It was the summer before her last year of Uni and while most of her friends had their internships and summer jobs in their chosen fields, she'd wanted to do something fun, because if you thought about it (and she definitely did think about it) this was her last summer before she had to actually be an adult, and she wanted to make it count.
So, she packed up her bag with bug spray and sunscreen and baseball caps and t-shirts (some for tie-dyeing) She purchased manuals on edible plants and survival guides (just in case she got lost, she didn't want to be completely useless.) She re-watched a few of her favorite summer flicks about summer camps and then she deemed herself ready to be a camp counselor.
The only thing one could arguably suggest that Lily Jane Evans was unprepared for, was James Fleamont Potter.
James was one of those counselors that had been coming here since he was a kid, and when he got too old to attend the camp, he switched over to being a counselor. He knew the camp like the back of his hand, these were his stomping grounds and he walked around with a familiarity that only a person who'd been here for more than a decade of his life could.
And that in itself had a certain appeal to Lily. Confidence was sexy after all, but it didn't hurt that he was also just incredibly attractive sans any portion of his personality.
His skin looked as though the sun might just vacation under the surface, all warm and glowing and tinted gold, and there were definitely stars in his eyes. Bright ones that surrounded his pupils in a much lighter color than the rest of his hazel eyes. He was always smiling at the kids too, ready to move from one activity to the next, an endless supply of trail mix and juice pouches. Lily appreciated the snacks, but his smile was what she found herself transfixed by the most.
Lily hadn't started it. She knew that the entire time, but it took her a couple of weeks to figure out just how much of the blame rested on his shoulders for everything that happened.
oOo
She was sitting on the porch of her cabin with six of the eight girls she had to look after. The Griffin cabin held eight ten-year-old girls, and she was having a blast with each and every one of them. Today, they had decided that they wanted to make friendship bracelets at the picnic table outside their cabin, and a pair of girls had left to use the restrooms that were situated up the path a ways.
Lily was waiting for them to return while she made a bracelet of her own. Kara was teaching her how to wrap and weave and braid the strands together to make them into something beautiful. Well, Kara's was beautiful, but Lily was determined to get the hang of it.
That's when the girls came back from the bathroom with red faces, and a large tub of water balloons between them. "Look what we found!" Catherine exclaimed, dropping her side of the tub and causing little Amanda to almost fall on top of the balloons as her end fell to the ground.
"You found them?" Lily asked, raising a brow as she rose from the bench. "Where did you find them?"
Amanda looked up, a big toothless grin spread over her freckled face. "At the boy's cabin." Her voice dripping with mischief. She glanced over at Catherine. "The Lion cabin." She said, looking back at Lily, smug for some reason that was lost to her.
Lily had no way of knowing that Catherine and Amanda had taken them from James' boys cabin. She hadn't paid attention to which animal was on his red shirt, only the way the color complimented his skin tone and brought out the amber flecks in his eyes.
"Don't you think we should give them back?" Lily asked, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. She was new here, and she felt like some of the girls were taking advantage of that. Because some of them had been coming here for a few summers, and they knew more than Lily about how things worked. And while Lily had read over the rules and regulations manual more times than was strictly necessary, that didn't mean that many things weren't still up to her discretion. There hadn't been a rule against stealing water balloons from the boys of course, but still...
"Oh come on, Lily." Catherine popped out her hip, her arms crossing over her arms. "This summer is going to be no fun at all if you're not going to help us prank the boys. That's half the fun of summer camp."
Lily looked over to Kara, because she seemed the most helpful so far. "It's true," Kara said, doing her best to hold back her smile as she exchanged looks with Amanda and Catherine. Lily got the feeling that they were leaving something out, but she did trust Kara. "We always prank the boys in the Lion cabin." She shrugged, looking back at Lily.
"And we finally got to do something before they started it!" Amanda said, her 's' sounds coming out more harshly because of her missing teeth.
Soon Lily was surrounded by all eight of her girls and she laughed. "Look, I didn't know that there was a prank war going on here, of course I'm on board." Because she'd been involved in many a prank war before, and she understood how important they were.
She was also very competitive and that wasn't a hard point to get itching.
"So, what's the plan now?" She asked, looking at the tub of balloons. "We have their balloons, but that's not really a prank."
"We stole them," Amanda pointed out.
"Yeah, that is a prank." Catherine added, crossing her arms over her chest confidently.
"Well not a very good one." Lily pressed her lips together and thought about it for a moment. "I mean, the obvious choice would be to throw the balloons at the boys now that we have them. You said the Lion cabin, right?"
"Well yeah, but we don't have to do that." Amanda said, looking at Cathine again. "We just wanted to take them."
Catherine debated for a moment, looking at the balloons and then at Amanda. "No, I think we should do what Lily said." She grinned wickedly and Lily was afraid that she might have just unleashed a monster on the camp.
She wasn't too concerned though because twenty minutes later she had her girls all hiding in the tree line behind the Lion cabin. She was pretty sure that she was going to be sent home for not only participating in the prank war, but actively encouraging it.
But Catherine and Amanda had accidentally timed it so perfectly. Because all the boys from the Lion cabin had gone up to the cafeteria to eat lunch after filling the balloons, and when they came back they all put on their suits before heading out the back door. They didn't even know that the balloons were gone until it was much too late for them to do anything about it. They had no way of guessing that Lily had all her girls hiding just out of site, poised to attack.
"Hey!" One of the boys shouted as they walked out the back door of their cabin. "Where did our balloons go?" Lily smiled at his confusion and once again thought that she was going to get fired.
The other boys started to come out and Catherine looked over at Lily with raised brows, "Now?" She whispered. Lily shook her head.
"Wait for the counselor too," She said, having no clue who their counselor was, but if she was going to be involved in this, she wanted another adult involved as well. Catherine did what could only be described as cackling when Lily said this. Lliy narrowed her brow and gave her a worried look, but then turned her attention back to the cabin.
And then James walked out the back door. His maroon and gold counselor shirt paired with a pair of swim trunks that were covered in dragons. Lily felt her heart jump into her throat for a just a moment- not at his dragon trunks, just at the thought of what she was about to have her girls do to this extremely attractive bloke.
"NOW!" She shouted, perhaps louder than was strictly necessary since her girls were all very close to her and waiting for her announcement, but she did want to make sure that all the boys knew what was coming to some degree.
And her girls didn't disappoint her either. She didn't know if it was all the softball and badminton that they played, but their aim was impeccable as they started throwing balloons at the boys.
Lily tried not to pay much attention to James, but she couldn't help but laugh at the look on his face when the smallest of Lily's girls, Venessa, hit him right in the chest, causing the water to splash up into his face. She also couldn't help but notice the extremely obvious lion that was across the front of his shirt. She should have known that he was the counselor for these boys.
When the girls were out of balloons, Amand cupped her hands around her mouth and hollered out "RETREAT!" And almost immediately her girls all started running back toward their cabin, leaving every single boy from the Lion cabin soaking wet.
Lily ran after them, glad that she'd not over thought the rules too much and let them go ahead with the prank. But she didn't try and run nearly as fast as the girls did, and someone reached out and grabbed her arm. She turned around and raised her brows when she saw James.
"You're a bit wet." She grinned, looking back over her shoulder to make sure her girls were still headed toward the cabin.
"Who are you?" James asked. "I thought Jennifer was with the Griffin cabin this summer."
"I don't know who Jennifer is, and no, the Griffin cabin is mine. I'm Lily Evans," She stuck her hand out.
"I hope you know what you just started, Lily Evans." He said, reaching out to shake her hand. "I'm James Potter."
"Yes, I've seen you around." Lily nodded, hoping that that didn't sound as stalker-y to him as it did to her. "You're quite popular with some of my girls."
"I've been coming here a long time." Lily did refrain from sharing that she knew that as well. "So, I suppose all the kids are familiar with me. Well, not the new ones- but no, we're not going to be friends now. We're at war."
"War?" She raised her eyebrows and he laughed, his hand raising up to run through his hair.
"Yes, war. Jennifer never got involved in the pranking and so I never got involved. I just let the kids do as they pleased and let them have their fun. You just opened a door that you're going to wish you locked."
"Did I? Maybe you're going to be the one to wish that I'd have stayed out of it."
"Nope. I have more than a decade of camp pranks in my arsenal."
"You don't know that I've never been to camp before." Lily crossed her arms over her chest and stood up straighter. Was she sticking her chest out? She shifted her arms to make sure that she wasn't.
"I do know. You've got 'Camp Newb' tattooed across your forehead. Just know that this isn't a door that you can close now. It's opened and everything that happens from here on out is because you started it."
"Really sticking with that metaphor aren't you." She let her hands fall to her side and tilted her head. James' eyes narrowed slightly, and his lips quirked at the corners. "But regardless, I'm pretty sure that I can handle it. I may be a camp novice, but I'm sure I can hold my own."
"I hope so. For your sake." He looked elated and Lily didn't know if it was because he just really liked prank wars, or if it was because he hadn't been able to be involved for a few years. Part of her couldn't help but hope that the width of his smile had something to do with her as well. He was fit, and she'd been a bit awestruck when she'd first seen him. It'd be nice to know that the feeling was at least slightly mutual.
"Well how kind of you." Lily said, her tone obnoxiously mocking, because that's what they were doing right now. They were being obnoxious, and Lily was having a blast.
"Okay, but in all honesty, you are new, and if you have any logistical questions about how things work at the camp you can ask." How quickly he went from teasing to serious almost gave her whiplash, and she almost laughed and told him that she'd never go to him for help because she knew that the moment she did he would give her the wrong information. She knew how prank wars worked. But she didn't want him to know that she knew, and so she decided to just thank him instead.
"I think I've got a pretty good handle on things so far, though I did just let my girls talk me into starting a prank war with your boys." She giggled, and the sound that came from her mouth was much flirtier than she was going for. She was trying to play it innocent and cool, not flirty. This is why she'd never gotten any speaking lines when she'd tried out for her school's theater productions. A sorry sight, indeed.
James didn't seem to notice, or more accurately he didn't seem to mind, that she'd just gone ahead and laughed like a schoolgirl, and proceeded to cross his arms over his chest. "Which one was it that thought to steal the balloons in the first place?"
"Well Catherine and Amanda went to use the bathroom and came back with the tub of balloons. Kara's the one that told me that they did this every year."
"Catherine. I should have known. She's trouble." James warned, though it was clear that he was at least slightly fond of the girl.
"They're all trouble. I thought Kara wasn't, but then I saw her going after the boys," Lily laughed. "She tore some of the balloons open with her teeth and then just sprayed them with it."
"That's cheating."
"Well I'm not going to tell her that."
"That's fair." He chuckled, running his hand through his hair a second time now. It was such an inherently flirty motion, and definitely made Lily's mind start to wonder. She started imagining what it might be like to run her own hands through his hair-
She cleared her throat. "Anyway, I should get back to temper whatever plot they're coming up with now. Or add some ideas of my own, whatever seems necessary."
James laughed again, and Lily's smile widened. "I suppose I should go back and give my boys a pep talk. They haven't been pranked first in years. They're going to be devastated."
"Well make sure to warn them that this is only the beginning and that there's no closing the door now." Lily smirked.
"I didn't mention a door that many times."
"More than once istoo many times." Lily tugged on the bill of her baseball, turned on her heel and started back toward her cabin.
oOo
Things, well they didn't really escalate. But they moved quickly from there. Despite what had been said between James and Lily, it was quite obvious that they were holding back and letting the kids take the lead in coming up with the pranks.
This became very obvious to Lily when she opened the door of the cabin one morning and found the entire porch covered in worms. She found it funny, but it had most assuredly been thought up by a group of ten-year-olds, not their twenty-something year old counselor who had sworn that they were now at war. The girls had screamed though, much to Lily's disappointment, and so the boys got what they wanted from the prank.
So, when her girls suggested that they go the cliché route and T.P. the boys cabin, Lily bit her tongue and let them do it. James had let his boys spend who knows how long collecting worms, so she let them T.P. the boys cabin.
And then the boys exchanged the girl's marshmallows for cotton balls and Lily wasn't sure if they weren't supposed to notice and eat the cotton balls or not, but the girls were properly annoyed that their marshmallows were gone and so they decided that they were going to glue all their shoes to the porch (which made Lily think that they were finally getting somewhere and she was pretty sure that James was impressed too.)
And it went back and forth like that for a while, with James and Lily sharing known looks whenever their groups crossed paths, which was often.
Though the summer camp program didn't only consist of downtime in which the Lions and the Griffins could prank one another, they also hosted fun activities for the kids to do.
It was the start of the second week when Lily signed her group up for canoeing. They had been asking her for a while, and while water activities with so many kids made her a bit nervous, she finally relented. And it worked out so that Lily and James' groups were partnered up to spend the morning canoeing around the lake together. Lily had never been canoeing, but everyone else seemed to be professionals as they all helped one another lift the boats off the rack and walk over to the edge of the lake with them. Lily stood back and let James take the lead as the groups all partnered off and then pulled on life jackets.
"Alright, I think it's our turn to get a boat." James startled her when he suddenly appeared at her side, and despite wishing that he wouldn't notice, he did and he laughed. "I didn't know you were so easily frightened."
She pursed her lips and shook her head. "We're not riding in a boat with any of the kids?" She asked.
James shook his head. "They don't want us in their boats." He started toward the rack and she followed after him. "We should hurry though so they don't leave without us."
"No one drowns here, right?" She honestly hadn't spent much time near the water, and she'd never been canoeing.
James shot her a look over his shoulder and then snorted. "I'm not planning on letting anyone drown." He said, reaching up for a blue canoe. Lily stepped up next to him so that she could help him lift it down. It was cumbersome, but she managed to be helpful and soon the boat was in the water and Lily was strapped into a lifejacket of her own.
She triple checked that all the children were properly sun screened and that all their life jackets were on right. "Are we good?" James asked, giving her an amused look.
"I think so." She nodded, trying to ignore him and his stupid looks. It was hard though, because even if his look was stupid, his face was quite nice to look at. And she was about to spend an hour or two in a canoe with him.
"Alright, Lily says it's time to get in the water!" James called out, straightening his glasses as he talked to the kids, then he motioned for Lily to get in the boat. She grabbed the edges of the boat and tried to keep her balance as she moved to the front to sit on the narrow bench. Once she was seated, she felt the boat start to move and tightly gripped the edge and looked over her shoulder to see James pushing them into the water. "You've never done this before either have you?"
"I used to sit near the edge of this river back where I grew up, but that is almost my entire experience with water. I think my parents took my sister and I to the beach once."
"Well you've been missing out. You're going to love this." He promised her, and she could tell by the tone of his voice that he wanted her to for some reason. She wasn't so sure though. She just kept thinking about how easy the boat could tip over.
"I think I appreciate your confidence, but I'm still a bit nervous."
"I can tell," She felt the boat dip as he climbed in. "Your knuckles are white."
"Well maybe you could try not to move the boat like that." She said, her teeth clenched.
"Hey James! Lily!" Amanda and Vanessa were sharing a boat with one of James' boys, a friendly, round boy named Henry. "We'll race you!"
"No thank you," Lily called back, trying to ignore the way Amanda's shoulders deflated. "Why don't you try and catch up with Catherine?" She tried to distract them.
"Lily's never canoed before, she's going to need some practice before we start racing." James went further and tried to explain why Lily wasn't indulging the kids.
"You've never-" Amanda looked as though James had just told her something truly ridiculous. "Oh, Lily. That's just sad."
As they went on, Lily could feel herself calming down. The area was truly beautiful and she could tell that the kids were having fun as well, and while she hadn't known any of them long, she liked watching them have fun.
"Are you ready to start helping me yet?" James asked after maybe thirty minutes of Lily sitting there, holding onto the edges.
"Helping?" Lily asked, looking over her shoulder again. That's when she noticed the oar that was down by her feet. "Oh shoot," She leaned down and picked it up. "I forgot that I was supposed to be helping." She chuckled, and felt James nudge her arm with his paddle. "Hey! The water is cold!"
"I told you it was fun." He said after she dipped her paddle in the water and watched the water ripple away.
"It's not my fault that water makes me nervous, I've never been around it."
"I know, but still."
"Still what?" She scoffed. "I'm sure there's something that I can do that you've never done before."
"Like what?" James asked, sounding skeptical.
"I don't know, public transportation maybe?" He was quiet and she had to look over her shoulder at him again. "I'm right, aren't I?"
"I didn't grow up near the city," He countered, not wanting to admit it outright. "It wasn't plentiful where I was."
"Okay, but you're in school now, aren't you? Do you just walk everywhere?"
"I've taken ubers." He said as though that counted, and Lily did not think taking an uber and taking the bus were even remotely similar.
"That doesn't count. Not at all. You'll have to take the bus sometime, you meet all kinds of interesting people on the bus."
"You meet interesting people in Ubers too." He countered.
"I once saw a man dressed entirely in electric blue, spandex. He was carrying around an instrument that looked sort of like a harp and a cat on a leash."
"You did not," James laughed.
"Yes I did!"
"No, you're still trying to get in my head like you were before with you flirty laughter." Lily's head whipped around and she narrowed her eyes. She didn't know if she wanted to admit to what she had done being exactly what he was accusing her of. "It almost worked." He shrugged, grinning at her. "It took me until I got back to the cabin before I realized that you were never going to ask me for help."
"If I did ever ask you for help, you would only lie to me about the answer to make me look like a fool."
"Or maybe I would tell you the truth, because I know that you would be expecting a lie, and then you'd do the opposite of whatever I said and make a fool of yourself." He leaned forward and stuck his oar in the water, slowly pulling it back. Lily tried and failed not to notice the definition of his arms. She quickly turned back around in her seat and stuck her own oar in the water.
"We might be one step ahead of ourselves on this." She said, her voice just loud enough for him to hear. She looked out over the water and made sure that they were still following behind five other canoes. And then she counted the children to make sure that no one had fallen out without someone noticing. Sixteen, they were still good.
"Did you play a hand in gluing my boy's shoes to the porch?" He asked, pulling her attention back to him.
"No," She grinned. "I was so proud of them when they didn't want to use toilet paper again."
"I apologize for the worm prank," He sighed, sounding disheartened. "I tried to talk them out of that, told them that they were more clever than that, but they didn't want to hear it. They thought it was brilliant."
"Well my girls screamed and ran about didn't they," She huffed and he laughed. "I know I said that you were going down, but I didn't realize how hard it was going to be to say 'no' to their ideas. I mean we are meant to be encouraging them and it wouldn't be very encouraging to just..."
"Take over entirely." He supplied. "Yeah, and my boys are quite used to me staying out of the way and letting them do whatever comes to mind."
"Okay, so if you did get to choose though, what would you have them do?"
"Fill the water guns with liquid water color paint, cut with just the right amount of corn syrup, and then go after the girls. The second prong of attack would be to have something full of glitter explode over their heads. They'd be forever picking glitter out of their scalps." Lily covered her mouth with her hand and laughed. She noticed that a few of the closer canoes occupants turned to look at her, but she turned to look at James.
"I like that one. Clever, colorful and harmless."
"Alright," He was smiling at her as though he'd said what he'd said with the intention of making her proud. "And how would you have your girls retaliate?"
"Did your prank take place inside or outside of the cabin?" She asked, giving up on rowing the boat entirely now. It wasn't as though she'd been much of a help anyway.
"Definitely outside, I don't want to ruin all their things." He assured her.
She nodded and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as the thought. "I suppose we'd counter that with hanging all their bikes from the tree- of course it'd have to be timed perfectly so that they noticed their bikes in the tree just as they were about to use them."
"Which tree?"
"That ridiculously big one. The bikes would be at least eight or nine meters in the air."
"That would be impressive."
"I know."
They went back and forth for a while longer, and then moved onto the topic of school. James told her that he was studying Criminal Justice, unsure of what direction he would take in grad school, but he still had some time to work it out. Lily told him that she was pre-med and terrified of the prospect of medical school because all the people she knew in grad school that were studying medicine looked like they were half dead all the time.
And then they were talking about their families and Lily told him about her sister and James told her about his brother and his close friends who might as well be his brothers. Lily admitted that she envied him that, and then admitted that her own sister had disinvited Lily to her wedding and that that was part of her motivation for doing the whole, camp counselor thing this summer. Her sister's wedding was only a month away.
Soon they had made it around the entire lake, well it wasn't really soon, it had taken almost three hours, but it had felt as though it'd been a fairly short ride to Lily. And they had managed not to lose any of the kids, so she was starting to think that she enjoyed canoeing.
"Well that was fun!" She said after helping James put the canoe back on the rack.
"Sure it was," He nodded. "Extra fun for you since you didn't help to get us around the lake at all."
She waved off his comment. "I had no idea how to row the boat, and besides, I used my lack of distraction to make sure we didn't lose anyone."
"You know, I didn't find rowing to be nearly as distracting as I found you." His elbow bumped hers and she felt her cheeks start to heat up as he turned back to the kids and told them to put all their things away.
"Is it lunch time?" Kara asked, walking up to Lily and stretching her arms. "I'm so hungry."
"Well I'm tired," Catherine let out a yawn to prove it.
"We're going to eat first and then we'll head back to the cabin for some downtime." Lily said, trying to clear her head of the look James had just given her.
"Are we having lunch too?" Henry asked, leaning against a tree.
"Of course," James grinned. "And I think at two o'clock this afternoon, we'll be heading over to the ropes course." He looked over at Lily, a clear question on his face and she looked over at her girls.
"I think we decided to-"
"We should do the ropes course." Catherine interrupted Lily before she could say that they were going to the arts and crafts cabin.
"Yes." Kara nodded firmly, and soon all the girls were agreeing.
"I'm so tired," Catherine muttered quietly to Kara as they started walking to the cafeteria.
"Then why are we going to do the ropes course? I want to do arts and crafts." Vanessa whispered back.
Kara let out a sigh and Lily just managed to see the exasperated look that she was giving the smaller girl. "Because James and Lily are in love with one another."
"They are?" Vanessa exclaimed and Lily looked up at the sky.
oOo
Lily's girls spent the next couple of days quietly whispering around her, and they didn't have the common decency to stop whispering when James was around either. She knew what they were talking about even if they tried their best to keep their voices down. And she knew that James knew what they were whispering about as well, because aside from the fact that he had two working ears, he'd also shot her a few looks that had caused the girls to erupt into a fit of giggles.
She didn't know what James and her did that made the girls laugh so much, but she felt as though they should have more important things to focus on. She tried keeping them extra busy to distract them, but whenever she filled up their schedule without consulting James first, Amanda or Catherine, or even the traitorous Kara, would all fuss and whine about how they wanted to spend time with the Lion boys.
Lily felt as though she couldn't win and so she just gave in. The kids were all having dinner, and so Lily walked up to the counselor table and sat across from James. "Alright, what are you doing with your kids tomorrow. I'm tired of getting yelled at." She sighed, picking up her glass of chocolate milk and taking a big gulp.
James chuckled at her. "It's not my fault that all your campers have a crush on me." He shrugged one of his sholders and Lily quirked a brow.
"They don't have a crush on you," She scoffed. She hadn't thought it was possible that he hadn't heard the girls whispering back and forth about how they thought that James and Lily were in love with each other, but apparently, he hadn't if that's the conclusion that he'd come to.
"Of course they do," He narrowed his brow. "You've seen how giggly they get around me."
"Well next time it happens, maybe you should listen to more than just their giggling. Anyway, what are we doing with our kids tomorrow?"
"Our kids? The boys will be glad to have a camp mum." James laughed, flipping his fork between his fingers. "Tomorrow is Friday, last day of activities before the weekend. I was going to take them on a hike up to the waterfall tomorrow morning."
"There's a waterfall?" Lily's brow inched up her forehead. "I didn't know that!"
James smiled at her. "Yes, It's not all that big, but the kids enjoy jumping in and climbing on the rocks."
"Oh goodness. That sounds stressful. I'll have to pack a good first aid kit."
James shook his head. "You worry too much."
"You don't worry enough. Do you know the kinds of injuries that happen on wet rocks?"
"I forgot that you're pre-med for a moment, and yes, I do. I've been coming here for over a decade remember. We just have to remind them to be careful."
"Alright, but I'm still bringing a good first aid kit, just in case."
"We're supposed to bring one everywhere we go."
"I know that," She snapped, tapping her fingertips on the table. "But this one is going to be a bit bigger than normal. What else were you planning?"
"I didn't have anything set in stone for tomorrow afternoon. You can pick something if you'd like."
"I think they're making sailboats tomorrow in the craft cabin. We could have them race down the river afterward." She suggested. Her girls had told her in the beginning that they'd wanted to do a lot of crafts, but their current plans to follow James around all over the place had gotten in the way of that.
"That sounds good." James nodded and then turned his attention back to his green beans.
Lily nodded and started eating as well.
"So if they don't have a crush on me, then what's with all the giggling?" He asked after a moment, looking up at her and Lily still couldn't believe that he didn't know.
"You're a bit full of yourself, aren't you? Didn't even bother listening to them and just assumed that-"
"I'm not full of myself." He interrupted, resting his elbow on the table and pointing his fork at her. "I'm just used to the giggling girls."
"You realize that doesn't make you sound less full of yourself, right?"
"It's not an opinion I have of myself, I'm just saying that- all I meant by that was that I-"
"Oh stop it, I'm just giving you a hard time." She waved her hand and laughed at him. "I know that having ten-year-olds think you're cute isn't going to give you too much of an ego boost."
"Exactly. They're ten. I do like having you think I'm cute though." He smirked and Lily's eyes shot over to his.
"Oh? And when did I tell you that I think you're cute?" She asked, blinking a few times more than necessary for the effect.
"I mean you've never come out and said it of course, I get the feeling that that's not how you do things."
"I'm not sure what you mean by that, but if I thought you were cute I would tell you."
James crossed his arms over his chest and set them on top of the table, leaning forward now as though he was waiting for her to say just that.
She pressed her lips together in response and just stared back at him.
He held her gaze longer than she thought he was going to and she started to squirm first, much to her dismay. "Alright," She sighed. "I think you're fit."
"It's like pulling teeth with you," He tried to look exasperated, but she could see the smile he was repressing.
"I'm terribly sorry that I don't like giving compliments on demand." She rolled her eyes and stuck her fork into a piece of broccoli.
"You're the one who tried to deny it at first. I wouldn't have done that if you said that you enjoyed knowing that I thought you were fit." He looked down at his plate and shrugged one of his shoulders, working a bit too hard to look nonchalant. She felt her cheeks get a bit red, because even though there were many other words in there, he had just called her fit and she did like knowing that he thought she was fit.
"My girls think that we're in love." She blurted out, hating herself for being unable to just sit in awkward silence. James' head shot up and she saw that his ears had turned rather red. "That's why they're giggling all the time and want to hang out with your boys so much."
"In love?"
"Yes, it's also why they keep humming Little Mermaid songs." She shook her head and took another bite of her dinner.
"I'm prince Eric now?" He chuckled, which Lily was glad to hear because she realized that she'd brought this up at a very strange time. Saying that the girls thought that they were in love right after he told her that he thought she was fit, gave some clout to the girls' presumptions. Of course, they weren't in love, but Lily did think that she might fancy him. Or, more honestly, she knew that she fancied him and just wasn't ready to put definitives around it. She really was terrible at this kind of thing. It was the main reason that she'd only dated a couple of people before. In her eyes, most of the time, it just wasn't worth all the trouble it caused.
"I don't much see the resemblance, but yes. That's what they call you when they want to talk in code. I'm not sure if they know that I've cracked their code yet, but I'm not sure I want them to know that I know what they're talking about anyway." She waved her hand as though it were no big deal and then picked up her fork again. Her food was getting cold.
James took a couple of bites of his food as well and then looked up at her again. "Why do you think they think- I mean what gave them the-" He closed his mouth and shook his head, his hand jumping up to run through his hair. "Why do they think we fancy one another?"
"I'm not sure what it was exactly," Lily shrugged. "But it started after the canoe trip."
James tilted his head and Lily couldn't tell if he was tilting his head in a way that meant he understood where the assumption had sprung from, or if he was tilting his head because he was trying to work out what they had done that could have made a group of ten-year-olds think that they were in love.
"Well?" Lily prompted, tried of trying to work out what the look on his face might mean.
"Well, I suppose I can see it." He shrugged, his ears turning red again and Lily shifted in her seat and cleared her throat.
"You care to elaborate?" She was going to throw broccoli at him if he didn't just come out with it.
"I mean, we were flirting quite a bit on the canoe." He was doing his best to come off as nonchalant and Lily had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. How could someone this fit be so terrible at talking about this kind of thing? Not that she was all that great at it, but seeing him as nervous as he clearly was did wonders to calm her nerves.
"Course we were," She took another bite and then looked up at him to find that he was looking at her with wide eyes. "I've been flirting with you since I met you. Doesn't mean a bunch of ten-year-olds should be planning a dinsey themed wedding for us." He raised his brow. "That's only slight hyperbole." She promised, suddenly worried that since she'd put the thought into the universe, her girls would have somehow sensed it and that would be what she was pretending not to hear in the cabin later that night.
His ears were still red, but his smile came easier now. "So what now? Should we keep flirting for another week or two or can I ask you out now?"
Lily bit her lip again to keep from smiling. "Where does one go on a date when they're working at a summer camp?"
"They've got kick ball all day Sunday, so we could have a picnic out on the island. We could take the canoe over there." His answer came quickly and Lily wondered how much longer it would have taken him to ask her out if she hadn't brought it up in such a strange way. He'd definitely put some thought into the idea.
"I've been told not to follow strange men into the woods." She teased and then smiled at him. "That sounds lovely. I really liked canoeing."
"You haven't been canoeing yet." James quirked a brow at her and she narrowed his eyes.
"We went just the other day. I was quite good."
He shook his head. "You didn't actually do anything. You just sat there."
"I didn't fall in!" She countered.
"Is that your standard for what it means to be good at canoeing?"
"It might be," She bit the tip of her tongue to keep from looking too amused.
They were quiet for a moment and then James sighed and gave her a tight-lipped smile. "You still want to go out with me, right?"
"Of course." She nodded. "Just know that I don't plan on doing anything more than managing not to fall out of the canoe."
He snorted, which should have been an ugly noise, but it wasn't. "Sounds like a plan."
Lily had finally finished her dinner now and was about to go and get dessert when she was struck with a thought. "We can't tell the kids though." She said a bit more forcefully then she meant to.
"Of course we can't." He agreed quickly and wholeheartedly. "Who knows what they would say."
"You'll notice it now that I've pointed it out to you." Lily sighed, shaking her head. Then she got up to go and fetch a brownie.
OOo
For the remainder of the week, Lily had two main goals. She had to try not to let the girls get to her because James had definitely noticed what they were talking about now and his ears went red a lot, which only caused her to blush and she had to hide it from the ten-year-olds so that they wouldn't get any further ideas.
The second goal was to keep herself from getting nervous about the date.
This was actually easy when she was around James. They sent each other shy smiles and when they were wakling next to each other, he let his hand or arm brush up against hers, but when she wasn't with him, when she was in her cabin with nothing but her conspiring girls to listen to, she found herself getting awfully nervous.
Lily was lying in bed on Saturday night, listening to the sounds of her girls sleeping when she heard a quiet tapping on her window. She narrowed her brow and wondered if there was a bird who thought it was a good idea to peck at the glass for some reason. She looked out the open door of her room to see if it had woken any of the girls, but many of them were snoring and none of them seemed to be disturbed.
The tapping came again and Lily decided to investiagte. She walked over to the window and peeked out, looking for a bird and very surprised when she found James instead. She gave him a confused look and he motioned for her to come outside. She held up a finger to convey that she'd be out in a moment and then grabbed a sweatshirt and slipped on her flip-flops.
She quietly closed the cabin door behind her and found James sitting on the bench that ran longways along the small porch. "Is there a reason for this little meeting?" She asked, almost afraid that he was here to cancel their date because of how awkward the girls had made it.
"Not really," He shrugged, looking over at her and grinning. "I suppose I just wanted to see you without the kids around."
"I told you that you'd notice it."
"Yeah, my boys are much more subtle than your girls."
Lily narrowed her brow as she took a seat next to him. "What do you mean by that?"
"There's been no mention of the Little Mermaid in my cabin of course, but I caught them trying to write a love letter for you earlier."
Lily looked ahead and blinked a few times, trying to piece it all together. "Okay, but why?" She asked, looking over at him. "I get that it's fun to tease people, and mob mentality is definitely playing a part in this, but..." She trailed off, not sure what else to say.
"I blame The Parent Trap. We did watch that the first night of camp."
"That's true, I suppose." She shook her head. "It's still a bit strange."
"I told them all to bugger off, if that helps any." He grinned, his hands on his knees.
"Will that help any? If I said that to the girls, I feel as though they would only get worse." She laughed, looking over her shoulder to make sure that none of them had sneaked outside without her hearing.
He shrugged, "Who knows?" He reached over rather quickly and picked up her hand. She looked at their hands for a moment and then smiled over at him.
"Well what did your boys say then?"
"They said that they would stop whatever it was that they were planning." He shrugged.
She narrowed her brow. "And what did you say to them?"
He grinned again and ran his thumb over the back of her hand. "Told them that it didn't seem like I needed their help."
Lily sighed and shook her head. "You know that Nathan is going to tell Kara what you said. And she's going to tell everyone else and then they'll be singing that stupid song about kissing in trees-"
"Yeah I know," He interrupted and she raised her brows.
"Do I have to tell them first now? Which will be worse?" He laughed and she squeezed his hand. "I really like your laugh," She blurted out. She was glad of the fact that the porch light wasn't on because she definitely turned red after that.
"I told Catherine and Amanda to take the balloons." He said after a moment.
Lily narrowed her brow. "What?"
"The water balloons. I told them to take them last week." His hand jumped up to run through his hair. "Of course I noticed your girls talking about us for the last week or so, but I didn't want to admit that it was all my fault."
"Your fault?"
"My plan was to have my boys notice that the balloons were gone, suggest that we go looking for them to see where they'd gone and then find them at your cabin. I'd have to talk to you so that my kids could have their balloons back and... well I didn't expect you to jump on board with the idea of stealing them. I was a bit shocked when you all jumped out from behind the trees and attacked us." He laughed and Lily wished she could see how red his ears were.
"You tried to orchestrate a meeting between us?" She was trying to suppress her grin.
"Yes," He nodded. "Completely backfired."
"Did it though? I mean, would you really have preferred that I just let the balloons sit on the porch until you came and 'found' them?"
He laughed again and shook his head. "No, I wouldn't have preferred that. I quite like the way that things played out." Lily laughed and looked out ahead of them. She could just barely see the lake in the distace.
"So Catherine and Amanda have known that you were interested in me from the start of it all? All their knowing looks and smug attitudes seem so much more deserved now."
"I'd apologize," He squeezed her hand and turned his head so he was looking at her. "But so far it's all been going- not according to plan per say, but it has been going how I want it to."
"I can't believe you used children to get my attention." She turned to look at him now too. "You didn't need to, you know. You could have just introduced yourself like a normal person and I would have agreed to go out with you."
"That's nice to know, but this is a much better story."
Lily couldn't argue that. "You're a bit ridiculous."
"Don't act like you didn't already know that." He grinned, reaching out his free hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear.
"I wasn't. I was just pointing it out." She leaned into his touch a bit and then reached up her own hand to cover his. "Are you going to kiss me now? Or are you going to have a group of children steal my shoes or frame me for turning all the marshmallows gree-"
He cut her off with a kiss, and Lily couldn't help but smile against his lips.