Author's Note:
From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 21: "That doesn't even make sense."
"OK, YOU LAZY SACKS OF S―"
Alice elbowed F.P. hard in the stomach.
"―SUNSHINE," he amended, giving her a sly smirk before looking back to their panting, sunburnt contingent of children. "ONCE MORE THROUGH THE OBSTACLE COURSE AND NO SKIPPING THE CARGO NET!"
There was a universal groan until the most hyper of the bunch took off running, setting the rest in motion, compelled by pack mentality. Alice reached out and grabbed one particularly red-faced boy from the herd.
"You're done, Marco," she said kindly. "Why don't you run to the canteen and get a soda?"
The kid gave her a look of grateful exhaustion and stumbled off, sticking a hand out to jingle the wind chimes another cabin had made in their arts and crafts session.
"You're too nice to 'em," F.P. complained, settling back onto a picnic table while he observed the spectacle of eleven children shoving across a rope bridge and scrabbling up a tree. "WHOEVER'S DONE FIRST GETS TO EAT MY DESSERT ON FRIDAY!" he shouted.
"That doesn't even make sense," Alice argued. "This bunch is only here 'til Wednesday."
F.P. shrugged carelessly and started picking at the splintered edge of the table.
Alice tugged at the too-tight sleeves of her camp counsellor uniform. She'd been dying to cut them off and slice the thing into a muscle shirt since it was doled out to her by management at the beginning of camp, but she also wanted to keep her summer job. Riverdale Summer Camp was nothing if not conformity disguised by face paint, sunscreen, and ghost stories by the fire. She hopped up onto the table, keeping a foot of space between F.P. and herself. The kids had bombarded them with questions and jeers from day one about being boyfriend and girlfriend, and Alice didn't want to fuel the rumours that ran as swiftly as sugar through their eight-to-ten-year-old veins.
"And you're being too mean, by the way. This isn't boot camp, dumbass."
As she spoke, a kid missed her footing and fell a yard out of a tree. Alice started to rise, but the girl popped back up and gave her a thumbs up. Resilient. It made her feel old at sixteen.
"Come on, Al. These are Northside brats." He waved a hand to indicate the tumbling mass. "Their parents should be thanking us for toughening them up a little."
She turned her head to stare at him.
"You really want to be responsible for destroying another Northsider's innocence?"
Before F.P. could answer, Alice bounded down and hurried away, clapping her hands to encourage the group across the finish line of the obstacle course. She let them high five her, scream their accomplishment into her face at the top of their lungs, even let a boy climb onto her for a piggyback ride to their next scheduled activity―which was going to be snack time, for these maniacs to eat in silence and reenergize.
She glanced back once to make sure her co-counsellor was following; he was, curling his arms alternatingly while emitting a theatrical groan with a kid hanging off each bicep by their fingertips, giggling away. Alice sighed. Scarfing another cherry freezie wasn't going to be enough to soothe her insecurities or bolster her to get through another week and a half of camp sharing a cabin with F.P. Maybe giving in to her impulsive desire to sleep with him on the night before they checked in as counsellors two months ago really hadn't been a great idea. Maybe it wasn't fair to fling that back at him either, but they were always together here. Fuck him if he expected her to be the one to act like a grownup.
F.P. was a little less hard to swallow for the rest of the day. It was like he knew he'd screwed up somehow, even if he didn't really want to admit it or ask Alice what was wrong. He caught her watching him help a fussy, dexterity-challenged kid cut up her hotdog at dinner, then again when he was double-knotting the shoelaces of their clumsiest camper so the kid didn't trip when he ran. It was kind of sweet.
Half an hour before lights-out, Alice suggested they go down to the lake for canoeing. F.P. didn't fight her, or rile up the kids with some kind of boys vs. girls bullshit. They checked and double-checked everybody's lifejacket and pushed out the canoes, then silently chose their own and drifted out onto the water. Even the bitchy, hardscrabble girl she'd been trying so hard to be since fleeing life on the Northside had to admit that this view made the summer gig worth it. The open space across the lake. The stars. The kids chattering in the background. Alice held the sides of the boat and let her gaze shift to F.P. He was already staring at her with his chin on his fist. They floated.
That night, she found the soft noises of him settling into bed more comforting than ever―maybe she was sentimental, or just too aware of the summer being almost over. Thanks to some sort of mix up, they'd ended up with a bunkbed instead of two singles. F.P. had blamed prejudice against the Southside (since, one cabin over, Fred and Sierra hadn't had any problems), but Alice had secretly been thankful. Being on two levels made it a lot harder to try and sneak into each other's beds. Not least because the ladder creaked.
Tonight, it didn't matter that they weren't next to each other. They'd only had sex that one time, and she hadn't stayed the night, so she didn't really miss him next to her now. The best thing was just hearing him breathe. That sound also told her he was still awake.
"Hey," she whispered, conscious of the campers in the next room and the open door.
"Hey, Al."
She nestled her cheek against her lopsidedly-stuffed pillow.
"They're not that bad, right? The kids?"
"Nah," he answered. She heard him roll over. "Not as bad as that kid in week three who threw up on my shoes."
Alice laughed, quietening it under her palm.
"Or the one who almost poked my eye out with his marshmallow stick," she added.
"Yeah, but you smelled good," F.P. argued before coming to a sudden halt. "Marshmallow-y." She smiled to herself.
"F.P.?"
"Yeah, Alice?"
"Do you think you would… would you ever want to have kids?"
He snorted loudly, briefly interrupting the drone of insects from outside the screened window.
"No way. I'm looking forward to getting out of here as much as you are." She didn't know if he meant the camp or the town as a whole. "Even if you are better at hiding it."
"Yeah," Alice answered numbly.
"Night," F.P. said through a yawn, probably not realizing that her customary 'goodnight' never came.
It wasn't because she was sleeping. In fact, Alice laid awake for a long time, hand on her belly where the bump hadn't yet begun to show.