Touching Down(97)

Mary Jo nudged the man beside her, who I guessed was her husband since they were rocking the same style of tracksuits, hers shocking purple and his fluorescent orange. They shared a look and a laugh. “Toward the end of last summer.”

Callum lifted a shoulder at me. “See? All you have to do is hang around me for eight summers and then you can build up your own immunity to me. Whatever that even means . . .” Callum shot a look at Mary Jo and her husband and grumbled. “I like to think of myself as having an infectious personality instead of one a person needs to build an immunity to.”

For a second, the campers were all quiet, looking among one another like they couldn’t believe their ears. Then they all started busting up.

“Yeah, yeah, I hope you’re all paying attention to this life jacket demonstration,” Callum growled at the crowd good-naturedly. “Your lives depend on it.”

The campers kept laughing. These people loved this guy. There was also a group of girls around my age who looked like they loved him. Or at least the part of him I’d been admiring when he’d been walking in front of me. Fine ass alert, as Emerson would have announced.

“What’s your biggest fear, Phoenix?” Callum asked, picking a paddle up from the ground and moving it through the air again like he was instructing.

“Huh?” I asked when he cocked a brow.

“Your biggest fear?” he repeated slowly. “We’re playing the Getting to Know You game in case you forgot. Or have a short-term-memory issue.”

“Oh,” I said, thinking. It was a personal question. A little too personal to just announce to a crowd of strangers, so I kept it vague. “Failing. I guess that’s my biggest fear.”

He kept slicing the paddle through the air. “Failing what?”

I took some time to think again. I didn’t need it, though. “Anything.” He moved closer, probably about to drop another question, so I beat him to it. “What’s your biggest fear?”

If he was surprised by me firing his question back at him, he didn’t show it. His paddle stroke stayed smooth and even, not even a wobble. “Failing.”

I narrowed my eyes in a question of Really? He shrugged in an answer of Really.

“Failing what?” I asked.

“Everything.” This time, his paddle wobbled. Just for a second, and no one else probably even noticed, but I didn’t miss it. I’d been watching for it. Like me, he had something specific he was afraid of failing. I knew what mine was, but I couldn’t begin to imagine what his could have been. Was he afraid of failing a little brother of his own, too? Failing someone else important? Failing himself? Failing physics? Failing a driving test? Failing his principles?

When it came to failing, the possibilities were endless.

“So what does your name mean, Callum?” Mary Jo’s husband called. I had to shake my head and take a few steps away from him to clear my mind. All I’d needed to find was a Wi-Fi password and a sack lunch—instead I’d stumbled on everything besides those two things.

Callum answered the guy’s question by clamping his mouth shut.

“You spilled the meaning about her name and made her confirm or deny if it was accurate. In front of a whole group of strangers.” The man in the orange running suit opened his arms up. “Seems only fair you do the same in return.”

He kept paddling. “I’m instructing.”

“The life jacket demonstration’s done and you’ve pounded proper paddle stroke and ‘going with the flow’ into our brains.” He circled his finger around the group. “We’re waiting.” Orange Jogging Suit lifted his shaggy gray brows and demonstrated just how ready he was to wait.

A few more shouts of support circled the group, but Callum didn’t look close to caving. At least until he glanced over at me and I crossed my arms over the bulky life jacket and raised an eyebrow. I probably looked like an escaped mental patient in an orange straitjacket.

He shook his head at me, smiling the whole time, before shouting into the crowd, “Dove!”

“I didn’t see it,” shouted one middle-aged camper with the biggest set of binoculars I’d ever seen strung around his neck, his head shooting up toward the sky.

“There are no doves in this part of the country,” added another camper, who had a not- quite-so-impressive set of binoculars around his own neck.

Callum settled his hands on his hips and stared at the group like he couldn’t believe his ears. “My name,” he said slowly. “The meaning of it is ‘dove.’ And you’re wrong about them not being in this part of the country. Doves are a hardy, adaptable breed. They can thrive in any part of the country.”