Emma Swan liked to be in charge. Not in the power hungry way some of her colleagues ran things, mind you. But she enjoyed being able to set her own rules and schedule to an extent, and seeing her plans followed through.
Now that she was the head—and only—kayaking instructor at camp, she was excited to get to do things more like how she thought they should be done: kayaks stacked at the end of each day in the boat shack in her particular way (David called it OCD but Emma called it precision), paddle blades off the ground to prevent nicks, mandatory dry land core and arm exercises for beginners, and so on. So far Regina had pretty much given her free reign in her little boating kingdom.
That is, until she forced Emma to train the new guy.
"He isn't even in my department," she had whined uncharacteristically when Regina had broken the news last night.
"You're just teaching him camp basics and general things—not specific department procedures. Victor can take care of that once he's done helping Tinkerbelle restock the infirmary. And besides, Killian is apparently already a decent rock climber and instructor, so that shouldn't be a problem. But he doesn't have any camp experience. Show him the ropes, give him the rundown," the older woman sighed and looked bored with the conversation already. "Look, you know it's not often that we get completely fresh blood on the staff, so do your best to tell him all the stuff everybody else has known for years."
Emma groaned. "Ugh, fine," she responded with one last petulant eye roll. "Just until the kids all get here though. Then I'll be too busy."
"That is all that I would expect from you. Thank you, Emma." Regina looked down at her perfectly organized clipboard in a not-so-subtle dismissal.
Emma scoffed and then grinned at her. "Regina. We've known each other for like a decade. You may be the boss these days, but don't go all frigid now. We both know way too much about each other for that."
Regina looked back at her in what was surely meant to be a calculating stare. "Indeed we do."
Emma rolled her eyes. "Where are the boys?"
Regina visibly softened at the mention of her little family. "Phillip and Aurora just took Henry and Roland to go get some ice cream at the mess hall. And Robin won't get here till tomorrow evening; he had to wrap up a few things at the office before he could leave. Boston had an unusually late snow storm this spring that pushed everything back a few weeks." Robin owned a snow removal operation that left him free in the summers to work odd jobs at the camp.
"He'll make it for the barbeque though, right?" she asked.
"He said he'd try, but he still had to balance out the finances when the boys and I left yesterday so who knows when he'll get here," Regina said with a sardonic grin at her husband's accounting ineptitude.
Emma smiled along with her, remembering the year Robin had attempted to do an overhaul of the camp's books only to give up and hire Belle to do it. "Well I'm glad the boys are here at least."
"Yes, that reminds me, Henry sure is looking a little worse for wear this evening," Regina narrowed her eyes at Emma.
"Whoa there, not my fault. He—" Emma began defensively.
"Relax, I was just joking." Regina rolled her eyes at Emma's gullibility. "Henry told me it was completely his fault and how you carried him all the way to the infirmary. Thank you, Emma," she said sincerely.
Emma shrugged to dismiss her actions but didn't respond further.
"Ugh, fine. Don't accept my praise, see if I care!" Emma smirked at Regina's use of her own earlier words of exasperation. "Now run along and prepare for a fun-filled day of Irishman training."
Just like that Emma was reminded of why she was dreading tomorrow.
Sitting alone at the counselors' table in the mess hall and facing the beginning of 'newbie babysitting,' as Emma had been calling it in her head, she was decidedly not fine with the plan. She picked at her eggs and hash browns with disinterest and dreaded having to cart the annoying new guy around camp and show him how to turn on the ancient showers or answer his walkie-talkie. Not to mention the fact that said new guy was unfairly attractive and had managed to get under her skin in the 24 hours she had known him.
After their unexpected 'swim' in the lake yesterday, Emma had expected Killian to attach himself to Vic and learn the ropes of the rock climbing station—pun definitely intended. Instead, Tink had returned with Henry after a little while and requested that Victor come back with her to help on some big project restocking all the medical supplies in the infirmary. Apparently Emma's foray into the cabinets had revealed that they were dangerously low on some supplies. At least one good thing came from Henry's brief career as a stunt man.
And so Killian had stayed put at the docks helping Emma watch over the few kids brought early to camp by their parents who worked there. To actually call what he was doing "helping" was probably stretching it though. What he really did was annoy the crap out of her. Luckily Henry was stuck on dry land until his bandage could be removed, so he could play buffer between Emma and Killian. The presence of the impressionable young mind also curbed most of Killian's more obvious innuendos and salacious comments. Some still managed to get though, however.
"So, Swan, have you dried off yet, or are you still a bit wet?" He'd punctuated what otherwise could have been perceived as an innocent inquiry with an impressive wiggle of his eyebrows above Henry's unsuspecting head.
Emma clenched her jaw and stared right back at him. "Oh, I'm plenty dry, Jones. But if you'd like another dip in the water, that could certainly be arranged." She smiled sweetly back at him.
He'd laughed loudly at that, causing Henry to look between the two and mutter, "You guys are weird."
Emma was brought swiftly back to the present when someone dropped their tray down beside her on the mess hall table with a clatter.
"David!" she screamed when she saw who it was. Musings forgotten, Emma stood up and was immediately enveloped in a bear hug by her adoptive brother.
"I missed you, baby sister," David said into her hair and she could hear the smile in his voice.
Emma closed her eyes. "I missed you, too." It'd been almost four months since she'd last seen David and Mary Margaret. She had never been away from either of them for that long since she met them at this very camp when she was 13. But then she graduated from college a year ago and got a job that had her traveling almost all the time. Emma loved her job, but being away from the people she cared about was hard on her.
"When did you get in?" he asked as they took their seats next to each other on the bench.
"Yesterday morning. Vic and Ruby picked me up from the airport on their way here. You?"
"M and I drove up from Boston after school let out so we got here pretty late last night." Like many of the camp staff, David and Mary Margaret were teachers for most of the year and only came to the camp during the summer vacations. "Thank god we get our own cabin this year!" he said dramatically and Emma rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, that might have put a damper on the newlywed atmosphere you're still desperately holding onto." It'd been almost a year since they got married and they still made doe eyes at each other at every opportunity.
After they'd calmed down from their reunion, Emma and David quickly settled back into their old ways as if nothing had happened. But when she eventually came down from the emotional high of seeing David again, the dark cloud of her impending day reappeared in Emma's thoughts.
"What's got you so thoughtful this early in the morning?" David asked after seeing a frown settle on her face as she contemplated her mostly uneaten food.
"Who says I'm thoughtful?"
"Well the only times I've seen you glare daggers at your food like that is when you're in an especially bad mood. Come on, lil' sis. Spill." David leaned over and nudged her playfully with his shoulder.
"Whatever," she gave in, the corners of her mouth quirking up in a reluctant smile. Somehow David always knew when something was wrong with her. "Regina's making me take the new guy on a tour and tell him everything," she said waving her hash brown laden fork in the air to gesture to the camp.
"And you're worried you're too busy?" David prompted.
"No, I've got everything sorted out with the kayaks. I'm all ready for when the munchkins get here. It's just the new guy, Killian, gets on my nerves. He's been perfectly nice and all—well, aside from inserting innuendos into every other sentence—but I just don't know how to act around him. And he keeps, I dunno, looking at me like he knows me or can read me or something…" she finished lamely, not really knowing how to explain the issue.
David narrowed his eyes and nodded thoughtfully. "I see."
"What?" she asked with a level voice, narrowing her eyes right back at him in suspicion.
"Well it seems to me that you don't really dislike him, and maybe that's the problem. You know, Emma, it's okay to make new friends," David said softly. "They're not all assholes and jerks." He seemed to consider something and then added cheerfully, "Although, if this guy does turn out to be a bad one, I'd happily punch him."
Emma rolled her eyes again but then laughed at his excitement to play the overprotective brother role. "I'll keep you updated. You're right though, I suppose I need to suck it up and accept my fate."
"There's the optimistic Emma I know and love!" David exclaimed much too loudly for 7:13 in the morning and reached around to give her a reassuring one-armed hug. Emma's mood hadn't quite improved to the point of prolonged physical contact though, so she huffed and lightly swatted at him until she was released.
"Aw, I love these family bonding moments!" A grinning Ruby slid onto the bench across from them with a clatter from her own tray. As per usual she was dressed in high-wasted shorts and a crop top that showed a good three inches of flat belly. "Seeing Emma squirm is one of my favorite pastimes."
Emma scowled at her friend and went back to eating her breakfast, this time with slightly more enthusiasm.
Ruby and David then started up a lively discussion about some of the changes David would be implementing this year since being promoted to Assistant Director, a fact for which Emma was very proud of him. This happiness did not, however, translate into any more intelligible thoughts coming from Emma's lips. Both Ruby and David knew that she was basically useless until after she had some breakfast in her and so didn't push her to join in their conversation.
Soon more and more of the staffers had arrived and taken their places at the breakfast table. Hearing their good-natured banter surround her always made her feel like she was home and her sullen mood steadily improved. She hugged and greeted her old friends that she hadn't yet seen since everyone got to camp and laughed at their chirps about her 'morning grumps.'
Emma had finished off a second helping of scrambled eggs and contemplated risking some caffeine when she knew it would only hasten her dehydration later on that day. At that moment however, Mary Margaret judged her to be of sound enough mind to engage in conversation.
"Would you like to come to my yoga class this afternoon, Emma?" the raven pixie-haired woman asked brightly.
"You're teaching a class today? Won't there be, like, no one there since there aren't any campers yet?" Emma asked, scrunching her forehead in confusion.
"What she's trying to ask is if you want to be one of her guinea pigs for her new routines," David smiled down at his wife to which Mary Margaret responded by sticking out her tongue.
"She's already roped me into it, too," Ruby added. Tink and Phillip, one of the boys' counselors, also indicated that Mary Margaret had gotten them to agree to come as well.
"Sure, why not," Emma agreed with a shrug.
"Great! You can bring Killian along too. I need some more male feedback…" All the men at the table were suddenly very engrossed in their various conversations and too focused to notice Mary Margaret's pointed looks at them.
Will Scarlet, the most junior of the counselors, clapped his hands together and gathered up his tray. "Well I believe that is my cue to flee. Gentlemen, ladies," he tipped an imaginary hat at Mary Margaret and the rest of the women before striding over to the dish cleaning station and dropping off the remains of his meal.
Emma had caught up with the flow of conversation enough by this point to examine Mary Margaret's words. "Wait, how'd you know Killian would be with me?"
"Oh, Tink told me you were going to be spending a lot of time with him!"
Emma glared at Tink who was now shrugging helplessly. "What! I just told her about Regina's arrangement…"
"Uh huh, right," Emma said dryly.
"Okay, I may have mentioned that there were some sparks between the two of you," Tink conceded with a sly grin.
"Tink!"
The small woman shrugged again and leveled a serious look at Emma. "He's a good guy, Emma. It wouldn't kill you to give him a chance."
"The type of chance you're talking about involves white dresses and doves flying off into the sunset."
"What about the type of 'chance' that just involves hot wild sex?" Ruby chimed in with a wolfish grin.
"Not helping, Ruby," Emma said exasperatedly. "Any of you. I don't need a boyfriend, I don't need a fling. I don't want anything with him."
Ruby slurped the rest of her orange juice and released the straw with a soft 'pop.' "Whatevs, your loss. The boy is hot."
"And caring!" Tink added.
"Say the word, Emma, and I'd gladly get him to mind his own business," David pounded his closed fist against his other palm comically.
"I met him outside the craft house yesterday; he does seem nice," Mary Margaret supplied kindly.
Emma growled in frustration and quickly stood up. "Enough. I love you guys but I don't need your meddling. See you later." And with that she went to dump her tray and made a beeline for the exit. As much as she loved the close-knit atmosphere that comes with having your best friends (who are basically family) all around, Emma definitely did not enjoy the other side of the coin. The side where it apparently told her friends that any and all aspects of her life were open for improvement.
Just as she was descending the steps of the mess hall and about to go find Killian to start the grand tour, she ran headlong into the man himself. She had to brace herself by grabbing onto his upper arms so she didn't fall backwards and couldn't help noticing the hard muscles beneath her fingers. Killian mimicked her actions and Emma ended up pressed against his chest. There was an awkward moment of eye contact that lasted a beat too long in which both of them realized their close proximity and intimate position. She was the first to let go and she quickly stepped back to put some distance between them.
"Oh hey. Sorry," she said while looking at a point in space over his shoulder. "I guess come find me at the docks when you're finished eating." And with that Emma brushed past him and was once again quickly striding away from her problems.
Rubbing his chin absentmindedly where Emma's forehead had collided with it, Killian stared at her jogging away from him with a graceful lope and swinging blonde ponytail. What in the hell had just happened? He'd thought they'd gotten on pretty well the previous day—granted, he couldn't actually remember the details of most of their conversations because he was fairly sure he had been sleepwalking from jetlag… But his general impression of their time together had been positive. She'd even waved him over to sit with her at lunch and introduced a few of the other staffers to him.
Killian made his way into the mess hall to get his breakfast. He had been planning on just grabbing something quick and eating it on the go because he was running late and didn't want to keep Emma waiting for him for long. However, now he thought it might be best to let her be for a little bit to calm down from whatever was bothering her.
Yesterday at lunch he'd followed Victor's example in getting a tray and utensils and loading up with food that the cook had already laid out on a counter. So this morning he repeated the steps until he found himself face to face with a wrinkled older woman behind the counter on the other side of the window that looked into the kitchen. Sharp, intelligent eyes followed him shrewdly as she readjusted the hairnet over her gray up do.
"You're late. Breakfast began at 7 o'clock," she stated matter-of-factly.
"Ah, I'm sorry. Won't happen again," Killian tried his most winning smile on the woman but she only narrowed her eyes further.
She harrumphed in grudging acceptance and continued staring at him while Killian resisted the urge to fidget. "Don't you hurt Emma. She's been through enough," she finally said with a distinctly mama bear edge to her voice.
His eyebrows pulled together in confusion. "What?"
"I saw you out there," the older woman nodded towards the front of the building where large windows looked out upon the path. "I know that look," she finished as if this explained everything. Killian wasn't sure if she was referring to a look on his face or Emma's. His frown grew even deeper.
"I assure you, ma'am, I have no intention of ever hurting her," he said evenly, willing the honesty to show through on his face as she searched it.
She nodded once. "Good," she said gruffly. "Call me Granny. Everybody else does."
Killian felt like he had just passed some kind of test. What it was testing, though, was a mystery to him.
Granny turned around without paying any more attention to him and began cleaning up the breakfast supplies as soon as he picked up a plate of scrambled eggs. He brewed a cup of tea and finally walked over with his breakfast to the table still occupied by some dawdling staffers.
"Hey man," Victor greeted him and patted a spot next to him on the bench. "This is Killian, guys. He's my new rock probie," Victor grinned at the assembled group.
A few of them he recognized from meeting yesterday or sharing a cabin with. Mary Margaret waved and beamed at him, reminding him of when she had skipped out in front of him on the path last night on his way to the bathrooms. He'd practically jumped out of his skin at her sudden appearance, but her sunny smile and eagerly friendly words had quickly placated him. He also recognized Lance, the burly fencing instructor who slept on the bunk beneath him; Phillip, one of the counselors for the boys; and Victor's girlfriend, Ruby, who had cornered him at dinner the previous day and launched into an hour-long, mostly one-sided conversation about the life stories of everyone at the camp. Killian had learned more than he ever wished to know about an ongoing prank war between a counselor named Will and the Operations Manager (and Regina's husband), Robin.
A broad-shouldered dusty blonde-haired man sitting next to Mary Margaret stood up and shook Killian's hand across the table. "Nice to meet you, Killian. I've heard a lot about you already. I'm David."
"Nice to meet you too, mate. Nothing too terrifying, I hope," Killian said with a wry smile.
"Oh it's nothing too bad," David laughed as he returned his arm to its previous position around his wife's shoulders. "You have to understand though, we don't get new faces here very often. So when we do, we like to know what kind of person we're dealing with."
David's words and actions were lighthearted but Killian sensed a hardness beneath them that was mirrored in the stern gaze that was levelled at him by the other man. Not for the first time today, Killian felt as if he were being measured up.
"Oh come on, I've told you about Killian before!" Tink chimed from the other side of the table. "Remember, he's super good at rock climbing and all that outdoorsy stuff." She scrunched her nose and waved vaguely. Being a school nurse in the middle of New York City meant Tink was not exactly an 'outdoorsy' person, as she called it. Going to college in Denver was about as adventurous as she got.
"Yeah, I read your resume when Regina hired you. Maybe before the barbeque tonight we can do some free climbing so I can get a sense of what I'm working with." Victor looked at him appraisingly.
"Sure thing, mate," Killian smiled tightly. What Tink had said was accurate—he had been really good at rock climbing in college: going out to the foothills most weekends and to an indoor wall almost every weekday for his job as an instructor. But he hadn't climbed in over a year now since he'd graduated and returned home to take care of his father's failing health and business, and he was more than a little apprehensive about jumping back into the sport.
"What's this about a barbeque?" he asked to shift the focus away from himself.
"Oh, I keep forgetting you don't know!" Tink gasped. "Every year on the night before the campers return, everybody gets together out in the main circle of camp and we cook a bunch of meat and play games."
"It's sanity's last hurrah," Ruby told him with a wink. "The last chance we'll have to swear, brawl, drink, and make out in broad daylight." She shared a grin with Victor at that.
"There'll still be Roland, Grace, and Henry," Mary Margaret reminded. "So don't yell your curses too loud."
"And I won't tolerate any brawling, missy. That goes for you too, Lance," David glared at Ruby and then Lance, who looked affronted at being singled out.
"You're not gonna be a prick now that you're AD, right?" he asked David.
David smiled at Lance innocently. "Only if you don't get on my bad side."
After finishing breakfast and bidding farewell to his new coworkers, Killian walked the short distance to the lakeshore. At first he couldn't find Emma, but immediately spotted her as he rounded the corner of the boat shack. Once again, she took his breath away. It seemed that was going to be a regular occurrence.
Next to the boat shack a series of metal bars were suspended between varying heights of wooden posts to create a pull-up station. With her palms firmly grabbing onto the highest of the bars, Emma was suspended in air and currently in the process of pulling her bodyweight up inch by inch. Even though she was facing him, Killian could tell that she hadn't noticed him yet being so absorbed in her exercise as she was. He took a moment to admire the cool focus she displayed and impressive demonstration of strength.
He cleared his throat softly after a minute and her sparkling green eyes immediately snapped to his. She finished the pull-up and then hopped lightly to her feet.
"Hey there," she said with no trace of her former irritation or awkwardness. Nothing like a good workout to clear your head, she thought. "So since you've already seen the lake and pretty much everything down here, I thought we'd start by going around camp and I can explain things on the way."
"Lead the way, love," he said and smiled that silly boyish grin that made her forget how to inhale oxygen for a second.
She mentally shook her thoughts and picked up her water bottle from where it was laying on the ground next to a post and made her way past him back to the main path.
"You're a fan of those diminutives, aren't you?" she asked curiously once they got into a groove. She didn't especially mind, but it was odd to hear all the time.
"Aye, I suppose you could say that, love," he replied seductively. Emma let out a bark of a laugh and began swinging her water bottle as she walked alongside him. Once again he was struck by the light that seemed to radiate from her.
"So this that we're walking on here," she pointed to the dirt road beneath their feet, "is the main path through camp. It's the only one wide and even enough for a car to drive on because we have to pull it right up to the shore to unload the rafts when we use them, which isn't too often..." Emma shrugged and considered it. "Usually only on the big camping trip at the end of each session."
"And how long are the sessions?" Killian was starting to realize just how much he was clueless about at the camp.
"The first session lasts about a month—that's for the younger kids like Roland, Henry, and Grace. It starts tomorrow and ends right before the Fourth of July, and then we get that long weekend off and the older set of munchkins are here till the middle of August when the schools start back up. So that's like 6 weeks, I think," Emma explained the calendar that had been second nature to her for a decade now.
Killian nodded thoughtfully as he pictured the schedule in his head. "How old are the next set of campers?"
"Well Henry's just on the cusp of being moved to the next group, so they range from 11 to 17 years old. But most of them are around 13 or 14. Once they start getting older they start to lose interest in the silly camp games or get summer jobs."
He chanced a glance at her and saw her looking thoughtfully at the trees lining the path. "You didn't though," he said slowly.
"No, I didn't… Actually, I hated it here most of my first summer," she remembered with a fond smile. "It wasn't until David—who was 17 and gunning for a counselor job the next year—luckily noticed me and forced me to participate in all the activities that I really started to like it. Ended up crying my eyes out with the rest of those idiots at the end of the summer and I've been coming back every year since. The rest, as they say, is history!"
Killian furrowed his brows. "Pardon me if this is an insensitive question, love, but did you not say that David was your brother? Why wouldn't he have noticed you?"
"Oh right, I keep forgetting that you don't know all my dirty laundry," Emma said with a self-conscious laugh. "That's a pretty novel experience for me here…Okay, David and I aren't really brother and sister. That's why we don't have the same last name, too."
"Ah, I'd also been wondering about that," Killian said when she paused.
"I grew up in foster care and group homes. One summer they sent me here as part of some 'help the disadvantaged kids' campaign," she began, looking at her feet. "I was adopted by Ruth, David's mom, when I was 14—about three months after the end of camp that first year. David and I got really close during the summer but after camp ended I was placed in this awful group home. But it was in David's school district so he saw me the first day of classes. He noticed how miserable I was and that night he went home and begged Ruth to take me in. She's the nicest woman on the planet, so of course she agreed once she saw the rags I was dressed in. It took her until Thanksgiving to get everything finalized—which is actually pretty impressive for the system, but then again, who else would want an angry little preteen…" She shrugged and it was as if her pain was someone else's and she was looking at it through a distorted window that only gave her glimpses of that troubled girl's feelings.
Killian had no idea what to say. Sure, his life wasn't exactly marshmallows and sunshine, but at least he'd always had a brother who loved him; no matter how bad things got at home, Liam always came through for him.
She seemed to sense that Killian was a little shocked by her honesty—hell, so was she. She didn't usually share the not-so-illustrious beginnings of Emma Swan to people she'd just met the day before. All her friends at the camp already knew it all, and she really didn't have anyone she'd ever felt close enough to outside of camp to tell it to. As she glanced over at Killian's furrowed brown and faraway expression from the corner of her eye she realized with a pang of regret why she didn't dwell on the past in front of strangers: he pitied her.
Emma cleared her throat and resumed her swinging of her arms—if Killian's tell was scratching behind his ear, then hers was definitely her restless arms. "Well on that note… this is the archery range," she said awkwardly and pointed to the targets on the other side of the clearing. "Robin and Mary Margaret—have you met her?—well, they usually switch off running this station. Oh and there's Robin now—ROB!" she yelled at the distant figure she recognized as her somewhat-related-but-not-really friend.
Robin paused in his task of mowing the clearing and looked up when Emma called his name "Emma!" He dropped the manual push mower, jogged over to them, and immediately lifted Emma off the ground in a bone-crushing hug. She giggled breathlessly as she hugged him back.
"Regina said you weren't coming till later," Emma gasped out eventually.
She felt him shrug. "I got fed up with going through receipts and staring at the computer."
"What a paragon of the business community you are!" Emma teased.
Once she was finally back on solid ground and breathing normally again, Robin squinted down at her and admonished, "We missed you at Christmas, young lady."
Emma sighed, she'd been expecting this. "Yeah, I know. And I was really bummed I couldn't be there. But I was in Thailand at the time so I feel like I had a somewhat valid excuse," she said sheepishly.
"That you most certainly did, and we're very proud of you. That doesn't mean that I didn't miss you tons though," Robin responded without missing a beat. He pulled her back into a one-armed hugged that quickly morphed into a headlock and made Emma laugh uncontrollably.
Killian watched their interaction with great interest. Not only did Emma seem to be able to quickly go from serious to giggling in no time at all, she also appeared to have strong bonds with almost all the staff. He had only felt that close to a handful of people in his life, and probably only his brother and Tink were left at this point. Killian couldn't help wondering if this was what his life could be like if he stayed here year after year like everyone else seemed to do. He also couldn't help but be jealous of Robin's ability to set Emma at ease at the drop of a hat and make her laugh so much.
"You must be Killian," Robin said after releasing Emma from his spirited roughhousing but still keeping one arm slung over her shoulders. He extended his free hand and shook Killian's heartily. "My wife has told me all about you."
Killian was experiencing déjà vu. "Aye, it seems I'm somewhat of a local celebrity these days."
Emma smiled at him but it didn't seem to reach her eyes. "I'm giving him the grand tour," she said, craning her neck to look at Robin. "Want to join us?"
"I wish I could, but I've got to get the field clear and make sure all the bows are strung properly yet," Robin replied with a grimace. "But save me a seat at the barbeque, okay? I want to hear all about Asia."
"Of course!" Emma twisted around in his grasp to hug him tightly once more and then she was off, leaving Killian to scramble to catch up.
"See you, guys!" Robin called over his shoulder, shaking his head as he ambled back to the mower.