Falling In Hard: Book Four in The Bridgeport Lake Summer Series Read online

  “Why are you doing this?” she pleaded, hazel eyes piercing through every shield I’d erected since Nolan’s hard stop last November. It was a good thing he’d put an end to it, too. If I would’ve known what was coming for me this summer, I would’ve put a hard stop to it myself. I forced a sigh and hung the clipboard on its nail, heading inside the shed because I had to get away from her, or something inside me would combust. “I’m working.”

  “Oh. Right. And you were just stopping by the Snack Shop because it’s on your little checklist, not because you saw me walk in there.” She grunted, and I dared one look at her, all blonde curls and red cheeks, and a passion in her stare I didn’t know how to handle. She was a wild card.

  I had to play it safe.

  I moved some poles around. The tackle boxes rattled as I restacked them and set a roll of fishing line on top. “Done yet?”

  “I know you’re quiet, but I never took you for a jerk, Cory.”

  “Mm.”

  “You know what? Just forget it. I’m so done trying.” Her voice weakened on that last word. Almost like she’d choked on a sob.

  I wanted to comfort her somehow; I clamped my jaw and checked another box on my list instead.

  She turned and stormed away. The reaction I should’ve known I’d get. It took everything I had to stay inside the shed when all I wanted was to go after her and prove I wasn’t a jerk. That I was protecting her. From so much more than just her brother’s worries.

  Being accosted by Lea wasn’t a new thing. It was kind of how she handled life. Point-blank. No filter. Just pure Lea.

  More footsteps swished through the grass, her friend Taylor heading toward me with a disgusted look on her face next.

  Wasn’t their youth leader here yet? I glanced at the parking lot in hopes of seeing a bus, but it was empty.

  “Listen, I don’t know what happened to make you act like this to her,” Taylor said, lifting her sunglasses up, pulling her thick mass of wild pink curls back with them. “Whatever it is, she doesn’t deserve a cold shoulder from you, Cory. I don’t care what Nolan said. She’s struggling, okay?”

  She probably deserved a better response than a shrug and a grunt, but I was all out of words.

  “Seriously, dude. I’m not sure what you’re thinking, but you should try and use your brain a little harder. Her dad died. Her mom’s getting married in a couple months, and Nolan just left. She’s on the edge.”

  It was the hard truth. But the fact of the matter was, as close as we’d been last summer after her dad passed, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t be her source of comfort this summer. The sooner she accepted it, the better off she’d be.

  “She’s smart.” I threaded a line through the loop in the lure at the end of the pole I was working on and tied it off, yanking a couple times for good measure. “She’ll figure it out.”

  Taylor shook her head, folding her arms across her chest, eyeing me like her size matched her fortitude. “I’m sure she will.” A repeat of the Lea storm-off happened, and Taylor disappeared inside the Snack Shop, where Lea was, completely perfect and capable without me.

  That thought struck a weird chord inside my chest, but I had to ignore it. Lea had a future she was after, and the God-given talent to see it through. Aside from the dangers lurking in my life, there was no way I was interfering with any of that, either. She’d forget about me the second the music bigwig heard her sing on Saturday night. And when she was offered a record deal, she’d move on to the life she was meant for.

  She’d get over it soon enough.

  LEA

  Tay stood beside me in front of the single warped mirror in our cabin before the Monday night service. She scrunched her hair as I fixed my makeup, all the other girls in our cabin giggling in a pow-wow on the floor behind us. I hadn’t seen Cory since we got here this afternoon, and just . . . whatever about it. That’s all I could think. Dad was gone, Mom was marrying Garrett, and Nol was gone now, too. Seriously. What was losing one more person I cared about?

  Nothing.

  “Ready to go?” Tay asked, trailing her lips with a pearlescent blue lip gloss that smelled exactly like vanilla.

  “Yup.”

  We linked arms and walked in a sea of a million other senior high campers downhill toward the chapel. So many of them were all bubbly laughter and flirty looks, and carefree whimsy. Gah! Didn’t they know life sucked? I should yell the truth at them!

  I sighed instead.

  Tay patted my hand. “It’s all good, girl.”

  Her ex walked past us, glancing once at her over his shoulder before he turned back around and joined mega-jock Kyle Keller in the pack of guys heading into the chapel ahead. That jerk was the entire reason why they broke up in the first place.

  “Is it really all good, though, Tay?”

  She swallowed. “Peachy.”

  It was my turn to pat her hand. “You’ll get through it.”

  We entered through the chapel doors, the lights dimmed and the stage darkened, all except for half the mast of a humongous black pirate ship, cracked and mangled like it had actually been crushed inside the waves crashing and foaming on the projector screen behind it.

  “Come on in, guys,” a deep voice boomed from the speakers. “Just a few more minutes, and we’ll get started.”

  Tay and I met up with our youth group, two pews back from the stage.

  “Splash zone again this year,” Taylor mumbled. “How much do you want to bet we’re actually getting sprayed with a shipwreck theme, too?” We squished in, Taylor’s ex laughing it up with Kyle in the pew ahead of us.

  “At least they’ll get it worse.”

  She elbowed me, dimples pricking with the slightest hint of her usually beaming smile.

  “Theme matches my mood, though,” she added.

  “Same.” I watched the waves pound the cliffs behind the ship, a familiar pit forming in my stomach, because I was those cliffs, and life was the waves, and there was no way it could get any more gruesome this year.

  “All right, guys! Welcome to Bridgeport!” the same booming voice from before yelled, a guy in a highlighter orange t-shirt, khaki shorts, and flip-flops taking the stage with a microphone in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other. The guy looked like he swiped one of Nolan’s outfits. He shielded his eyes against the stage lights beaming into his face and scanned the rows of campers. “It’s a full house in here tonight! Yeah!”

  The entire chapel erupted in applause around me, like this was just another awesome summer. Like all hell hadn’t broken loose, and ravaged whatever joy I’d been able to scrounge up since Dad died last year. Nope. They were on their feet and chanting, “Shipwreck! Shipwreck! Shipwreck!” I wanted to climb aboard the freaking ship onstage and sail straight into those destructive waves. The louder they cheered, the brighter the fire inside me burned. Be the ship. Find the waves. Land wherever the heck you land.

  “All right. All right. Simmer.” The guy shushed into the microphone, and all the lights died out, and the screen went black, and it was exactly how I felt inside. Just an aimless, blank mass. Alone and hollow.

  But then a single drum kick sounded, followed by a bright flash on the screen. Then another. And another, and another, until the screen was flickering with image after image of teenage singers, one face after the other, and my face was one of them, a picture from last summer. Before Dad was gone. When I’d stood on that stage with my guitar and knocked the socks off an entire chapel full of campers. When I’d opened for last year’s Sing-Off. The same competition they were about to announce for this year. Even though Dad was starting to fade back then, at least he was still here, and we were still a family. Back when I was happy to do what I’d felt like I was supposed to since I was three years old and standing on the church stage with my little junior guitar.

  Nolan and Tay had talked me into signing up again this year. My name was on the list, and I was scheduled to sing on Saturday night, but I didn’t feel it anymore.
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br />   The words Sing-Off flashed on the screen one last time, and the MC’s voice was back on the microphone. “That’s right, guys! This week’s guaranteed to be one you’ll never forget, and we’re topping it off with our annual winner reveal dinner. We have an official record label agent committed to be here on Saturday night to hear the best you have to offer. We’ve only got two sign-ups so far, but I know there’s gotta be a few more of you who want in this year. If your name’s not on the list, but you feel like God’s calling you, we’re extending the sign-ups to the end of service tonight. So, make sure your name gets on there. Participants are having their first meet-up tomorrow in Huckleberry Hall, right after breakfast.”

  Someone nudged Kyle in the row in front of us.

  Did I mention he was a mega-jock who could sing, too? Yeah. Well. He could. He was my biggest competition Saturday night, and guess what? I didn’t care anymore.

  “Speaking of singing,” the MC added, as an electric guitar swelled in the background behind him, “let’s all stand and get this week started off right.”

  “Welcome to Bridgeport, guys!” another voice came across the speakers as a tall, skinny guy with thick-rimmed glasses stepped up to the mic. “I’m Philly, and this is the worship team behind me. Let’s get to it!”

  Some of the stage lights came back on, illuminating the full band behind him, and they were coming out rocking, singing the words to a song called “Good and Forever.” A song that talked about God being good no matter what, and the hope in His presence forever. A song I totally would’ve been behind last year, or the year before that, or any other year—just not this one. I stood with my arms folded across my stomach, lips clamped together, because I couldn’t do it. And even if I could, I wouldn’t.

  Not now.

  Three

  CORY

  Bare pine walls traced the edge of the chapel’s sanctuary in a tongue-and-groove diagonal pattern, the massive shipwreck scene I’d helped construct staring back at me from the center of the stage. Pastor Gregg was sitting on a stool on the floor in front of the stage, all the staffers sitting in the pews facing him, holding their coffee cups full of whatever morning drink they’d picked for a Tuesday.

  Pastor Gregg was saying something about perseverance and pushing on toward Heaven’s prize, but I wasn’t sure there really was a prize for me up there anymore. Being in the peacefulness at Bridgeport made me wish there was. I’d heard talk of mansions and streets of gold, but I’d be happy with nothing more than a well-stocked fishing hole. Jesus talked about fishing all the time, didn’t he? Yeah. Me and fishing, alone for eternity? Ha. I think we’d do all right.

  “Now, right here’s the point I think we can all relate to,” Pastor Gregg said, perking my ear. I wasn’t sure I had a single thing in common with any of the people around me. Granted, a choice few were the work hard and do-what-they-say-they’re-going-to kind of guys, but none of them came from anywhere near as broken a place as the hell I’d been calling “home” for the past twenty-one years. Pastor Gregg gave a smirky grin. “Verse thirteen says, ‘Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it’ . . . That prize the apostle Paul’s been talking about, he’s saying he doesn’t have it yet. And I think we’d all be lying if any of us said we did.”

  Pastor Gregg was a nut with his hippy Hawaiian shirts, man-sandals, and hiking safari hats, the type I mostly tried to avoid, but he had a point there.

  “The apostle Paul continues, ‘But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.’ Verse fourteen says, ‘I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.’ And there it is. The key to getting the prize. Forgetting what’s behind, straining toward what’s ahead, and all of it done with the help of the good Lord that we carry with us.”

  Forgetting what’s behind . . . Now that was an interesting concept. I adjusted my baseball hat, sighed, and crossed my arms, too many dark nights to count arguing with that idea.

  “Pressing on. That’s the action we’re called to. No matter what we face, we gotta keep pressing on. Let’s all bow.”

  Pastor Gregg prayed then, asking for help in our attempts at forgetting the old life and pressing on toward the new, “toward a free, and whole, and blessed life, Lord.”

  There was a time I thought it was possible. That if I just kept doing the right thing, kept going to church, helping wherever I could, and staying out of trouble, I’d be able to have that free, whole, and blessed life. That, somehow, God would sweep in and fix everything wrong with my family. That I’d be able to see us all happy, the way I’d always wished we could be. I hadn’t missed a Sunday since the day I’d said the big prayer, seven years ago. The one where I’d told God I needed Him to take over. I’d helped every last person I could, and I’d never touched the temptations I felt calling me at every turn, ones I’d even had pushed at me.

  But the life I thought I’d have never happened.

  Not saying it couldn’t for someone else, but for whatever reason, it just wasn’t in the cards for me.

  So, I’d done what I do best: kept my mouth shut, kept my head down, and worked as hard as I could to find a way out on my own, and I was almost there.

  “Even for the ones who think they’re too far gone, Lord, show them that help’s never further than a prayer away,” Pastor Gregg’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “May they know your goodness, each and every one, and may we all keep on the path that leads to the eternal prize. In Jesus’s name, I pray. And we all said . . .”

  The chapel echoed with a couple hundred different “amens,” and Pastor Gregg dismissed us for the day.

  I drew a deep breath, ducked my head, and made my way out of the chapel, hoping the clouds from earlier had blown over—but they were darker now. As far as I was concerned, we could fish all day, every day, until the cows came home, but Bridgeport’s camp guidelines were clear about camper safety. After twenty minutes of rain, we had to bring it in. I sighed, hoping against all signs of reality that the weather would change its mind. I had a full day of camper fishing tours ahead, and as much as I avoided other people, campers brave enough to commit two hours of their downtime to dead silence on the far end of a lake weren’t half bad.

  First stop before my first tour of the day was the row of pay phones behind the Snack Shop. Cell phones were pointless up here, and as archaic as pay phones were, they gave us access to the outside world. Most of the time, I didn’t like remembering that an outside world existed, but at eight a.m. on Tuesday mornings this summer, it was all I could think about.

  I slid my quarters in and dialed, watching packs of campers heading downhill to the cafeteria as the phone rang. Lea would be in the mix somewhere, too, laughing and having fun with her friends. Doing exactly what every graduate was supposed to do. Come Saturday night, she’d sing her way into her dream world, leaving the rest of us in her dust, and I’d finally be able to forget that she existed.

  Just had to get to Saturday.

  “Hello?”

  I closed my eyes, tension I didn’t realize I’d been carrying melting away at the sound of her voice. “Hey, Mama.”

  “Hey, Cory. How’s it going out there?”

  “Well, it’s about to rain.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, bud. Does that mean you’ll be stuck doing dainty work?” she chuckled.

  “Probably. You okay?”

  “Better than I’ve been in a really long time.”

  “You haven’t . . . heard from him?” I hated even bringing it up, but I needed to make sure she was safe.

  “No. And I won’t. You need to stop worrying about it. He has no way of knowing.”

  That was the plan. “Good to hear. What about Dan-O?”

  She laughed. “He’s fine. Want to say hi?”

  “To a dog?” I frowned.

  “It’s, Cory, Dan-O. Say hi.” A jingle sounded, and I could picture her sitting out on her new porch, scratching behind that o
ld bloodhound’s ear.

  A small grin tugged at the corners of my mouth, and I cleared my throat. “Job going okay?”

  “Actually, it didn’t pay what I thought, so I’m working on getting a second one, but the work’s fine.”

  “A second job?” My smile was gone as fast as it appeared. “I thought Uncle Rick had you all set up.”

  “He’s as mad about it as you sound. But the owner’s losing his wife. I can work with him for a little while.”

  “You’re not there to save people, Mom.” It was a lie she’d told herself since forever. That staying meant saving. She was almost dead-wrong thinking like that, and on more than one occasion.

  “Look. I’m starting out somewhere new, and I’m finally free. That’s the best payment I’ll ever get.”

  “You deserve it.”

  “I’ll talk to you next week, all right?”

  “Call if you need me.”

  “You know I will. Take care of yourself out there. I love you, son.”

  “You, too.”

  I hung up and caught a glimpse of pink curly hair on the road behind the pay phones. I told myself to forget it and get to work, but my eyes slid to the blonde walking beside her anyway, expecting to see some type of the usual Lea passion, but her face was stuck in neutral, and she looked like some type of robot.

  She’s on the edge . . . Taylor’s words curled around the back of my mind, but Lea’s edge wasn’t mine to worry about.

  I could forget about anything as soon as I was out on the water. Just hoped I could stay out there longer than these clouds were likely to allow.

  LEA

  “Think he’s really over me, Lea?” Taylor’s eyes were locked on Ryan, sitting three tables in front of ours in the cafeteria Tuesday morning.

  “Don’t you dare ask me that.” I lifted a brow at Taylor, trying to shake the depress-o vibe I’d been carrying around since my face-off with Cory yesterday. How was it possible for a guy to look at a girl the same exact way Ryan was looking at Taylor right now and tell her there was nothing there? Okay, so maybe he didn’t specifically tell me there was nothing there, but Cory didn’t speak normal human. He barely spoke at all, and it took an expert-level translator to understand what he really meant. He meant there was nothing there. But he’d had that look Ryan had in his eyes.