When I Need You by Lorelei James

Author:Lorelei James
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2017-07-24T04:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

JENSEN

I believed I’d prepared for every contingency for the official opening of Camp Step-Up.

But I hadn’t expected projectile vomiting from the oldest kid in attendance.

Nor had I anticipated getting challenged to a “touchdown celebration dance-off” by a seven-year-old girl.

Neither did I understand why a kid brought a snake in a bucket for show-and-tell, because we didn’t have show-and-tell. Also, how had the kid’s parents not noticed their son carrying a bucket with a snake into the school?

Luckily Astrid was a snake charmer or possibly she spoke Parseltongue because she dealt with the snake and with the kid. And probably his parents.

The next issue involved my cousin Jaxson. He was supposed to drop off his daughter, Mimi, except as soon as Jax realized Lucy’s mother was teaching arts and crafts, my in-your-face hockey-playing cousin demanded that I find a volunteer position for him. Right. The guy beat the shit out of people with a stick for a living—not a lot of need for that skill in the real world, to say nothing of at a day camp for kids under age ten.

Jax was determined to “do his part as a Lund.” Rather than upsetting Mimi—who was thrilled her father wanted to be around longer than ten minutes—I planned to put him off until registration ended. I flat-out refused Jax’s demand to be assigned to Lucy as her classroom aide. I happened to like Lucy and I was fond of my balls being attached to my body.

This wasn’t a decision I could delegate to Astrid. I gave Jax one option: He could be the janitor. He didn’t balk. He said yes and “welcomed” the chance to prove he’d changed.

But I didn’t have time to dwell on that because I had another unexpected crazy Lund family member to deal with—Brady. He demanded to know why the camp wasn’t offering academic tutoring.

There was some fun. Conjugating verbs and solving story problems. Not.

I reminded Brady that Camp Step-Up focused on the arts. It wasn’t petty that if I, a pro athlete, wasn’t allowed to teach these kids how to catch a ball, then similarly Mr. CEO Finance Whiz couldn’t try to make math fun.

Okay, maybe it was a little petty.

Speaking of petty . . . Rowan and Calder were the last to arrive for registration. I hadn’t seen either of them for a week.

A week in which only my pride kept me from asking Bob, the apartment complex manager, if Rowan had moved out.

A week in which I’d convinced myself the only reason I’d wanted Rowan to begin with was because I couldn’t have her. That “out of sight, out of mind” would cure my obsession with her.

But as I looked at her, I realized my feelings hadn’t changed. At all.

Immediately Rowan focused on Astrid, but Calder was all about me.

“Hey, Jensen! I can’t believe I didn’t see you all week.”

“Did you miss me?”

“Yeah. I didn’t even watch Chopped.”

I couldn’t mask how much I needed to hear that. “I missed you too, ninja-boy.”

“Didja know I graduated from kindergarten last week?”

“I never doubted for a second that you’d pass.

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