool about us too."
"Three betting pools," Mateo corrects. "One for if we'd get together, one for when, and one for how."
"How?" Kane looks horrified.
"Don't ask," Groover advises. "The answer will only upset you."
"I won two of the three," Wall says smugly.
"That's because you cheated," Ace argues. "You asked Mateo directly."
"That's not cheating. That's research."
Petrov leans toward Kane conspiratorially. "Is okay. They also bet on everything else. Last week, there was bet about whether Cap could eat entire pizza in one sitting."
"Well…could he?" I ask, because I need to know.
"Seventeen minutes," Petrov says reverently. "Made a hundred."
The conversation dissolves into chaos—arguments about pizza-eating records, someone's terrible taste in music, whether Ace's goal last season was actually offsides (it was, but don't tell him that). Kane's shoulders gradually relax, and by the time we're clearing our trays, he's actually smiling.
We walk back to Cabin 12 under a sky full of stars that you'd never see in Chicago. The mountain air is cold enough that I can see my breath, and the only sounds are our footsteps and some distant bird that's apparently nocturnal and possibly having an existential crisis based on its shrieking.
"Today was good," I say, because someone needs to acknowledge it.
"Yeah." He’s looking up at the stars, his profile sharp against the darkness. "It was."
"Think your dad will back off now?"
