Sunkissed, Kasie West [best authors to read TXT] 📗

hadn’t seemed that old. Around my age maybe. Lauren was fifteen, though, so I could see why my dad was laying down the law.

“Plus,” Mom said, “they work here. This isn’t some dating camp. There are plenty of guests visiting that you can hook up with throughout the summer.”

Lauren almost spit her mouthful of water all over the table.

I shook my head and whispered, “Mom, hook up means have sex with.”

Now it was Mom’s turn to be shocked. “That’s not what I meant!”

“When did the meaning of that change?” Dad asked.

Lauren laughed, then stared longingly at her phone. “I wish I had been recording this whole conversation.”

“Any good songs on there?” Dad asked, nodding at the list I held.

I passed it over and then wished I hadn’t when Mom scooted her chair closer to Dad’s, leaving me completely exposed. I sat still, knowing movement would only draw attention. None of the band members were looking at me. The singer, a wiry white guy with floppy brown hair, held the microphone stand with both hands as he sang. His body hardly moved. The buff Polynesian guy behind the drums looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. The bleached-blond guy on bass kept looking at the wall, where, following his gaze, I noticed a clock. And the commanding presence of Brooks I’d noted the night before was only half as commanding. He seemed as though he wanted to blend into the paint on the wall as he stood there strumming his guitar with zero energy.

I was surprised, but then noted the dining hall was loud with talking and clattering dishes and laughter, nobody paying much attention to the band. That would be a hard audience to perform to. As if he sensed me looking, Brooks’s eyes caught mine.

Crap.

I gave him a little smile and a small wave. As he took in the table and my family, his brows went down. Maybe he didn’t recognize me. Or maybe he was trying to fit me into the story he’d previously thought was true. He didn’t return my smile, just looked away.

Over the next half hour, as my parents and Lauren carried on a conversation I pretended to be part of but didn’t follow at all, I tried to catch his eye. I wanted to mouth “Sorry” or something. But he didn’t look my way again.

Was he mad? Why would he be? We didn’t know each other. It was just a silly misunderstanding. I’d clear it up. He’d caught me off guard the night before. That’s all I had to say and then it would be over.

So when my parents announced they were done and stood to leave, Lauren standing as well, I said, “I’m going to check out the dessert bar.”

“Okay, see you back at the cabin,” Dad said.

Lauren pointed to the stage and said something to my mom as they walked away. My mom only shook her head.

I listened to three more slow-paced, low-energy songs before Brooks leaned into a mic and said, “That’s a wrap. Thanks for being a good audience. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

I clapped, but when nobody else joined me, I let my hands fall back to the table. Then I watched as Brooks and the guys gathered up their instruments and walked through a door off the side of the stage. I stood, looked over my shoulder, and followed. I caught up with them on the back side of the building, where they were loading the drums and guitars onto a flat trailer attached to a golf cart. I stopped by the back door.

“We should put a tip jar on the edge of the stage,” the drummer was saying. “Supplement our income, yeah? Tell me that’s not the best idea you’ve ever heard.” He held out a fake jar. “We take hundreds, people. Or fifties. Those work too.” At this he laughed loudly.

The bass player slapped at his neck, the action making me aware of the bugs I could see dancing around in the last streaks of light from the setting sun.

Brooks shook his head. “They don’t even clap for us, Kai. You think they’d cough up money?”

“Come on, have some imagination.”

Brooks plucked a drumstick from the front pocket of Kai’s shirt and pretended to stab him in the gut with it.

“Ugh!” Kai grabbed his stomach and stumbled forward. “Ian, Levi, save me.” He reached out for the two guys who stood there as unimpressed by this performance as they were with their own earlier onstage.

“How many more drum pieces inside?” Brooks asked.

“Just one of the cymbals and the snare,” Kai responded, recovered from his fake injury. “Oh, and the pedal.”

Brooks turned back toward the door, toward me, and stopped cold when he saw me. After that initial reaction, he was in motion again. “You like to linger in doorways?” he asked as he swept past me and back inside. The friendly manner we had ended on the night before was completely gone.

I followed him. “No, I mean, I’m sorry.”

The cafeteria was emptying out and employees were wiping down surfaces and putting away food. Brooks hopped up onstage and grabbed the two drum pieces by their stands. As he stared at the pedal still on the ground, it was obvious he was trying to figure out a way to pick it up too. I stepped onto the stage and scooped it off the floor.

“You’re sorry for what?” he asked, heading back the way we’d come.

“I’m sorry that you assumed I worked here and—”

“Assumed?” he asked. “You were wearing a staff shirt and when I said ‘Welcome to Bear Meadow,’ you said thank you.”

I groaned. “I know.”

“Well, I hope you won,” he said.

We’d stepped outside again and I stopped on the gravel path just short of the guys and the golf cart. “Won?”

He turned to face me. “Whatever bet you had going with your friend. Trick an employee or mock an employee or sneak into the lodge after hours and steal some stupid T-shirt for whatever nighttime prank you wanted