Happy Trails

Chapter 2

“You’re married?” I asked, shocked. “But you’re nineteen.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, grinning and rubbing the back of his neck. “But there were a lot of reasons we got married; I would have waited another couple of years, if….”

“She’s not, like…pregnant, is she?” I asked warily, filling in the gap. Oh please god, don’t let her be, I mentally prayed, truly desperate.

“Well,” he said and I grimaced. Of course, not only was the man of my dreams married he had a fucking kid on the way—maybe even already had one. “She told me she was, so we got married, but then she miscarried.”

“Miscarried?” From the way he’d said it, it seemed like he was skeptical.

“I’m not positive she was even pregnant to begin with,” he admitted. “She might have just been saying that.”

“You kidding?!” I cried. “That’s fucking awful!”

“No shit,” he laughed. “But I did love. Do love her. So it’s not too bad; like I said, I had planned on marrying her in a few years anyways.”

“Aren’t you bitter though?” I asked, amazed at how cool he seemed. If some girl had lied about being pregnant to get me to marry her, I’d divorce her the minute I could. Though fortunately I didn’t have to worry about it, the anger I could have had at my potential pregnant girlfriend I was happily able to focus on Mitch’s.

He shrugged. “Sometimes, but what’s the point? She’s my wife.”

“She could be your ex-wife,” I grumbled, shifting on my bed to lie down.

“What?” He asked, eyebrows furrowed as he, too, lay down.

“Nothing, Mickie,” I mumbled around a yawn.

“Mickie?” He questioned, smiling but eyebrow raised.

“Uh, yeah,” I said in a ‘duh’ voice. “Mitchell, Mitch, Mickie—nicknames, dude.”

“Oh, I see,” he drawled, turning onto his side to face me. “And so Tony’s yours, huh?”

“Obviously.”

“Ever been called anything else?” I thought for a minute, trying to think of what my friends had called me growing up, but all I could come up with was Tony.

“Nope.” He shrugged and turned onto his back. Lying there, I suddenly thought about what would happen tomorrow. “Hey, what time are we supposed to greet the kids tomorrow?”

“They’ll be here as early as ten, but you’ll want to go to the meeting at nine to meet the counselor who’ll be helping you with your cabins, plus to organize what your cabins are doing for the afternoon,” he replied quietly.

“Ok,” I said, yawning again. “Then I’m gonna go to bed. Night, Mickie.”

I heard him chuckle lightly as he turned onto his other side. “Night, Tony.”

When the bomb went off in my dream, I woke up and realized it wasn’t my living room being suddenly blown to pieces, but my alarm clock going off. I hit it and groaned, rubbing my eyes; it was too fucking early to even think about getting up, let alone actually do it. The only thing that could drag me out of the bed two hours after the sun rose was my mom’s threats or a hot guy.

Ohh, wait, I think I see a guy. Yes, that was Mitchell walking back into our room from the shower in only a towel. And, yes, that was him with water dripping down his oh-so-gorgeous chest. And, oh my god, I do believe he was about to drop the towel and get dress.

Realizing he might not appreciate me staring at his ass, I quickly hopped out of bed and hurried into the bathroom. When I emerged thirty minutes later, clean and awake, Mitch was making the bed—my bed, to be exact. “Um, dude, what’re you doing?” I asked, eyebrow raised.

He blushed, stepping away from my comforter. “Sorry, I’m a neat freak.”

I laughed, grabbing a shirt out of my bag. “Well then by all means, go ahead; I’m a slob.”

He grinned, but left my bed half made. Thinking that maybe being a little neater would make him like me a little more, I moved over and made it quickly, skipping the hospital corners but actually placing the pillow in the middle—an accomplishment for me. Once our room was set, and we were ready, we left and made our way to the open cafeteria; if you’re a counselor, you can get something to eat at anytime throughout the day, though it may be cold depending on when you go.

Fortunately, we got there only a few minutes after they set out hot food. Going through the line, Mitchell continued to tell me how everything ran. “Now after we eat, we’ll head over to the auditorium and McGregor will explain how the campers coming in will work. Then we wait till the secretary gives us our cabins and helping counselor, then you meet up with the other counselor and plan what you want to do with the campers for the rest of the afternoon. Sometimes they take them to the lake, others take them to the field where they can play football or soccer or whatever.”

“What if other cabins are there?” I asked, reaching for a biscuit.

“Then you can either keep your distance from them or join them, but we encourage the cabins to mingle, especially since there’re so many group events.” I nodded, following him to a table. We quickly ate, then headed over to the auditorium where McGregor was standing at another podium, talking about the system of the camp. I tuned most of it out, instead choosing to watch Mitchell out of the corner of my eye, but when he stood up and turned to me, excited, I wondered what was happening.

“Ready?” He asked.

“For…?”

He sighed, exasperated. “To greet the campers?”

“Oh, that. Yeah, sure.” I’m looking forward to this almost as much as I would a root canal, I thought, following Mitch as he looked for the secretary. “I have cabins 5 and 7,” I said suddenly, remembering what the check-in lady yesterday had told me.

“Are you serious?” He demanded, turning sharply to face me.

“Um, yeah?” I said uncertainly.

“Me too!” I swear, the look on his face rivals that of a fat kid who was told he could eat all of the cookies.

“That’s cool,” I said with a grin.

“Yeah, it is.” He turned around again and glanced at the other councilors. “Well, now we don’t really have anything to do; we know our cabins and our helpers.”

“Don’t we have to decide where were taking the brats?” I asked, remembering what he’d told me earlier.

His eyes lit up and I could almost pretend he looked proud. “You’re right, we do. So, where do you think we should take them?”

“Home?” I asked hopefully.

“How about the lake?” He suggested instead. Taking a clue from my face, he added, “Ok, well, then the field.”

“Sure, kids love to run, right?”

Eyebrow raised, he asked, “You know that since we have the higher cabins, our kids are only gonna be about three or four years younger than us, right? They’re not gonna be twelve year olds.”

“Oh.” No, I hadn’t realized that. I hadn’t realized that kids my own age needed to be babysat for two whole weeks. “Well we’ll need a regular size football then, right?”

He grinned. “Right.”

You know that part in How the Grinch Stole Christmas where his eyes are bugging out and he’s going ‘all the noise, noise, NOISE!’? That’s how I feel now. Mitch and I were standing in the middle of the auditorium waiting for our two cabins while hundreds of kids are running around, talking and yelling, and I can actually feel my eyes bugging out like that.

“Hey,” I heard Mitchell yell over the noise, “there’s our group!” I followed where he’s pointing and saw a group of sixteen year old boys standing to the side. There are ten cabins in all, each with twelve kids; the even cabins were girls, so cabins eight and ten would have girls the same age as our group. Usually how it works is that—let’s say I’m in charge of cabin five and Mitch is in charge of cabin seven—then I’d team together with cabin eight and their councilor for certain activities throughout the day, and Mitch would do the same with cabin ten. All of the cabins eat together, and at the end of the two weeks, there is a competition day between all the cabins and then a group dance the night before they leave.

Right now, I followed Mitchell over to the guys and forced a grin as he began to talk to them. “Hey, guys, I’m Mitch and this is Tony; we’re gonna head over to the field for the afternoon, but first we’ll take you up to your cabins.”

We all headed out of the noisy room and through the grass to the cabins. After splitting them up and getting them settled, we led them to the far side of the camp where the field was. “Hey, Tony,” Mitch asked quietly as we walked. “Can you go get two footballs and a soccer ball?”

“Um, sure. Where are they?” He told me where they were kept—in the back room of the auditorium, next to the camp director’s office—and I jogged off. I couldn’t believe I was doing this, but then again, I’d do anything for Mitch, the married, straight man I loved. God, that sounds like a bad soap opera; all we needed now was for his wife to get pregnant with his brother’s child, be born with two heads, and I can be the godfather. Good old American drama.

While I was sorting through the storage room, I found a large CD player. Checking it over, I found it used batteries and that there was a collection of old, unlabeled CDs. Shrugging, I grabbed a stack, the player, and the footballs and soccer ball, then headed back to the field. If nothing else, Mitch and I could have something to listen to while the guys played.

When I ran up to him, Mitch turned and grinned, then questioned me about the player. “I found it, figuring we could use it since it was just sitting in there.”

“Sure, it should be fine.” I set it down on the ground and placed in the first CD, wondering what would play. I had expected jazz, 80s music, even folk songs, but when the most romantic wedding music started flowing out of the speakers, I froze, staring at it. Why the hell would you put wedding music in a camp CD player?

Apparently, everyone around me was asking that same question. In fact, I distinctly heard one boy ask, “What the fuck is that?” But decided not to point this out, since we’re really not supposed to use profanity at the camp. (Yes, when I read this rule in the guide book, I did laugh.)

“That,” Mitch said, while obviously trying not to laugh, “is Tony’s favorite music, so don’t make fun of it.”

I scowled. “It is not!”

“Aw, come on, Tony, I heard you singing it this morning,” he teased, stepping away from my glare.

I stopped scowling and slowly smiled. “Oh really, eh? How’d you know what I was singing?”

His smile fell and he blushed. “Well, um, I—”

“Ha ha, you like this music, don’t you?” I accused, laughing. “Don’t worry, man, it’s ok; I mean, the Titanic theme song is every man’s favorite.” Once he smiled, I happily stuck in a different CD—and this time, it was a folk song.

After a couple of hours on the field, Mitch and I led them back to their own cabins so they could unpack, shower, and get ready to go eat. Since one of us had to be with them whenever they were awake, I stayed with cabin five and Mitchell headed over to cabin seven.

There are twelve guys crammed into the small cabin stuffed with six bunk beds. I hadn’t memorized all their names, and the few I did know I kept confusing with the wrong boy, but I knew for sure that the short boy was Will, the fat boy was Allen, and the tan boy was Rob. Somehow, Mitchell had managed to learn their names, ages, and which cabin they were supposed to be in.

“Ya’ll ready?” I asked from my corner. There was small, uncomfortable metal chair stationed in the corner that I’d been sitting on for the past half hour as I waited on them. Dinner was in ten minutes and Mitch had said to make sure we weren’t late.

“Almost,” I heard a few of them answer. Sighing, I leaned back and watched as red-haired boy—Tim? Jim? John?—tied his shoes. He glanced up at me, raised an eyebrow, and hurried to get away from the creepy staring guy.

Once they were all set, I led them outside and down to the cafeteria. The way it worked was that the girl cabins always got to go first, then they boys, starting with the highest cabins first. So we didn’t have to wait long till we were going through the line and getting chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and rolls.

No matter what it ever actually looks or smells like, camp food sucks. That warm apple pie is not going to be like your mother’s and the pork chop they give you on Friday is not as tender as it looks—trust me, you’ll be eating that one bite forever.

When all of my campers were sitting down, I headed over to the counselor’s table and sat down next to Mitch. “I’m exhausted; what do we have to do next?”

“Camp fire,” he said around a mouthful of food. “We take them down to the lake and build this huge bon fire.”

“Sounds…fun.”

“It’s cooler than it seems,” Mitch added quickly. “We light fireworks and play games and it’s fun.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” I drawled, moving the food around on my plate but not eating anything but the roll. Sometime during the meal, McGregor came and spoke to everyone, telling them welcome and about the bon fire. When he had left, everyone got up and started making their way to the lake.

I could care less about fireworks and bon fires, tag and hide-and-go-seek; whatever they were doing, I didn’t want any part in it. Unfortunately, I did have to stick around to make sure my cabin got back safely. So, while campers ran around excited and counselors talked over coke and smoke, I lay down on the grass and closed my eyes, hoping no one would step on me.

After a little while, I heard someone sit down next to me. Cracking an eye open, I caught sight of Mitch leaning back on his elbows, looking up at the fireworks they’d just set off. As I watched, one went off in the sky behind his head, illuminating him, turning him red and green and blue. And right then, I didn’t mind being at camp so much, because I had him.

A/N: Well, please leave me some feedback to let me know what you think. And thanks to Love.Is.Free and gummybaby for reviewing! :)